For the past few weeks I have been working on something in my spare time.  It is the reason I have been so the last couple of days.  I got it close to ready and spent my free time, the last few days, making it ready for testing.  Now it is.
 
For now, this is just installed on KDB.  I can put a copy on the Crazy Horse and/or meHHaj later.  I am putting the announcement here because the other ships should have a look at it.
 
There is a catch that wont make sense until you try it out.  The files it generates can be as much as 200K.  If I leave them around forever, this could quickly eat up my server space.  So I will delete the body of the text over time to save space.  I will likely delete all the files generated this week because you guys will go crazy with it.
 
For obvious reasons I'd like people to play with it before the next betleH tourney.  So have a look.   This is what you have to do:
 
1.  Update your KDB bio here:  http://kdb.batlh.com/cgi-bin/db/db.cgi?shipname=KDB
 
Simply find your bio entry, click the character pic on the right, enter your password and scroll to the bottom.  There are a bunch of new questions on the form.  Veterans of the betleH tourney will recognize them.  If you have attended a betleH tourney some questions may already have answers.  Rechoose each questions and pick from the list.  The first answer on a drop down is usally the value you have now.  Choose one from the lower on the list this one time.  Answer all the questions in the bottom of the form and save your bio.  Then go back to the KDB manifest.
 
2. Once you edit yourself go to the KDB crew manifest.  Scroll to the bottom and click the 'I want to spar.' button.
 
There is a simple form.  Pick your own character name from the list and enter your password, then submit the form.  This adds you to the list of people who will accept challenges.  If you get an error, if it say "Check your ..." then go back to your bio and edit yourself again.  Something isn't right with your bio.  If all else fails, send me a PM and I will check.  The most likely problem is that you have old values from the last tourney so rechoose your settings for every betleH question.  Also make sure your species is set to something and make sure your age is a number, not text.
 
3.  Now you should be ready to be challenged.  Use the left menu to choose the Halls of Kor Sparring Stage.
 
The header for this new area explains some stuff.  Any questions, post them back here.  The basics should be obvious.  Click the make challenge and challenge someone.    Read the list of challenges.  Check the open challenges and see if anyone has challenged you.  If you are challenged, you can click the info button and enter your password on the page you go to.  After you are returned to the top page, find that match and see who won.
 
 
 
As I said, post any questions here.  I wont answer specifics about the combat system but I will answer general ones.
 
 
P.S.  What did ness engineer this week?

Seems to work fine for me, though I'm not sure about the training being linked to what the form calls "age 13 thru 18-20." For Klingons that might be largely training, but most Humans would probably be at school falling asleep in physics. For my part, the "training" is basically "Hunter school blah ambition to be a pilot blah." Obviously the setup has to favour Klingons, but the seperation of training and teenage years, at least for aliens may be better.
 
That aside, it looks pretty cool, although it might be an idea to have the displayed fighter's pic link to their bio.

I am just kind of hanging out there waiting for others to accept now
 
A suggestion so that things don't drag is for the person challanged to be sent an email notification based on their forum info.

So'l:  Are you editing your bio on the KDB crew page?  Not the Hegh'ta page, the KDB one.
 
roS:  I can't send email based on the forum login because there is no tie between the forum and the bios.  I could try to add that but thats a big project.  I could send email based on the email address in the bio, are people could make a point to check the page or people could send PMs when they challenge.  I fully expect this will get 100 or 200 challenges the first week and it will slow down after that.  Eventually, I'd expect the challenges to be tied into game posts so you can just add a note in the scene saying:  "BTW, I challenged ta'pez to a duel for the last twinkie or whatever."
 
I know some things can be added and I will be changing the combat system.  One thought I had was to add the ability refuse a challenge... but I am not sure how to 'score' that.
 
I just answered my challenges and now I guess everyone knows its not rigged.  Hunter beat me!   I like how everyone is challenging me to first blood....

There is a problem.  I only just tried the Sparring part and won't take my password for it.  Is there supposed to be a different pasword used?

The password that you use to save your bio on the KDB manifest should allow you to make a challenge or allow you to accept a challenge.
 
The stop beating yourself up message comes up when you challenge yourself.  You must have picked hunter for both.  If you are sure you didn't I can check the code and make sure there isn't a bug.
 
So just try challenging again.  Sadly, if you mistype your password or come back to the challenge page (or back up to it) it gets reset so you have to fill everything out again.  Unless your browser saves settings.
 
Also, it should list the matches in order of when the challenge was made... so I don't know why the two K'Hare Hunter matches reversed.  I will look into that later.

Who do you want to challenge?  I just grabbed your password from the server (everyone knows I can do that, right?  I haven't implemented encrypting them yet) and challenged me.  Your password worked.  Remember, it is case sensitive.  But it worked for me without a problem.
 
 
 
From reading the matches it should be obvious now.  You gain honor by giving away initiative and by stepping back when your opponent is tired.  So your honor setting (and dishonor) give you the chance to win honor but randomness is still in play.  In the most recent match with K'Hare you see Hunter was at a disadvantage from the start so he couldn't earn honor.   The most honor and glory are gained when the two fighters are closest in skill so each takes turns having the upper hand.

I just figured out why Hunter's list at the bottom... it has to do with time zones and the definition of the epoch.   His machine is set to time in the future.  I will have to work on that... make it use server time instead of client time.  I will do that in the wee hours when no one is using it.