The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Hi, I've just started playing, and my biggest problem right now is that I can't really live through space battles - When in Hyperspace, all my Deep Space Encounters are with one race, and are always hostile. I've managed to win a battle but I can never win two, since one victory lowers my crew from 50 to 12 or so. I can barely turn my spaceship or accelerate, and the enemy vessel is just so much faster and moves around alot, and my horrible turning speed can't ever keep up - the enemy ship can just stay directly behind me all the time if it want. I've also been unable to fire this so-called 'secondary weapon' the manual speaks of.

Some other clarifications I'd like:
1) What does "manifest" do? I've tried taking some men on that little shuttle I have in addition to my mothership, but pressing enter keeps switching between the "choosing a ship" and "choosing amount of crew" phases - I don't know what to do except gather minerals until I run out of fuel! :/
2) When approaching Earth an Ur-Quan probe messages me, telling me that I should stay put and wait for them to arrive. Obviously I didn't do that, but how am I supposed to approach Earth for any purpose? :\

Thanks in advance...

Okay, don't approach Earth. Approach the space station near Earth.

Once you jump through a few hoops (virtually speaking) you will be able to upgrade your ship. Once you get the ability to upgrade, the first thing you will want to upgrade is the thrust capability, so you can outrun the probes. That makes the game much much easier.

The manifest allows you to look over and use any devices you have, and transfer crew from one vessel to another. While crew is selected, use the arrow keys to select a ship in the escort fleet, and confirm the selection with the fire key. Then use arrow keys to move crew to and from that ship.

Thanks! ^^;

Probably something that you would definitely want to do is to practice fighting in Melee mode.  You can set it up so you can have only Earthling Cruisers vs Slylandro Probes.  Hopefully after a few rounds of that you should have the hang of it.  Unfortunately there's no way to put your mothership in Melee mode.  But a good pilot can crush most ships with the earthling cruiser.

First of all, you did notice that you can fight with both your flagship (the big and initially very slow one, named the Vindicator by default) and the Earthling Cruiser (the "shuttle" you were referring to later on, name varies) accompanying your flagship? The flagship doesn't have a secondary weapon in the beginning of the game, but the Cruiser does (primary weapon missiles, secondary weapon point defence lasers). Cruisers turn much faster than the basic flagship and generally speaking you're better off using the Cruiser until you find a better ship or upgrade your flagship.

Yes I've tried that, but only once, and I lost, and I figured the smaller vessel's lack of "hp" makes playing the bigger one a better option...

Okay. Here's a little tip for you, to get your ship fully upgraded very early in the game.

Mine all radioactives on Mercury, go to Alpha Centauri and pick a few Exotics (don't mind the few crew that die. If you practice it well, with a lot of landings and takeoffs, you can do it!)... Go back to Sol. Ditch the Ion cannon and the spare Earthling Cruiser you get, and buy all thrusters/turning jets.. Should take you about a month to do this, and you'll see that it will save you a LOT of time... and fights...

Thanks alot! :)