Circle Cannon Dodgers

by 'Marvin' (1600x1600px)

This tiny map is a remake of another map called Dodgers, where the goal is to avoid cannon or robot fire and stay alive as long as possible, without being able to fire back; this mode of play is included in the XPilot-NG server.  CCD is the same concept as Dodgers, but is polygon-based, and the cannons are out of your reach.  It's a good map for developing dodging skills, but can be rather frustrating, since you have to move around constantly to stay clear of the bullets.  This map ran on our server for a while; my best time was around 25 seconds.  (Of course, I'm local.)

This map comes with XPilot-NG.

Dungeons of Fear!

by Dr_Xemacs (201x201)

This map and Vincent's Robot Extermination were my original inspirations for the Plasma Blast maps.  I run it on our server occasionally.  It's basically a modification of Ken Ronny Schouten's The Cave, except it wraps around and is a lot busier.

Fishfight

by Jon Moore (65x51)

A rather interesting map included with the XPilot5 package.  You can fire only 3 shots at a time on this map, which makes it much more challenging than maps like NDH and TZX.  Dick Balaska ("Bucko"/"Dick", and primary author of XPilot5) had a ranking Fishfight server set up a while back, but the ranking function stopped working properly and he shut it down.  However, I started a server of my own very soon after, and Fishfight eventually evolved into my Fishtank maps.    Download!

The Globe

by Bjørn Stabell (170x170)

Also known as The Newbie Globe.  It was the first map I ever played, being the default map for the XPilot server.  It was also likely one of the inspirations for my first map, The Electric Fence.

New Dark Hell

by PeaceMaker (200x200)

NDH is a very popular newbie map, but many experienced players like it too.  The first well-known NDH server that I'm aware of was stinkymonkey.cc.columbia.edu, or just Stinkymonkey.  That server was very popular because it had a ranking function.  (I don't remember if any of the four of us made it into the top 100; however, I do remember that Arachnoid was the king of robot kills and suicides!)  However, Stinkymonkey disappeared, and there hasn't been a ranking NDH server since.  (Actually that's not true; Dick has lately been running a ranking NDH server on shirley.buckosoft.com emphasizing lasers and torpedoes, along with modified robot code.)  A variation on the map, Nuke Dark Hell by Abyss, added item concentrators and enabled nuclear weapons.  That server, deepcore.uoregon.edu (or just Deepcore), was popular for a while, until it too disappeared.  And, of course, NDH was undoubtedly the inspiration for tzx-rambunctious.  NDH is included with newer versions of XPilot, and a polygon version (New Dark Hell-Next Generation) is included with XPilot-NG.  There is an NDH server running on piper.dyndns-free.com port 15345.

Planet X

by Børge Berg-Olsen (310x267)

Similar to Bjørn's Globe, this map was another of the ones I ran frequently many years ago.  Compared to the Globe, Planet X is pretty big, but not even close the size of some of the Plasma Blast maps.  Included with XPilot.

> Robot Extermination (robot abuse!)

by Vincent (150x150)

I felt I needed to include this gem of Vincent's here, since I've had a lot of fun with it over the years—after all, some of the ideas in the Plasma Blast maps came from this map, most notably the "gravity well".  In a way, it's a lot like New Dark Hell with shields—a player can get on, gobble up items, and fly around terrorizing the populace.

I run it occasionally on our server; it's currently running on piper.dyndns-free.com port 15346.  The map itself can be downloaded from Vincent's site.

tzx-rambunctious

by xpilot@toyzworkz.com (200x200)

I'm not exactly sure when this map popped up, but it was sometime after the disappearance of Stinkymonkey.  It became quite popular, and even more so when Clef modified it, adding complex, cannon-filled tunnels to the larger structures.  These cannons all used items, and built up a sizeable cache rather quickly, so I referred to them as the "cannon mines".  The last version of TZX Rambunctious Modified had cannon mines in nearly every structure, and bases inside some of them!  (IMO, the first TZX Mod was better.)  TZX Mod hasn't been running for a while, but someone sent me the original map so I could run it.  It is currently running on piper.dyndns-free.com port 15347.    Download!

Xpilot-Tournament Map (Blood's Music)

by Patrick Kenny (100x100)

Arguably the most popular XPilot map of all, Blood's is a team map, where the object is to steal the opposing team's treasure (a.k.a. ball) and "cash" it into your team's treasure box.  It has undergone many changes since the beginning, mostly in the area of gameplay performance and physics.  The polygon version for XPilot-NG was the de facto standard for Bloods until BloodsPilot was developed; the latter version is now the most widely used.  One version or another of the map is included in (nearly) every version of XPilot, and the polygon version, of course, comes with NG, but may not be the latest version; for the latest one (v10 8T2, I think), visit the Sourceforge CVS archive.

The aforementioned BloodsPilot was created for the sole purpose of running Bloods-like maps.  Many Bloods servers have ranking, some based on "ballrun" time (the time between taking the ball and cashing it), or on other ballrun statistics.  I ran a BloodsPilot server for a while, but it didn't get much attention.