The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Where can I get a manual for the game?  fileplanet doesn't have the files anymore.

thanks

I have the manual to the PC version from 1992.  If you like I can copy it and mail it to you (provided you pay for the costs involved).  Maybe I can scan it and e-mail to you.

There's a scan of the map plus a PDF of the manual here (http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=5216). Look at the bottom of the page.

This discussion raises an interesting question: what is the copyright status on the original PC and 3DO SC2 manuals? The text file supplied with UQM (doc/users/manual.txt) is a bit on the minimalistic side, so it would be nice to incorporate much of the SC2 manual's text (especially the background story and the artwork) in the UQM manual.

The copyright to the manuals and maps are not TFB's. I've asked.

What about the manuals for the various SC1 incarnations? If I remember correctly, those still had some nice background info and texts.. Would be nice to include those (maybe change them a bit), right?

Perhaps we need a fan made (ready for print) Ur-Quan Master Manual made by fans. Original documentation and illustrations (although the original illustrations did have charm).

Perhaps I could help with this...I am a tech writer (I write software manuals for a living) and I have the tools for creating such a manual.

I think it's a great idea! It would be of great help to new UQM players. (obviously)  ;D

I could lend a hand, too.  I'm a freelancing graphic-designer, and do fairly decent book layout jobs.  (If you wanna see my work, check out the OVA demo at www.wiseturtle.com)

Perhaps a manual section can be started on the Ultronomicon to encourage collaboration- this could then be copyedited and frozen at release dates to produce an offline, spiffed-up manual (if needed).

It sounds like a good idea to me. I'll alert the rest of the core team to this thread.

Also, in the past, there has been some discussion about having one base format (like DocBook or Doxygen) for the manual, from which various formats could be generated (html, plain-text, pdf, unix man pages), but this seems only appropriate for text-only manuals.

Well, I work exclusively in Quark, Word, and Notepad.  Notepad is obviously portable. ;p The other two have their own idiosyncrasies in conversion, but were I to man the helm on a manual typesetting job, I could, with some effort, convert to HTML and other formats if it were desired. :)

I also fancy myself the writer, so I could, in theory, rewrite any "flavor" text from the manual, if it's true that TFB doesn't hold the copyright on those.  Some of it could use a tweak...anyone else notice the writer of the introduction text described the female character at length, but no one else? ^_~  Oh, her flaxen hair blowing in the wind...

I work mostly with InDesign, which is great for formatting, graphics, and PDF generation. InDesign can easily import Word and text files, so it would be possible to incorporate work from multiple writers for different chapters.

I think for now, any work done should be concentrated on race/ship description and gameplay. Once 1.0 is released, things such as installation and settings config could be documented.

First though, it may be a good idea to come up with a ‘look and feel’ for a manual..

I've been failing at redownloading the SC2 manual.  I'm gonna try and get a feel for what it used to look like.  Might have an old-school charm.

Failing that, I might try something totally new.

That is, if no one else objects/wants to do it.

<a href=http://www.abandonia.com/games/en/144/StarControl2.htm>Abandonia has manuals and the resource guide available for download..</a>

Clay, let's work together on this project. I think the more people we can get involved with writing, graphics, and layout, the better...

PM me and we can work some of the details.

I agree with Halleck that the Ultronomicon would be a good place to create such a file colaboratively. Once all the content is there, it could be taken to another program for the formatting.

I concur.  Also note that for UQM-specific bits of the manual would probably be based on my quick little text manual. (http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/sc2/sc2/doc/users/manual.txt?rev=1.43&view=markup)  Most of the severely-abbreviated portions of the original manual would probably be lost, but stuff like command-line options, etc. could probably be copied directly or cleaned up a bit.

There's a manual for the 3do version here:
http://www.digitpress.com/manuals/3do/star%20control%202.pdf

This is a great initiative...

I'd be wiling to help you guys in localization (translating the manual to Portuguese).

Please let me know if you get this going...

You can contact me quickly trough my msn address (brunoREMOVETHISSTUPIDWORDSfonseca (AT)  hotmail.com)

cheers,