Worst "oops" moments in PBW?

Slick · #1 March 31st, 2003, 05:36 PM

This was a long time ago in a PBEM game, but it still hurts. I had a good sized fleet guarding one of my newly established systems. The fleet was self-sustaining and included 2 spaceyard ships. The area was pretty isolated and hadn't had any activity for a while and I had a spy sat in the next system so I decided to mothball the fleet because I was running into a resource crunch. I intended to keep it mothballed for only a few turns. Well, I learned the hard way that a spaceyard ship can mothball itself but can't unmothball itself - you need a non-mothballed spaceyard in the same sector to do that. When my spy sat saw a teensy tiny fleet in the next system it was time to unmothball the fleet so I could apply foot to ***. After a level 8 tantrum, I realized the unmothball problem and that there was no way I could get a spaceyard ship to the fleet in time. You guessed it, the entire fleet was destroyed by a pack of mosquitoes without so much as firing a spit-ball in return.

Never made that mistake again.

Slick.

Gandalph · #2 March 31st, 2003, 07:20 PM

I had to play a turn over again once because someone messed up or something, and when I did, I forgot about the fleet of 175 ships in the Blackhole system. Next turn, they're gone.

Ed Kolis · #3 March 31st, 2003, 11:35 PM

Galactic Concordium (forget who was playing that empire) controlled the eastern half of the galaxy, the SMR-10 Imperium (Tesco) and Bunbunn (Geo) controlled the west, and the Meklars (me) were squeezed in the middle; the three western empires had an alliance against the Concordium and were freely sharing ships and resources (you have spare minerals? here, I'll give you all my ships, I can't afford the maintenance, then I can build more for you! Hey, when one empire controls half the galaxy you're allowed to do stuff like that!

) So anyway we had amassed a combined armada of about 300-500 battleships and baseships, and I also had 60 more ships tagging along. We opened a warp point into the Tudran system on the border of Concordium space and entered... Well, it turns out the devious Concordium player, bless his heart, had a sun destroyer sitting on the sun with sentry orders just waiting for us! KABOOOM!!! All 500 ships, destroyed... all that remained was a nebula, and my 60 ships that had apparently entered the system just AFTER the explosion. (I tried to take advantage of the situation by probing into Concordium space, but unfortunately their other systems were well-guarded and even 60 battleships and baseships couldn't dent their defenses.) The Concordium later used the Tudran system as a staging ground for their attacks - they had 10 warp points all in one sector and guarded them with about 300 baseships and starbases, so no one could get in, and the rest of the empire had grav-shields up so we couldn't open warp points in!

Probably the dumbest thing I did, though, was after I'd opened a warp from Xiria to Tudran, I closed it again fearing an attack would come through - I later wanted to send a drone launcher to Tudran and launch drones out of nowhere (hoping the Concordium didn't have any penetrating scanners) but by then there were already 10 warps in Tudran... that was about the time Geo, Tesco, and I surrendered... now who was it who was playing the Concordium anyway? Hornet X1 had them originally, but I can't remember who took over...

minipol · #4 April 1st, 2003, 01:18 AM

Putting a sundestroyer on the sun to toast an incoming fleet? WOW, what a move. This is something i would have never thought about. Brilliant!

Krsqk · #5 April 1st, 2003, 01:18 AM

Oh, how about just plain forgetting the rules of the game? Like in The Hunt, where you're dead if you lose your homeworld, and I forget to build any defenses on it? Or put ships over it? Or build any satellites? Here you go, partner, have a free rest of the empire!

Of course, I saw it coming, but I still forgot the rules and decided to retrofit my fleet "so I could thrash his homeworld after he got mine." I was somewhat disappointed with the results.

I felt every bit the doofus I was.

[ March 31, 2003, 23:23: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Slynky · #6 April 1st, 2003, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by minipol:
Putting a sundestroyer on the sun to toast an incoming fleet? WOW, what a move. This is something i would have never thought about. Brilliant!

Doesn't always work, it seems. Late in the game, when everyone has those destroyers and speedy ships, detonating one when a fleet is at the warphole won't do the trick...they have to be at least one sector inside (from the wormhole). I know...I detonated one and the fleet fled back out.

PvK · #7 April 2nd, 2003, 05:03 AM

In the one game I've lost so far in the Universe Cup PBW tournament, I had just researched level 2 minesweepers and cruisers and had just deployed my first offensive fleet equipped with a fair number of them - enough to sweep a large but not the largest minefield, and decided to risk an attack on an enemy planet with my main fleet...

BOOM

Nothing left. I thought there may have been a bug in the mine calculation, and went so far as to ask my opponent if he thought my fleet should've been vaporized by the mines.

Well, guess what? My new class of minesweepers which I had been mass-producing were in fact high-tech jam-packed mineLAYERS, which thought they were minesweepers! ARGH!

That wasn't why I lost, though.

PvK