The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

If you can make a true sequel to SC2 (ie. not SC3), what would it be like?    What I'm asking for is what kind of gameplay mechanics you would hope to see in a sequel to the game.  I'm not looking for story idea or the such, or obvious stuff like improved graphics and sounds.  I'm want to know how you would want the gameplay to be different.

My ideas include
- A return to a more strategy based campaign mode.  The SC2 adventure was great, but there's no way to play that in multiplayer mode.
- Fleet battles in addition to one-on-one melee battles.  Maybe have four-on-four battles in one fight.  There would definitely be more strategy involved when your yehat and shofixti have to take on a spathi and ur-quan at the same time.
- Having a ship that you create yourself which includes the look and the weapons.  This would definitely work great with some type of multiplayer game where each player has the ability to design his own ship.

I'd like to see at least one battle where there are hundreds of sc2 ships of different races fighting each other, if only to see how it *tastes*.

I liked the colonization aspect of SC3.  I'd definitely use that.  That was also one of the things I like about Starflight 1 & 2 - looking for habitable worlds.  As it is, the SC2 galaxy feels a little empty.  So many planets with nothing on them.  Lets fill 'em up.

I'll let a classic Simpsons epidode answer for me:

Terri: It should be soft and cuddly.
Bart: Yeah, with lots of firepower.
Milhouse: Its eyes should be telescopes!  No, periscopes!  No, microscopes!  Can you come back to me?
Nelson: It should be full of surprises.
Milhouse: It should never stop dancing.
Martin: It should need accessories.

That's what we came up with for TW-light (http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Engine).

Different battles, different resources, different Melnorme... just read it there :)

"A return to a more strategy based campaign mode.  The SC2 adventure was great, but there's no way to play that in multiplayer mode."

If it were real time, that'd be great.


"Fleet battles in addition to one-on-one melee battles."

Yes, definitely. But I would move the limit up to something like 200 Vs 200.  :o


"I'd like to see at least one battle where there are hundreds of sc2 ships of different races fighting each other, if only to see how it *tastes*."

It'd taste pretty sweet.  ;)


"That was also one of the things I like about Starflight 1 & 2 - looking for habitable worlds.  As it is, the SC2 galaxy feels a little empty."

Similarly, I would like a sequel to have planetary exploration similar to that of Starflight, only more advanced because of the significant advances in tech since then.

I wonder if the SC universe would lend itself to a MMORPG? Start as the captain of a small ship of any race, travel between sphere's, trading, or enlist in your local military! Earn money and upgrade your ship! Buy addtional vessels, and if you are succesful enough create your own Armada, conquer planets and create your own circle of influence. Enlist other players as pilots in your dreaded armada, and burn a bloody path through the galaxy.

Most military organizations frown on their captains having THAT much initiative.

"So explain to me again captain, how have you mistaken a simple command as 'patrol the border' with 'conquer the galaxy'?"

I think it would be interesting to be able to control several ships, for example being able to send out some cruisers on mining/recon/diplomacy missions. Multitasking in short.

But once you've conquered a planet or so, they'll probably go alogn as logn as you pay taxes. Of course, as a merchant, you could buy planets....

Perhaps my idea would lenditself betetr to some sort of a civilization type game, everyne starts with one civilization?

Only some races would get kicked if they were discovered early.

What you're proposing is Trade Wars in the SC universe.  Not a bad idea; I miss Trade Wars.

I agree I <3 trade wars :)

Hmm.. I've never played Trade Wars. I shall have to make a search on the subject.

It's an old BBS game (pre-internet days when you dialed your modem to bulliten boards instead of service providers).  It was all text based, you would be assigned a certain number of turns per day, and could fly from sector to sector trading goods (kinda like vegastrike (http://vegastrike.sf.net)).  You could also [buy/sell/create/destroy] [ships/space stations/planets], join/betray groups, and in general waste a little time (not waste a lot like today's MMORPGs since the modem pools were limited [my friend's BBS had only 1 line], thus the turn system).  I wouldn't be surprised if someone has made a MUD version by now.

More info here: http://www.eisonline.com/twhistory/

Paul and Fred seem to do their best at combining multiple genres. I would love a combination of Star control and X-Com. A combination of Star Control and Master of Orion 1 would be interesting. Or even multiple smaller adventure games with Star Control would work well.

High playability and multiplayer! Those are what I would focus on.

A Star Control / X-Com hybrid?  I wonder how that would work.  The turn-based tactical combat was the best part about X-Com where real-time asteroid-style combat was the highlight of Star Control.  How do you combine the two?

Simple!

Instead of playing as "le human" (with or without french accent), flip it around!

Play as Orz!
Lauch space marines!
Get in enemy ships and go fist-to-fist (or gun-to-gun, whichever you prefer)!
Free Orz Doll with every download!

Name?
Star Control: *NGAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!*
or, for copyright's sake:
The Ur-Quan Masters: *NGAAAAAAAAHH!!!!!*
or, alternatively:
The *Happy Campers*
Or maybe:
The Orz Invasion

I like that. Just imagine the Orz research tree.

If you choose *Honey bubbler*, it'll take a few months to research, but then you can all the way to *dissolving party present* rather quickly! Make sure your crew have ample recretion space, or they go *frumple*.

And each time an Orz Commando dies, you get a new *finger* for free.

Heck, even though the Orz are the masters of it, boarding parties and ground combat should be a part of every race's military. In real life wars couldn't be decided solely on the basis of space battles. You could totally have something with the SC flavor (not necessarily taking place in the SC universe) that revolved around turn-based tactical gameplay.

Well, I'm not so sure... it's been around a hundred years since a military vessel was boarded before it surrendered. Ground forces could be important for people more inclined against genocide than the Ur-Quan.

I invisage a truely custiomisable ship working like http://www.astobattle.com

And yeah it should have the best of Trade Wars and UQM, But unlike other MMORPG's have it infinate, But all accessable without a boring oddesy through Hyper/Quasispace

If anyone is serious on this PLEASE give me a bell at anticheese@gmail.com

I was looking on http://www.liberatedgames.com and I saw that the source code to Homeworld was also released.  If I were a master programmer, I would take that source code and the source code to UQM and merge the two.  Have a Homeworld style game with SC2 ships with the Vindicator as the mothership for the alliance and the Sumatra as the mothership for the Heirarchy.  All of the ships would have their own AI so they'd fight on their own.  And all of the weapons would be similar to how they work in SC2.

I got curious and took a look at the Homeworld licence, if it's possible to use it or maybe some parts of it. It seems to suggest that all modifications you make to the Homeworld source code, become property of  Relic :o

It looks like the GPL licence and Homeworld's licence are mutually exclusive, so I don't think you can combine them if you wanted to.

I'm not sure though, it's hard to read and understand this stuff. Anyway, you can find it under the "intellectual property" section.

My god, what is that thing? It's the size of an island of the pacific rim!

Somebody mentioned Tradewars abit ago.  Never played that version exactly, but played a similar game called Galactic Warzone alot, way back when in the BBS days.  I actually have the door file, but I'm not having much luck finding BBS software that will let me run the thing.  Anyone got a tip where I can look?  Hopefully something that'll work on the internet rather than dialup.