I think the subject title sums it up quite nicely. This bug has been around way too long.

I dont think it can be easily fixed martin.. the delay in declaring a winner is there to allow mutual kills. It was added because its possible for a rocket to catch and kill your opponent within a second or two after you die.. loosing a duel.

So calc the duel loss/win 5 or so seconds after the duel retrospectively. It all gets sent to the errors.log in the right order.

After your opponent dies, take a moment to pat yourself on the back THEN, jump out.

Care to add that to the manual RelayeR?

Possibly there could be a section called undocumented "features".

Well, if they are documented, then they are no longer undocumented features.

Maybe once your opponent dies and you try to warp out it will give you a nice error:
"Duel still in progress, please wait 5 seconds"

Happened to me too, and I lost about 100 duel ranking for it.

If it happens twice...that's just your own fault.

aww did martin lose a duel?

poor guy

Happened to Smittens when he was duelling me last night. Har Har.
He lost about 150 ranking...

Plus I've lost about 200 to my 2 (or 3) consecutive jumps after beating Holdan.

Pfft. t'was only 2, at most. Yer just trying to make yourself look better now. :P

And it's *your* fault if you jump out right away. Besides, it counted one as your victory when we sploded each other that one time...




So let's not turn this into a pissing contest. It's well known that the Duel system is easily exploitable, and isn't really a very good indicator of skill. Look at some of the folks on the first page of duel stats...
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/duelstats/69139/
...yup. Duel stats are dumb.

I'd say it's fine as is; if it must be changed, change it to a draw rather than a loss (on the jump-out, check if the other ship is still in the sector, if it is, the jumper loses, if it's not, they draw).

I assume you can justify how it's a draw if you're alone in a sector following a duel Beolach. The only possible reason for such an event is either, they jumped out,so you win, or they died, so you win. In either case I can't see any reason why it should be a draw.

Holdan, most of the time it's pretty obvious if someone's been exploiting the duel system.

Eh, I just said that because changing a loss to a draw isn't as big of a change as changing a loss to a win. Really, I think it's best to leave it the way it is now, because it's a simpler check. If a ship jumps while it's in a duel, it ends the duel as a loss for the jumper. Nice and simple.

On the other hand, for a ship to get a win if it jumps while it's in a duel, after it has destroyed the other ship but before the duel has ended, then there's more checks that would have to be done: was the other ship in the duel already destroyed? Are there any weapons fired by the other ship still active in the sector? Is the jumping ship within the damage radius of the ship that exploded?

I believe in KISS.

My suggestion is to calc it retrospectively. The server already logs kills and jumps, and presumably does so with some accuracy of timing.

Duellist dies
5 seconds later
Duel ends
Server checks events
8:01:02 duellist dies
8:01:03 opponent jumps
opponent wins

or

Duellist dies
5 seconds later
Duel ends
Server checks events
8:01:02 duellist dies
8:01:03 opponent dies
draw

yes... definately fix this... it's already responsible for half my duel losses.

why don't you just hang around for a few seconds after you win a duel?

that seems like the easier solution

Because it's very easy to win and hit the jump button. Especially if you haven't duelled for a while.

Maybe it would be better to tweak the system so you lose the duel when you leave the sector, rather than when you hit the jump button.

how about not letting people jump while in an active duel, but rather require them to do /abort or /forfeit or something, and *then* jump? disable jump while people duel, that's fairly simple?