Space Ship Failed?

[TenthFret]

Recently had the following message pop up after I had launched my spaceship:

"Mission Failed! All progress of xxx towards a Space Race has been lost!"

Not exactly sure what happened here. Can Espionage missions interefere with a spaceship even after a launch?

Is there a random event where the spaceship just fails?

A little frustrated. . . any thoughts?

 

[hecubus]

Did you build ALL the parts, or just the minimum? I think if you skimp on pieces, there's a chance of the ship not reaching the destination.

 

[TenthFret]

I think I was one Casing away from the full ship. Didn't realize there was a chance of failure for a partially built ship.

 

[hecubus]

Yeah, there is. Just look at what one faulty O-ring can do

Sucks to have it fail on one missed piece, for sure. I don't know what the odds are.

 

[Fronx]

Build all 5 Casings, or you risk failing. I personally would never launch spaceship without all 5 casings; I wouldn't feel so proud of my win, if its won or lost with only one deciding dice roll.

Its like playing an long, epic game of civilization, and then right at the end of it going to the casino and placing your whole empire as a bet on one black jack deal. =D




You can skip engines or thrusters, if you're not in a hurry, those only affect speed, not propability of success/failure.

 

[Virulent]

Each casing adds 20% to the success rate. So even if you build 4 you still have a 20% chance of failing. Not worth the risk.

 

[neferator]

I did kinda like that they did this to bts. Bizzarely (perhaps) one of the features I missed from Civ 2 was the way the spaceship worked in that. Though it was a lot less obvious (if I recall correctly) what you needed to build in what ratio to get a good spaceship in that game. Very long time since I've played civ 2 though so I could be wrong.

 

[Quagga]

It takes 16 turns to (on Epic) to get there. If somebody else is going to win before you can build that last casing, launch and arrive, then you may as well launch without.

I recently lost a game to Cultural Victory on the very same turn my spaceship was to reach its destination. The 20% risk would have meant an 80% chance of win instead of 0%.

To keep your mind off that 20% risk, nuke your neighbors for 16 turns.

 

[Sisiutil]

I did kinda like that they did this to bts. Bizzarely (perhaps) one of the features I missed from Civ 2 was the way the spaceship worked in that. Though it was a lot less obvious (if I recall correctly) what you needed to build in what ratio to get a good spaceship in that game. Very long time since I've played civ 2 though so I could be wrong.

IIRC, there were components like habitation cells and life support that needed to be built in a 1 to 1 ratio, and you could build a maximum of 4 of each. And the more parts you built, the greater the chance of success, the faster it went, and the higher your final score.

I also like that they've borrowed some of the Civ II space ship game elements, but they've kept it fairly simple. If you're in a tight space race you can take a risk on a partially-completed but faster ship. I notice that SS Casings are further back on the tech tree than before, and that other SS techs may be higher in priority (to get the Space Elevator and/or the free GE from Fusion), making the completion of all 5 casings less certain. It could make for a much tighter end game...

 

[prestermatt]

Apparently you can have parts sabotaged when they are sitting on the ground. I don't remember that from Vanilla, but I rarely go for space ship victories so it may have been there all along and just never happened to me. But I really didn't like it when I was notified that my docking bay had been destroyed when I was very close to launching.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

It seems to me Casings are the most important pieces. I won Space Race the other day, and I could have launched with only one engine, the only difference having two was the amount of time it would take to reach destination (only about 3 turns on Epic). I had another game were I accidentally ( ) launched missing some casings and had a 40% chance of sucess. I failed.

 

[prestermatt]

I could have launched with only one engine, the only difference having two was the amount of time it would take to reach destination (only about 3 turns on Epic).

I was a bit disappointed when I first learned that building the second engine only shaved a few turns off the arrival time -- particularly since it took more than those few turns to build the thing. I don't really understand the point of the second engine, unless you can get two ready on the same turn and if you need 1-2 turns to beat the enemy spaceship. I think it should have a bit more of a dramatic effect.