The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

the Ur-Quan masters is great great but there is somethin missing. and i feal it is the cheat codes think about it almost every great game has somethin  "cheat" like unlimited life or somethin like that, what you think guys?

I don't think those should be allowed to corrupt this honest, straight game.   :P

they would ruin the ballance of the game as one playthrough with cheats and you know where all the stuff is.

First and foremost, this is already done in the current development snapshots.  Uncomment the entry in keys.cfg for the "Debug" key to enable cheating.  Pressing the Debug key in-game gives you a full assortment of weapons, reveals all of the alien "spheres of influence" on the map, and it will also toggle an "instant travel through hyperspace" mode (press the Debug key repeatedly to enable/disable this mode)  These are "sample" behaviours, if you get the source code and build your own game, you can make the Debug key do whatever you like.  e.g., I once used it as a "jettison fuel" button, to find/test/fix a weird corner case with the starbase at the beginning of the game.  It is very useful.

But I suppose this raises the larger question of "who are the cheat codes really made for?"

In the strictest sense, I would posit that cheat codes are made for the game developers themselves, and any benefit to players is a side-effect.  If, as a developer, you complete a new feature, and want to do proper regression testing, you would ostensibly hack a mechanism into the program to allow you to turn it on and off, so that you could find and test all the corner cases with a minimum of fuss.  Once you have proved the code "correct", you can either "dead code" the mechanism to turn it on and off, or you can leave it around as an "easter egg", or god forbid, another feature.  :)

well there is one walktrough madet

Actually, I wouldn't mind a cheat either -- I already beat the game, so I wouldn't mind being able to go back through it at full power this time around.  Maybe the game could generate a save-game that starts you out at the beginning with unlimited resources once you've beaten it the first time ^_^.

Cheat codes seem too much like, er, cheating.

There are ways to mine and get unlimited resources rather quickly...well not literally unlimited but more RU than you will ever use.  You haven't mastered the game if you're worried about something like this off of your first playthrough.

There's more than enough RU in the game if you search and find the right spots to do whatever you dream to do in the game.  In fact there's been numerous threads posted to that end, and several systems of lists too.

I don't know about cheat codes, but since we do have the source code, I just decided to make my earthling cruiser extremely powerful with the point defense laser.  Since there isn't any enemy cruisers out there, I don't have to worry about getting my ass kicked by my own cheat.

How powerful did you make it?

To turn the Earthling Cruiser into the ultimate cheese machine, I just edited the following defines in HUMAN.C

#define ENERGY_REGENERATION 5
#define WEAPON_ENERGY_COST 1
#define SPECIAL_ENERGY_COST 1
#define ENERGY_WAIT 1
#define WEAPON_WAIT 2
#define SPECIAL_WAIT 0
#define LASER_RANGE (UWORD)300

Yeah, this is way too powerful, but I already beat the game on the 3DO so I really don't care.

Hehe, it must look like a laser show from hell.

What if you just did this:

Nuke: 6 points damage

Laser: 2 points damage

Crew: 20

That would be a powerful but balanced ship. If that wasn't enough, you could increase energy regeneration or speed/acceleration.

Balanced ships are for when I play against other people.  Cheating is good for when I'm playing against the computer and I want to let out my frustrations.

Is there any way to do that on the Mac version?

Absolutely.  You'll need to install XCode, though (XCode is provided on the OSX install DVD, but it's not installed by default) and then get the source code for the game, and all the required Frameworks to make it build.  The instructions for actually building the game are found elsewhere on these forums.

The bulk of the Frameworks you'll need are provided in binary form here:

http://www.submedia.net/uqm/

...except for SDL, which maintains their own binary distribution here:

http://www.libsdl.org/

Ah, so much more complicated than I can do.  Thanks alot though.

Would it be possible to get your recompiled source with modified earthling cruiser ? Pretty please with a sugar on top?  ;)

Comrade, all you have to do is download the source, modify the cruiser however you like, and compile the source.

that would be hard, even for me to do...
i have no patience to sit around and hack the source.
i'll just edit the saved game with my hex editor.


all too easy

I wouldn't mind having some fairly easy access to some cheat codes for some fun as well.

so... i dont get it... how did you change the ships weaps?

I think a ship editor that would not require compiling, would be a cool feature for a later version of UQM (perhaps post 1.0).

Eh... I haven't taken a single solitary look at the source, but I am pretty sure that such a thing would need quite some work to be done.
No.. wait... it depends on what the editor would be capable of doing. Changing simple parameters like speed, recharge time etc would be relatively easy to do.
Other things like changing the weapons of the ship, creating your own ships, etc, would take more time.

Again, keep in mind that I have no idea what I'm talking about, I haven't seen the source, and my opinions are based only on how I think the source should look.

"No.. wait... it depends on what the editor would be capable of doing. Changing simple parameters like speed, recharge time etc would be relatively easy to do."

That's what I meant. The other stuff might be cool, but more work.

Took a glance at the code.
Yep changing the paramters of the ship should be easy, with any luck  the editor will be done this weekend.
Other ideas on the other hand seem even more difficult then I initially thought.

Say, Core Team, I heard that 0.4 is pretty close to 1.0, there won't be any major changes in the source, right?
I won't be forced to do it all from scratch when 1.0 comes out?

Noo-o. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a new resource system is in the works.

Huh?
Wasn't it done between 0.3 and 0.4?
No matter, let me ask a different question.
Will there be any major changes in the ships' source files?
They are the only ones I intend to modify.

I seem to recall an IRC converation about this. There were longer ones, but here's the one I could find (which of course ends in silliness):

Ah, whatever, I'm already on it.
Besides it will be some time before 0.5 comes out, so no worries even if I'll have to start all over, it won't be a problem.
The worst case scenario would be if you could edit the ships in 0.4 but not 0.5+, I don't think anyone will die because of that.

Anyway, half the work is already done.
The Earthling Cruiser is fully editable. The function that reads the atributes from the file still needs *some* improvements, but once this is done, applying changes to the rest of the ships will be a matter of copy-pasting.

I am very new to the game.  I was wondering if anyone had any idea what the rosey-rod and the trident thingy was for, the utron device (how do I repair it and give it back to the utwig).   How am I supposed to defeat the Kohr-ah.  They have destroyed all other species in the region of my univerese and they came for the command station once and destroyed it.  What the heck am I supposed to do lol.  Anyone have a map of cords?  Or a damn walkthrough.  Thanx,  also how can I exactly use the program you are building to upgrade my battle cruiser?  Thankx, If you have any information that you wish to send and not spam this forum with e-mail me at RyanLewis@Wapda.com thankx

Where I can change the values of the starting resources (RU) in source code?

Again:

What source file (*.C / *.H) contains code line, which defines amount of money in the beginning of the game???

sorry bad typing

Anyone?  :-/

You could just get the save game editor!

Its better than a cheat code. You edit your ships modules,crew,fuel,R.U. Thats really usefull reply if you want me to tell you how to get it.

please forgive my newness and perhaps even sorely misinfomedness (not a real word but it works)

what I am wondering, and please remember I am an artist not a programmer, how hard would a time effect be.
what I mean is... I would like to slow down time as I travel through the game, perhaps only as much as a third perhaps as much  half speed, this way the days didn't move so quickly. yes my husband has beaten the game many times, and I have been able to just barely beat it once. I am just not the gamer he is. In other words an easy and even perhaps easiest setting. now do not get me wrong the one time I beat it I was proud as could be, and I have been waiting A LOOONG time for this... we have a pc set up as a entertainment pc, for arcade style games and when I heard this build was stable I grabbed it set it up there and am playing it with a PS1 pad, but wouldn't you know it I STILL SUCK. I had sorta hoped it was those 3do pads... but nope. originally I figured a slider system would be best, but if that is out of the question just a resource hack? something I could switch in and out, he hates the idea and wouldn't play it then.

By the way team GREAT WORK you brought the joy of playing SC 2 back thanks!!!
ps sorry if this is over long I have been told I am very long winded.

Hmm, not sure about time deceleration, but it should be possible to move the final "game over" date back with a simple code hack.

If the solution was a code hack, you would wind up with a seperate executable. In theory, your husband would be able to play the original, and you could play the modified version in parallel.

Just to clarify, is your problem that the game is over too soon, or that gamplay itself is too rapid (i.e. super melee is too fast)?

In the meantime, make sure you pursue all in-game avenues for slowing down the kohr-ah.  :)

I guess you would say that the game is over too fast... what would be neat is the ability to slow the passage of the days but the games speed (ie the movement of ships in combat and in hyperspace) wouldn't change.. so the kohr ah would start their march on the same date but it would take longer for that date to arrive. so in other words the game time passes more slowely in real time.

i think that would rock, because personally i like to beat the crap outta things in "story" mode, its fun and challenging, Especially if your gonna visit the sa-matra before you get "the necessary adjustments"

i would love the time to go by slow

I'd like to get ahold of that, I've been looking but no luck so far

Thanks!

Same been looking for it myself.

i could set it up on my website for download if nobody can find it...
OR you could go to www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol and goto the files section, under The ur-quan masters files, and its there

oh also, if you tweak the key configuration and have the debug ver. of uqm, you could have some pretty awesome cheats.

Where in the files section? I checked all through it and didnt find anything mentioning a Save game editor.

Right Click   http://www.dickweed.0nyx.com/sc/uqm_save_editor.exe

and choose "save as.."

I downloaded it but for some reason it errors when i try to run it.

what kind of errors, i'll re-upload it in 5 minutes if its a problem with the rar file

and also dont forget i have saved games at my site too in self extracting rar files

It doesnt try to extract anything, it goes to a dos prompt and errors and closes.

wtf?

lemme try a zip file then

www.dickweed.0nyx.com/sc/uqm_save_editor.zip

I tried it on ie and it said access denied, on firefox it downloaded it but said the file was damaged.

Ill send you an email you can send it to and ill host it on mine and post it.

funny since all my downloads work perfectly on my friends computer

for god sakes, go here http://www.dickweed.0nyx.com/downloads.htm

Thx...

how does the saved game decoder work     cant get it to open file for me     not sure which file to try to open also


thanks

i figured it out :)

the readme file is there for a reason....

hmm could not find it ^^     any ways thanks for the tool

it originally came from PNF but i hate the fileplanet way of downloading things