How is this possible?

[Fractal]

I can´t believe what has just happened in my last game.

I've built all the spaceship components and launched the spacecraft.

Was the first to achieve it.

But reaching 2 turns to victory i get the message of Hammurabi (my nearest opponent) that "HE HAS WON A SPACE RACE VICTORY".

And he hadn't built all the components, was still missing a SSEngine, a SSTrusther...

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???

 

[Bushface]

1. He launched earlier, so his longer flight time due to lack of an engine didn't matter.
2. If he hadn't built all 5 casings (so as to launch earlier) then he was lucky not to have his flight fail.
3. In a space race, don't let your rival launch first - or, if possible, launch at all.

 

[Bob the Barbari]

4 In case you fail at obtaining 3 capture their capital.

 

[oranges]

Shouldn't it be impossible to launch without an engine? Or did I misunderstand and he had a single one?

 

[azzaman333]

Shouldn't it be impossible to launch without an engine? Or did I misunderstand and he had a single one?

I assume he meant Hammurabi had built one engine, but was under the impression that he needed 2 engines to launch.