YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

:doh:

Though it was my intention in designing Approaching Infinity to give the player as much notice of their impending demise as possible, some situations seem inescapable, and sometimes you just don't make it back to the shuttle in time.

Congratulations! You have reached Infinity!

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

I was in sector 4, I believe, having gone back after crashing a Temple and acquiring the Ceiling Fan of Forever in sector 5. With a kitted Assault Scout and a rifle for ground combat, things were good.

I landed on a Terran planet and explored it without much event. There was a cave; I went back up to the ship to heal, and figured I'd land again to see what was in there.

I landed one square away from the cave. I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring the Oxygen Replenisher, but figured it was too good a chance to pass up. After I ran out of suit oxygen, I found that the planet's atmosphere was non-toxic, even better. I could explore the cave as far as it would go, with health being my only limitation.

I was returning back to the ship after getting in some licks from various cave creatures... and turned a corner right into a pair of suckers.

Game over, just like that. I never got to find out what that Ceiling Fan did or whether there was anything down on the second level of those caves. Not only that, there was like ten shipwrecks that I hadn't gotten around to exploring yet... and there was likely an Embassy at sector 6 or 7 that I never saw.

It's one thing to bumble into the second sector and get jumped by 5 pirate ships before the game even really starts (which has happened to me); it's another when things are going good and one little mistake is the catalyst for disaster. I guess I probably shouldn't have gone down myself on that away mission, and in the full version, I might not have, but I feel that in a 7-sector game, it's too much XP to pass up. The downside to that, is that if you stumble across one too many plants, or blobs, or whatever, your time's out -- which isn't a total disaster, considering it's just the demo, but it's still annoying if you have unfinished business (like with that Artifact).

That's just the way life (and death) goes, though.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

I read this when you posted it, and now I'm reading it again. Maybe I'm too soft-hearted for this stuff...I feel bad!

I know that's the way perma-death goes, and also how it's down to so many individual choices that you made from moment to moment, but losing games sucks. I'm really glad I included the non-PD option.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

YASD that would have had me rage quit if the game didn't end with perma-death.

Fracking friendly Linguine heavy warship follows me into an asteroid field shooting me because I'm too close. EVERY DAMN STEP I take it mirrors and continues to shoot. As far as deaths go, this has been the most aggravating doubly so because I wasn't doing anything wrong, the game just decided to murder my best run yet.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Dammit!

I was playing my own perma-death game on hard, being good and careful, and I was thinking, man, I don't want to give up this game just so I can power-test the new features...

So I found a weapon for sale that was way better than what I had, but I couldn't afford it. I had my first artifact, and it didn't seem to do anything really great, so I thought, "sell the artifact, buy the weapon!"

My mistake was trying to blindly identify it. Threw caution to the wind... and my wrong choice sent out a wave of energy that enraged all nearby aliens. There were Tentaculons. I died.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Heh, Heh!
I guess there is something refreshing when the creator of the game gets smoked every once in a while.:p I haven't even played on normal yet so I'm a looooong way from hard. But I have gambled with artifacts a couple of times and lost both times. BLNT! It's a great game.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

YASD, I guess the random number generator hates me. In was on a delve and I had to pass a trap to get to the next level. The traps goes off and spawns another trap right next to me. And that trap goes off and spawns another trap right next to me. Well three in a row and I'm toast.

TL;DR?

Rocks fall, everyone dies.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Yup,
I've had my away party die rather quickly when three cave-ins happen in succession like that. Ouch!

Re: YASD: via Astral Phoenix
 

Astral Phoenixes (whatever they are) destroyed me in Sector 26, on my best game to date. I thought I was playing pretty well; and pretty carefully/conservatively. However, these things (monsters, a race, whatever ?) were overwhelmingly powerful, and totally inescapable.

I couldn't seem to damage them. I briefly docked with a Bankers station, but was so badly damaged that I could not repair my ship's hull to even half of its regular integrity, despite using all the money I had (and selling everything I could craft). After that, when I tried to make a run for it, I was destroyed in about 3 more shots. Pretty frustrating, I must say.

Does anyone have any suggestions, in case I ever get this far again?

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Well, what is working for me now is a Field Medic Captain (I always send my captain down) to keep the party alive in case they get mauled or diseased, Virology comes later. One engineer for craft construction, another engineer for build it better, and some third class for crafting consultant. This routinely allows me to build better than the best gear offered and armed for bear my survival rate has been significantly better. So far, better gear has been a winning strategy for me.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Ugh. Sector 23, in definitely my best game to date. Doing an away mission where my captain had to go. I had been more or less breezing through away missions, so I wasn't worried. Until, of course, I ran into one of the boss blob monsters. Normally not a problem, but within two turns I was surrounded by the mini blobs. No chance to even make a run for it. So disappointing. But the benefit is now I get to start a new game tonight!

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

I have had many of them. After some of them I decide to enter unexplored sectors above 15-20 with the cloaking device on. I always found a nasty ship trying to kill me (and succeding). Nevertheless last game, maybe the best I have had till now I entered sector 31 without it and found this sort of ship again. My weapons were not bad, but,..... The most painful was one in which I decided not makint the last tentaculons quest in order to explore a lot (instead of trying to acheive victory) and took another one... I continued exploring and in next sector I found death.

I am starting my second game in normal level to see haw far can I go. In my first I was making the tentacoulons quest line but decided to clean a sector of pirates and......something happened to the cloaking device, it deactivated suddenly (noidea at the moment but......

Anyway Im loving playing this game in perma-death mode. It is the first time i am playing a game this way.

The last similar games I played (Frontier: First encounters and Space Empires starfury) were not perma-death and even though it is more comfortable, in the end the perma-death makes me a bit careful and gets me to the game mechanics faster.

Having the pay it forward is also a bonus to accelerate the start of the game, unless you pilot an asteroid miner with a lot of money in sector 1 before reaching the station and you find 3 gruff ships hating you (this really sucks). :mad:

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

First game, first stupid death. I was doing quite well, I thought, with my random character (researcher, light explorer), making my way through sectors 0-2 learning how things work, and how to manage risk. Exploring some planets where there were mainly bunnies and a few carnivorous plants. Feeling very safe and using my captain on away missions. On my way back to the landing craft for air, I try to avoid poison plants but run into one.

Me: "Ok, I'll just stomp it a few times..."

Game: "Achievement unlocked: You should have listened to Riker."

Me :doh:

Wow, I let my caution down briefly and bam! Ok, cool. Time for a new captain...

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Third game, second stupid death.

I was doing really well, I thought, having methodically worked my way up to about sector 40. 53.5k turns. My ship seemed to be up to any challenge, and my away team too, if we were reasonably careful, which I thought I was.

I started the game (after losing my first two to losing the captain on away teams) with the idea the captain would only go on safe away team missions, or when necessary. However I relaxed this policy, and then started regularly including everyone in order to get the most experience.

So my captain was exploring a cave level, just making sure I haven't missed anything on the level, and thinking to save a little time, I tried going around into the last unexplored area via a side with a known cave-in trap, which I set off on purpose... it caved in my path BEHIND me... and the dark area turned out to no contain any way forward, even through there was another path into it from the other side, it didn't connect.

No way to dig through the rubble... looks like we're all going to asphyxiate together. :ahh:

Now I don't have to worry whether the next patch will be reverse-compatible with saved games, though... :cool:

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Fourth game; third stupid death:

I had wondered for a while why I never found the spatial anomaly I was told to investigate in sector 21. I'd looked for it a couple of times before. I went to look, and found it in a nebula surrounded by a mob of Tentaculon explorers, blocking access. So I shot one... not very carefully, and even after all the others fired at me, I tried to grab the anomaly and use the nebula to escape... bad move. I wasn't thinking straight. So I got shredded by a mob of angry scientists, and rightly so.

Re: YASD: Yet Another Stupid Death
 

Excepting being beaten by my own curiosity (I know I shouldn't flip those Star Temples switches each time I die because of it), I encountered my first really uncalled-for death in my best game so far, in sector 17.

My brilliant captain and his staff of two officers were tasked, back in sector 15, with their first bounty hunting mission ever. Intrigued by the premise and pretty confident our miner ship was up to the task, we headed that way. After scouring the sector for a while, we met our target, the Valourous Adad, a refitted Vordalene scout that looked much larger now that she was right in front of us. Shots were fired and when the ship tried to escape through a nearby massive asteroid belt, we pursued her ; the fight was epic, both ships not missing a single shot despite the chaotic nature of our fighting field. Oh Adad was indeed valourous. The climax was upon us : both our ships' shields were down, it was now a matter of... *PLOP*
Our ship had disappeared bellow us, just like that, leaving us stranded in space.
Looking at the ship's log with our last breath of oxygen, we discover some opportunist merc hunter hailed us, the next second taking our then still healthily armoured ship out of existence with a weapon of a new type, all this out of our sensors' range.

At least, now I have a nemesis to hunt for in all of my future games (though I doubt I'll survive the next encounter either XD