I also like your concept Usafunrunner. I think it would definitely work but it would be a different game. I purposely wanted the targets to be bots for four reasons:
1) I know there are a lot of people who play this game that like botting, and I was purposely trying to cater this competition towards botting skills.
2) It would be almost impossible to successfully moderate the competition and continuously dodge/evade at the same time. I would have to hire someone else to be the "rabbit" so to speak.
3) Having bot targets would allow the competition to be held in one of the home sectors, which carries the benefit of having npcdefbots to help guard the competition.
4) I wanted there to be multiple targets in this competition; part of the challenge is finding the "right" target before the others do and killing it.

I do like your idea but I just know it wouldn't work for what I had in mind. Perhaps you could hold a different "bounty hunter" competition that would include player targets and would take place across multiple sectors.

So far we've seen a number of different player organized competitions in the Vendetta Test. We had:

Vendetta Racing (in cents along the roid belt in 15)
The Demolition Derby (inside the hollow roid in 13)
Scavanger Hunt
Top Gun (from a while back)

Well I just came up with a new competition that I think would be a lot of fun: Bot Hunting!
I got the idea as me and another teammate spent five minutes or so both trying to chase down the same bots to see who could kill them first. This would have to be a strictly "PvE" competition and would only include one nation at a time. It would take place either in Sector 6, 4, or 12 (or perhaps I would hold one competition for each), and I'm leaning towards 12 since it has the most bots. I would randomly call out the name of an NPC ("Balta", "Desero" etc.) and the first person to kill that bot would score, at which point I would move on to the next name. After fifteen minutes, the player with the highest score (most correct kills) wins.

I'm thinking the entry fee would be somewhere between 10,000 to 100,000 cr, all of which would go 65% toward first place prize, 25% toward second, and 10% toward third.

Another few possible optional rules which I may or may not use (I want your feedback on this):

Restrictions on ships/weapon types (e.g. busses only! Might be a little hard to monitor)

75 bots are worth 1 point, 150 bots worth 2 points, 250 bots worth 3.

-1 point for killing the wrong bot. (This might also be hard to keep track of)

I'll probably hold this competition on Friday or Saturday afternoon/evening. I'll post the time and place and finalized rules in a day or two.

Well, what do you think?

Heck, I'm in...

Keeping track of ship usage might be hard, unless you position yourself close to the station so you can see any non-bus coming out. Keeping track of the correct/incorrect kills however is easy. Everything is in the log.

Yeah, I figure I'll just sit on top of the station and watch the log while I keep track with pencil/paper. The nice thing about this competition is that since I'm holding it in one of the home sectors we won't have to worry about outside interference (the defbots will be the unofficial competition guards ;). If I decide on any sort of restrictions, it will probably just be busses only with your choice of loadout. I think that would make it a little more challenging; you wouldn't have kills every two seconds.

How does 20,000 cr for an entry fee sound?

yeah, but more complicated - then you'd have to pay the human which means less payout for everyone...I liek the bot concept, it also means you have to locate it quickly.

Okay, after testing this out I am deciding to hold the official Itani Cup Bot Hunt in sector 4 (Itani space) at 14:00 EST (the same time zone this forum is on) Thursday 08-21 (tomorrow).

Entry fee is 20,000 credits. 65% will go to first place, 25% to second, 10% to third.

Rules are as follows:

1) You *must* have a blue nation character to compete in this competition. If you want to transfer money to a new blue character, I will be online as "Bot Hunt" from an hour and a half before the competition.

2) Busses only, any loadout is allowed.

3) When the time starts, I will call out the name of a random NPC (by roll of dice) and the first hunter to kill that specific NPC scores a point. I will call out the name of the next target NPC immediately after.

4) Dying/issuing yields one demerit. Destroying the wrong NPC yields two demerits. At the end of the round, 1 point will be subtracted from your score for every four demerits.

5) The round lasts fifteen minutes. At the end of the round, the player with the highest score wins. If two or more players are tied for the lead, an "instant death" faceoff will take place in which the first player to kill the target bot wins.

Depending on the popularity of this contest, I may hold two rounds. There will be an entry fee for each round, and cash prizes will be distributed at the end of each round, but the player with the highest combined score will be declared the winner of the Itani Cup. Sign up on this board, or send me a tell tomorrow in-game. As stated above, I will be online from 12:30 EST as "Bot Hunt". The competition will take place tomorrow in sector 4 at 14:00 EST.

You might be better off creating a character and hold the competition in another sector. This way you know who exactly killed your new character and can make sure they are flying a bus.

Hmm, this sounds confusing,

Make a character and be the bot. Use part of the entry fees to fund your ship and you be the pilot. In fact, name your character hunted bot or something else to that effect.

I understand the idea of using logs/scripts. I was suggesting that if a player becomes the prey, it would make things a bit more interesting since I'm sure a human has better dodging skills than a bot does. Also, it will be easier for a player being shot at to see if a bus hit him as opposed to a cent/ vult etc. Heck, if you really wanted to, you could even set a bounty and use bountybot to set the automatic payout to the winner.

I don't think you understand the whole "log" concept. You don't have to keep track of the scrolling text with pencil/paper, you can look everything up in the errors.log file in your vendetta dir. You could even write a script that automaticaly parses this file for you to determine the winner. So all you'd have to do is watch the station to see if anyone leaves in something else than a bus; your script will take care of the rest.

cool! Thanks for the tip, Nighty. I'll definitely give that a try.

Usafunrunner... read the rules carefully. The targets will be actual NPC bots in the home sector 4. Your job will be to find and kill the right bot (e.g. [NPC] Balta) before the others do. Kind of like a fox hunt. Who killed whom will be easy to tell from the log. I will also be watching the competition carefully and if I see any hunters using non-busses they will be disqualified of course.

Any other questions?

The Itani Cup Bot Hunt was a success! Thanks to all who participated.

"coredumb" won the Itani Cup with a combined score of 10, winning the 250,000cr prize along with the 52,000cr first place prize for round 2. coredumb competed in round 2 *only* and still managed to win the cup. The results were very close, however. "Kojo (im blue!!)" had a combined score of 9 and "Shadow of the Last" had a combined score of 8.

ROUND 1 RESULTS:

1st Place: Shadow of the Last
----------
Score: 7
Kills: 7
Demerits: 0

*2rd Place: Kojo (Im blue!!)
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Score: 4
Kills: 4
Demerits: 0

*3rd Place: Katarn
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Score: 4
Kills: 4
Demerits: 1 (1 death)
(was also killed once due to outside interference)

4th Place: Smily
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Score: 0
Kills: 0
Demerits: 0

*decided by instant death

Round one was an exciting match. Shadow of the Last pulled ahead in the beginning and maintained a confident lead over the competition for the remainder of the match. Halfway through the match there was some interference as red tried to cap blue but was repelled. Katarn was killed once in the attack, however his death was discounted. Despite this setback, Katarn managed to score within the final minute to tie it up with Kojo for second place. The two of them faced off in instant death, and Kojo won.

ROUND 2 RESULTS:

1st Place: coredumb
----------
Score: 10
Kills: 10
Demerits: 3 (1 death, 1 miskill)

2nd Place: Kojo (Im blue!!)
----------
Score: 5
Kills: 5
Demerits: 1 (1 death)

3rd Place: Renegade ++RIP++
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Score: 3
Kills: 4
Demerits: 6 (3 miskills)

4th Place: Shadow of the Last
----------
Score: 1
Kills: 1
Demerits: 0

Round two was completely dominated by "coredumb" who scored twice as many kills as his nearest competitor. Kojo was close on his heels during the first half of the round, but near the end disaster struck when Kojo was destroyed by a bot and was forced to continue in a stock bus since he was broke. Renegade ++RIP++ refused to take any @&$% from the bots, destroying three non-targets that were on his tail. However the resulting six demerits cost him one point in score. Shadow of the Last's one kill was scored within the final few seconds before the buzzer.

Congradulations again to all hunters, and stay tuned for the next competition to be held in a couple days: the grueling Serco Cup! ;D.

Serco Cup! Serco Cup!
I want also to be Serco's champion :)
PS, the copetition was very fun. Made another 300k for botting 75 and 150 bounty bots.

I missed my 1 shot kills :( in my little valk

but hey I was still third :D

cheers