To prevent times when the player is trapped in the arena unable to end a match (but cannot be killed), the arena should have two extra end conditions:
-Stalemate: Fires after several minutes of action. Crowd gets bored and both gladiators are sent back to the dock. Katami chews you out and you lose some respect.
-Forfeit: Docking with the station during the match gives you the option to forfeit the match. Loss of respect if you were dying, no change if the match was going to a stalemate (because you respected the arena and admitted it wasn't going anywhere).
The arena XP system would be altered to basically indicate respect, with some other modifiers:
-The system as it is now remains virtually the same
-Using radiation to kill an enemy incurs a massive drop in reputation
-Killing in the first few seconds of the match excites the crowd, but loses reputation (as it wasn't a fair fight)
-Using military weapons has a similar effect (They're "cheating")
In addition, the system in general could use another end state:
-Failure condition: If our respect with the crowd gets too low, we no longer get offered fights and have 'failed' the arena. Lose the competancy flag that gets used for the "can we be offered miliita missions' check.
There is a 'washout' failure condition if you do too poorly. Unless it got removed. Removing the competency flag could be added though.
I didn't know that. Seems like it's rather hard to get.
A maximum duration for each battle is a very much needed feature.
Since arena battles are fights to the death, another option would be to send in the Slicer to "take out the trash" if there's a stalemate that lasts more than a couple minutes. The Slicer could quickly destroy the other gladiator (the opponent's death could be scripted to prevent wall-related glitches) and then go after the player.
If the player then went on to beat the Slicer prematurely they would immediately become the Arena champion (and thereby get militia eligibility), but Katami and Kate wouldn't approve and they wouldn't get the shield enhancement.
Additionally, the next time the player docks at a Black Market station Lord Mikho might hold them for ransom (for killing his big moneymaker), or when the player gets to Heretic Kate could tell them that the Black Market murdered Katami for training a gladiator who wouldn't play by the rules.
I'm going to make some improvements in 1.6 (https://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=3717) but I'll keep this open because it has a more general solution.