The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Disclaimer: I know that it is the goal of the UQM project to stay true to the original, but there are i think perhaps a few changes that could be "generally accepted as good" that could be included.

As of now, when the Ilwrath cloaks, you still more or less know where it is because it is diametrically opposed to whatever ship it's fighting on the screen. At best the cloak makes it slightly harder to aim at the ship since you can't see it. The camera is always centered between Ship X and the Ilwrath.

What if during netplay, when an Ilwrath cloaks, the camera would instead center on each player's own ship instead of the space in the middle between the two ships? This way you would not be able to know in what direction the Ilwrath lay. When the Ilwrath uncloaks, the camera would then again focus on the middle between the two ships.

Does this seem like a reasonable change or is it "too much of a departure" from the original?

To be brutal, I feel that all potential solutions are either too hard to implement or too radically in favour of the evil bugs.

If you moved the camera like this, you could abuse the feature by cloaking/decloaking rapidly.  This would cause the camera to bounce rapidly.  It's also in question as to what range the single-centered camera should be at.  Thirdly, hotseat play would be impossible, as the diametric opposition tells the controller where the ship is as well as the enemy.

What I would like is a sort of floating 'sensor box' that has the Ilwrath inside, but not nessiarily in the center;  The camera would be diametrically opposed to the box.   You'd have to shoot through the box repeatedly, and wouldn't know where in the box the Ilwrath was, as it can maneauver inside, but would know, vaguely, where it was.  Too complicated to make though, I think.

I see a potential for abuse here. Could you annoy your opponent by repeatidly cloaking and uncloaking and throwing thier camera view? If there is one law to online play, it's "If it can be abused, it will be."

Ya, I figured the whole cloak/uncloak thing might be a problem...

what about just changing the camera to center on the ship for the whole battle when fighting ilwraths, and zooming in or out on the hero depending on the range of the ilwrath? This way you'll always know the range of the ilwrath but not its exact location.

Would it be possible to have the game differentiate the camera view depending on whether one were playing netplay or hotseat? This way diametric opposition could be preserved while doing hotseat games...

Then make the Ilwrath a 30 point behemoth.  Only the Khor-Ah, Chmmr, Chenjesu, Androsynth, Yehat, and Utwig would have reasonable defenses (well, Shofixti could use its special...).  Everyone else would either run all the time, or pillbox and fire in random directions.

Maybe a better solution then would be simply to create support within the game program so that someone could make a custom add-on ship later.
So, if someone codes a custom ship, they could have a setting like "camera_diametric_off_oncloak=1" or whatever. That way it wouldn't be so difficult for a modder to make the custom ship.

The ilwrath is not supposed to be the mother of all ships either.

But actually, it is a very powerful ship if you get in range....that means 2 things:

new players typically fear the ilwrath until they get the hang of  "ballistics". It serves that purpose too. It's not easy to use either, because you can't see yourself. So it's not a ship for beginners for certain. If you are showing the game to a friend, it is the type of ship that leaves no one indifferent :)

Gravity whips make it  harder to target while cloaked. Being an ilwrath pilot, you need to be very patient and wait for the enemy to make a mistake, or if your whip take him by surprise (due to the map "warp). Ride the spider web.

In any case, the ship is more made to damage an opponent than destroy it.

I like Holocat's suggestion of dumbing down the camera when the Ilwrath is cloaked. Sure, keep it diametrically opposed but not quite as perfectly as before. I suspect the Ilwrath may need a small point raise if such a change is implemented. And if a change like that is ever put in, it will have to be attached to an optional toggle because that's much too drastic a difference from original gameplay. Especially if you make the Avenger visible to the controlling player, which I suspect Holocat implied in his post.