Space Race--What the F?

I just lost a BTS space race game even though I launched my ship one year ahead of the winner (according to the replay) and had built the maximum number of all components. Hence, my question is WHAT THE #%&@$? Has anybody seen this before or have a possible explanation?

I believe you received the announcement of the AI's launch in *your* next turn, but the AI actually launched the same turn as you, which made it a tie (Wow another one ). For the rest of the story look here...

The replay actually said that I completed the last component in 2010 and the AI completed it in 2011 but didn't list the actual launches. I assume both occurred in the same years. I also didn't get any announcement during the game about the AI launch. So, does the tie theory still hold?

How many turns did it take for your SS to travel to AC? Maybe you pressed Shift+Enter too quickly and missed 1 turn for the launch?

I don't know. I didn't save the game after the end. I can reload 2 turns before the launch and see what happens. Since I have new random seed set in game options, this should test the tie theory.

Perhaps the AI gets a space ship speed cheat at the higher levels, to go along with its other cheats?

Bloodtoe said:

I can reload 2 turns before the launch and see what happens. Since I have new random seed set in game options, this should test the tie theory.

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That's a good idea. If there really is anything suspicious going on (bug?), please post your save here so that we could check things.

Sisiutil said:

Perhaps the AI gets a space ship speed cheat at the higher levels, to go along with its other cheats?

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Definitely not. And calling the AI's increasing bonuses at the higher difficulties "cheats" might cause misconceptions among some readers ...

Couldn't the AI of simply built a faster spaceship by not building all the parts? If you reload it enough times his mission might fail.

GravityWave said:

Couldn't the AI of simply built a faster spaceship by not building all the parts? If you reload it enough times his mission might fail.

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It was most likely what happened. The AI is coded to not launch the spaceship if their ship can't get to Alpha centauri faster than other in the air anyway ......

But launching an incomplete space ship never leads to faster travel times.

The vessel can have exactly 1 Cockpit, 1 Life Support, 1 Stasis Chamber and 1 Docking Bay -- all of these parts are required for the launch.
It can have 1...5 Casings, but omitting some of them doesn't make the ship lighter/faster, instead this puts the whole mission in jeopardy (mission success chance drops 20% for each missing Casing).
It can have 1...5 Thrusters and 1...2 Engines, choosing not to max out these parts doesn't lower the mission's success chance, but makes the ship significantly slower:



These rules apply to the human player as well as to the AIs in exactly the same way.

Oh, cool! Now my civizens can plan a little better!!

Here's what happened with the reload. I finished the stasis chamber in 2008 and launched (this was one year earlier than the first time--how the hell did that happen? The AI apparently stopped ss production and switched to military units. He declared war in a couple of turns and was somehow able to quickly attack me from another continent with massive naval, air, and land units. (I know, I know, the AI doesn't cheat at Noble but sometimes thats' hard to believe. How did the AI build up such massive military forces while building SS components?) Anyway, the Apostolic Palace stopped the war and I won a space race victory in 2019. From that I conclude that my ship didn't actually launch until the turn after I clicked the launch button (complete chamber in 2008, launch in 2009, arrive AC 2019).

So now I have two mysteries--first, how did I lose the first game when I completed the last component a turn ahead of the AI (is the probability of mission success less than 100% even with all of the components?) Or is the only possible explanation that I somehow didn't click the launch button until the next turn after completing the chamber?

Second, how could the reload have resulted in completing the chamber one turn earlier?

The AI does cheat at noble; its maintenance and upgrade costs are reduced.

Good to know, thanks. Is there a thread somewhere that describes all of the Noble level cheats that you know of?

Check the XML files.

mechaerik said:

The AI does cheat at noble; its maintenance and upgrade costs are reduced.

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They aren't "cheats". Cheating is breaking the rules.

What the AI gets is lower upgrade costs, maintenance and build costs on higher levels. And it gets higher upgrade costs, maintenance and build costs on lower levels.

It's not cheating - it's just the way of making the harder levels ... umm... harder.

Calling this cheating is like saying a human "cheats" by playing warlord level.

Methinks your hunch you actually launched a turn later than you thought you did first time around is in fact correct.

That's cos the AI chucked a mess of military at you when you reloaded the game - it knew it couldn't beat you for Spacerace so went for the cutlery-a-glintin' option!

Airefuego said:

They aren't "cheats". Cheating is breaking the rules.

What the AI gets is lower upgrade costs, maintenance and build costs on higher levels. And it gets higher upgrade costs, maintenance and build costs on lower levels.

It's not cheating - it's just the way of making the harder levels ... umm... harder.

Calling this cheating is like saying a human "cheats" by playing warlord level.

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True, i chose to say "cheats" because that is the way most people would understand it. It's also a lot simpler to say and understand.