Well, the last duel I accepted my challenger was in an infi-boost hornet, and said person flew away and refused to leave the sector. I was unable to follow and destroy due to 220m/s infiboost. I had no choice but to leave the sector or wait hours 'till the server restarted or the other person to time out. Furthermore when I had left the sector it counted as a forfeit on my end, and said player had claimed he "kicked my ass" because it was marked as a loss on my end. Now, I don't mind too much about duels, but it was mildly annoying.

To keep people from doing this, there should be a maximum separation range that's within maximum radar range - and if it's broken the match is null and void. Or if player is calculated to be running away and breaks the maximum range, that player is automatically forfeit.

Edit: There seems to be some confusion about the conditions - The guy lured me into the sector to waste my time. He wouldn't accept a draw of any type. He ran before even a shot was fired. This was not a duel by mistake, it was intentional.

I can see the duel being called a draw if the range limit was exceeded.

How do you propose to determine which duelist was the one that caused the range limit to be exceeded?

just get somebody to shoot you next time... that would have aborted the duel

There should be a time limit, and when time´s up, the player with lower HP loses.

"There should be a time limit, and when time´s up, the player with lower HP loses."
Nope, I disagree; that would be too easy to exploit to get fake /duel wins. If we followed Shadoen's suggestion, instead of the player who is losing (with less hit points) going into infiniboost coward mode, the player who is winning (with more hit points) could go into infiniboost coward mode (possibly because they are low or out of ammo).
[Stamp of Disapproval] on that last posting.

Perhaps what is needed is a cancel duel command, that starts a cool down time of 2-3 minuets if both parties do not agree, but can happen instantly if both parties do.

Or a request to draw, that only works if the players are more than a specified distance apart. Not automatic, but triggered by request. You could also add a counter to this, so that people that are constantly requesting draws to avoid loosing would be viewable, and could be avoided.

That would prevent what you are talking about, without being exploitable by someone who is about to loose.

It does not get around the infiniboost to keep from loosing, but game mechanics being what they are, that would be hard to track anyway.

"Or a request to draw, that only works if the players are more than a specified distance apart. Not automatic, but triggered by request. You could also add a counter to this, so that people that are constantly requesting draws to avoid loosing would be viewable, and could be avoided."

I second this.

... or if the players are out of shoot range for too long time.

there is a /duel abort command.

Yes, but /duel abort requires both players to agree to it, which doesn't prevent the "poor sport" behavior described in earlier posts.

If you implement a system whereby a player (we'll call him "VPR") who runs away for long enough or far enough can get out of the duel, then everytime VPR is getting killed in a duel, he'll just backroll and sprint off.

Of course, this isn't too different from now: when VPR is losing, he can still run away and hope that his opponent will leave the sector before he does. But at least there's some reason to stay, namely avoiding the "who can out wait whom" factor currently created by the "leave the sector and lose" dynamic.

The problem is that there's no perfect way to determine who is running away. All the game knows is the distance between the players, not who is acting like VPR. The solution may be only dueling in a limited space, which of course the devs have yet to add.

You can always just duel inside of hollow 'roids with a friend or two to cover the exits :P

IIRC, the game is aware of velocity and acceleration of the players (bots predict your position, right?), and if that was not the case, it would be trivial to receive it by calculating it from two measurements in time (basic physics/algebra). The person heading away faster from the relative center of the two duelists (i.e. velocity and/or acceleration are greater than the other's) at the time where the distance threshold kicks in is the one heading away and loses.

This would ensure that the one chasing is the winner and the one running the loser.

So, the game does know (or could be taught to know) who is running away in a duel.

I think we need a huge hollow roid with two reversed station exit ports.

Two pilots enter in, neither can exit until only one is alive.

a duel chamber with spots for people to watch, good idea! The only problem would be where? You would have to add enough that they were close to most places.

I also think the points system should be adjusted. Make the point gains/losses smaller so the system doesn't screw the person with a high rating who loses to a person with a low rating. Right now the system definitely favors the person with the lower rating if they can win.