The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I have begun development on a UQM gameplay modification, using the GPL source. The fork will, of course, be GPLed as well. I really don't want to bother the current developers with something this divergent, so I'm preparing to start my own project. Any help / suggestions would be appreciated.

Modifications in progress:

Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (95% done)
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (0% done)
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)

Game modifications:
1. Better Game / Melee interface
- All ships on both sides enter melee simultaneously; player only controls main ship, but can direct AI ships at specific enemy targets (0% done)
- Fights which do not spawn directly next to a planet never have a planet in the melee; fights which do not spawn in a star system have a much lower chance of having asteroids.
2. Persistent alien ships
- Alien ships spawn from homeworlds on a semi-regular basis, and don't simply 'appear' in hyperspace (except maybe Melnorme, Orz and Arilou) (0% done)
- Once an alien ship spawns, it can enter or leave star systems or fly through hyperspace, land on planets, and go about its business without being deallocated, only chasing the player when triggered (0% done).
- Alien ships have fuel and can run out, must return home to refuel (0% done)
- Similarly, Slylandro actually reproduce based on rules, and can be culled (0% done)
- Alien ships that take damage remain damaged after battle (0% done)
- Alien-on-alien battles are actually fought, and can be stumbled upon and entered in mid-fray (i.e., Ilwrath attacking Pkunk) (0% done)

Story modifications:
1. Orz freak out if taken into Quasispace, start Orz/Arilou war, which leads to discovering and allying with a few surviving Androsynth. (0% done)
2. Precursor artifacts can be found on Rainbow Worlds, allowing for a richer tech tree, and allowing for modules to be added to alien ships as well, a la SC1 (0% done)
3. Black Spathi Squadron
4. Ability to reprogram Slylandro probes to only seek out and disassemble Kor-Ah
5. Allying with Chmrr also allows Chenjesu and Mrmnhrm ships to be built.
6. Allow story arc after end of game (i.e., SC 3 remake done "right")

Anyone willing to volunteer time on this project is welcome to contact me at bdill@qwest.net - I would like to get all Melee modifications first, then the Game modifications, then the Story modifications. Programmers would be helpful, as would artists (although I can do both myself if I have to). Once we enter into Story mode, someone who can produce speech for the new story arcs that segways well into the existing game voices will be absolutely crucial. If I can't get that, then I'll probably just stop development and release after finishing all Melee and Game modifications.

I like:

- Fights which do not spawn directly next to a planet never have a planet in the melee; fights which do not spawn in a star system have a much lower chance of having asteroids.
2. Persistent alien ships  
- Alien ships spawn from homeworlds on a semi-regular basis, and don't simply 'appear' in hyperspace (except maybe Melnorme, Orz and Arilou) (0% done)
- Once an alien ship spawns, it can enter or leave star systems or fly through hyperspace, land on planets, and go about its business without being deallocated, only chasing the player when triggered (0% done).
- Alien ships have fuel and can run out, must return home to refuel (0% done)
- Similarly, Slylandro actually reproduce based on rules, and can be culled (0% done)
- Alien ships that take damage remain damaged after battle (0% done)
- Alien-on-alien battles are actually fought, and can be stumbled upon and entered in mid-fray (i.e., Ilwrath attacking Pkunk) (0% done)  

and

2. Precursor artifacts can be found on Rainbow Worlds, allowing for a richer tech tree, and allowing for modules to be added to alien ships as well, a la SC1 (0% done)
3. Black Spathi Squadron
4. Ability to reprogram Slylandro probes to only seek out and disassemble Kor-Ah
5. Allying with Chmrr also allows Chenjesu and Mrmnhrm ships to be built.
6. Allow story arc after end of game (i.e., SC 3 remake done "right")


I'm iffy about:

1. Orz freak out if taken into Quasispace, start Orz/Arilou war, which leads to discovering and allying with a few surviving Androsynth. (0% done)


- All ships on both sides enter melee simultaneously; player only controls main ship, but can direct AI ships at specific enemy targets (0% done)


And I absuloutly hate:




Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics  
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (95% done)
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage  
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay  
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (0% done)
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)


Those last will compleatly unballance the game and change the ship realations and generly screw things up.

That's fair, and I intend to play-balance afterwards as much as I can to avoid these sorts of issues. Additionally, I'm anticipating re-releasing *two* forks, one with the more 'wacky' melee mods, and one without. Obviously, certain melee mods [like multiple ships at once] are necessary for some of the game mods [like multiple ships at once], but some of them should be toggleable, so you can play in "pure" SC2 mode, or the new mode. It's not my intention to make the game unplayable or screw up too much of the playbalance; I fell in love with the ships the first time around because of how fast-paced and balanced they were. However, I DO want to try something different...

You get bonus points for enthusiasm, but a fork at this point could be considered "premature"; you could spend undue amounts of time re-integrating features from the main tree into your code at this point, especially considering the frequency with which the main tree changes at this (still early) stage of development.  But if you're OK with that, then it's not a problem, I reckon..

But when you consider that alot of what you are working on could be applied to TimeWarp (http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/timewarp/), and that they would probably love the help, I'm led to wonder aloud if your efforts might be, erm, "misplaced".

Also, since you give the outward appearance of "knowing what you are doing", I would ask in as polite a manner as I can why you would fork the codebase at this point in time rather than pitch in and help fix some of the outstanding bugs (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/bugs/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED) in the current tree.

Just my $0.02 USD.  Ignore as appropriate.

So you'd prefer new ideas go to breaking our stuff before breaking UQM, eh?  

totally jking, come on by anytime.  Maybe the stuff you're talking about could be a new gametype for TW, Brent.

Heh,heh. Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. :)

I DO want to use the UQM tree as my base, however, because my primary goal is to create a new way to play the original SC2 storyline. TW seems cool, and there might be a way to integrate them, but first I'd like to look into making a standardized sort of 'physics module' and 'ship module' that could be loaded into both projects. It might be interesting to allow for dynamic module loading, like in FPS games such as Quake 3 - so you could pick from a set of menus what sort of game you want to play.

In my oppinion the part of sc2 that needs fixing/improvement the most is the part that becomes incredibly boring after a while: the lander subgame / mining stuff. I think one way to improve it would be to introduce several new classes of life forms that are non-biological and as such don't earn you credits with the melinorm (in order to preserve game balance). These classes would be as follows: Energy based organism (like in star trek), would only occur on supperheated / very electrical planets, Silicon based organism:  would only occur on supperheated / very electrical planets, Ice / very cold organism (I'm thinking something like a round slushy lake that if you paused on top of for more than a moment tentacles would erupt from the ice in a circle around you and start to trap you) would only occur on very cold planets, Insectiod / hive organism semi-intelligent: would occur on 1 or 2 themed planets and would give credits , would have a queen organism and worker and warrior organisms. Various special abilities (ranged weapons/ energy blasts could be assigned to some of these creatures).

Hey, I'm totally behind you, Brent, on your enthusiasm (sp?) and willingness to jump into this one. I'd love to play your modified melee physics if you don't mind making that available to all us lazy arse buggers who have never tried to get a compiler to run on our system.

Why don't you register your name and stay a while?

Also I think the Orz in Quasispace plot should be handled very carefully to avoid disrupting the sense of mystery sourounding the Orz/Androsinth. I think it should go something like this: when you enter Quasispace with an Orz ship with you yellow waves of energy should begin rippling across Quasispace and *rips* should begin to appear and disappear around you. If you go through one of these new *rips* you should fall into a pocket dimension (with a groovy wavy blue background) with a bunch of space monsters which you have to kill to get back out to Quasispace. After you fall though several of these rips in Quasispace you should end up in one with a derelict Androsinth ship floating around and if you board the ship you should be treated to a "lander" report similar to the following: Something about having explored the ship and finding no crew on board and no bodys and finding a heavily damaged captains log which should give some description of having received orders to test a expiermental IDF drive and coming to this pocket dimension and the IDF drive breaking down and the ship falling under attack by ghost energy beings and then the log should become fragmentary and say something about crew becoming posesed and then something about "I'm going to try to abandon ship" and then "Oh my God, their coming!" and then it should end. You should be able to take the Androsinth ship back to the starbase and bild more of that kind of ship. Also you should be able to avoid the *rips* in Quasispace fairly easily so as not to unbalance the game for people who like to fly around with a large Orz fleet (me  ;D ) and if you go to the Arilo homeworld they should act really mad at you for bringing the Orz to Quasispace but should still fulfill their part of the plot (giving you the portal spawner / information).

I'll have a link posted to a Win32 EXE within the hour. :)



I'll also do this within the hour. I'm at work right now, and I registered to my home email.

That's sort of my idea. Sort of. Basically, when you take an Orz ship into QuasiSpace, it just... disappears. Afterwards, the Orz all act even weirder than before, and around the Androsynth homeworld, ANOTHER Quasispace portal starts appearing once every few days - except instead of green, it's black. If you enter any of these rifts, you enter an area of completely blank, black space - no stars, no warp eddies, nothing. Floating somewhere in this will be a lone Androsynth ship, with a lone crewman on board, who is paranoid and psychotic. If you can convince him to join you, you gain the ability to make Androsynth ships, but from that point onwards strange and deadly phenomena start occuring throughout the galaxy - things like invisible ships, crew dying for no reason, and the Arilu and Orz being really, really mad at you.

Ah, there we go. So, I'll have a link to my new code and Win32 exe in this thread tonight.

Here you go, buggy as hell right now, but a good demonstration: http://www.wherethesundontshine.net/uqm2.zip

Oh dear..... This one goes into the hall of shame in my games..... Poor mmrmhrnm you can play with him only for few sec until the game crashes. Poor earthling he goes into superspeed and starts to nuke himself. Poor chmmr, the satelites went crazy....
In fact poor all ships!!! Especially the fast ones!! The pkunk got crazy!!! Not to mention the thraddash with full speed!! WTF you did there??!?!??! >:( >:( >:(

Oh now I get it!!! This was a joke right? Where is the real file?

Hence "buggy as hell". ;) Gimme a break, I've been at this for less than 5 hours. I'll post a somewhat fixed version momentarily, although it will still have quite a bit of... erm... crunch.

I have changed my post endlessly. Read it now. Final version unless ill find more bugs...

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Well if anyone saw my thread "ships from best to worst" I change the orz nemesis rate to first!!!!!! The marine troopers there move faster than thraddash with full speed!!!!!!! And the nemesis itself too!!! LoL, ok the sa-matra goes back to first, damn those fire balls are quick!!!!!!!! And the dyniarii looks like chineese dude!!! Thanx for making this great mod!!!! Hours to laugh!!!

You really should make this from the current cvs tree, for zip file support and such...

An addition that would fit right in to this would be Starflight style trading.  Different races with various race/planet specialty goods as well as more common goods and trade routes that you could come up with on your own or buy information on, etc.

For moderating the high speeds of ships, you might want to have engines only give full acceleration when they haven't been used for a while -- while you thrust, a timer is counting up. While you are not thrusting, it counts down. If the timer exceeds some value, then the effectiveness of your thrust diminishes somewhat.

That way, pkunk can be very evasive -- sudden high acceleration and all that -- but only if they haven't been pedal-to-the-metal the whole time.

Just an idea...

Death what he did there is hopeless... Just play it and start laughing  ;D ;D ;D

Well, I have seen fully inertial games work before. However, they typically had low long-term accelerations. This would help with that. On the other hand, they also had high weapons ranges, which Star Control does not, in general.

Grr. Forum's not letting me log in.



You know, I can accept that you didn't like what I've got so far. Fine. But please stop being an ass about it.

Well, he does have the point that the ships were meticulously balanced towards the physics they started in. Coercing them into any relativistic system (i.e. Galileian relativity) really eliminates an assymmetry and parameter on which they had relied for game balance.
SOME solution needs to be made, and it will have to be fairly drastic.

I do agree that the objections have been phrased rather abrasively.

I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I started this thread. I hope that anyone interested in this project will continue to provide feedback as I continue to develop the gameplay, so the final product will be something agreeable to all parties. I WANT to keep playbalance, and your idea of having thrusters 'overheat' after a certain duration at full throttle is an excellent idea, and one I had not thought of. I'll try implementing it tonight.



That's the entirety of my problem, here. I have zero problem with constructive criticism; I merely request that it be civil, and actually constructive.

I'm surprised no one else has said this--I support Brent's physics modifications 100%.  They'd be freaking sweet!  At last fast ships have a REAL advantage, that is, a cumulative delta-V increase over slower ones.  No longer can an Ur-Quan use a pincer move with fighters!  The projectile bit--THANK YOU.  No single element of SC1 and 2 annoys me more.  The stuff about no plants and no asteroids in deep space is, in a word, brilliant, simply because there's literally nothing out there.  Of all the things SC2 does well, capturing the vastness and emptiness of space is definitely not one of them.  I'm not so sure about his other ideas, namely multiple ships on screen at once (if implemented correctly it'd be a whole new game, but it'd be a bitch to pull off), but Brent, go with your original physics ideas.  They'll completely overhaul the game into something much better.

I agree with Death. Constructive Criticism = Good. Abrasiveness and assishness = *frumple*. Modding a game and balancing it is VERY hard work and is VERY time consuming. Until you try, do not bitch.

Physics Suggestions: A speedometer, with red/yellow values indicating dangerous speed? Perchance when you reach the end of the map, instead of wrapping around you can orbit the map? that way nobody is cornered? being cornered would sucka. Maybe when you reach the edge you can keep flying and have the option to either orbit or hyperjump out of battle, having left the planet's gravwell?

Earthling Cruiser missiles oughta have a huge range, same with all tracking projectiles. Recommend range increases in general to compensate for speed increase. Playtesting to ensue, perchance? I've done a little bit of tweaking, and the Yehat railguns will need increased bullet speed and bullet range, or else you'll never hit anything. Probably that is true for most other ships with rapid fire projectiles as well. Collisions, for ships that ram like the ZFP and the Shofixti, will also be tough at higher speeds.

The suggestion to have acceleration be available in bursts seems good, too. I am totally behind ye, Brent! Good luck, mate.

Ok, I'll try to relax... But you have to understand me. Seeing the chmmr flying with ultra speed and his satelites trying to catch up with him is a little bit funny  ;D

By the way, I have only checked the melee part because the game crashes one minute after I start any type of game. Some of your ideas are brilliant but you MUST change the melee horror you did.

Ooohhh my.. you'll have a lot of work to do with this. It's not just the way the ships act now, it's the way their weapons act.

- For some strange reason Ilwrath's flame and Pkunk's bullets are getting some extra speed from the ship which gives them greater range when firing at the dircetion they're going. I guess that's easy to deal with cause other ships (Ur-Quan, Yehat, Utwig) are ok with great speeds so all you have to do is see how it's done with them.

- The Chmmr zapsats should be bound to the ship like Kohr-Ah's F.R.I.E.D flame, or maybe they need better acceleration, or maybe you didn't disable their speed limit.

- Mycon's plasmoids which can accelerate to looney speeds make the podship invincible, but the Earthling cruiser's nukes dont accelerate so they wont be able to reach the enemy ship and are likely to kill the crusier.

- Ditto Orz's marines and Quan's fighters.

And there's one thing that unbalances the game like hell:
Arilou and Slylandro. They don't accelerate. Arilou has two modes: moving and standing still, while Slylandro is just moving. This means they can only go at one speed. They were the fastest now they are the slowest.

The overheating thruster is a good idea but it wont help with mentioned problems. All it would do is make the accelerating bit slower. Besides Pkunk's and Ilwarth's bullets act looney even at low speeds. And I dont know what are you going to do with Mycon's plasmoids...

Well, I wish you good luck anyway.

... it's called inertia. Galileian relativity. This is how it SHOULD act... Also, I think the Thraddash will be a lot more powerful in this version, because they can fling their fire all over the place.



How about have missiles only have a certain amount of delta-v on board, and make them prefer to use it to track (lateral acceleration, with (acceleration)•(displacement to target) == 0) rather than simply accelerate toward the target...

Well... yes I understand, but shouldn't the range be LOWER when facing forwards (to the direction you're heading) and HIGHER when facing backwards.
Maybe I'm wrong but it feels strange to see a projectile fired backwards that's not only heading forwards but also getting ahead of you.
Aiming doesn't realy have much sense when your bullets are heading where you're heading and not where you're aiming.

You're right - a lot of the ships already had specific inertial code, and when I added my own generic inertial code, it doubled it for all the ones that already had it. This is fixed in the new version, which will be released tonight.

Relative to your ship they should be exactly the same as each other.



Well, were you thrusting to decelerate while this was going on? i.e. were you flying backwards, firing and thrusting at the same time?

If only the HAVOK physics engine was freely usable for non-commercial software to use.

Several of the existing bugs have been fixed, and several new ones have been introduced. ;)

The game now runs natively in 640x480 (instead of 320x240); tihs causes several of the menus to mis-align, and causes the planet navigation screen to be unusable. Please only test this in melee!

http://www.wherethesundontshine.net/uqm_frenzy.zip

*Jumping Peppers!* The second part of the comedy has arrived!!!!! Now I will tell you my review...:

Wow!!! The greatest game ever!!!!! I love it so much. It starts black, you see some letters behind and boom!! The final ending!!!! Brilliant!

Btw: Could someone send me the file uqm.exe, I accidently erased it... I thought that if I will erase the uqm2.exe file the uqm_frenzy.exe file will work. But oh well... (Damn cow mouse) Groz_F@hotmail.com

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Does it not load? Does it crash? Does it exit out silently? Any details would be appreciated.

It starts loading, and then it says something in the console, but I can't read it(somehow the pause break key doesn't stop it). My suggestion is that you will make the program to create a log after every run to see what was the problem.

Bizzare.

You should be able to type 'uqm_frenzy.exe > output.log'  to make it send to a logfile... I haven't tried it myself, but if it's outputting to stdout, it should work.

If not, then I'll switch from stderr to stdout when I get home.

Well, whenever it's in a more finished form, I can do some voice work for you.

I can also make web pages if you need that.

How? I have 1 sec to write it before the window closes up!

Type it in a command prompt window before starting UQM, not after.

Ok, since it create a log file but it is empty(!!!) I will try to manualy write it  :-/

"The Ur-Quan Masters v0.24 <compiled Aug 20 2003 01:21:48> ( Get some sleep man!!!!)
Saved games are kept.....(not important).....
Initializing SDL <pure>.
SDL driver used: windib
SDL initialized.
Initializing Screen.
Set the resolution to : 640x480x16
Initializing SDL audio subsystem.
SDL audio subsystem initialized.
Initializing MixSDL mixer.
MixSDL using driver 'SDL_audio'
MixSDL Mixer initialized
      opened dsound at 44100 Hz 16 bit stereo, 4096 samples audio buffer
Initializing sound decoders.
Sound decoders initialized.
50 joysticks were found.

(well I'll get to the main part)

23 errors encountered in key configuration file.
Hey! you haven't updated your keys.cfg to use the new system, have you?
Delete keys.cfg and try again. ( Well I did and nothing happened)
If you've done that and it STILL doesn't work, make sure your contect/starcon.key is up todate."

Well it is up todate!!!!!!! Help!!!!

Btw: Again, please someone send me the NORMAL uqm.exe file to groz_f@hotmail.com. Thank you

Dude, can't you download it from Striker?

What do you want from me? I just wrote what it says ( btw sorry I accidently wrote 50 instead of 0. hehe :))

Aha! That error is due to a configuration file change from 0.2 to the latest version (They did it, not me). Find where your savedgames are kept, and delete keys.cfg - it will re-create it and you'll be in business (although strangely, it will re-map your fire button from the 'space' key to 'shift' key).

It should be somewhere in 'documents and settings', but it may change based on your OS.

Read again please.

Then you didn't delete the right one. Do a global search on your hard drive, then look at each one to see if it's in a 'uqm' directory, and if it is, delete it. Please make sure not to delete anything you don't want to ;)

What you think I am a moron or something? I have deleted BOTH file, the one in the uqm dic and the other one in the documents and setting dic.

Well, the Melee modifications are almost finished. The current specification is as follows:

Melee modifications:
1. Updated physics  
- Inertia-based ships use true inertia and have no maximum velocity (100% done)
note: This still isn't technically TRUE inertia; what I've actually done is added 128 to all ships' maximum speed - since ship speeds were originally spread out between 16 and 64, this means that ships' maximum velocities are now spread between 144 and 192.
- All projectiles spawn with velocities relative to the firing ship's (100% done)
note: With speeds so much higher, tracking projectiles had to have their entire physics revamped. I've currently adjusted the human and spathi missiles to be inertial, with the same parameters as above - this has resulted in much less accurate projectiles, which I'm working on solving.
- Ship-to-ship collisions can cause slight damage at high speeds (50% done)
2. Ship Damage  
- Tech-based ships measure damage in armor instead of crew (15% done)
- Ships can take 'critical hits' which destroy components or kill crew (0% done)
- Crew can repair armor and critical damage; the more crew, the faster the repair (0% done)
3. Gameplay  
- Multiple ships on-screen at once (0% done)
- Larger arena (2 more zoom-outs) (100% done)
Note: because ranges and speeds are so much higher now, I've doubled-to-tripled all weapon ranges. This has resulted in some interesting game-balance artifacts, which I'm attempting to address.
- manual control of zoom-out (0% done)
- no wrap-around; leave the battle if you fly far enough away from enemy ships (0% done)
Note: I may be abandoning this idea.

Thanx that sounds really good but It worth to **** if I can't load the game!!! Help me please.

Several people have already explained what you need to do; we can't help you any further.

Several=you only. You told me what to do and I told you that it is already done! So since YOU created this mod YOU should solve problem like this one. Don't help if you don't want to. But then again, for who you are doing this?

My desire to help you is inversely proportional to your abrasiveness. I have explained what you need to do politely, and you continue to show far more audacity than brains.

When I first read, I thought Death_999 was also explaining a solution, but I see he was talking about how to get your original UQM.EXE back. Incidentally, why did you delete it? Both of my files were renamed to something OTHER than UQM.EXE, precisely to avoid this sort of silliness.

Uqm.exe and Uqm2.exe aren't that much diffrent.

Yes, but the point is, they are far apart enough that no operating system in the universe will confuse them.

As I was saying, if you want your original uqm.exe back, download one from striker!

Now, back on subject:

The idea of providing a (much higher) maximum velocity seems like a good idea just for stability's sake. Also, you might want to make sure that collision detection at very high speeds is maintained.

Is it so hard to send me 1 file? Instead of downloading the game again?

You don't have to download the entire game. Just download the install file (2mb), uncheck everything you can in the install screen, tell it to install to a different folder than where you have UQM and walah! It will install just the exe file to that folder. Copy the new uqm.exe file over to your UQM folder and your set!

Ok, I know what is the problem but I need some help. Where can I download the patch for 0.24v?

Jiffa: Do you know what FAQ means? You'd be surprised what wonderful and useful information you can find in one. I suggest you read the Technical Issues FAQ (http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Techissues;action=display;num=1055809834) before you ask another question which requires the answer "RTFM" (or RTFFAQ if you want to be technical about it).

I am in support of at least some of the things you are doing.  I would be happy to help with content if necessary: I could be a voice actor, and I certainly have friends who could be.  I don't really know what I think about severe modifications to the plot, but I am sort of an "idea guy" like that; one my biggest hobbies is writing D&D campaigns.
I actually have a whole mess of ideas for a 'real' SC3, with new races and their ships, etc etc, so if this idea goes anywhere, I would be happy to work on this with you/whoever else.

Honestly, I think you should probably wait or help out for a less buggy UQM to come out before you start worrying about mods.  You can't really mod a game that's on v0.2 :P

*nods* and I DO hope to help the official game as much as possible; I'm just experimenting with the codebase right now to get a better understanding of it all.

Hey, drop me a line @ darktemplar11@hotmail.com Zonga, I could voice the Androsynth lunatic for you  :)
*insert madman inflection as you see fit*
Insane Androsynth: "They're here...no...not yet...What?! A HUMAN. You have...found me...but...it is possible that...they....THEM....they have found you too... I bet they have...yes...look at them...clawing at you...tearing you apart from the inside....what? You can't see them? You can't feel them? You must be....tough...human...you...your kind...we were once your slaves, but....now...now it doesn't matter...."

Zelnick: 1:"So the Orz didn't kill off the Androsynth. They just drove them mad."
2:"Yea, we owned you guys like barnyard animals. Still got a problem with that?"
3:"What the hell? An Androsynth? I thought you guys were all dead!"

IA: Reply1: "No...not dead...taken...to a terrible place...Human...if you believe in Hell...we've been there...the voices...the ghosts....AGGHH!!! GET THEM OFF!!! HEEEELLLPP MEEEE!!!!"
Reply2: "N-no...human...just....get me out of here!!!....They-them...those that are....behind you...that surround you...you cannot see, but I do....they are there, waiting....for you to notice....then...they attack...like savage beasts...NNOO!! NOT AGAIN!! AAIEEEE!! GET THEM AWAY!!!!"
Reply3: "Worse than dead....human....they drove us...worse than...humanity did....to our limits...and past...now..we are but shells....my race...is....held captive...I don't know...where...why...but I am still here....and I also don't know why....they haven't taken....me....yet...they must enjoy...the torture of a lone-NO....Here they come again....for me....Human! HELP!!! AGGHHHHHHHHKK..."

Z:1 "What the...? Where'd all those cuts suddenly come from?"
2: "You're crazy, I think I'll just kill you now and end your suffering."
3: "Easy, easy, nothing is there to hurt you. Hey...have you been cutting yourself?"

IA: Reply1: "GNH!...Oooohhhh...Human...them, the ones that...you cannot see...they mar my body....terrible claws...teeth like razors....their perverse pleasure is....pain...torment of....others....Human...help me....Get me out of this....torture....please...."
Reply2: "Bless your....black soul...human....Kill...me...but...not here...They...will eat me...if I die...."
Reply3: "Noo human....THEM....they cut...slash....mangle....torture....they did this...to my entire race....I....cannot endure....much more myself....please human....help me...before it is....too late...."

Continue this convo the way you'd expect it to go. Note that I kept with the typical linetypes for Zelnick: Helpful, Hateful and Innocently Ignornant. Tell me what you think, I have a couple madman voices; shrill cries-o-madness and deep brooding insanity (this would obviously pitch up a bit when he's being attacked by the Orz-ghost thingies.)

Just like Endril, I'm a D&D guy, and I've roleplayed since I was about 6, so I know how to act a bit.

Hey Endril, that reminds me; this is totally off topic, but I used to DM quite a bit and I've got a great cursed weapon for you.

Ever heard of the Bloodmace, the one that's +3 when immersed entirely in blood, but if not, its' a -3?  Something similar I thought up was either a rapier, longsword or a scimitar that did nearly the same thing, except...

"Gruhk (H-Orc Bar) picks up the wicked looking blade. He examines it, noticing it's intricate weavings along the hilt, and the acute sharpness of the blade. He grabs ahold of the hilt, and instantly, 5 tendrils of metal detach from the guard and pierce into the hand that holds it! (1d8)"
From then on, he needs to bleed down the blade to make the tendrils let go. It's a backlash weapon (adds +1d6 dmg, deals wielder 1d8) but the backlash stat goes away once the blade has been bled down. If you ever need cursed items/traps/etc, ask me, I'm a nut about DMing and my old crew hated it when it was my turn to do it.  ;D

Ok, taking Death_999's advice, I'll post my reply from the melee ideas here.
the uqm_frenzy.exe is next to content (its in the folder above content, you know, with all the .dll's, the original uqm.exe, and the content, user, etc. folders), so I don't know what's happening. The unzip stuck everything (apparently) where it should be, so I'm at a loss.

Try removing the key.cfg file.

Didn't work. :(

Open a command prompt and type 'uqm_frenzy.exe', and tell me what it says - usually there's some sort of error, or at least a partial load-list.

Well I guess I'll rewrite it.

I load it that way and it tells me I've got the stuff in the wrong dir, although Winzip unpacked everything where it said it ought to be. ???

Gonna be gone a few days: over at the GF's new house, allll alone w/ her. ;)

Two things.

First and the most important. Does the frenzy works on 3.0? If not please "update" it to 3.0

Second, necro, try to update to 3.0 (If the frenzy works on 3.0) then It will probably work.