Failed space race

[Goatimus]

Hey guys - i'm new to these forums and have a quick question. I was just about to finish my first game in beyond the sword on huge world and marathon speed and I got the message that my space race mission was a failure. Very frustrating to say the least - So heres the question - Is that outcome normal / and how often does this happen? - because after playing the game as long as I did its just about turned me right off of beyond the sword. the ship was missing one thruster and one casing if that helps answer question. Thanks in advance.

[Shrapnel12]

I haven't tried a space race yet, but I've read that if your ship is not complete, there is a chance of failure. I don't know what that chance is. I'm sure the more complete your ship the more chance there is for sucess, but I don't know what the exact odds are in your case.

[HoldSteady]

I remember that from CIV1. In CIV1 the same could happen if your ship was build quick&dirty, that is, missing some components out of the ideal config. I think there even was an indicator which predicted probable succes.
Dunno about CIV4, sorry..

[Willem]

Re: Failed space race

Originally posted by Goatimus
I was just about to finish my first game in beyond the sword on huge world and marathon speed and I got the message that my space race mission was a failure. Very frustrating to say the least - So heres the question - Is that outcome normal / and how often does this happen?

The space race was changed in BtS. Previously all you had to do was be the first to build a ship, now you have to have actually reach Alpha Centauri with it. So if another civ builds a ship that's slightly faster than yours, you can lose out. The fact that you were missing a thruster probably slowed you down enough that another civ beat you.

[Goatimus]

No I was only civ even close to having tech for ship - I just think that as was mentioned in a few other posts that if your ship is not 100% there must be a small percent chance that it fails - as was unfortunately the case in my game. After posting this thread - I went back to the game - built another ship and launched and won - this time the ship was 100%. I was just mad because there is no mention of any chance of failure in either the BTS manual or civilopdia or anywhere that I could find. Not to mention it slowed my victory by 77 turns due to rebuilding and flight time. anyways - now we all know - launch incomplete ship at own risk- lol.

[HoldSteady]

well, anyways, good info!

[patcon]

Can you build more than one space ship?
If you launch a ship which could possibly fail, could you then begin to build a backup to be ready to go in case your first ship does fail?
If you and X are in a close race and X launches an incomplete ship trying to pass the ship you already launched, could you try to launch an even faster ship?
If you had enough high-production cities could you work on two ships at the same time, one as your primary (guaranteed arrival) ship and one as a fast, but high-risk, ship in case somebody else launches before your primary ship is ready?

[Risa]

Imcomplete casing will introduce a fairly large probability of failure. Not having enough thruster / engine will slow the ship down.

[onodera]

Last time I tried to win a space race I couldn't build more parts after I launched the ship. Only when it failed (and I got no message to tell me of that, only the countdown score disappeared) could I build more parts.

[Goatimus]

Onodera the message is very small and it showed up 2 turns after i shoulda won and you can't work on 2 ships at once- only after it failed can you start a second ship.

[patcon]

Originally posted by Goatimus
Onodera the message is very small and it showed up 2 turns after i shoulda won and you can't work on 2 ships at once- only after it failed can you start a second ship.

This is stupid - not your post, the concept.

Do you people forget how to build spaceships because all the engineers and smart people fly off? If so, who builds the next ship if the first one fails?

Are your people so complacent that after learning how to colonize the stars they say "OK, one try is enough, if it fails we'll give it another go, but in the meantime, let's kick back and relax."? (I guess that's kind of what happened to the USA after the Apollo missions.)

Won't your people see that another civ is trying to send off a faster ship to try to beat you there? Will they just say, "Que sera, sera." or will they say, "Screw you, we'll just build an even faster one."? Or better yet, "Better watch your tail, speed racer - outer space can be a very dangerous place." Don't try to beat them there with your own colony ship if they launch first, arrange for their ship to have a little "accident".
Whoa! an anti-space-race race!

[LzPrst]

in civ1 you could conquer the capital of a civ that had launced it's spaceship and it would crash...

[SpencerH]

I didnt know about the chance that the space ship could fail. I think its a great idea and in general I'm glad to see the space race back in BtS. I remember games with civ (or was it civ2) where I launched after other civs but still won the game.

[Unimatrix11]

Originally posted by LzPrst
in civ1 you could conquer the capital of a civ that had launced it's spaceship and it would crash...

Where ?

[khearn]

If you go to the Victory Conditions screen, down by the list of what spaceship components have been built you should se a "View" button. The spaceship view screen will show what your percentage chance of success is. Most of the time it will be 0%, until you get almost everything built. In my most recent game, I built my casing last and it was 0% when everything but the casing was done, 20% when 1 of 5 casings was done, 80% when 4 of 5 were done, and 100% when 5 of 5 were done. I didn't look at 2 or 3 done, but it appears to be a straight 20% per casing.

That page also shows the flight time, which I assume is related to the number of engines and thrusters, but I haven't paid attention enough to determine what the relations are there.

Note that the chance of success does not show on the screen where you place the components as they are built, even though the flight time does show up. There is also a launch button if you have at least one of every component, so it would be very easy for someone to get one of everything built and think it is fine to launch, even though they'd only have a 20% chance. They really should add the success chance to that page.