The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

OK - How many times have you been traveling through hyperspace and all of a sudden a black circle comes and chases you?

Well, wouldn't be neat if you could chase other ships!!!

I mean like this.

Youa are traveling through hyperspace when you see a black circle leaving a system. You chase it and catch it and it turns out to be a Ur-quan ship that had just finished mining. You enter combat and you get ?1000? RU for destroying it. Or some other ship for any reason.

And what could happen is if it was a mining ship you could go straight to combat. Or choose through to enter combat or let it go or to talk. Maybe a icon below the ship could tell you if it is a mining ship (and is therfore worth more RU's). That way it could acually be implemented because you don't need more voice files.


Then if it were a ally on patrol you could be brought to normal talking procedures as if they had chased you.

If you choose to do combat with a mining ship then maybe the opposing ship could have a handicap of less crew or secondary weapon is no longer usable or or etc. Or it could have no handicap.  

So what do you guys think?

I think thats a fantastic idea, but I dont expect to see it done. It would involve new speach for the minding ships, and other stuff.

That is what I am trying to say - You could not talk to the mining ships or you could talk to them, but it would be like talking to a regular ship that was chasing you or one that you would find in a solar system.

MMMmmm.... Piracy. :)

Exactly!  - But from a non-programmer to a programmer how hard would this be to implement? I mean - you don't need any more speech files and you don't need to reprogram much of hyperspace - so hard hard would it be?

Also any suggestions regarding the idea would be welcome!

how about 2 different types of black orbs, chassers, and chassies.

How about instead of orbs, ships? With turning rate and stuff... it will be more realistic and nicer.

so could actually do battle in hyperspace, or would you still go through into the fighting arena

Well.. I like that - the only problem is that, it would require a lot of energy and time to put in the game. As apposed to my idea it would not take as much. (for as much as I know). Can any programmers tell me how hard putting ships that run away from you and are worth more RU in the game?

Well, if you wanted to include this little thing it would probably be best to include a generally more realistic representation of other fleets in hyperspace. Like, they don't pop out of nowhere, some of them aren't chasing you (going about their business, say), etc. More like the in-system behavior.

I don't know how hard it would be to add them in -- not SO hard, I suspect -- but would it really make sense on its own just to have those two types?

Well I suppose you could have ships partroling the border. Oh - And you could have battle groups consisting of about 50 or so ships simulate battles. OK - So how hard would it be to instead of putting black dottes - put the acual ship?  



A side note - Am I only one who went to the place were the mycon were ambushed hoping to get in on the action.  I also tried the supox/utwig/urquan ...O- Well

It all depends, naturally.  I do think it would be rather cool so see the ship that's chasing you at the center of the TrueSpace vortex, but that's alot of new content (16 angles * 22 ships) and I can readily think of cases where it would look silly, e.g., when ships in HyperSpace "hover" over a star waiting for you, the ships would be doing loupe-de-loupes.  It might also take some of the "mystery" out of HyperSpace encounters, and it definitely violates the "straight port" doctrine of the project.


I did much the same thing, and was suitably disappointed, too..  ;)  I do think it would be a nifty addition to have symbolic "fights" in InterPlanetary mode, e.g., two battle groups of different types "see" each other, move towards each other, and one of them disappears.  But as far as I've been able to infer, this would require a bit of an overhaul to the InterPlanetary code, for not much of a benefit, and also violates the "straight port" doctrine.

As far as "mining ships" goes, I've only seen one class of ship in-game capable of mining, and it's a giant Precursor service vessel.  All other ships are fighter class ships, that are capable of building mines (as per SC1), but they ostensibly leave the actual mining to other, more capable ships.

Not a bad idea. Just wondering, but was this somehow inspired by EV Nova, an SC2 knock-off?

nope

It's an interesting idea, but I think it would be too complicated to implement in a worthwhile way. There would almost have to be an infrastructure for all the resources/activities of the races. Arbitrary trade routes or random encounters would seem out of place. What if you followed a cargo ship all the way to its destination? Where would it go? Would you see it go into a base and come out again? Wouldn't it have escorts?

Also, as Death_999 mentioned, it would probably be best to include a more realistic representation of ships in hyperspace. You would then have ones that chase, get chased, patrol?... and what else? It would only seem natural that they would start interacting more with each other. Ilwrath would go after Pkunk, etc. There would be attack groups, defense groups, mining groups (with escorts)... there are many possibilities... but it seems to me that there would be something unrealistic or weird about ships patrolling in hyperspace. Time and fuel consumption go much more quickly, right? And what advantage would it give them over patrolling the solar systems?

Just showing a representation of other ship types in hyperspace is another matter, but is that what we want? Should you be able to see other ships in hyperspace?

Well you would see it disapear in a system and when you followed it in you could see it move to:
A. A planet to mine
B. A homeworld





I suppose it could, 2 or three fully armed ships - thats all the escort they need. (remember the mining ships themselves ar handicapped)





Sure - The ones on patrol can patrol the borders and homeworlds. Then there can be the "alert" when you ship enters a border and a ship appears in hyperspace and chases you.



Well all you would see in hyperspace is the Thraddash and Illwrath colliding. Then they would dissappear. That is what your ship downs. Remember you can only fight in truespace.



Well - it would let them know when someone crossed the border and you need only have a few ships on patrol. It does not need to be "tight". Just enough to keep out enemie miners and alert the homeworld when a battle fleet comes.




I vote yes, You should be able to. They can see what yours is. (That is why they only chase you and not each other)

I would think that they chase your ship because its gravity well is bigger than a dreadnaught's.
Although I'd think that would be a good reason to run away, esp. for spathi.

hhmmm... Did not think of that - Wait - Is there gravity in hyperspace?