There is lots of news to share, but unfortunately I don't have time to put it all down in this post, so I will stick to the time sensitive news this time.
It is time! RedPlanet and BattleTech Firestorm Tandem league play starts today! Find a Teammate and signup! We have designed this league with the most flexible schedule possible, and minimal financial requirements. Stop by pretty much anytime (except during special events) to play your league missions for the week with your teammate! We have also made an effort to make this very affordable, members can even use their free mission on Friday to compete! For the test season there is NO SIGN UP FEE!
We have been working on this for a while now and we have decided to run a small test season to see if we have the rules right. This season will run for four weeks, starting today, ending with a wrap-up tournament on Saturday, March 5th.
We have wanted to run a league and it seems like we finally have enough players to make this work. What we didn't want to do was kill one of our existing fun nights here, and we didn't want to exclude people who can only make it out once a week. So we have designed the leagues around maximum flexibility schedule wise. We are running two leagues, one for BattleTech and one for RedPlanet. For the test season you do not have to play in both leagues, but if you do play in both leagues you must have the same teammate.
You will drop your worst week's score from every four week period, so if you have a bad week or simply miss a week it will not affect your score at all. If you can't make it out this week you can drop the first week and sign up next week! The absolute latest you can sign up for the league is February 12th.
Each week we will announce the scores and rankings from the previous week, as well as a challenge mission for BattleTech and a challenge mission for RedPlanet. This will be a mission that you and your partner can play anytime you want. You can play the mission as many times as you want, and turn in your best score by 1am Sunday morning. Scores will not be made public until after we stop collecting sheets for the week. Your score will be compared to the other teams and points will be awarded similar to a round in a free for all tournament.
The winner will be determined by a weighted composite of their challenge mission performance and the results of the final tournament! The final tournament for the test season will be March 5th for both the BattleTech and RedPlanet leagues. Mark that day, you do NOT want to miss this.
If you can't find a partner just drop us a line at pilotinfo@the-airlock.com and we will do our best to match you up.
Entry fees for the final wrap-up tournaments in the test season will be:
$7.50 BattleTech
$7.50 RedPlanet
Some extra rules from our SEC, Glenn "Roadkill" Elliot [with a couple of edits from the khan]:
A couple of things have occurred to me that are bound to come up during the league, so I figured I'd email 'em to you so that you'd be prepared.
1. [unless otherwise specified in the mission description] Stock 'Mechs only for the PLAYERS. We may use variants for the bots, but the players may only use stock (and stock test) for their selections. No Thor Bs during the Missile Mayhem round! There may be additional restrictions based on the mission for the week, both for BattleTech and for Red Planet.
2. During an all-day pass, players may only make 5 league attempts. [...] Also, multi-player games have priority during all-day passes, so it might not be possible to make all of your allowed attempts on those nights. Show up early, stay late, or come on a different night in order to get your league mission done for the week.
3. You may make as many attempts as you want during each week, subject to #2 above. Only your best result counts, but you must present the score sheet to Kelly [uglyman] so that he can make a copy of it for the league's records. No scoresheet = no count. It's okay to present a scoresheet on Tuesday, show up again on Thursday and present a better one, then show up again on Saturday and present another better one. Just make sure you present the one you want counted.
4. Each player may only be part of one League team. Choose your partner carefully! Each team participates in both the BattleTech league and the Red Planet league. In the future we may allow those leagues to be separate, but for this first test run we're trying to keep things as simple as possible. [Teams are not required to play in both leagues, but if you do play in both leagues you must have the same partner, this will likely change in future seasons]
5. Only your 3 best weeks out of every 4 are used for the final League results. That means you can either toss your lowest score, or you can miss a week entirely if you want to or need to. This includes week #1, so you don't have to sign up during the first week if you don't want to.
There's probably more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
Glenn
This is going to be a lot of fun, the rules are subject to tweaking during this test season if we see something that is out of whack.
Test Season Prizes: (prizes will be awarded for each league)
(note that these are not necessarily the teams that win the tournament, but rather the overall winners)
First place: Each player in the winning tandem can either choose:
3 free unlimited passes to be used on their next 3 advanced night visits
-or-
20 missions in their account
Second Place: Each player in the winning tandem can either choose:
2 free unlimited passes to be used on their next 2 advanced night visits
-or-
13 missions in their account
Third Place: Each player in the winning tandem can either choose:
1 free unlimited pass to be used on their next advanced night visit
-or-
7 missions in their account
The missions for week one!
BattleTech: Modified Missile Mayhem!
-----------------------------------
Tandem: choose any stock or stock test mechs
You will also have 2 level 2 Bane 3's and 1 level 2 NovaCat B on your team
Opposing Team: 3 level 7 Bane 3's and 2 level 7 NovaCat B's
Map: Scarab Stronghold
Conditions: Advanced mode on, armor mode off, heat off, weapon jams off, limited ammo off (it is called missile mayhem for a reason!)
RedPlanet: Total score on Wiseguy's Wake
Players may choose any VTV
Scores must be taken from the same mission and then will be totaled.
