It's the most awesome thing known to mankind, and now you too can experience it for yourself, absolutely free! All you have to do is the following:

1. Upgrade to a new ship
2. Forget to buy an escape pod or shields (because your last ship had both
3. Go attack a planet with SD
4. Stare at the screen in utter horror as the full magnitude of your stupidity reveals itself.

(sigh) Great way to go from 4th to dead in the rankings. And I was having so much fun, too. (sniffle)

It happens to the best of us. Been a while, but its happened to me. Thats actually what I tell all the players I train. Number 1 thing you do is go from buying the ship straight to a device port, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. You'll be back, just wait 3 days and start over.

Is it just 3 days? I thought you had to wait for the game to reset.

Ah well, I probably won't be back for a while, though that's not your fault. I've been spending too much time on the game and neglecting some other things

No, we thought an out of the game for the duration was a little much. So a 3 day purge rate and then you get to come back and play.
Its easy to let the game steal time from you I cant survive without my aat fix.