The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Please, please, PLEASE don't flame me. I know SC2 is the most balanced, perfect game ever created, yada yada yada, but still...

I love the adventuring, roleplaying elements of UQM. But for some reason, I find combat really, really difficult. I have no idea why. In order to increase the appeal of UQM to dumb noobs like me, is it possible that a difficulty setting for combat could be implemented?

If you are talking about the super-melee! then you can change the difficulty yourself.
But if you are talking about the single game then it might be a good idea.
And you can always let the computer fight for you(cyborg mode, but you will miss the final battle).

Hey, Plankhead..

Well, in-game battles can be quite difficult, but here's a few tips for you.

1) Use the Gravity Whip effect (try to locate that planet ASAP and use it's gravity to slingshot you away)
2) Don't use the Precursor ship. Use the "fleet" you assemble instead. Spathi Eluders (Fwiffo!) are damn great against practically every other slower ship! Use it well!
3) Get Thrusters and Jets maxed out on your Precursor ship. This way, you'll practically NEVER have to battle anymore! You can outrun everything! Ain't that great? :) To achieve this, just ditch the weapons on the Precursor ship. you don't need those. Ditch the Earthling Cruiser, too.. It sucks. Now just place all those thrusters and jets on your ship. Et voila! Instant no-more-battles! :)

Have fun..

Then he loses Fwiffo his only escort and lands in druuge space,  ::) ::) Great idea megagun ::) ::)

JK!

He shouln't ditch anything, have him just mine the sol system and that  should have enough RU to cover the costs of thrusters and turning jets.

Why should I flame you, when I agree completely?

I used to have problems with the melee-portion of the game. I don't anymore, though I still think there should be more ways to avoid combat. Christ, in the beginning I kept getting my ass whipped by the Ilwrath ship in the very beginning! (When I decided not to use the Vindicator, everything worked out just fine, but that's another story)

The only way through is practice, pal. I did some practice when I helped Shiver debugging his FAQ, and it only took about ten, fifteen attempts (tops) until I had adequately mastered most of the ships available (except the Stinger and the Scout, but they're hardly for beginners) to beat most of the challenges. Sweet!

Practice with Eluders in melee mode, and then beat the urquan battle thralls with fwiffo.  ;D

And if you want a more powerfull ship, fly over to orz space and pick up some nemesese.

Avoid combat? Are you crazy? Explosions and death are the best part of the game, after it's humorous communication paths.

Wait, so you can avoid combat?  By just flying off the screen?  This game although very good has a learning curve that seems to involve alot of question asking of experts.  I just read the manual and the only thing it mentions about avoiding combat is the emergancy warp which takes 5 fuel points and five seconds, does this take extra fuel points?

The specific combat I am having trouble with is the probes in hyperspace.  I can never get past facing the second, and the only semi effective thing I can use against them is the cruiser because it has missiles, even then I sacrifice a cruiser to put the probe at a point where sometimes I can kill it with the flagship.  I read the wiki article on them and  it suggested engaging at mid range, but I am pulled towards them and then cannot get away.  Are they supposed to be this hard?  I realize I am not very good at combat in this (not nearly as good as I was with Space Wars, an old DOS game simular to this.  Maybe I just need more turning jets.  Even the cyborg cannot beat them though, just spins around randomly.  Almost ready to start a new game, save up all the minerals for fuel and fly out to get the self destruct code.

Any help would be appreciated.

Austin, adding thrusters to your flagship affects its speed in all aspects of the game including HyperSpace, solar systems and combat. Use this to your advantage.

Yeah, thrusters are far more important than turning jets if you want to run away.
When I'm just starting out, I usually invest all my cash in thrusters until I'm maxed out. In my opinion, thrusters are the best investment you can make, since they speed you up everywhere throughout the game.
Also, if you max them out  you are able outrun slylandro probes if desired. The two turning jets that come with the vessel should do in the meantime- but if you really, really want to outrun the probes early on you can sell those and buy more thrusters too. Just be prepared to turn like a barge. ;)

I always clean out the 2 ruby worlds in alfa centuri with a_lot_of_saves. That gets me maxed out thrusters and turning jets really early on.

what do you mean by "a_lot_of_saves",

i usually clean out sol completely, except for venus that one is hard to do in the beginning, and i sell the ion bolt gun and the dynamo unit and gives me enough for all the turning jets and thrusters.

then if that dont get em all i goto alpha centauri like chrispy and clean out the 2 ruby worlds and a few more there.

The emergency warp does indeed take 5 fuel points. The main drawback, however, is that if you're up against a fast ship, it can whip up a great deal of damage on the Vindy before you get away.

Personally, I have two main tactics against the Slylandro Probes:
1) Max out thrusters and outrun them. Of course, they follow you around, so you're gonna have to fight them sooner or later.
2) Get the best weaponry your money can buy and fill up the front two slots on the flagship. With some dynamos, you can usually kill the probes before they even get to you. The best idea in the long run, imo. I know some people will argue that you can use this or that fighter. Screw that. :) If you have a powerful Vindicator, the probes are history after mere seconds, and you are 550 RU's richer.

Saving after each successful lander trip, I suppose? I guess he was trying to get it underlined. ;)

When. Is. A. Save. Not. A. Save.

When. It. Is. Loaded.

Har. Har. Har.

"When. Is. A. Save. Not. A. Save.

When. It. Is. Loaded.

Har. Har. Har."

Hehe, that's funny.


"If you have a powerful Vindicator, the probes are history after mere seconds, and you are 550 RU's richer."

Yea, don't stop the probes, they're your only unlimited resource, mid-game.

Yea, well once you get thrusters, i usally get a whole bunch of fuel tanks find all the rainbow worlds. Then i just go to centauri and tauri and just clean the place out. That usally works well, to rush and find the rainbow worlds so you will have a kick @$$ ship early on.

actually if somebody points me to the file in the source code that modifies the "difficulty setting" i could implement an option when you start a new game and will be written into the save file, with the help of a few friends. Actually i thought i saw somewhere they were gonna implement that and many more stuff in the final version in hopes to have the needed settings ported to an xml(i think) file instead of it all being in the exe file.

Thanks for the advice, I currently have 4 short of max thrusters and about the same for turning jets, in my last encounter with the probe (after clearing out the rubie world's in alpha centurai and buying thrusters :) ) I gravity whipped and e-warped out.

Why isn't the cyborg able to beat them?  I sure as hell can't and I can't afford to spend 100 RU's every encounter.  Is there any specific module configuration that will allow the cyborg to not suck?

I wish you could use the vindicator in various settings in the super melee, I realy need to improve my combat skills.

i wish i knew how to implement the flagship in super melee, i would've already done it.

Yes. The best possible weaponry combined with the best possible generators. The sort of configuration where holding the primary fire button down for two seconds destroys a Dreadnought. Not even the cyborg can mess that sort of ship up.

my question is, why are you using the flagship to win your battles?
practice in super melee with the ally ships on the highest setting.

but you know i've never used a chmmr to fight a probe yet, i wonder how that fight would go?

The probe is toast unless controlled by a gifted human player. It may try to dance around at range, but if you slingshot enough, it can't avoid you. Too bad the tractor is useless.

Why don't you try this yourself?

Yea, i like using flagship because im bored using my 5 favorite escorts, (pkunk,spathi, earthling, utwig, supox). So i like to use flagship because battles are boring now. Also its fun to see a "interplanetarly siege unit"  ::)  (dreadnaught) destroyed in one cataclaysmac blast.  ;D

Advice for ship fighting in early game?  Simple - don't.

All I do is pick up Fwiffo, sell the Vindicators guns and strip mine Sol (or close by). That usually gets me enough to get all the thrusters and turning jets so nothing ever catchs up with me again.  If you do fight - use Fwiffo. Played right, he can take out just about every other ship in the game.

i cant use fwiffo, i dont like the hit and run way to do things.

i like brute force, thats why i mine sol, get all the thrusters and turning jets, 2 fuel cells, a crew pod, and a few storage bays.
Then i get the quasi portal generator first and grab a few rainbow worlds, do the melnorme fuel trick(after buying technology) then load my flagship up for battle, all this can be done in the first year.

  ;D ;D ;D High Five!!!!   ;D ;D ;D


Thats the best way    :D

ITYM:

"When. Is. A. Save. Not. A. Save.

When. It. Is. A. Save. Backup.

Har. Har. Har."

On the topic of using the vindicator in super-melee:

I recently learned that Meep-eep has already written a patch for this purpose. It reads the vindicator config from a file, and allows it to be selected by choosing the earthling cruiser during super melee. However, its use of global variables means that vindicator VS. vindicator battles are not possible.

It's available here:
http://www.stack.nl/~svdb/sc2/sisfromfile.patch

Note that it will probably NOT apply cleanly to CVS. Anyone trying to apply it will either need to modify it themselves, or otherwise update to an old revision (the patch dates from 2005-02-22).

I would have tried this out myself, but my build system is b0rked at the moment.

Oh great (!). That patch was not supposed to be released to the general public. It was a quick hack, hardly usable as it is, and it will only cause questions from people who want me to walk them trough the whole procedure.
Well, it's out now. If you're competent enough to get it to work yourself, fine. But if I read any questions about it, I will just frown, grumble, and then ignore them.

I'll make a new patch one of these days, after cleaning up the relevant part of the UQM source code.

BTW. It's not the patch that's using global variables for the SIS data. It's the original code.