Possible bug (major effect in the game!)?

Fyron · #1 February 14th, 2003, 01:43 PM

The most likely explanation is that a Stellar Manipulation was used. Either the star blew up, the system was turned into a nebula, or a black hole was created. Check carefully for those things in the area.

dogscoff · #2 February 15th, 2003, 02:08 AM

Could they have hit a third player's minefield?

[ February 14, 2003, 12:10: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Karibu · #3 February 15th, 2003, 02:20 AM

There was no third party minefields, I am sure of that. I would have known it. Also there was enough minesweepers in the fleet to take any amount of mines. Also system was not turned into nebula, black hole, etc. Only thing that happened was that fleet disappeared.

dogscoff · #4 February 15th, 2003, 02:33 AM

OK then... maybe a third player used crew insurrection to grab a few of the more powerful ships in the fleet (maybe carriers?), and then there was a battle in which most of the ships were destroyed.

If it's a psychic race using allegiance subverters, then there might have been a subvert-o-fest, which could have resulted in a very destructive battle.

PsychoTechFreak · #5 February 14th, 2003, 03:32 PM

Other possible causes:
- Ships can be scrapped, no matter about the number of them. Everything you need is a spaceyard, and I guess in this case it could have been a SY component of just one of the ships

- Can ships be hidden in a fleet or do you always see the number of ships in a fleet?

- Part of the fleet could have been sent to an obscuring sector storm (I often like to do things like this)

- Random events.

[ February 14, 2003, 13:35: Message edited by: PsychoTechFreak ]

Karibu · #6 February 14th, 2003, 03:58 PM

There was no battle in that system what so ever. I'll explain the political situation of the game:

Alliance A includes 2 strong races (A1, A2), which are in war against alliance B. Alliance A races has partnership and they have war only against alliance B and trade with other races in the galaxy.

Alliance B has 3 races (B1, B2, B3). All 3 races have partnership with each other.

Ships which disappeared belonged to player A1. This happened in a system, which is in the left side of the galaxy and deep in a the territory of player B1. All other races were several systems away -> present was only 200+ ships fleet of player A1 and few fighters of player B1.

Now, like I said, player B1 (me) has partnership with ALL the races who have war against player A1 (means Alliance B), which means I know the exact location of all ships which could fight against player A1. Also, members of Alliance B is in constant contact with each other and we negotiate every move we take before submitting our turns.

This is the reason I know there was no other fleet in presence in the system which could have damaged that fleet. I don't think any fleet in the game at the moment could have beaten that fleet. The player A1 is psychic and religious and it uses talisman, suberters and computer viruses himself, so it would have been very difficult to beat him using same weapons (both would steal each other ships).

Though, I grant 1% change that it is possible that one other race (2. biggest in the galaxy, though neutral in the situation) could have brought big enough a fleet to have a combat against player A1. But that player located other side of the galaxy (large or huge map, can't remember. Over 200 systems anyway) and he would have had no benefit of bringing his fleet (through dozens of systems and several players) in a system where he would have gained nothing to fight any player who were in the system and secondly that player needs all his forces to secure his borders against third biggest player in the game.

I could explain even more of the situation and politics but trust me on this, there was no fleet of that size which could have passed into that system unnoticed. Only reason I can imagine is a bug of some sort OR someething went wrong in turn execution OR AI on the other side could do something which normal players could not (like I said before, player skipped his turn and AI took over).

[edit] I grant the possibility of random event. IIRC it was set to catastrophic. I will tell more when I can catch the other player. I hope he answers my mail soon.

[ February 14, 2003, 14:01: Message edited by: Karibu ]

dogscoff · #7 February 14th, 2003, 04:55 PM

Quote:

I know the exact location of all ships which could fight against player A1.

You misunderstand me. I suggested that the fleet could have been in a battle with itself as a result of the crew insurrection intel project:

Player b2 uses crew insurrection to steal 2 or 3 of the more powerful ships in a1's mystery fleet. Battle begins, and because the insurrected ships are armed with allegiance subverters, they capture even more of a1's ships, which capture more ships... this kind of thing can and does happen.

Soon b2 has almost as many ships in the sector as a1, and they have all used their allegiance subverters, so they resort to regular weapons and blow the crap out of one another, leaving only a handful of ships alive.

While a random event is technically possible, I can't think of any that would destroy nearly 200 ships at once - one or two ships yes, 200 no.