Sky Pirates
Sky Pirates is a custom Last Team Standing map. It's available in the Custom Maps Pack 1 addon. It is notorious for being an extremely difficult map for dinahs.
Stats
- Map File: lts_sky_pirates
- Version: Beta 3.0
- Mode: Last Team Standing
- Author: LordTrilobite
- Release Date: October 2008
- Theme: Not specified (surrealism)
- Timer:
- Sudden Death Timer:
- Pick-ups:
- Stage hazards: Ocean, wind, ravens dropping the ships (Sudden Death, only)
Overview
Unlike more well known Last Team Standing maps, Sky Pirates gives little to no room for players to roam. Instead, players can only reach the other ships in groups so that immediate death is less likely to happen. Another basic strategy is to stay in your ship and use any of your long range weapons, if your class has any, to distract or kill an enemy player.
The bridges are the only way to reach one of the ships, and because of that the player is completely vulnerable to any attack against him. To make things worse, the strong winds push any player who jumps anywhere in the bridges, even if they're completely stationary, leading to his own death. And to top all things, all bridges have gaps, and both sides rarely connect to each other.
During Sudden Death mode, all ships and ravens are affected by a wind gust which instantly throws away any player who stands on the bridge. A couple of seconds later one of the three ships gives in and everyone in it falls to the water. If Sudden Death endures, a second ship also gets obliterated. Both the Pirates and the Vikings' ships are dropped by the ravens, while the Knights' base gets destroyed by the wind gusts, giving no cover to any player that steps in and gets pulled off the map. With such foolproof scheme, unless the players make a truce, it's next to impossible to have a round draw in Sky Pirates.
Presentation
The map has its own surreal look which makes chosing a theme quite difficult. It is highly suggested that it is to be seen as a dream or simply an abstract or a surreal composition which doesn't take itself seriously. The Knights' ship is the only one to stand out, not only because it has two stories, but it doesn't fall into the ocean, despite being completely wrecked during Sudden Death.
History
The map was built by LordTrilobite, then a level designer of the PVK Team, and was bundled with ten other maps in the Custom Maps Pack 1, in October 2008. It was also released separately on Gamebanana around that time. The map was last updated sometime in 2010, with some tweaks added. Despite its lack of updates, it continues to be one of the most played community-made maps, being often voted by players in custom map-dedicated servers such as Slammin Butt Pirates. A server owned by Slammin Butt Pirates has the randomized weapons mod enabled and runs Sky Pirates all the time, giving a small boost in difficulty.
Despite the map's popularity, it's often criticised for being insanely broken by nature and prompter of cheap deaths.