The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I recently encountered Star Control 2 - in its present guise of The Ur-Quan Masters - in the pages Retro Gamer - and I must declaim that this title is absolutely stupendous!

Everything about the game is thoroughly compelling - the music is atmospheric, from the eerie disquiet of the open void to the apposite vigorous nature of hyperspace; the voice acting is magnificent and genuinely emotional (in a computer game, of all things!  :o ) the scenario is absorbing; the game mechanics are masterly.  

In fact, I've been so engrossed that instead of revising for upcoming exams I've wasted the past three days as Captain R.J. Frazer of the H.M.S. Imperator forming alliances with the Zoq-Fot-Pik and the Orz, whilst attempting to satisfy the perverse fantasies of General VUX (is there a 'Python' system anywhere? I think that's what Lish-Na-Ploh translates to...) - and occasionally visiting Betelgeuse to have a slaver at the Syreen.  ;)

You've all done sterling work bringing this fine title into the public domain! From a grateful gamer, thanks!  :D

I'd leap at the chance to assist the evolution of this project myself, but regrettably my knowledge of programming doesn't extend beyond rudimentary HTML. However, I can provide some bugs that I've discovered up to now (28th November 2157 A.D.):

-The game has frozen on occasion when I've logged out of the starmap, but this seems erratic - it's only transpired four times out of dozens of accessings.

-Whenever the Fuel cost for a planetfall reads "0.10" it actually charges a whole unit, and not a fraction. There are several planets this is affected by, but unfortunately I didn't note them down at the time of discovery. I remember that both Zeta Sextantis I and Delta Persei I suffer from the bug.

-The Muffin Man - sorry, the Melnorme merchant  ;D - says that Credits are exchanged for capturing creatures on planets and providing co-ordinates for rainbow worlds. I've discovered two of the latter - Zeta Sextantis I and Gamma Kepler - yet I'm not provided with an option to sell their details to him!

-This isn't a bug as such, but could I raise a gameplay issue? Maybe I just need practice, but I've found combat on the Human setting to be virtually unplayable - it moves far too quickly! I don't want to sound ilike I'm wimping out, but battles only last more than five seconds if I have the computer fight for me. Would it be possible to slow down the pace, or provide an alterable difficulty setting, just so that my eyes can actually register what's on the screeen before I'm wiped out?

Thanks for reading, and for rebuilding such a great game!

Well Robert, as I'm sure all here will tell you, your in for one of the best and funniest games ever, so don't tease to to give you spoilers, ie you whole first paragraph. :)
Also, its a good idea to give you system specs when reporting bugs. I'd tell you to go to Bugzilla as well, but there may be bugs there concerning plot or races that you shouldn't know about yet.
Have fun! (and don't those green aliens fool you...)

Regarding combat--what enemies are you having trouble with, and what ships do you usually use?  The right ship for the job can make all the difference.  At least until you trick out your flagship so that it destroys any enemy with ease.

Some of these bugs were definitely squashed already. Try getting the most recent version...

what, no LINK (http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots/) for the guy. for shame Death_999 :P

I have to agree on the speed of battle issue.  Any way to introduce a variable settings option to slow it down?

This may be caused by bugs in the thread synchronisation code, several of which have been fixed.


Bug 556; fixed over a year ago.


I can't find any report of anything like this. Have you checked all the dialogue choices available when talking to the Melnorme? Are you sure you're proceeding from a game state in which you have visited these planets (i.e. you haven't discovered these planets and then loaded a game state saved before finding the planets and then talked to the Melnorme). Also note that merely hearing about a rainbow world is not enough; you have to check it out yourself for the Melnorme to accept the information (Melnorme deal in facts, not rumours).

I suggest you upgrade to the latest CVS version of UQM and try to reproduce these problems.

Try practicing the combat in Supermelee (which would be a great game even on its own). You'll get used to the pace eventually. What ships do you have trouble with?

As far as the battle stuff goes, you need practice.  It's hard to get used to, especially if you haven't learned what all the ships can do.  As far as a couple of your other things go:

1) There's a certain race you can take over in the upper left quadrant of the map.  If you tell them to be like you they'll eventually tell you about said system.

2) Are you sure you haven't went to explore the planets?  You can't merely just be in the system - you have to physically go to the planet for it to be offered to the Melnorme as a rainbow world.