The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I was wondering if it would be possible to put back in something that was cut from the original SC2 for whatever reason.

Example #1) Now, you can visit all 10 rainbow worlds and get nothing for it except the 5000 Melnorme credits in return.  There was originally supposed to be some kind of payoff at the apex of the rainbow world pattern.

It'd be nice to put that back in. I don't care what it is, so long as there's some kind of payoff for deciphering the puzzle.

Example #2). Originally, there was supposed to be something REALLY, REALLY CREEPY happen if one ever took the Orz into Q-space.  This was cut. It might be fun to put that -- with appropriate audio/visual effects and a few additional conversation clues -- in as well. 

After all, the program's in the public domain now. Why not?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

All these things are possible. However, the stated goal of the UQM project is to recreate Star Control 2. After UQM reaches 1.0, any of these additions might do fine for an extra version.

Of course, one could argue that the inclusion of in system probes already deviates from a faithful recreation, and that other extras are equally entitled to be included. Still, I think the probe code was already present, but just not activated in the original game, unlike those two ideas. Might be wrong though.

well i would love to see the orz thing happen, like if you took the orz into quasi all of a sudden the screen would go black and half your crew would be gone and all orz ships would be gone too.

now that would be creepy, or you could have a convo with them right when you enter quasi with them being agitated and telling you to "BEWARE" or warning you to not go any further before something bad happens.

i think that would be easier, but it might not.

No, it's not. The program code is copyright Toys for Bob (and, as far as I can tell, all other contributors) and licensed under the General Public License to everyone. Basically, this means that the program and all derived works are subject to GPL restrictions, the most important of which is that if you give someone a modified binary, you have to give them the source code if they want it.

As the current UQM code, while originally solely TFB's, includes contributions from dozens of people, it's practically impossible to relicense.

Read COPYING in the main UQM directory for details.

Either way, one can still modify the program in this fashion.

I think just having severe negative consequences of the Orz being in quasispace would be a bit too much.

Maybe, while you're in QS...
1) There is different music.
2) Randomly, on average once every two weeks, someone in the fleet dies?

But how to alert the player that that happened? Surely the Captain would know that it did, but I can't see a convenient way. Maybe have that ship flash red in the fleet viewport, and have an 'ouch' sound like on the planet surface.

Horrible idea, you would be returning to the starbase too frequently and wouldn't be able to go far into space and explore as much. Plus its a burden. I like the quasi space idea though, that would add more mystery about the orz, something that I  enjoy.

I would prefer it if a conversation would start up with the Orz captain after a single day of being present in Quasi-space. Have it be made totally clear that this is coming from a ship in your fleet and not any outsider, but everything else that you hear from him should be complete and utter nonsense to even the most astute players. When the conversation is over, you will return to see crazy purple crap shooting out of the Vindicator and bleeding into the background as if it were trying to poison the universe around it. As long as you travel through Quasi-space with an Orz Nemesis, constantly do this.

Ideally this would also add a line of dialogue or two with the Arilou where they say something to the effect of "Oh good god, you brought the Orz here with you?" Not a demand that you sever all contact with the Orz or anything like that, just a brief quip of revulsion.

Maybe the Orz disappear when you enter QS, and some crewmember tells you about it.
When you return to HS the Orz arrive out of nowhere, saying they *slide* through *outside* because *above* makes them very *frumple* and would cause *Arilou quick babies* to *bounce*.

How long do you spend in quasispace? A week at a time, usually, with a trip of four months ONE or TWO TIMES? That's like, a total of 25 crew over the whole game, and if you get the Orz after the spawner, you're looking at maybe 5 crew total.

I just don't like the idea of someone randomly dieing in my fleet for no reason. Its annoying.

The reason would of course be having Orz with you in Quasispace  ::)

The dialog beginning with a
(INCOMING TRANSMISSION FROM AN ORZ CAPTAIN IN OUR FLEET)
will probably do.

It is quite strange that the Arilou take no notice if you have Orz in your fleet. When meeting you in hyperspace they should either not be willing to talk to you at all, or ought to tell you they cannot speak freely with Orz around. Or maybe the Orz should object to the presence of the Arilou? And they really shouldn't allow you to visit their homeworld with Orz in your fleet. But then the 'something creepy' that occurs when the Orz enter Q-space should probably end with them disappearing so that might be a non-issue.

Here's the question about Orz in Q-space: Do you think there should be an impression that the Orz are somehow 'corrupting' or contaminating Q-space , or should their instead be an impression that Q-space is destroying the Orz? These two different approachs would require very different events and effects.

I also like the idea of some kind of 'reward' in the Groombridge system at the peak of the rainbow worlds pattern. It does look like this was part of the original design. (Notice that Sol and Groombridge are essentially at opposite corners of the map -- plainly this was to allow maximum room for the 'quest' to occur) The question is, what useful/cool thing could be there without messing with the existing structure of the game?

See this thread (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=1057.0).

Very interesting. I hope this gets done. And some of the other suggestions for extending the  game once the 'pure' clone is complete.

I had two concepts -- eliminate the Chenjesu/Mmrnmhrm merge (coming up with some other way to keep them out of the game until the end).

This would make the final battle more difficult and climatic -- the Dreadnoughts/Marauders would pose a real threat, instead of just being a formality before you fight the Sa-Matra. I believe it would have more power if it was the Chenjesu returning to continue the fight, instead of just having the Chmmr blaze through all those ships, and then attacking the Sa-Matra.

The second concept would be to alter the time the Androsynth disappear -- for, say, a year in the beginning of the game, the Androsynth are still around. Then It happens and the Orz appear.

So you could talk to a real Androsynth, and probably fight a few Guardians with your Precursor ship.

- Bob

My idea:

Break out of the 18 degrees of freedom.

Instead of the restrictive angles that you can navigate your ship, find a way to have all 360 degrees (or something like it) of freedom when turning while navagating and in melee. 

That seems like a good idea on paper, but would probably completely break the balance in practice. Don't the big ships with massive weapons have enough advantages already?

Good, that will provide something for the legendary designers of tfb to do on SCX. ;)

Seriously, you can't have the 16 directions thing in a new game, you need seamless rotation, let alone things like full 3D movement, which may or may not be necessary for modern markets.

This means the ships will have to be rebalanced, and that's only bad for purists who will not represent the majority of customers for any further commercial SC games, unless they are not very successful. So just give the cruiser 6 hp nukes, 20 crew, and either more speed/acceleration or battery/recharge. Give the blade full thruster power in all 8 directions without needing to turn. Mycon can have better regen, more firepower, etc.

When you enter Quasispace with the Orz, they (it?) should reveal their (its?) true form, which should be some horrible gibbering Lovecraftian monster. That'd be more freaky then just having your crew randomly killed off.

And maybe the Arilou should stop you from landing on their home planet when you have the Orz in your fleet, or at least warn you.

Of course. I wouldn't expect TFB to do anything else with a current release. But that's a new game, for another thread.

However, with regards to improvements to UQM, this would fatally wound a lot of the smaller craft. The game is built around the assumption that these vessels can "hide" inside the fire arcs of the bigger ships, giving them a fighting chance. After all, that a look at the melee in SC3; that had free rotation for all ships, and look at what a mess that was. Never mind the new ships (which almost uniformly sucked), even among the older ships carried over, the balance was irreperably altered; the Chmmr, Utwig, and Ur-Quan totally dominated the other ships, even moreso than they did before. Hell, even the VUX got far more powerful, just for the ability to sweep that laser across targets that strayed too close, rather than having to aim dead-on.

Modable ships. I would like to be able to exchange weapons on ships. For example,
replace the six mini-guns of the utwig with six Druuge cannons. That would pack a
punch.
Or swapping out the Chmmr's gravity device for Yehat style shields. That would
be a sexy ship. This might not be a good idea for game play, but it would
make for some interesting super melee battles.