The Ultimate 6 Pack Ruleset

(Sorry for posting this so late, it took me a long time to write!)

For a long time now, the off-week rulesets (also known as special rulesets) have been a staple of iOS 6 Pack. Causal Night is the main attraction for a reason, that of course being how it most closely mimics the glory days of old, but these rulesets bring some much-wanted variety to the table and, when done right, can be highly memorable and produce truly unique experiences. Many players have tried their hand at making their own rulesets, which of course includes myself. My rulesets have had extremely mixed results, ranging from lukewarm reception after being run to not being popular enough to officially run for a week, either due to the central concept not being strong enough, or flawed execution. But, all of that changes today with a ruleset that I started working on exactly one year ago (I wanted to wait until this year so as not to provide too much competition with my other post).

Now, “The Ultimate 6 Pack Ruleset” is obviously quite a lofty title, so I wanted to create a ruleset that truly lives up to it. The word “ultimate” is defined as not simply being the best of something, but also the endpoint of that thing’s progression. It is the final evolution, the culmination of everything that comes before it. So to have this ruleset live up to its title, I would need to create something that draws from the best aspects of 6 Pack and combines them into a neat package.

So, what are the best aspects of 6 Pack? Well, since everyone has their own biases, meaning asking individual players would not be very efficient, I shall instead take a statistical approach to determining what aspects of 6 Pack are indeed the best. A good starting point is seeing what the best existing ruleset is, as it will be the template for this ultimate ruleset. I will not be using Casual Night, as it really exists in a space of its own and attempting to tamper with it would be against the spirit of 6 Pack. 6 Pack officially has around twenty unique off-week rulesets, but they can be grouped into around six or seven overarching templates. The one that really sticks out to me is the Point System template, which seems to have the best track record of all of these templates. It currently has four, technically five, rulesets built from it, one of if not the highest amounts among the templates, with Cdr. Crimmins toying with the idea of adding even more. Additionally, none of its rulesets have been retired due to unpopularity, its rulesets consistently perform well in terms of both attendance and reception, and the template lends itself well to further expansion. This template is clearly the best one to base this ruleset on. After that, we must now consider what to gear the ruleset to within the bounds of the Point System. For that, we shall look into what the other best aspects of 6 Pack are, from a statistical point of view. On Casual Night, the ruleset where players can run anything they want, heavy robots are consistently the most used weight class of robots, and contains several of the individually most popular robots, such as Lancelot, Griffin, and Fury, meaning players think these kinds of robots are the best ones in 6 Pack. Additionally, it seems that the best ideology for an up-and-coming ruleset is one that majorly shakes up the meta, but in a manner that stays true to 6 Pack. The Point System is a great example of this, but other templates like Faction Wars, Frankenbot Night, and L.M.G., all of which are both well-received and tend to draw in good numbers, also follow this ideology. Also, given the relative unpopularity of templates that promote a very rigid meta like Highlander Nights, Autophobia, and even Cricket Night to an extent, it stands to reason that the best thing to strive for is a ruleset that promotes freedom of choice through a diverse meta. Lastly, given the instant failure of Little Big Robots and limited success of Squirt Game, it is clear that faster-paced battles is the best pace for battles, as those rulesets, rather uniquely, severely slowed the pace of battles. So, with this analysis done, here are the best aspects of 6 Pack that shall all be combined within this ultimate ruleset:

- Based on the Point System template
- Emphasizes heavy robots
- Provides a major deviation from Casual Night
- Promotes hangar variety and a fluid meta
- Encourages faster-paced battles

One last thing to keep in mind while crafting the ultimate ruleset is that simplicity is key. 6 Pack prides itself on not being the chaotic, convoluted mess that the matchmaker is, so it is best to avoid a ruleset diving too deep into specifics or demanding too much organization from players.

Luckily, the Point System offers a pretty obvious avenue for easily realizing a lot of the above principles in a simple manner: allowing very high-point hangars. Since the lowest point robots are one point, and the highest point robot is six points, Point Night has a lower bound of five point hangars and an upper bound of thirty point hangars. The lower bound of the Point System has been thoroughly explored, as all of the existing rulesets lie near it, and Cdr. Crimmins’ ideas for further additions go even closer to it. However, the upper bound lies essentially untouched, making it ripe for exploration. Allowing very high-point hangars also places emphasis on heavy robots, allows hangar variety, and encourages faster paced battles due to players having to be less conscious of their robot deployment, further increasing its appeal. However, this bound of the Point System lies unexplored for a very specific reason: very high-point hangars will inevitably resemble Casual Night hangars, rendering such a ruleset redundant. However, this issue is not unfixable, since as I brought up already, the Point System lends itself well to further expansion. Thus, a gimmick other than the Point System itself should be introduced, which will both provide a major deviation from Casual Night as well as possibly promote further hangar variety. So with that, here is the refined list of traits the ultimate ruleset shall possess:

- Based on the Point System template, with very-high point hangars allowed
- Introduces an additional gimmick to differentiate itself from Casual Night
- Must be simple in both presentation (written form) and execution


Well, the only thing really left to do now is decide what the additional gimmick shall be for the ultimate ruleset, while making sure it does not complicate the ruleset too much. For that, I shall turn to a place that, despite the irony of it, presents great potential for strong gimmicks: the list of banned equipment. Currently, only pre-dash robots and weapons, as well as the Bolt, Gust, and Storm, are allowed in 6 Pack. All other robots and weapons, as well as pilots, drones, modules, and motherships in their entirety, are banned. Well, I think that with proper execution, some of these could be worked into my ultimate ruleset, providing a gimmick that is both novel enough to differentiate my ruleset from Casual Night, while also being something familiar to the players of 6 Pack due to them having experienced them in the matchmaker. These equipment pieces can be worked into the Point System by costing lots of points to be used in the hangar, meaning players will have to choose between a hangar of powerful 6 Pack robots, or a hangar of weaker 6 Pack robots that are enhanced by these equipment pieces. From the list of banned equipment, motherships can be immediately disqualified as a candidate due to being impossible to properly police. Additionally, pilots and drones can be disqualified, as they are already controversial in the matchmaker, meaning they are likely to be received especially poorly in 6 Pack, and they would introduce a lot of complexity due to how customizable they are. Passive modules, while they could feasibly work, should also be disqualified, as robots having differing amounts of slots for them limits their potential to introduce variety, and their difficulty to both acquire and level up goes against 6 Pack’s principle of being accessible. This leaves three possible candidates to introduce as gimmicks, all of which are reasonable due to not introducing too much complexity, not causing the meta to be too rigid, and it being reasonable to assume that players have relatively easy access to them if they choose to use them in a hangar:

- Having a carefully selected pool of post-dash robots or weapons available for higher point costs than normal 6 Pack equipment
- Giving players the option to spend some points on gaining the ability to equip and use a carefully selected pool of active modules on the robots in a hangar
- Giving players the option to spend some points on gaining the ability to equip and use a carefully selected pool of titans on the robots in a hangar

Of these candidates, I am going to discard the prospect of allowing post-dash robots and weapons, as only having a couple available would feel too shallow of a gimmick, and having lots would greatly complicate my ultimate ruleset. However, I am going to include both active modules and titans, with the intent of players choosing three main paths for their hangars: a hangar of powerful 6 Pack robots with no enhancements, a hangar with less powerful 6 Pack robots enhanced with active modules, or a hangar of less powerful 6 Pack robots enhanced by a titan. Of the active modules in the game, I think Advanced Repair Unit is too powerful, so it shall be excluded, and of the titans in the game, I will only allow Kid, as the other titans are too powerful. Additionally, the Kid titan must be base level, can only have base level Vengeances and Retaliators as weapons, and have its modules be unequipped, all to ensure it is not too powerful and to not encourage excessive spending to level one up. To make policing hangars easier, hangars choosing not to use active modules must have all active modules be Quantum Radar, as per standard protocol, and hangars choosing not to use a titan must have a titan other than Kid be in its titan slot. Everything mentioned here can be checked in a player’s profile, so there should be little to no difficulty in policing hangars. With the specifics of all laid out, it is now time to decide the point values of active module and titans, decide the point limit of hangars, and draft the final, presentable form of my ultimate ruleset:



So there we have it, my end-all-be-all of 6 Pack rulesets! I believe this to truly be my ultimate 6 Pack ruleset, embodying all of its best aspects while also bringing fresh new ideas to the table, all carefully executed to stay within the spirit of 6 Pack. I cannot imagine anyone managing to outdo what I have accomplished over the course of the last year. This shall be a day that I look fondly back on as the catalyst for many fond battles. If you have suggestions for modest changes due to factors I may not have realized, feel free to suggest them, but like they say on the Android server, the best way to see if something works is to use it in battle, so I say we do that! I look forward to seeing you on the battlefield next week fellow 6 Packers!