The oddest thing happened on the way to Orion...

[Ianus]

I've been thinking about starting this thread for a while now and given the silence around here maybe this will breathe some life into the forum. Or maybe I'll just talk to myself. Either way.

This thread is dedicated to tales of weird things seen in Master of Orion. Strange occurrences, unexplained happenings, funny coincidences, anything that makes you pause the game and think "Huh, that's funny..."
I've only got a few that come to mind but I'd love to hear others.

[Ianus]

One time I had reduced an enemy to a single planet and had ships parked in orbit to kill new ships as he built them while waiting for the next election. I had destroyed his entire fleet so there were no enemy ships returning to the planet. Then after production space combat began because new ships had been built at the colony. But there were TWO DIFFERENT SHIPS there! One was a medium hull (maybe a missile boat?) and the other was a large Colony Ship.

At the time I couldn't explain it but since coming here I've seen mention of the AI getting free colony ships, so I guess that must be what happened, though I don't really understand the details of how it happened. I was so shocked that I still remember it more than a year later.

[Ianus]

In my last game on a small galaxy with 5 opponents I had the Silicoids get the first population notice (3 planets) at the end of turn 4(!!!!). That is after the news report it was 2305. And there I was just having settled my second planet, which just happened to be Ultra Poor thank you very much!

[Ianus]

This isn't in quite the same vein as the others but it is fresh in my mind so I'll include it.

I just played (and won) the hardest game I can remember playing. Klackons, Impossible, Medium, opponents Psilons, Silicoids, Humans, Alkari, Bulrathi. I got a decent corner start with two other habitable planets nearby and the rest various hostilities, but with three Ultra Rich planets, Dead, Toxic and Radiated I think. Obviously I was excited to get into the Planetology tree, so much so that once I finished my opening research (both Terraforming +10 and Improved Eco) I kept funding Planetology research with three extra clicks from each other field once I opened up research. So I started up the Planetology tree. And kept climbing... And kept climbing... When I got to Cloning I started to worry but pressed on. At Terriforming +50 I knew something was wrong. When I FINISHED Terriforming +50 and saw my options I knew I was in trouble. Not one single Controlled Environment tech did I have! I thought that the game had safeguards to avoid situations like that, but apparently not.

I considered quitting but did not. Then the Psilons came along with Death Spores, wiped out my third colony and settled it themselves. Since I still had no navy and the brains were just SLIGHTLY ahead in tech I let the have it. So I sat on my two colonies (100 and 90 respective base sizes) and watched the other resident superpower the Silicoids claim all of those awesome Ultra Rich planets around my start.

It took me ages to tech up enough to even take on the weaker races, but I finally did, and managed to steal Controlled Radiated from the Humans I think. From there I kept fighting until I could consume the other races. I finally caught the Psilons in the Advanced techs and won the 2750 election against the 12 planet Psilons and the 1 planet Humans. I owned everything else. Then I got mad, reloaded the game and crushed the Psilons in about 12 turns while their own crazy fleets were burning down all of my colonies they could reach. What a ride!

I wish I had pictures or more complete notes or something, but I didn't expect to need them at first and then it was too late.

[WhiteMage]

I have seen tons of weird things in Master of Orion, such as strange occurrences, unexplained happenings, funny coincidences. Mainly bugs and examples of inadequate design, programming, and testing. Here is my favorite, which clearly proves that Einstein is right and Newton is wrong and hence Euclid's work remains in math and not applicable to travelling through the universe:

What is the shortest distance between 2 points? A straight line. Wrong!
On several maps, I have seen that going to and stopping at a planet that is not on the straight line between the 2 points and continuing travel towards the real destination is shorter (in number of turns to get there). Must be some gravitational effects of stars and black holes distorting the 3D space, right? Or maybe dark matter impacting space travel? Hmm, it even impacts the displayed parsec distance between stars. Based on what space? Not Euclidian. Oh, also no Nebula nearby.

I was prepping my next list of bug reports to Kyrub, but he is yet to respond to my previous list, so no rush apparently.

[RefSteel]

Cool idea, Ianus!

At the time I couldn't explain it but since coming here I've seen mention of the AI getting free colony ships, so I guess that must be what happened, though I don't really understand the details of how it happened. I was so shocked that I still remember it more than a year later.

Yup; kyrub discovered the mechanics of this in the course of building his patch. I don't remember if the chance is based on the AI's treasury or total production or what, but each AI gets a chance, every turn, to get a colony ship for free - as long as they have less than 4 total colships across their empire. The appearance of this free ship is completely unrelated to regular shipbuilding, occurring separately and potentially simultaneously. In fact, my experience has been that if there is a colonizable planet within an AI's range, it will sometimes get a free colship already en route to that planet, as if it were being RELOCed from one of that race's worlds to one that race did not own!

(This also explains the "first to three colonies" on turn 4: With a lucky die-roll, especially on Impossible difficutly, the AI can get a free colship, potentially already en route, as soon as turn 1 or 2!)

This isn't in quite the same vein as the others but it is fresh in my mind so I'll include it.

Wow, thanks! That sounds like an epic game! (By the way, once you see Terra +40, Soil Enrichment, or Bio Toxin Antidote in your tree, no further research will reveal a Controlled Environment tech you can't see already.) I recall kyrub finding bugs in the way the game "guarantees" certain techs (I thought Planetary Shields were the ones that were supposed to be guaranteed but weren't - I could be wrong though; it could be these). Still, I'd never seen a game with literally zero Controlled Environment techs before!

Congratulations on a thrilling win!

What is the shortest distance between 2 points? A straight line. Wrong!

Indeed - at least, not at certain distances if there's an alternate route involving movement directly along the map's horizontal or vertical axis. The bug I suspect is responsible is the one Sargon describes here: Sargon's Ship Movement bug analysis

[toddestan]

Speaking of tech tree holes, I had one game as the Darloks against three opponents where my tech tree pretty much lacked any beam weapons. If I remember right I pretty much had nothing better than gatling lasers until after I had stinger missiles. To make it more interesting, my opponents also lacked any good beam weapons (or for whatever reason didn't research them). For a good portion of the game, everyone (even the AI's) pretty much were using missile boat designs. This actually impressed me quite a bit compared to MOO2, where it seemed the AI ship designs always included both a certain amount of beam and missile weapons no matter what, whereas in MOO the AI is smart enough to not include one or the other if the available options would end up being useless.

One funny incident I remember was an ultra-poor hot potato world, which got completely scorched with bioweapons, then got hit with the industrial accident event. So it was a radiated, ultra-poor world, size 10 planet which I figure is the worst planet possible in the game. Didn't stop the AI's from continuing to fight over it either.

A couple of times I've been saved from a stack of doom by the opponents scrapping the fleet en-route.

[MaxPower]

I also thought you were supposed to get either controlled toxic or radiated environments, but in a couple of my lastest games, I never got anything beyond tundra. Anyway, recently playing with the Psilons I invaded a size 300 Sakkra planet. When I checked my spy reports on Lizards techs, I noticed they "only" had +80 terraforming and advanced soil. I assumed you could only have a 300 planet with gaia and +120 terraforming. When I completed +120 myself I just wasn't allowed to terraform it any further. It just read CLEAN.

[haphazard1]

Holes in the tech tree can make for interesting games. I just finished a game as the Meklar where I just could not get ahold of any engines. I had the very first engine upgrade (warp 2, transports still warp 1), and then nothing through warp 8. I did not reach the final rung of the Propulsion tree so maybe warp 9 engines were there, I don't know. Nobody else had decent engines either. So I had these amazing advanced ships with Battle Computer IX, Class IX shields, tritanium armor, top weapons, neutronium bombs -- crawling along at warp 2. It was just sad. The Alkari finally researched warp 5 engines 3 turns before the game ended. Gee, thanks, bird-brains. You couldn't have done that earlier?

[RefSteel]

Holes in the tech tree can make for interesting games. I just finished a game as the Meklar where I just could not get ahold of any engines. I had the very first engine upgrade (warp 2, transports still warp 1), and then nothing through warp 8. I did not reach the final rung of the Propulsion tree so maybe warp 9 engines were there, I don't know. Nobody else had decent engines either. So I had these amazing advanced ships with Battle Computer IX, Class IX shields, tritanium armor, top weapons, neutronium bombs -- crawling along at warp 2. It was just sad. The Alkari finally researched warp 5 engines 3 turns before the game ended. Gee, thanks, bird-brains. You couldn't have done that earlier?

That must have been a really unusual game to play! I love strategic speed, but it occurs to me that a game like this could bring really intriguing and different logistical elements into play. Thanks for describing it -- I hope you enjoyed the game!