The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

After i had finished the game I decided to load an earlier savegame and wait for the Kohr-ah  attack.
I could remember that this is supposed to be in early 2159. And the UQM-Wiki confirms this.

It is now july 2159 and still the Kohr-ah  havent moved an inch.
Have i encountered a bug? Or do i have the dates mixed up?

I did convince the Utwig to attack the Kohr-ah...maybe this bought me some more time?

Indeed it did. It bought you exactly one year.

Thank you for a quick reply.

I just gave the fixed ultron to the utwig and the ultron tells them to attack the kohr-ah (after they mistakingly think it tells them to attack you, and then all ur-quan), it does this automatically, the way people are talking it seems that you have a choice, so there would be two different end times, but if they automatically attack the kohr-ah then you automatically get the extra year, and have no choice in the matter, therefore the melnorme's triangle thingy is incorrect.

Except you don't have to fix the Ultron to finsih the game. If you do not fix the ultron, you have one year less.

Isn't the only way to avoid fixing the Ultron and still finish the game, to actually move in and swipe the bomb once the Kohr-Ah exterminate the Utwig? Otherwise, I thought they maintained an infinte fleet around the relevant planet.

Except that the melnorme's triangle thingy was taken out after the PC version.
Moving in after the Kohr-Ah wipe out the Utwig seems risky to me, since the Kohr-Ah move VERY, VERY fast through the galaxy.  Maybe you could do it...

Has anyone actually tried to get the bomb after the Kohr-Ah wipe out the Utwig?  I've never tried this, but I could imagine someone pulling it off successfully, if they have everything else lined up already, have full speed/turn on their Precursor ship, the Portal Spawner, and are waiting near the bomb for the Kohr-Ah to kill the Utwig.  The only question is will you have enough time, especially with the 2 weeks while the Chmmr work on your flagship, and transport you back to Earth.  Your flight times won't be that long, with full speed and the Portal Spawner, but I don't know if you have quite enough time.

But then, how else would you be able to get the bomb without fixing the Ultron? There's no other method that I can think of. Mind you, I'm pretty sure it takes the Kohr-Ah more than 2 weeks to eliminate all of the SOIs, especially if you use one of the sneaky (read: kinda buggy) methods to extend that process.

CAUTION: POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!












I do believe that it has been done, although not by me. It's either buried in the archives here, or over at the SCDB. If one has all the other components, it is simply a manner of exiting quasispace and taking the bomb, jumping to Procyon through Quasispace, and then jumping to the Sa-Matra from Earth via quasispace. Earth is the last world to bite the dust, which should give you sufficent time.

Of course, if you allowed the utwig to be destroyed, that would be inconsistent with the events of Star Control 3 :p hehe

I'm sorry? Inconsistent with what?

I think he's talking about some old spinoff project some company put out years ago. I hear the creators had nothing to do with that one, so why even bring it up? ;)

I think we would all like to forget it....
There are versions of it on the net.....
DO NOT DOWNLOADEM!!!!! Well, unless you want your eyes bleading and Star Control designated area of brain trying to it itself.

SC3, to be fair, was a decent computer game.

But it wasn't Star Control.  Not by a long shot.  And the best dialogue in the whole game was lifted word for word from Star Control 2.  So, if you ever have the urge to see what SC3 was all about, then allow me to tell you: Just play SC2 again.  You're better off that way.

In what world? The story wasn't too horrible (albeit not on the level of the previous installment), but the game engine was absolutely vile. There were numerous places were the game would just break and leave you floating in space for ever and ever because you missed some key event. If the same story had been enacted with a working game engine, it might have been decent. As it was, it was barely mediocre.

Quite. I tried to play, twice. First time, I had collected all the antimatter off the rainbow worlds, yet the game said I had gotten only 9 planets' worth. I repeatedly toured all ten rainbow worlds. All had been stripped of antimatter.

Also, earlier that run, I had (saved and) taken up the offer of the Ploxis
The result? On a gray screen, the text popped up: "You join the Ploxis. Then you die."

Second time, I somehow missed the event that lets you translate the babble of the daks. Can't win that way!

A game that...

cannot COUNT,
dumps you to a freaking TERMINAL*,
and FORGETS PLOT-CRITICAL EVENTS...

...is a bad one.



* not that I have anything against terminals, but it's out of place

Hm.  I didn't run into any of those problems. 

But I am glad that I didn't actually PAY to play that game.

While we're bagging sc3, does anyone want to mention to the creators that almost all senient space-faring life in the entire galaxy was wiped out by either extermination from the kohr-ah, or slave-shielded by the kzer-za. Yet both the kessarri quadrant, and the "crux quadrant" (where the crux races come from), had no previous contact with any ur-quan. Surely there are only 4 "quadrants" in a galaxy doubt the urquan would have missed such large areas of space before they met up again...

I could see races that arose after the passage of the Kzer-Za or Kohr-Ah that we're not exterminated or enslaved if their races didn't have hyperwave tech at the time that the Ur-Quan were coming through their area.  The Melnorme said when describing what happened to the Burvixese that they had been in long-range hyperwave contact with the Gg, who had come under attack by the Kohr-Ah, that the Kohr-Ah detected races by their Hyperwave Transmissions, and that they had already detected the radiations from the Druuge.  When the Burvixese were kind enough to warn the Druuge that a hostile alien race was homing in on their hyperwave transmission the Druuge shut down all their transmitters and erected a powerful beacon on the Burvixese moon, the Kohr-Ah changed course and destroyed the Burvixese.

Of course there are also the Mael-Num who escaped and were never found again (they're the Melnorme now though right?)  The Ur-Quan (both sub-races) may have not detected other races in their migration around the galaxy, especially races that may not have had much to notice.

My take was that the Crux quadrant was the home quadrant of the Ur-Quan, where the original Doctrinal War was fought. So many thousands of years had passed since then, that the some of the subsentient residents from that time, who were not worthy of notice then, had developed sentience and starfaring technologies since that time. The Kessari quadrant could be similarly located in the wake of the Ur-Quans' passing, though closer to their current location (which would explain the general lack of numbers of sentient races in both quadrants).

Bad experiences with SC3? Here are some of mine:

*SC3 spoilers follow*

1. Collecting RU for the Doog. By the time I got the details of that quest, I had colonized all of the good and passable worlds available to me, and their RU supplies had been depleted by their own activities. It was quite a chore amassing that many RU using colonies with crap deposits to start out with.
2. Another terminal instance. Anyone else get the death message "You lied to the Owa elder."? It felt so out of place when it happened. What's the point of having multiple dialog options if all the "wrong" ones lead to something like this? I wonder how many other instances of game-ending dialog are in the script in order to keep you on the intended path?
3. Diplomacy. I believe I came within one instance of being relieved of command, for making too many "unprovoked" attacks on the native and Crux races. Nevermind that the Daktaklakpak were unintelligible for instance #1, the K'Tang were impossible to negotiate with for instance #2, and the Vyro-Ingo were completely insane and implacable for instance #3.
4. The K'Tang and the Daktaklakpak. I had gotten to a point in the game where I was stuck (and later on, I discovered I was just being forced to wait for an arbitrary event cue to occur), and was taking out my frustration on every Daktaklakpak I could find, figuring that they had no useful function to fulfill since I (for whatever arbitrary reason) was not able to give them the Eternal1's true name (another arbitrary event cue, why is this script so badly put together?). I wound up exterminating every last one of them, and then was told that I needed to give them the true name in order to extract useful information and/or artifacts from them. The only reason this didn't force a restart is because I was apprently a bit sloppy (or perhaps a system containing a Daktaklakpak was arbitrarily revealed for no good reason), and a single Dak remained.

Yeah. This game does not generate too many happy memories for me, but somehow I did manage to finish it despite this nonsense. Not like the ending was worthwhile, though.

This always seemed odd to me. The Kohr-Ah are suppsedly terrified of intelligence evoivng, and spend their entire life hunting it down. And yet, they can't find anyone without a hyperwawe caster? I always assumed that this was just the first stage in cleansing a quadrant. First, hone in on any civilizations advanced enough to use hyperwave transmitters  and cleanse any filth that could be a potential threat. Then spread the fleet out, find all lifebearing planets in the quadrant, and wipe each and every one out, leaving them barren and void.

Of course, had I been in charge, I would probably have detonated all suns on my way out of the quadrant as well, leaving a beautiful tranquil void behind.

The lack of Kohr-Ah cleansing (at least in the area we can access) makes more sense when you consider that both Ur-Quan groups dropped everything for their ritual combat with each other. Outside the area thus protected (!) by the Kzer-Za, there may be little behind after the Kohr-Ah went past.

Essentially, the Druuge were saved by the combination of their little Caster trick and the presence of the Kzer-Za. The Burvixese home world may have been a rush job.

Blow up the stars behind you? I suppose. But the idea of not being able to make
Kohr-Ah colenies would worry me. Unless their ships are so self-suficent
thye don't feel the need to planet land.

There's a scary idea: Half a galaxy full of Kohr-Ah colonies.

The Kohr-Ah always struck me as very migratory. After all, who could settle down when there's alarge galaxy filled with potential enslavers out there?

I'm not saying that'd be the first thing they'd do, mind you. Enter quadrant. Wipe out all developed species by tracking communications. Hunt down primitive civilisations and wipe them out..Restock  on all manners of supplies on fertile worlds. Blow up all lifebearing planets (in case some sneaky folks have built shelters deep under the surface that will allow them to survive without a sun). Blow up all suns. Travel to next quadrant. Profit!

I always wondered about the Kzer-Za as well. Even if they eventually slave shielded every race they encountered, without a physical presence new life could evolve on other worlds. So I guess they'd have to leave colonies behind, to keep things in check.


Personally, I find the idea that half the galaxy doesn't exist anymore scarier.

All very well that the races escaped due to no casters or hadn't evolved to sentience yet, but where are all the red shielded worlds in the kessari quadrant? I think the people who made SC3 didn't really pay much attention to the details of the SC2 storyline.

Have the Kzer-Za been there at all? I don't recall any reference to that anywhere.

I think a Star Control based game where stars are randomly disappearing/blowing up would be
an interesting plot. Insead of a race cleansing the galaxy, maybe
there's a group trying to restore the darkness. Or maybe they're just refueling their
ship(s).

I got the impression the Kohr-Ah don't have the tech required to blow
up a star. Maybe a planet, but a star seems like a huge under taking.

The only tech we know that can even cause a star to cough was that Precursor bomb.  That the device is precursor and unreplicable by the chmmr would imply that the even the mighty Ur-Quan do not have planet or sun busting technology;  They were caught off-guard when the Shofixti did what they did, after all.  They can probably make a planet uninhabitable, but not reduce it to chunks a la a Death Star.  I recall Burvexese still having life when you get there, just no intelligent life.

My opinion regarding their travel is that neither Ur Quan left colonies.  They're purpose was to regroup, resupply, and head to the doctrinal conflict;  Given all the shenannigins that were going on in our home quadrant when their conflict erupted anew, I wonder what the rest of Kzer-Za space is like.

For the Kor-Ah, It's a real possiblity that they've made every planet in their wake is a lifeless husk.  Then again, this implies that there lies logic in insanity.  While this is true, it does not in turn imply that the Kor-Ah follow that particular logic.

To throw another wrench into the gearworks, we can't be entirely sure of each total journey, can we?  We know the Kzer-Za arrived first, got stymied by our defensive line, and used the Sa Matra to break us down (I believe this is because they saw the Kor Ah coming and knew they had to end it *now.*)

But are we really 180 degrees from the original conflict?  We could be 270 or 90 or any other degree and only the speeds of their respective conquests need to change to compensate.

Unless there's some remark that shows that we are indeed at 180 and i've forgotten it, since I didn't get all the optional conversations this time around...

I seem to recall the Melnorme mentioning that the two Ur-Quan subraces met again on the opposite side of the galaxy (Read: second conflict, home quadrant) at the end of their historical accounts. This implies that they've both gone approximately 180 degrees, but who can say?

Because I took so long to learn how to play the game, I had to beat the game after the Kohr-Ah had wiped out the Utwig. So I just found the bomb on that moon and took it to the Chmmr and made a bee line for the Sa-Matra.

Ok so didn’t know where the Sa-Matra was my first time through and I had to look for it, and got the defeated message several times before I remembered that the Pkunk had told me about a cup constellation so I pulled out my encyclopedia and found the name of the constellation, and then found it on the map.

After a very long time I finally defeated  the Sa-Matra and the game ended. There was much rejoicing.

quote  - Holocat
""The only tech we know that can even cause a star to cough was that Precursor bomb.  That the device is precursor and unreplicable by the chmmr would imply that the even the mighty Ur-Quan do not have planet or sun busting technology;  They were caught off-guard when the Shofixti did what they did, after all.  They can probably make a planet uninhabitable, but not reduce it to chunks a la a Death Star.  I recall Burvexese still having life when you get there, just no intelligent life.""


That "might" be true, except for the fact that the Ur-Quan are much more technologically advanced than the shofixti, who were completely feral before the yehat managed to civilize them, and they managed to make a star go nova,  so the ur-quan should have no problem doing it.

The shofixiti destroyed their system with a precursor bomb, not with their own technology.  Though it does follow that an Ur-Quan can detonate the same precursor device as a shofixiti, it does not follow that they can replicate such technology, or have any similar technology.

Just because a race has a greater level of technology does not imply certain capablities.  Having mastered kinetic theory does not mean you know how to build a 120mm smoothbore cannon.  I'm not saying that its impossible, only that one does not imply the other.

To be succinct, we know that the Ur-Quan are technically advanced.  This does not imply that they have planet busting technology.

However, there is some evidence that the do not posses this technology, so long as you accept assumptions that the destruction of the Burviexe and Taalo* homeworlds as being the extent of their ablity (that they did not 'finish' the job due to circumstances). 

-On the Burviexe planet we can still find (and shoot) lifeforms on the surface, as well as find ruins that are still recognizable as cities.  If this is the extent of their firepower they have the ablity to destroy a civilization, but not completely annilate a planet.  Of course, the doctrinal war started which might be reason to suggest that this is unfinished.

-The Taalo moon contains nothing other than the device.  This might mean that the world was scoured, but then again it's been a very, very long time since they were attacked.  The Taalo were remarked more than once to have a very abnormal structure however, so it could be again counterargued that ruins exist, they just aren't recognizable.  Regardless, the moon still exists as a single unit, and so does its star.  The Ur-Quan at this point had plenty of time and were controlled by the Dynarri, which puts any kind of 'holding back' a little arguable.

*We of course know that the Taalo went to pretty space, not died.  Unless prettyspace is death.

Note that even the Bomb didn't have the power to completely destroy a planet, or so it is implied when it is conjectured that the bomb is to pulverize unwanted moons.  If it also pulverized the planet, it wouldn't be useful to disperse the unwanted moons.  Then again, if the lethal blast radius is at least 22 AU, as the science report states...

The Kzer-Za, given that they are into the slaving, not death dealie seem unlikely to pursue this technology.  The Kor-Ah would appear more willing, but again poses the question of the Burvexese.

On an unrelated note, when Hayes states that the Kzer-Za vaporized a section of the ocean floor in the mid atlantic to destroy all structures over five hundred years old, this in turn implies that atlantis existed.  Cute. :3

So, in conclusion, I would have to say that in between Star Trek, Star Wars, Serenity, and Star Control, Star Control takes itself the least serious.  This implies that any deep thinking into the mechanics of cultures or technologies is probably going to be endless.  This aside, my opinion is that the Ur-Quan do not have planet busting technology.