The Story...

The following is an email I (Jon) sent to some friends after one of our robot trashing episodes on the development server. John (another player) had some serious problems that evening, prompting me to write this. He then converted it to html for the world to share in. The screen shots were made by replaying the game via the curses based conqreplay program. (1/2003)

Warning Do not try this at home

without adult supervision

Damage Legend:
1-50 Green damage
50 - 80 Yellow Damage
80 - 99 Red Damage
100 - Above Destroyed

Figure 1: John (R3) has a slight problem. The first of many for the evening... Even though he has cloaked his ship, he's still moving, and therefore easy fodder for the robots. Notice Jon (O4) and Dave (F2) are keeping a safe distance.

Figure 2: John is about to die, and he knows this in his heart. Cool explosion(s). Notice Jon (O4) and Dave (F2) are getting the #$%^ out of there.

Figure 3: John dies. <queue up the sad Babylon 5 music.> 189% damage. You have to be doing pretty bad to get killed that good.

Figure 4: Here John is wasting fuel while being chased by a large

number of ships... You'll notice how he has overloaded his

engines, so he can't even cloak now... Being able to use

your engines is an important part of any battle strategy.

Figure 5: the inevitable result of fighting without engines.

Figure 6: John's in trouble again and wasting fuel... Hmmm. How will

this end?

figure 7: He's put up a brave fight. But it doesn't look good... Will

he attack that ship with only 100 fuel?

Figure 8: Yes. But luckily, the robot is severely damaged and running away or he'd be

toast by now with only 5 fuel...

Figure 9: ... it's also a good thing Jon (O4) was there to help when the

robot came back... "Thanks Jon!" ;-)

Figure 10: at a time like this, I usually like to raise my shields...

Important strategy tip: Raise shields when the enemy can

hurt you.

Figure 11: oops. At least the shields were up though! Too bad they were beaten down to 0 by the massive robot onslaught.

Figure 12: here is John's stats after attacking one ship. Not terribly

efficient...

Figure 13: here is a familiar pattern... Think he'll overload his

engines again?

Figure 14: Yes.

Figure 15: another disaster about to strike. 3 seconds later

sees John's ship go up in the "biggest fireball since the

last sun exploded in this part of space." He took most of

the bastards with him though. Maybe we need a new refit

type: Kamakazi.

Figure 16: history repeats itself. Think John will resist the temptation

to fire? Believe it or not, he does, and he survives to fight another day...

Figure 17: here, John sacrifices himeself for the good of all.

Figure 18: Three Klingon robots on his tail, and engine temp rising.... How will it

end? Is it possible to predict?!?

Figure 19: Yes. It always ends in fire.

Figure 20: As the enemy approaches, John decides to vacuum his floor,

or watch TV or something... Notice the shield

indicator and the fact he is still in orbit... Notice how Jon (O4) is getting his ass out of there.

Figure 21: The inevitable, tragic result of failing to pay attention.

Figure 22: It's too painful to watch. So many ships. Such a high engine

temp. Will he escape?

Figure 23: sadly, no.

Start again from Figure 1, and you pretty much have John's play book for the evening. It was a fun game though :)