The Flooded City:
This arena at first resembles the Flooded City stage of Virtual On, but that's only the beginning!


This stage contains numerous in-jokes and silly humorous references put in by the programming staff.

Raised Platform:

In the center of the city, a square platform juts out of the water. On this platform there are several roads and four four-story (about 53 feet/16 meters) buildings, just like in the Virtual On stage. Many players will think that it's just like that video game, and be totally surprised when they try to run against the arena's "edge" and fall into. . .

Underwater World:
The animal life here doesn't pose much threat to a Mekton unless somebody grabs a hammerhead or great white shark and uses it as a melee weapon (1K/25H and 2K/50H respectively, a hammerhead will last one blow and be converted into goop all over your opponent's (and your own) Mekton, a Great White will last three hits before dying and another two before being pulped, if you're fighting in Roadstrikers then you take either 5H (HH) or 10H (GW) damage yourself from the tooth-scales cutting your own mecha). There are lots of buildings around with lots of rather fragile windows that can shatter from the sudden massive shifts of pressure resulting from an underwater mechanical leviathan racing past on hydrojets (not to mention from an underwater mechanical leviathan being punched into a building!) These shards glitter in the water and will injure life forms nearby but have no actual effect on game play unless the players stop to watch the show. There are underwater distortion patterns from shifting sand in the water, fractally-rendered bubbles. . .

There are very few power ups in this arena, as the emphasis is on verisimilitude (the appearance of realism in an unrealistic situation): two identical 13K beam swords (space efficiency so that they are only 4 spaces large - i.e. even a Superlight can at least use them two-handed), hidden in opposite sides of the area map. These swords are handed to the gamers by silk-covered female arms. If the mecha pilot has time, there is a service station (with a cute pink-haired, green-eyed female attendant in scuba gear) where he can go to refuel his thrusters, hydrojets or even if he has a combustion type powerplant he can refuel that. The money that the pilot *must* pay her in order to leave (the mecha is unable to pass the perimeter of the gas station until he does) is "virtual" money (player doesn't get really charged!), but each player has a limited number (up to the GM) of them, and looks like American dollar bills but has on them the "Dogs Playing Poker" painting and the motto reads, "In Dog We Trust."
Q: What do you get when you have a dyslexic, insomniac agnostic?
A: Somebody who stays up late wondering if there is a Dog.

The attendant is programmed to be very flirtatious with male pilots; she will always blow a male pilot a kiss when he leaves. She will be courteous and friendly toward female pilots.

I forgot to add that the Service Station is a designated Neutral Zone. When you have umpteen tons of volatile mecha fuel just waiting for a spark, fighting is a BIG NO-NO!!!

In another part of the city there are mer-children at play, any mecha pilot who has the audacity to stomp them on purpose will find themselves under attack by Mama Mer-Mekton (Mega-Heavy construction with Mega-Heavy Gamma armor, main weapon is a 100K BV 5 mega laser cannon). 3M is programmed by the same psychopath responsible for Jaguarendi's programming.

If the mecha fight boils over into a residential area, several Police Meks will arrive 1d6 turns later and politely ask that the players take it elsewhere. If attacked, the Police Meks will respond with deadly force. They are Heavy Strikers armed with a 4 Kill beam pistol and a 10 Kill nightstick, which behaves as if it were being swung through air rather than through water. The backup mecha will be armed with 15 Kill beam rifles and *pairs* of 10K nightsticks, so compliance with the first cops is suggested.

One of the parking garages is built for Virtual Mektons rather than for cars; one level of this garage contains row upon row of Temjin Virtuaroids; any player attempting to steal a Temjin's beam rifle will find himself attacked by that Temjin, but by some strange quirk of the game if he is killed he is not dead but merely "bonked" for a while, after which time his mecha is totally repaired of all damage suffered while fighting the Temjin.

If the players look in the windows of the buildings below water level, there will be revealed mer-people calmly going about their daily office routine. Directly attacking the mer-people will result in the aforementioned Mama Mer-Mekton coming in and beating the bejeezus out of your VM (the only thing that counts as directly attacking them is launching a melee or ranged attack that is CLEARLY targeted at the building and not at an opponent).

Obviously necessary in this stage is Underwater Environmental Protection, but despite this and because of the beautiful level of detail in the stage (it's suspected that the cute service station attendant helps too), it's one of the most popular areas of the game. On the Raised Platform, the programmed music ("In the Blue Sky," the Flooded City stage theme in Virtual On Cyber Troopers) overrides the player's own music, reinforcing the stage's motif. Once underwater, the players' sound systems kick back in. However, if at any time the players return to the Raised Platform, the Virtual On music will return.


Items (compressed statistical write-ups):
(all mecha have the Underwater environmental protection multiplier system)

Wildlife:

Hammerhead Shark: Striker torso, 1K sacrificed for 2 Spaces, 1/5 scale, "Beastmecha" form. 25H/1K
Great White Shark: Heavy Striker torso, 1/5 scale, "Beastmecha" form. 50H/2K, takes 0.66K damage per hit because of "armor"
Non-Shark Fish: Various servo sizes, 1/100 to 1/10 scale, "Beastmecha" form, between .25 and 0.8 kills

People:
Mer-People: MA 3-10 (human scale hexes), REF 6. They can't take mecha weapons.
Mer-Children: MA 2-6 (human scale hexes), REF 10. Just don't step on 'em, okay?
Cute Service Station Attendant: ATT 7, INT 6, REF 8. What kind of sick bastard are you anyway!?

Mundane Vehicles:
Car (small): Striker torso, 1/5 scale, Auto form. 30H/1.2K.
Car (large): Medium Striker torso, 1/5 scale, Auto form. 40H/1.6K
Minivan: Heavy Striker torso, 1/5 scale, Mundane form. 50H/2.0K
Pickup Truck: Heavy Striker torso, 1/5 scale, Auto form. 50H/2.0K
Medium Truck: Medium Weight torso, 1/5 scale, Mundane form. 60H/2.4K
Semi Truck: Super Heavy torso, 1/5 scale, Mundane form. 100H/4.0K

Power-Ups:
Beam Sword: 13K, 3K structure, 4 Spaces.

CPU Mecha:
Mama Mer-Mekton: Mega Heavy structure, humanoid plus Pod, secondary Torso servo instead of 2 Legs, MH-Gamma armor, MA 10 swimming, MV -0, weapons: +3 WA 100K BV 5 laser cannon, no penalty to hit ANY mecha.
VR-Temjin: Medium Weight structure, humanoid plus Pod, MW-Beta armor, MA 6 walking/14 dashing, MV -2, weapons: 6K beam rifle, 8K beam sword, 2K bomb.
Police Mektons: Heavy Striker structure, humanoid, HS-Beta armor, MA 4 walking/10 swimming, MV -3, weapons: 5K beam pistol, 10K tonfa.
SWAT Mektons: Medium Weight structure, humanoid, MW-Beta armor, MA 5 walking/12 swimming, MV -2, weapons: 15K beam rifle, 10K beam tongfer, heavy stun-bomb.

Arena created by Mark Berger

 

MIDI SOUND FILE!

IN THE BLUE SKY

Music theme of the "Flooded City" stage of the Virtua On arcade

The "Flooded City" stage started out as just a cover of the Virtual On stage "Flooded City" until the programmers thought, "Hey we should do something with this, it's kind of bland as-is." From there an entire underwater universe evolved.

"Flooded City" is the "benchmark" stage for the purposes of verisimilitude. There are other stages that are more realistic in appearance, but "Flooded City" is the most intricate and the largest - the stage covers approximately 1024 square km (400 square mi), which translates to a good sized chunk of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Area (the distance between the two most recognizable South Metro landmarks - the Mall of America in Bloomington and the Minnesota Zoo in Apple Valley - is about 10 miles).