The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

UQM needs a hard mode so I (and many others, I would hope) can have something to look forward next time I play it through. Who's with me?

Er, I do mean after version 1.0 of course.

-WISH-LIST-

* For starters, Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah computer ships need to smarten up and stop chasing me when I'm using Fwiffo. Ideally, a Spathi should be hard pressed to win against even one of those.

* After two months or so of game time, the original hierarchy Earth guard (6 Ilwrath and 6 Spathi) should arrive back at Earth and wait patiently to kick the crap out of you. If you approach the Spathi High Council before this time, they should tell you to go away.

* Everything costs twice as much.

* All rainbow worlds should have fairly powerful hostile fleets guarding them for no particular reason.

* The Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah figure out how dangerous you are and occasionally send large fleets to track you down.

* Half as many charity ships are given out by friendly races.

* The Ur-Quan have their own precursor tug (just like yours, except cooler) that you have to fight near the end of the game.

I like it... except for the last idea. How about just making the Sa-Matra more difficult?

Here is a really good thread to start this one - acually it is made by you Shiver!  :)

http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1043721872;start=

Oh geez, I almost forgot that one. But really, the variants get tiring after a while. That's kind of why this topic has sprouted up.

Someone has pointed out that fighting another 'tug would be tacky, and I'll concede to that. But it would be nice to have a boss other than the stationary Sa-Matra.

Here's an idea: try winning the game with the computer fighting all the battles for you, maybe even on the lowest setting...

Okay, I'm finally going to have to ask, why do you people, whenever some topic is brought up, say "We discussed this last year" and link to that thread? Can't it just be discussed again?

Sure - But it really should all be kept in one thread. The reason why I brought that up is because that way we can talk the thread from long ago and add our own. Notice that it has already happened. I suppose if you like having it in two threads that could work as well - It is just to me that does not look as good. Also it is a good discussion primer.

And a long one as well. Often I drop out of any conversations that require me to read 8 pages of the thread just to post my thoughts.

You don't have to read 8 pages! - I only read the first and last one - just to get some ideas.

Well, the 8 pasges can help you gain insight about your own thoughts. Has someopne already suggested what you were thinking about, waht were the conter arguments, what were the counter counter arguments, and so on. He who does not learn from histroy is doomed to repeat past mistakes and all that...

Accually almost all those ideas were brought up in that thread Shiver - Adn all of them have counter-arguments and suggestions.

Remember the last few Ur-Quan that remain with the Sa-Matra?  What if the game engine were changed to allow those ships (maybe not as ships code-wise, but as other objects which happen to look and act like ships) battle during the Sa-Matra fight?  Try using 1 pkunk against all those ships, and the shield generators.

Also, possibily a time limit on the Sa-Matra; if you don't complete it in time, the Annihilation Toroids start firing...

I would like to point out that these two threads are not the same issue. One of them is how to make the game more challenging within the confines of how it is now, the other is a suggestion to implement new things directly into the game for an alternate difficulty setting later on.

Oops my bad - but those interact with each other sometimes. That would be cool (And very hard) to fight the guards and the Sa-matra at the same time. Also a time limit would be nice.

I love the idea of making new starcontrol stuff, but I'd prefer it went into some new starcontrol game. Sequel, prequel, something completely different like my shofixti first person rpg.

I hate it when people bring up old topics.I prefer a topic that is fresh in my minde, and that I am well versed in.

If we are talking about a new game, many people will point to Timewarp. A new SC game would be great, but I like the idea of making modifications to UQM, now that it is possible.

Maybe we could fork the project? If the current UQM team is okay with that, I'd be interested in looking at ways to make (minor) changes to the game.
Maybe call it "UQM 0.3+" ?

Is anyone else interested in hacking up some old code?

To make serious changes, wouldn't it me more than just hacking up code.

It depends on the change. Changing the amount of time you have to play as a difficulty factor, for example, would probably be easy. Changing the amount of RUs moduals cost would also be fairly simple. Making a new race, like the Black Spathi would likely be quite a bit harder.
Adding in hyperspace ships that run away from you, would again, be difficult, I think.

However, back to the questions of:
1. Would the UQM team be okay with that?
2. Is there anyone crazy enough to try?

I am crazy enough, but I don't have the knowledge to do it! Yet....

I am interested in "hacking" the code, but why would the UQM team be against it? The code is GPL'd, so anyone can tinker with it.

I dont think anybody is against it.

In some circles it is considered rude to take/change/fork a project without asking the developers first. Being as the code is GPL'ed it is certainly open to change, but helping the current project and forking a new one are a little different.

Add-on: I just read the Contributing file. Since it says to "feel free" to start a project fork, I guess that takes care of that concern. Many thanks to the UQM team for that blessing.

Fair enough. In this case, I was thinking more along the lines of an add-on style modification, rather than a fork.

Krulle brought up some interesting ideas for higher difficulty mods in the "play challenges" thread.  I've got a psuedo-related one:
Make resources from destroyed ships into actuall materials that you have to carry in your storage compartments.  Every ship has like 1 kiloton of antimatter (they all use antimatter for fuel, see commander comm logs), and mostly commons and base metals for the rest.  This way, the Captain has to make more use of the "dump cargo" feature, and it's more realistic.

More realistic, but also more complicated. Well, not really.
Go for it.

I like that one.

For thos who missed it, I'll repeat my post from the "play challenge" here, where it fits better (as we are talking about a higher difficulty level being programmed into UQM):

Add even more difficulty here:
After the third planet, have the Melnorme say, that they found out what the pattern is and means, and that after this trade they will leave the sector to follow the Precursors.
3x Rainbowplanet is enough to buy everything necessary to win the game, but no more fuel on your trips afterwards.

Maybe you can have one single trader left in this region of space, but finding it is difficult, since Blueish not only crosses from planet to planet, but also from system to system. Thus further trade will become very hard.
And yes, calling for Melnormes in Hyperspace with your 'Caster not only brings one Melnorme coming in 15 minutes, but also a lot of Heirarchy battlegroups patrolling all of Hyperspace, as well as some Kohr-Ah Death-groups. And additionally, normal Hyperspacefluctuations prevent you from collecting the Debris if your were travelling in Hyperspace before combat (never mind the fact that you are pulled into realspace before the fight starts, you simply jump back automagically and thus loose the debris).

Loosing the Slylandro Debris completly makes it a very hard start into the game.

Enjoy!
Krulle

BTW: I do not have the skills to program my own suggestions, but since these ideas are not as hard to implement like a second Precursor tug as "small boss", i think if someone starts up a branch of UQM with a higher level (which i wouldn't do before UQM has reached the final file-structure, otherwise upgrading the higher level to newer UQM-versions might need reprogramming), then i think these ideas can be considered as well.

An idea for an easy level: Your lander has by default already half the immunity of the upgrades.
But that's really not necessary.

You try to raise the difficulty by adding more ships, fuel cost, upgrades but you are forgeting the one small problem this game has: THE AI SUCKS!!! Creating new AI, and good one will make this game MUCH harder than it is now. It is silly you can take the entire fleet of koar-ah with Fwiffo since they are stupid to run into your BUTTs.

Think about it.

Yeah, i know, but i tried to give ideas which do not need a lot of programming when implemented.
And you can say what you want, if the debris is lost, a lot of money/ru is lost as well. you then have a real incentive to go to the Slylandro, since you cannot collect debris from the probes to rebuy lost crew. So in the fights you are only loosing time and crew, but not winning any resources.
And waiting 15 minutes for your melnorme rescuetrader is what in game-time? 6 months??? A damn lot of time to wait, which is simply wasted.
These ideas are easier to implement and thus earlier available, if someone took the time to do so.

Programming and implementing a new AI would be fine, but really isn't easy to implement. And seeing Timewarp (which has only general AIs, no specialized ones), i must say, with SC2/UQM the programmers did a great job.

Enjoy!
Krulle

As someone who has "hacked" a fair chunk of UQM code in the past, I would strongly recommend holding off until 0.4 before forking the project.

Why?  Well, for one, Michael's "road-to-0.4" posts seem to indicate that there will be some fairly fundamental paradigm shifts in a number of key areas in the UQM code.

Secondly, the gist that I've gotten from several of the core team's posts is that 0.4 is going to be breathtakingly close to the 1.0 release - this means that when 1.0 does hit the streets, it won't take a great deal of effort to bring the fork up to the same standard.

None of that should stop the thoughts from flowing, though!  The last couple of weeks have seen some really strong ideas come from a wide range of people - enough to inspire me to lend a hand on the 0.4 fork, should we ever get that far.

That sounds promising Bwahaha!

In the play-challenges waiting for the final architecture has been mentioned as well.

BTW: Does anyone know how much app. has been achieved already?
Something between 20 and 80 % of the restructuring???

I must say, i enjoy it!

too bad my skills are not good enough....

Enjoy!

I agree. The 0.4 release seems to fix a good number of bugs and adds some eye-candy. Any work/havoc I perform on the code will wait until 0.4 is released.
I'd also like to say that I really like the gathering of resources idea, rather than straight RUs. I always thought that was a little flakey.

While we're at it, you should be able to recover some RU's from any of your ships that were blown up in the battle.

I was thinking of something else when you said that -- having each ship have a vector of resources it needs -- some amount of commons, radioactives, base metals, exotics, nobles, rare-earths. If you don't have enough of a certain type, you can use the standard RU system, but it will not be as efficient (ship costs would be raised to compensate).

Therefore, you might actually want to get corrosives, because your Spathi and Supox need them, but if you want Utwig, focus on the rare earths and radioactives.

A melnorme tech might be to improve the exchange rate.

Hmm...

ship	com	cor	met	nob	rar	pre	rad	exo
cruiser	40	6	140	2	20	20	50	0
eluder	200	200	200	100	10	25	0	0
blade	400	300	15	1	16	5	2	1
jugger	25	15	100	35	100	50	10	33

etc. Note that only if you exactly match the requirements do you actually make it down to the listed RU price.

Modules and fuel could lack this disadvantage.

That's how I finished 0.2.  Secondly the level only affects one thing speed.  I had to use it on the highest setting win keep on booting uqm in melee in anything slower.

What are you talking about? The computer AI difficulty level affects much more than speed - use of the special in particular.

If the computer is on easy - it will NEVER us the secondary weapon.
The other two levels of difficulty both use the secondary weapon.

Except for the probe.

And the Pkunk. Really, these are sort of trivial examples.

Shows what I know,  Question how do u get the yehat and pkunk to join anyway? I know how to start the revoultion, but what are the triggering events/times?

Spoiler ahead!

the Pkunk make their way towards the Yehat. Be sure to have started the revolution, then they'll survive

Actually, you seem to know the things needed anyway. Just give it time.
Otherwise, this is the wrong thread to ask this question.

Hard mode, that's a great idea. Here are my suggestions:

The Sa-matra fireballs and green globs move a bit faster, perhaps equal to Pkunk speed, and cannot be destroyed. The size of the inner guard fleet should be doubled.

Or better yet, if it isn't too difficult, scrap the above Sa-matra ideas and make you fight the guards at the same time.

I really like the idea of the caster calling in hierarchy ships as well as the melnorme, though you shouldn't have to wait for long - maybe one minute.

ALL enemy ships should have their hyperspace speed and interplanetary speed increased. Right now, you can avoid almost everything with full thrusters and turning jets.

Better AI would be nice, but difficult to program.

The destroyed ship RU idea is excellent! You would get a lot less money, and no RUs from hyperspace ships is also a nice idea.

Rainbow worlds provide -100 credits. Technology costs +50 credits. Fuel costs 4 credits per 3 fuel, rather than one each. Lander upgrades protect you 2/3 as often.

Your flagship can hold 2 less thrusters and 2 less maneuvering jets.

Ships chase you farther out of their sphere of influence.

All modules cost +30%, except fusion blasters and ion cannons only cost +20% more because nobody uses them. Your ship can hold a maximum of 5 shiva furnaces. All ships cost +40%, except the Jugger costs 3x as much because the AI has no clue how to fight it.  Hellbore range dropped a lot, ion cannon range increased somewhat, fusion blaster ranged increased a little, ATS system is a bit less reliable.

I think better ai, if possible, is the greatest idea brought up here.

Never having played TW to any degree, I have no idea on this, but would TW's AI be any better, if it could be somehow "imported" into UQM?

Let me picture you the AI of timewarp in the nicest way I can:
Picture a robot who can do 6 things in the simplest way possible.
That's TW AI right now.

Having just played TW for the first time yesterday, I must say I completely agree. One of the bots is called 'moronbot' and the other is 'wussybot'. Obviously, they aren't exactly Iceman or Maverick.

Amusing is the TW fight when you get a bunch of Shofixiti in at the same time. One kamikazes, the entire rest of the group follows suit. Dunno why.