The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Ladies and gentleman, the Ur-Quan Dreadnought is useless in player vs player. When compared to the Chmmr and Kohr-Ah, many more ships are easily capable of taking it down. A large number of the ships that can't beat a Dreadnought usually inflict more than their weight in damage against it. For example, an 11 point Earthling can often chop off half the Dreadnought's crew. This costs the other player 15 points. The very same thing will not always occur with a Kohr-Ah, given that the Kohr-Ah's weaponry is well suited for blocking incoming missiles. Over and over this expensive ship crashes and burns against the silliest of adversaries while it's brother Kohr-Ah picks up the slack. I propose making a balance mod for SC2, with the first and foremost change being a shiny new Dreadnought with slightly increased turning power and fighter craft that don't die on asteroids or expire from lack of fuel. If any of the "good" players want to prove me wrong on this I welcome any challenge although the handful I've talked to already tend to agree.

As with all PVP topics, please do not preach if you are not experienced with it. Commentary from newer players is welcome, preaching is not.

You aren't getting any disagreement from me.

The Ur-Quan have to take over with superior numbers because that ship of theirs isn't anything special.  30pts?   ::)  Not with so many ships capable of destroying it without much trouble.

Then again, we need to think about skills here too - there are very few innate things about the ships that are hard to counter.

Against skilled pilots, the Ur-Quan ship is crap.

I reckon, point for point, an ur-quan should outclass a chenjesu, utwig, spathi, druuge, spathi, syreen, VUX, ilwrath. in addition, it should foot it on equal terms with a kohr-ah, yehat, mycon and shofixti. Of course i'm just guessing really! I'd be up for some experimentation at some stage.

It's not as powerful as khor-ah or Chmmr, nor the Orz,  obviously, it's still not a bad ship per se.

There are some people who don't play exclusively to win but merely to have fun, and that's why you'll see me with the umgah, ilwrath, vux and other "subpar" ships. Sometimes they do pull a win, which is gratifying (even if luck is a big part of it!  ;D)

Also, the game wasn't exactly intended for tournament play, i think the super melee was simply a training round or an after-thought that actually worked very well, so many ships that seem to us as "underpowered" to us are often ships that cause headaches to new players.

To prove my point, i've played a game against a total neophite Sunday (yes another corrupted soul!) and my umgah destroyed a a Pkunk Fury, an ilwrath Avenger, a Siren Penetrator, only to die after badly mauling an Earthling Cruiser.  So for my friend, the Umgah is now overpowered...

The Dreanught can pack a serious punch, espcially against slow moving ships or ships without point-defence. Yes, an Earthling can give a Ur-Quan a bloody nose. On the other hand, Druuge ships are less likely to do well. Both
little guys are slow and have long range weapons, but the Druuge has no defence, really.

I do tend to agree that for 30 points, the Ur-Quan has some serious weaknesses. It's lack of manouverablity
is probably my biggest gripe.

I'd say that making the fighters less suicidal might be an adequate change in itself. Make the enemy have to shoot them down, or at least ram them. Then you could lay out a fighter screen against fast ships which aren't so great at shooting down fighters, like Arilou, Pkunk, Mmrnmhrm... anyone whose tactic against the computer is to bleed them dry.

There are a few ways I can think of to do this:
1) they bounce off off asteroids like they do off the planet
2) they shoot at asteroids
3) they do not collide with asteroids

I really like this idea; and if my memory of how the AI works is correct, it's trivial to implement.  I'm going to have to try it on a "private version" and see how I like it.

Don't expect to see it in an official release, though.  Like, ever.  Just sayin'.

Actually as the Druuge, as long as you're patient (i.e. don't freak out at incoming fighters) and can control the recoil and aim well, you can do some serious damage to an Ur-Quan and sometimes kill it.  My experience anyway.

otherwise the kohr ah beating the kzer za wouldn't be logic unless they had better hardware

If I recall correctly, the First Doctrinal Conflict, as told by the Melnorme, had their tactical/strategic situation so evenly matched that the probable outcome would be mutual annilation.

Whether a Kor-Ah is clearly better than a Kzer-Za vessel I can't really say;   I've never seen these ships matched up against one another.  Suprising, but there you have it.

I also think that beefing up fighter performance would be better than beefing up turning rate/acceleration.  You could turn it into a rather nasty opponent simply by making fighters shoot at all hostile objects.  They still home in on the enemey vessel, but shoot anything close by that isn't the dreadnought itself, or a planet.

I never really managed to use the Avatar myself, but yeah, the Dreadnaught Fighters could be a bit more useful. It would be neat if they fired on everything and it was possible to deploy them as a 'screen' around the Dreadnaught... might be too effective from a game balance perspective though.

In my opionion, a patient ur quan can decimate a chmrr

I just had a repeated sitdown with the awesome AI in Druuge (me) vs. Ur-Quan.  The average was about 7 Ur-Quan ships for every 2 of my Druuge ships (and I don't think I'm *that* good with the Druuge) - by about the same ratio that I can take Chmmr out.  So I would amend what I said and definitely say that the Druuge would be a ship with the potential to pwn the Ur-Quan if piloted right.

Trouble with that is that AI is useless with Ur-Quan. The comp will mindlessly follow you - and with a Druuge that's suicide.  All an ur-quan needs to do is keep its distance and send fighters out selectively. The druuge would have to recoil to escape the fighters, and I suspect, recoil into the path of the ur-quan's rapid-fire fusion blaster.

You should try switching ships and see how you go with a Quan against a mauler - or play a human

Even Shofixti and Zoq-Fot-Pik can do very significant damage to an AI Ur-Quan - it keeps sending fighters mindlessly, and the rapid-fire guns of those vessels tear them to pieces without much effort. It's similar against the Orz, though marines are harder to kill.

I agree completley. The Ur-Quan needs an engine upgrade and fighters that have the sustainability of an Orz marine. I'm sure it could be easily fixed in the code by adjusting a few variables....

BTW, why not create a SuperMelee spinoff from UQM that allows players (or designers) the ability to create new ships?

-Zzzzrrrr

And don't think of the response of any ship in terms of what the AI is going to do either.  Admittedly the way the AI Druuge would play against an Ur-Quan is completely stupid.  The AI Druuge essentially commits suicide when a Ur-Quan fighter comes near.

And I leave you with the same advice.

I think some of the Dreadnaughts value comes from the fact that it could bust through enemy forts in SC1 all by itself.

That being said, it's still an excellent ship; but point-wise, it should probably be on par with the Chenjesu at 28. It can defeat most ships the Chmmr and Khor-Ah can, but it usually sustains more damage in doing so (by absorbing damage that either the FRIED or Zap Sats would destroy, or by losing fighters).


That's a good point too. To the uninitiated, the Dreadnaught can be a really scary ship. At least I thought so when I first started playing.

Personally, I'm much more in favor of downgrading its point value rather than improving its tactical abilities. Don't forget, the fighters already received an upgrade in SC2 to prevent them from being automatically killed when hitting the planet.

I'm a bit of a purist so I'm against radical changes (especially balance changes) for the 1.0 version, but I'm still open minded to slight mods. I think we can all agree that ur-quan fighters have a frustratingly low survival rate, lessening the ur-quan's staying power over multiple fights. Here are some useful ideas for ur-quan fighters.

Serious Suggestions for 1.0:
1. Give a better intercept algorithm for the fighters. I think the best idea for ur-quan fighters would be to change the way they chase down the enemy ship. Instead of constantly following the target, I think it would be useful instead of they plotted an "intercept course" on where the enemy ship WILL be when they can get there, and take an better route. This would be effective, especially against ships like the Druuge who often go flying in space so quickly that they can't be caught up with. If the effectiveness of this mod is overwhelming, it could always be watered down a bit so that the intercept course is not very precise, but still saves time.

2. Asteroids should be less lethal. If asteroids can destroy fighters, the fighters should at least make an attempt to maneuver around them so that they don't collide. This seems like common sense for any pilot. Watching all your fighters be destroyed by 2 asteroids can be very frustrating. I think this needs to be fixed. Fighters should either bounce off, go through or go around asteroids.

3. Fighters should not "expire". After all, inertia can carry you a long ways without consuming fuel...




Suggestions for future versions:
The Dreadnought consumes a lot of fuel by launching fighters. Granted, the rate at which fighters should be launched should be limited, but after launching a big wave of fighters, you can be left vulnerable with no energy left for the blasters. Less fuel consumption for launches would be useful.

Fighters being able to gravity whip like the Orz marine would be quite useful and interesting, without changing the game balance too too much.

Edit: Also, I think deploying fighters in a protective circle around the dreadnought makes good sense. It should be an alt-fire option or something. They could operate in a manner similar to zapsats, except be destroyed more easily.
Recalling the fighters at will would be useful, too.

The fragile expiring fighter craft I think is more of a reflection of the game and what the Ur-Quan characters were meant to be.  When/if changes are made, you have to make sure that you don't break canon in the storylines with them (at least not too bad).  In this case, one of the SC2 guides (either the manual or the strat guide, can't remember which) shows a drawing of an Ur-Quan forcing a fighting slave into a fighter pod.

Kind of the point behind the fragility (the asteroids and expiring both) of the fighter pods is that they're slaves not necessarily fighting of their own free will.  I think between SC1 and SC2 probably the ability to kite them into the planet was removed because of the big advantage it offered (though it makes as much sense as them driving into the asteroids).  But as a fighting slave that's not doing it of his own free will, wouldn't you think the temptation to just drive into an asteroid would be great enough to end an existence of having these strange tentacled aliens beating you around day in and day out and forcing you to do things you don't want to do?

Then the fuel/oxygen (or whatever these things breathe) issue: Wouldn't you think the Ur-Quan would want to control their slaves?  If the slave knew they could fly around all day doing the Ur-Quan's bidding in their fighter craft, what's to stop them from just flying off to find their freedom?  I always saw the fact that the fighter craft expired as a reflection of that grip of control they sought to have on their slave races.  Either the fighting slave in the pod would either not want to return, or if he still valued his life enough, he would make sure he returned.  Think of it as a long-distance shackle.

Regardless, I definitely feel you'd be toying with story-line canon if this change were made.

You have a good point.... Maybe ship upgrades for the Ur-Quan should be limited to turning velocity....

Whoa people. Original code is original code. Like I said, I was talking about a balance mod for Super Melee enthusiasts. In no way, shape or form am I in favor of forcing ship changes into the main game. With that said I assume most of us wouldn't mind an official balance mod that can be switched on and off, right?

I agree with Shiver. While it's great to have flexiblity, especialyl in Melee, these feautures should be
options.

Maybe we could have "Good AI", "Awesome AI" and "Gonna make you cry AI". The last
one can use enchanced ships to make your life suck.

I thought of another potential improvement for the Dreadnought. It's a given that firing arcs really cripple this ship's accuracy, so you could replace the fusion burst with a similar doodad that's twice as wide. A wider fusion burst would do wonders for this ship.

Okay, so i am wrong - for now. Shiver and i played Kohr-ah vs ur-quan then switched and the kohr-ah came up trumps on both occasions. However i have not given up on the turdboat - i intend to master it and become, well, turdmaster i guess.

"Turdboat"?

Calling it that is really just stupid, if you don't mind me saying so -- it's fearsome, just (supposedly) not so much as some other ships.

- Bob

While I do mind you saying so and would prefer that you take your pretentious signature elsewhere, I also agree with your premise somewhat. Turdboat is not a very endearing name. I have recently taken to calling the Ur-Quan vessel a Banana Boat instead.

It might be cool if in the future balance mod, the ur-quan had the ability to fire a shot that was "charged up", doing more damage than usual ones... so, the ur-quan could fire small fusion fire blasts rapidly or else save up for one huge devastating energy-output.

I like the idea of the fighters taking better routes, to try and get the opponent, or even getting them to avoid the asteroids.  I beg to differ though that the fighters are much of an issue for the Pkunk to deal with, try running past them and shooting them with the side guns,  to kill them, or simply avoid them.  Not an issue for the Arilou to shoot them either, just make sure the fighters you're shooting are directly between you and the Ur-Quan (be stationary until the fighters are in range, then fire while moving away from the fighters).  In both cases try to hit them at or near maximum range of your guns.  Both the Pkunk and Arilou have enough speed an maneuverability to mostly avoid them fairly easily. 

Kiting the fighters into asteroids isn't necessary for the Pkunk, Arilou, or Mnrmmhrm.  It's especially not an issue for the Mmrnmhrm, simply stay mostly in Y-Form, and use the long range missiles, Only go into X-Form when you need to turn quickly.  The fighters aren't fast enough to prevent Pkunks, Mnrmmhrm, or Arilou from simply avoiding them, most of the time, the Mmrnmhrm does have to watch his maneuvering when in Y-Form and be smart about switching forms,  They're only potentially an issue if the Ur-Quan launches them as you're attacking the ship itself, so save energy to teleport with an Arilou, Be ready to fly away quickly with a Pkunk, and there's no need to get that close with a Mmrnmhrm.  For Mnrmmhrm against Dreadnought, I would play keep away, and shoot with the long range gun, especially since the long range gun fires slower than the batteries recharge.

I haven't tried using an Ur-Quan against a Kohr-Ah in PvP in a long time, but how well would closing on the Kohr-Ah and using the fusion blast to shoot down his blades do?  He can only block your fusion blast with his F.R.I.E.D, but he needs 1/2 of a full battery to do that.  Is the dreadnought fast enough to close on the Maurader if the Maurader makes an effort to keep his distance?

I do agree that there are plenty of ships that can take the Dreadnought down, but I don't think that the Cruiser is one of the best ones.  If the Cruiser wasn't so painfully slow though it would be pretty interesting.  While gravity whips make the Cruiser go faster, the Quan simply needs to head the Cruiser off at that pass, so to speak, since if they try to correct thier course much, they will end up losing the speed gained from the Gravity Whip.

I do like the idea of a higher difficulty setting on the Player vs Computer Super Melee.  There are times, when I played a team of 2x the old Alliance, vs 2x the old Heirarchy, and have beaten all the heirarchy ships with only two or three of my ships and have done it using just the Syreen Penetrator (for those teams I always pick the Penetrator first, their best chance to stop it is pick the Ur-Quan first, before my Penetrator has picked up crew from other ships, and I can afford to make a mistake).  Usually the Syreen Penetrator, the Mmrnmhrm X-Form, and the either the Yehat Terminator, or Chenjesu Broodhome (depending on what Heirarchy ships remain).  For the Penetrator the only ship that is a challenge to beat against the AI set on Awesome is the Dreadnaught (in the teams I previously mentioned) but I keep my distance and work on picking off the fighters with the main gun, then try and get between the Quan's firing arcs and shoot the last few crew.  (I do try to do this at maximum range though)  I think that the Syreen's gun has slightly more range than the fusion blast, 

Against the other ships, I just have to avoid getting overconfident or sloppy with the Penetrator against Awesome AI.  Umgah is easy, Sing all his crew away, shoot the captain, then pick up the crew.  When you first face him, you want to get in front of him, and stay fairly close, so he's likely to keep using the antimatter cone, rather than his ability to zip backwards (by the time he's doing the turn to zip backwards, you should be shooting his captain.)

Androsynth, not too hard, for some reason against the AI, in Awesome, usually won't go into blazer mode until you shoot at him, so Sing his crew out, then make your shot count. 

Against the Vux, get distance immediately and pick him apart with the gun, just be patient, don't bother trying to suck out the crew. 

Against the Spathi, run away a little, then turn, close  and sing when you get him to chase you,  Avoid the Butt missiles (the computer will also tend to shoot himself a few times as well), and pick up the crew when he thinks you're going to chase him, Lather, rinse, repeat.

Against the Ilwarth, sing out his crew, then shoot the captain, 

Against the Mycon,  he will fire as soon as he appears, move away from his shots, and try to cut him off, after he gets moving, then as he tries to turn and run from you get behind him and sing his crew out, then shoot the captain.  This can be a bit tricky, but it's doable, just remember that the Penetrator is only barely faster than the plasmoids, but the Mycon can't shoot the plasmoids very quickly, can't turn very quickly, and cannot move quickly without a gravity whip, so I exploit those weaknesses.  Shooting the Plasmoids also helps, especially since each shot that hits, makes the target bigger, so it's easier for the next shot to hit.

To be a little off topic I don't think the Kzer-Za can be called a bananna ship, as Homeworld already has a more stately and banannaish ship in service;  In fact, i've never seen a ship so banannaish as the Mothership.

In SC1 it is my opinion that the most powerful ship is the Penetrator, but only after you have maxed its current crew;  It loses a lot of potential in SC2 as it cannot keep captured crew after battle.  Shame .

What's this, now?  The "Syreen throw extra crew out the airlock" bug was fixed (http://bugs.uqm.stack.nl/show_bug.cgi?id=184) in late 2003.  Try playing the current release version.  Or are you talking about something else?

If so, please file a bug (http://bugs.uqm.stack.nl/) describing how to reproduce it.

?  I *think* I recall this from the PC version, that after a battle is complete (that is, ALL combats are resolved between you and an enemy fleet in a single player game), any extra crew disappears.  I haven't used penetrators in the current version of UQM.  They keep their crew now?  What happens if you transfer crew with them?

To be specific, in SC1 you either had to do it the hard way (with enemey ships) or you could raid a Hierachy colony world;  All penetrators get full crew if they're at the planet.

There was a more recent bug with crew. But it too is fixed in the latest release.

I was just playing today the Alliance ships versus the Hiearchy ships. Amongst these ship the Urquan turns YOU into turd worthy of a Supox diet.

I

Poster above me, please work on your reading comprehension.


A little bit of common sense would have told you that the people arguing in this topic have already played against the "awesome" computer so many times they can beat it on either side of the Hierarchy vs Old Alliance match-up with one hand while drunk.

And to illustrate something to you (and anyone that talks about strategy with the AI experience alone), about how good a lot of the players here are, let me describe something.  I just got done playing this melee group that you describe.  But one difference though.  I used a set of rules I described in here once upon a time I called Endurance Melee.  Basic idea is that if you win the matchup you remove the ships you lost out of your set, and then keep going.  Then you count the number of points of ships you blow up before you lose all your ships.   

For the Old Hierarchy versus Old Alliance (me) set, with the awesome AI, I just blew up 741 points worth of ships before I lost all of mine.   Yes, if you do the math, that means I beat the Hierarchy set 6 times before I lost on the 7th.  That also means that Ur-Quan ship went down 6 times.  Care to guess how many different ships I used in the Old Alliance set to take out that Ur-Quan 6 times? 

To compare it to others here, I'm not saying I'm really that good or that they wouldn't get more than that (I'm not sure if I'm really *that* good).  But I can definitely say that's a great illustration of how the AI has outgrown most of us, and something else to show you that judging against solely what the AI can do is meaningless.

Thread necromancy!

(http://www.submedia.net/~nic/images/necromancer.gif)


I started poking and prodding at the code again, because I figure such hobbies are good for me.  And if bugs get fixed as a result, it's good for everyone who plays.  This request seemed like a fun place to start, so I augmented the fighters to shoot at just about anything they get near.  This has the net effect of making them attack/destroy asteroids that get too close.  The patch is here (http://www.submedia.net/~nic/uqm/urquan.c.patch.txt), it should apply cleanly to current SVN sources, and possibly even a stock 0.6.2 tree.

Of course, it's funny how expectations can get out of control.  I had visions of deploying fighters defensively, using them to intercept incoming projectiles and the like, which would really make the Dreadnought a genuine badass of a ship.  What I didn't account for is the fact that the fighters really, really suck.  They are designed to fly in amidships, hold position there, and shoot sideways at it until it is dead or they run low on fuel and need to turn back.  If you are small enough or fast enough, they will miss you completely.  So while two packs of opposing fighters will open fire on each other, about 80% of the time they'll miss each other.  And they have no hope at all of hitting any incoming projectile smaller or faster than the Podship's plasma ball.

But they do kill asteroids with this patch.  And that's pretty cool.

Mister 0x,

That is an interesting solution, but EP has already made it so Ur-Quan fighters avoid asteroids and never expire from lack of fuel during his tinkering. I've tried to get people hyped up on modding the game so it plays better, but it just didn't catch on. If interest increases, we might get a total ship re-balance (not just re-cost) mod in the future.

If you're considering this a solved problem by other means, then so be it, but I figured I'd throw this solution out there in case any modders found it useful/fun/interesting.

I'm not really interested in maintaining it as part of my "unofficial build" (which has fallen into disrepair as of late, must look into that) and I've no illusions that the patch would ever make it into the mainline tree, so if noone else has any use for it, then it was just a fun little exercise to get me back into the proper headspace to look at/modify UQM code again.  And that's fine by me.

Well, I'd like to try it... one solution for making the fighters more useful would be to make their firing range a touch longer. Then at least they might get 2 shots in on whatever they're aiming at before it zips by.

The Dreadnought is supposed to be a ship to be feared.. yet everyone laughs at it, and it dies so horribly in PvP it just isn't funny.

Fighters need to be kitted out so they don't expire in space, avoid getting smushed by enemy ships/asteroids and have 2 HP so they can take some flak before closing in. Fusion blast needs work too.

I admit to being a noob at UQM PvP, having only played against some of my friends hot-seat style, but what is wrong with the Fusion Blaster? I agree the fighters are of questionable worth, but to me the FB is a strong, fast firing gun.

Zurin Arctus/King Wulfharth (whichever name you prefer): The Dreadnought is a slow, non-maneuverable ship that fires a medium speed, quite small, non-area of effect projectile, and this leads to horrible accuracy.
The Mauler seems at first glance the same, but recoil gives it somewhat of an edge, allowing it to employ hit and run tactics. Besides, the Mauler isn't overrated. It's actually underrated by 2 points, according to Elvish Pillager's Balance Mod.

NOTE: I'm not a non-PvP-noob. So I'm just speaking from my limited experience.

Hmm, good points, Valagger. So would you agree that the fusion blaster is a solid gun, that is entirely unsuitable for a large slow ship like the UQD?

And if not, what would you change to make the gun better suited to the ship that carries it?
edit : I reread the thread and shivers idea of doubling the blasts width seems a good one to me.

It's a good idea on paper, but I tried it and it doesn't help much.

Just making it a touch faster would help the most, I think.

But it's the fighters that really need the love. Is there additional inaccuracy applied to their attack, on top of the problem of discrete firing angles? If so, we could remove it.

If the Ur-Quan have slaves, then the Ur-Quan should be able to implement the slaves' technology in their own ships, if they're the technically-advanced race I heard about.  I propose giving the Ur-Quan ships Thraddash-style afterburners, Earthling MX missiles, and VUX limpets.  Then they'd be feared.

That would be ridiculous. And I don't think they'll want any weapons from inferior species. I'd just tweak their statistics (especially those of the fighters.)

AFAICT, The Thraddash didn't develop them until after the second Doctrinal War began.

The Peace Vaults contained enough warheads to supply the small Earthling fleet while it was in the war, but they would run out quickly if distributed over the Ur-Quan armada.

Doesn't seem like it would be a particularly effective addition...

Well, if their own Fusion Bolt weapon is modded so as to be more cost-effective than the weaponry of the conquered races, then this would completely and undeniably explain why they don't attach weaponry from the slaves to their Dreadnoughts.

I guess that an Ur-Quan-ish (but not necessarily balanced) way to improve the Fusion Bolt is to:

1. Make it to auto-aim (that is, start with a facing such as, if the target keeps moving with the same velocity, the Fusion Bolt and the target are going to collide) at enemies within an arc of 22.5 degrees with the center at the Dreadnought's nose and the extension of the bisector passing through the Dreadnought parallel to its facing.
(after all, they have shown their aiming prowess when destroying everything older than 500 years on Earth)

2. In addition to this, increase the speed of the Fusion Bolt up to roughly 150% its default value (thus increasing its range as well).

3. In addition to the above, have the Fusion Bolt kill 9 crew members for 6 batt, as opposed to 6 crew for 6 batt as it currently does.

For the fighters, simply have them avoid asteroids and projectiles (but still be killed by them upon collision), and have them spawn in groups of four for only two crew members and the same amount of batt as default (and have them return as half a crew member each, unlike EP-Mod).

---

Now for the Marauder's upgrade!

So as to be on par with the Dreadful Dreadnought, the Marauder has to be improved according to the guidelines listed *below*:

1. The Marauder launches six FRIEDs in succession when the secondary button is pressed (and for the same amount of batt). The FRIEDs rotate around the ship a-la-the Pkunk Death Blossom and have 150% the vanilla speed (and thus, increased range).

2. In addition to that, shurikens are twice as fast and home in on the enemy a-la-EP-Mod, but with only 3/4 their speed-while-primary-button-is-pressed (i.e., with 150% the vanilla speed-while-primary-button-is-pressed).

Uh... no. Definitely no. Any Melee post that has the phrase "Marauder upgrade" is not to be taken seriously. I stopped reading after that.

Well, the idea was that I was not trying to balance the ships, just to upgrade the Dreadnought from a mediocre ship to an unbeatable ship, and the Marauder from a hard to beat ship to another unbeatable ship.
So yes, it wasn't even intended to be taken that seriously.

 What are you talking about? I've held out against many ships well with the dreadnought. My tactic is simple: stay put and blast anyone who comes close with fusion bolts. Few ships can withstand a good, well-aimed barrage. Those that do are the Utwig [best destroyed by figthers], the Chmmr [best destroyed by a "shoot and scoot" method] and the Khor-ah[beatable with a long range dual followed by moving in close to launch fighters]. I've also fought the Ur-quan with all three of those ships, and in practice, all ships, if used well, are easily capable of destroying each other. In one battle, where both sides had an even mix of the above ships, the two sides nearly wiped each other out, and the dreadnoughts were just as important to each side's effort as anything else. The Spathi are also very powerful, but they are better at making a battle last a long time than at actually winning.

That "tactic" sucks because half the other ships in the game can kill you without coming close. Half the remaining ships can come close and dodge/shield/survive the fusion blasts for long enough to kill you.

Yeah, sure, any of the ships can beat any other if you're playing against a terrible opponent, like the AI. This thread is about how the Dreadnought is bad, not about how the AI is bad.

 Did you know that you can shoot down projectiles coming at you from long range? Did you know that, besides the Utwig, shields suck? Further, I was playing against a human opponent [in retrospect, I should have mentioned this previously], and although I don't know exactly where his skill level falls in the SC2 community, I know he is better than the crappy AI.

Since this is about the Ur-quan's weaknesses, I guess I should mention that its main problem is that it can't defend itself from rear attacks. This is why, for most ships, you keep the gun-end of the dreadnought toward the enemy. Thus, the best way to take the Ur-quan out is to hit it quickly from behind. The Spathi are the best for this, followed by the Utwig. Also, the Orz marines are good for destroying slow targets, like the Ur-quan.

Hey guy, there's a message for you in the first post. Go back and read it. I don't really feel like copy/pasting it up here again in a massive bold font.

Only if you're directly facing each other, or the shot is Mycon plasmoid (in which case, big deal; anyone can shoot down those).

Since there are only two ships with shields in the entire game, that's not really much of a thing for anyone to know. Besides, however bad Yehat shield may be (and it can become much more awesome if you use it properly than if you just hold down the special key), the Terminator's more able than the Dreadnought against enemies, in a surprising number of ways, considering its lower cost. The Terminator's not an amazing ship (unfortunately), but then, neither's the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought isn't leagues ahead of the Terminator, for sure, though it's worth more as-is.

Probably so, but if Dreadnought still rocks in your games, well. When you play against most good players, who use good tactics, the Dreadnought becomes a paperweight.

Or side attacks, or a lot of frontal attacks.
The main problem of the Dreadnought is that it's totally outgunned by everything of comparable point status, and that when it *does* have an advantage in firepower, the enemy can usually dodge or otherwise nullify the attack, which is slow and fired by a ship with the turning ability of a whale in the Sahara Desert. Claiming that the Dreadnought rocks if only the pilot tries to keep people from getting behind it is silly, because its problems extend far beyond that (which can be circumvented, to a good extent, anyway).

Thanks for the info, but I'm fairly sure everyone knew that already.

Which even a Dreadnought can usually prevent, by the act of going into gravwhip. If not, however, you don't really have to come in from behind exclusively; the sides are similarly vulnerable, and in truth the front isn't a whole lot better, a lot of the time.

Utwig can be all right against Dreadnoughts, if they're flown properly, I guess...  but... Spathi?

Probably the only thing I don't disagree with in your post.

I'm thinking that the Dreadnought should be a bit like the Death Star. This might suit their personality. A big, powerful no-bullshit main gun with a deterring effect, then fighters as defense against the insolent fools who dare to get close. The fighters are not crewed by Quan of course, and also are kept on leach (to subtly signify that the Quan use slaves). Then the Quans just sit there behind their shield of fighters, pounding the enemy into submission. I'm not sure how this would be balanced in the game though, it's just how I image the Quan doing things.

Plasma bolt
Long range, very slightly homing, costly, strong.

Fighters
Swarming in the proximity of the Dreadnought (much further away than zap-sats).

The counter strategy would be to have a fast ship, then keep just outside the fighter radius and pick them off.

(http://web.telia.com/~u48508900/quan.gif)

I love the idea behind the whole Death Star but the thing is Arne the Dreadnoughts just constantly die to fast ships anyway (usually the Dreadnoughts are laughed at).. the Marauder despite being 30 points can destroy capital ships and smaller fast ships, and online they are very unkillable in the hands of a good opponent. In my opinion the Dreadnought should be something to be feared, the fighters able to attack fast-ships and that the enemy has to suffer some loss to destroy it rather than just playing around, playing on its weaknesses rather than say the Marauder which has few weaknesses other than the turning rate which for capital ships is decent, as well as having the constant range of a Druuge, decent damage (4 crew), full crew compliment, fast speed/good grav whips, fast fuel recharge rate and a defense/incinerate shield.

Again, I think the point needs to be made that - to a novice/intermediate player - the Ur-Quan seems very powerful (even unfairly so). To a newbie, the fighters alone seem like an unstoppable force.

To be sure, the scope of this discussion is limited to a small sampling of UQM players. So I would hope that any changes to the Ur-Quan's tactical abilities be limited to a mod of some sort to enhance Melee play and/or increase the Full Game difficulty. I, personally, remain in favor of modifying point values only. But others may disagree of course.

Seems, but those people eventually become better players (or so we can hope), at which point they learn that Ur-Quan aren't. Appearances aren't everything, and especially so with Dreadnoughts.

Nobody was saying we should call up Meep and alter UQM 0.7's ships. It being a mod was the only thing that was ever going to happen.
I do disagree. In some select cases, I believe some ships were supposed to be desirable ships, but they weren't because of shortsightedness. I'd like to see an improved Terminator, because it's implied that those ships are supposed to be able to fly out and seriously own people. They were said to be one of the primary combat ships of the Old Alliance. With the current setup, though, the Utwig are largely better, and so the Yehat are renowned only for being second-runners. Even many of the Old Alliance ships fly better, or have qualities that make them more qualified in the hands of elite players, for their costs.

Of course, altering the performance of every ship to rebalance them would be troublesome, and destroy much of the spirit of the game, so it isn't a realistic thing to do for all of them. However, I believe it would be viable in certain cases, especially with Ur-Quan (which, in the rebalanced costs mod, costs *less than Androsynth* -- ludicrous for the master race of the Hierarchy to have a worse ship than a thrall, even the Androsynth) and Thraddash (which nobody with sense ever flies, because it's a borefest ship).

C. Bob

You guys are probably right about the dreadnought stuff. I apologize if I seemed like a bit of a loudmouth jerk.
Next on the agenda: how do you become part of  #uqm-arena? Or is another thread already devoted to this? Or am I missing something?

Edit: All is now functional. Thanks for the help.

I’m not sure about this. Sure, a persistent new player might become good enough to slog through the Full Game, but I don’t see many new players elevating themselves into an advanced melee player. There are simply too many other pretty, shiny games out there nowadays to keep a player from mastering an ancient game like UQM.

Good. I'm glad we're on the same page here.

We'll agree to disagree here. ;)

Hi Fungus. First, you have to have an IRC client (like Chatzilla) and connect to irc.freenode.org. Then join channel #uqm-arena.

We play mostly for fun, but there are a few tournaments from time to time. Hope to see you there and welcome to the forums.  :)

There's also a web client on http://uqm.stack.nl/irc/irc.cgi (http://uqm.stack.nl/irc/irc.cgi).

Dreadnought does not suck. The problem is that melee players are using the wrong tactics with it.

You never pill-box with a Dreadnought

Ur-Quan Dreadnought was designed for frontal attacks. The Kzer-za say themselves when describing the Dreadnought in SC3 (I know it is not canon).

"Remember this ship was designed by Ur-Quan, we are unfamiliar with retreat"

Dreadnought has superior firepower to the Avatar and its brother the Marauder. A Dreadnought can easily raped an Avatar. The key is to use your own fusion bolts to shield the Dreadnought from the Avatar's devastating laser.

The Marauder stands little chance against a Dreadnought once it gets close.

The Dreadnought annihilates majority of the small ships without too much trouble. The only small ship that still rapes the Dreadnought is the underrated Skiff.

FYI, I have played tons of Supermelee with my brothers using the keyboard back when SC2 was new.

Yes but the Marauder will always have the advantage of range and turning. Most of the time you won't keep up with him and while you get close your slow maneuverability will mean you will run into the mines it spams. Launching fighters can have them picked off at range, although you can strike lucky and get in two fighters who'll take down his crew and he can't do anything other than use the FRIED after which he's expended his ammo, but the matchup is heavily in the Kohr-Ah's favor. Some of these players on #uqm-arena and myself agree the Ur-Quan is a tubboat which can deal the damage but simply can't get to using it, also it's overall design makes it cost ineffective.

With an Avatar, I'll just drag you in close once you're turned, slightly in the wrong direction where you can't use your fusion bolts or throw you into a planet. An Ur-Quan does badly against a good Avatar pilot.

Frontal assaults are cost ineffective in that the guy will just dance around you. Try doing frontal assaults with an Orz? a Spathi? The Marauder and Avatar mop them up pretty well, the Dreadnought however does not.

You might as well spend the money on an Utwig which can do good against both the Marauder (if you are good with reactions) although it's generally slow and might be unable to keep up. It's also generally solid against an Avatar. Not to mention it's one of the primary killers of the Kzer-Za as the bolts are slow so you can pick it off at range. Heck even the Yehat with its spammable sheilds can pick off the Kzer-Za going in hot, and I've even seen ZFP and Androsynth get lucky and kill it too, same goes for a skilled Arilou pilot.

The only thing I could see the Ur-Quan useful is if the guy makes extensive use of Hierarchy ships. It really is the banana boat, and I could take it provided it had a cost decrease to make up for it's efficiency.

Elerium has a few minor details wrong, but is mostly on the mark. Let me just say that Zoq-Fot-Pik is not going to ever beat a player-controlled Ur-Quan.



Chmmr has a higher rate of damage even if you ignore its satellites. The terrawatt laser hits for 2 damage per frame, while Ur-Quan can fire a 6 damage projectile every 7 frames. Sorry bro, Chmmr hits harder. As for Ur-Quan fusion bolts blocking the laser, I suppose that might be technically possible but I haven't noticed it happen before in any significant way that changed the outcome of a fight. The one advantage Ur-Quan has against Chmmr is longer range, but Ur-Quan usually misses a good portion of its long shots fired due to blind spots between the 16 directions a ship is allowed to face. Sometimes it can beat Chmmr, but usually not.

And Kohr-Ah? No way. Kohr-Ah ravages Ur-Quan almost every time unless the Kohr-Ah player has no idea what he's doing. The one situation I can see Ur-Quan coming out on top of a Kohr-Ah is if the two ships spawn in extremely close proximity to each other with the Ur-Quan facing the Kohr-Ah.



This is just silly. Play a few people in #UQM-Arena if you want to make a point.

Perhaps the plasma torpedoes could be made homing?

The fighters should/could also avoid attacks, if possible.

I think homing torpedoes would change the ship too much rather than just making it better.  What I'd do instead is make the fusion blasts wider and faster. 

And I'm not sure the Ur-Quan really needs to be changed at all aside from its price.  Could be fun to tinker around with it, though, I guess.

Well, I guess it depends on what kind of ship we want it to be...
I personally think that the Ur-Quan should have a 30-point ship.

Maybe, for an overall turn of ten degrees by the end of their flight... Then they are less affected by the angle restrictions but still really aren't all that guided.

Being slightly guided is at least as bad as it is good, since it can also make a near hit into a near miss, and it can shorten the range - consider the situations where you could wish the VUX limpets were not guided.

If the homing is on the 10 degree scale, well, cos(10°) ~= 1. It's not going to slow it down that much.
As far as missing when it would have hit, limpets are slow, which is kind of the reverse of the fusion bolt. There is only time for slight course corrections.

I think the odd edge-case disadvantage would be massively outweighed by the advantage.

Of course, if we really want to change things around a bit, we can go back to an unguided shot, but make it get bigger and bigger, which would have much the same effect without the opportunity to miss. Could get fouled up by asteroids, though.

The advantage only takes place in a few unusual cases as well. It's good if the enemy is stationary, but if the enemy is moving at all perpendicularly to the direction of the shot, it's going to over-correct as often as not.

I suppose the tracking system could be made smarter.

Yeah, it should take the velocity+direction of the target into account rather than just the position. For a game set in a sci-fi future setting, the homing computers are remarkably stupid...

The game will take a bit more computing power, but that shouldn't be a problem these days.

Basically, at each "homing course change" the projectile should pick a direction that brings it into contact with the target within the projectile's remaining lifetime, taking the target's position, velocity and direction into account. The course that gets to the target the fastest should be taken.
If it is not possible for the projectile to reach its target during its lifetime at the time of being fired, it should just keep going forward (to allow defensive straight shots at long-range attacks). If inability to reach the target happens after being fired, the projectile should still head as close as possible.

If you're in a position to get this thing to aim the wrong direction, it means you had to pass directly in front of it while it was in flight. This is generally considered a bad idea in respect to fusion blasts. They do not take their time closing in like limpets and plasmoids do.

If you're in a position to get hit by this thing when you wouldn't otherwise, you were sitting pretty stationary right next to its normal trajectory. This "is generally considered" a bad idea with respect to fusion blasts. By the way, do you know how much I hate the phrase "is considered" and its derivatives? It cleanly avoids taking or giving any responsibility for the consideration.

Also, although they're not as slow as plasmoids and limpets (speed 8 and 6.25 respectively) they're not fast like Spathi or Supox shots.

Niles - yeah; in fact, the Orz marines already use smarter homing - not as ideal as your description, but pretty reliable - although they're kind of half-hearted about it (they aim about midway between directly at the enemy and where they ought to.)

Any ship that doesn't cross the unguided trajectory is going to have been missed; while any ship that ends up near that line is at risk from a guided shot.

Secondly, a lot of velocity doesn't do any good if it's in the radial direction, so a fast-moving ship could easily qualify as 'stationary' for these purposes.

How much lateral range are we talking, here? Well, if at the end it has a ten degree homing angle, then it will achieve a lateral offset of 8.7% of its forward range (sin(10 degrees)/2 = 0.087). This is hardly 'right next to', as the range is quite substantial. If it's not enough, we can increase the turn rate appropriately.

I don't get your point about Spathi or Supox shots. If you think the fusion blast is slow, say so. If you think you can run rings around it and confuse it, say so. If you think diving in front of a homing plasma blast is not dangerous, say so.

I'm presently working on implementing this so we can check how useful it is, practically.

Presently, my difficulty is storing the lateral velocity state. MISSILE_BLOCK is the data entry for these missiles, and it doesn't have a 'miscellaneous' entry or an 'other velocity' entry. I remember someone said something somewhere (very useful, I know!) about including some degree of shot relativity for some ship (perhaps hypothetically?). If they found a solution for that, it should be easily adapted to this.

Another solution would be to simply make MISSILE_BLOCK bigger, and have every other missile in the game carry around some state it doesn't need.

Considering that it turns over the course of its flight, that'd be about half what you say - about 4.4% of its range, which is 17.6 display units - less than the width of an Ur-Quan...

It's slow ; you can't run rings around it ; diving into its path carelessly is dangerous but crossing its path while in flight is possible to do while paying attention, without risk.

no ; MISSILE_BLOCK is just for creating a new missile.

This is the most sensible thing I've read all page long.

Here's a diff file that describes the changes to the code. I have verified that this correctly compiles to an object file. However, I do not have all the needed libraries, so I can't build the full game myself.

Problems may arise if the velocity values are low enough that dividing by 114 results in large rounding errors. If so, we can do larger turns less frequently than every frame.

Normal diffs make baby jesus cry.  Unified diffs are better for moving targets like this one, as they preserve a bit of context, and can account for "code drift".  But even then, up-to-date SVN is different than 0.6.2 (e.g., ELEMENTPTR was deprecated/removed)

If that weren't bad enough, this patch doesn't do anything. 
ElementPtr->hTarget is always NULL in this context, turning the whole function into a big, complicated no-op.  You'll need to walk the element list, looking for the opposing ship, or just use TrackShip() in src/sc2code/weapon.c to do it for you.

Here's a patch against "current" SVN (r2983) that's effectively a drop-in of the Cruiser's homing projectile, but with the homing aspect severely dialed-down to the point that it is a very weakly-tracking missile:


Now you can actually try it instead of postulating endlessly about its effectiveness.  Enjoy.

Having finally gotten it compiled properly, I noticed what Nic noticed and came up with the same fix.

I mean, the same one he had before he totally replaced it with something that basically functions, but acts way too much lie the cruiser's missile.

Which is better than what I had up there, which kind of wiggles around and then swerves off in a random direction.

I didn't notice this, but I wanted to say:


No, I already put in the half -- see that /2 in there? I know math. Plus, that was a first guess - as I said,
I think I'll take another stab at this soon.


We could alternately bring the speed to the fusion blast up to that of the faster weapons such as Orz shots (from 20 to 30). Or both.

What if the ur-quan fusion bolt would explode after few seconds (the range should stay same)  and make some blast damage ? Blast effect could be as large as shofixtis explosion but with considerable less damage. Like 1 point of damage if the target is at max range.
Then it wouldnt be such as sucky ship but not overly powerful either ?
Small low cost ships wouldnt then rip ur-quan apart very easily.
And the fighter craft should be made better like there has been previously mentioned.

Technically, the Shofixti explosion does 1 damage at its max range.

Of course, your proposed Ur-Quan blast would be scaled to 6 at its center, so effectively 1/3 as much damage as the Shofixti blast at any point in the radius (assuming a simple implementation)

Yeah, what do you think, is this stupid idea or not?  :)

It's a very interesting idea. It'd make it much more effective at range, about as effective as it should be I think.

It'd still suck at hitting anything that was right next to it.

I like the explosion, but it seems similar to the Chenjesu blasts.

Another idea I had was to have the shots emerge from the side pods instead of the nose, and alternate sides. That would make the dead zones narrower and further away.

I'd rather have the shots come from the sides and fire from both sides at once. Simpler to code, less (pointlessly) confusing to play...

I guess so; but we'd need to rebalance the damage rate in that case.

3 damage each per shot, to keep the same total? Or, since hitting with both is less likely, more? 6, as this is intended to be a buff?

Or would we halve the fire rate?

To avoid this is why I was thinking of alternating.

No, we wouldn't have to make any other change; the point is to make it significantly more powerful. It's supposed to be worth around 30, and as it stands it wouldn't even be at 18 in the price mod if it wasn't for its effectiveness against Chmmr in particular.

Also, compare with the fact that simply doubling its current damage to 12 would be a generally ineffective measure, since its main problem against most ships is when it does not hit in the first place.

And even when it is an effective counter to chmmr, there are also cheaper alternatives.
So Ur-Quan is never used anyway.

It needs to be made more powerful against small ships.

I'm talking about the price mod here. The only other ships that can expect to take out half a Chmmr's crew are Druuge, Utwig, and Chenjesu, and they cost 20, 22, and 22 respectively. As far as I'm concerned, UQ is the most aggressively priced Chmmr counter in the mod, which makes up for it being mediocre at everything else.

Double shots would definitely help against smaller ships, which can currently take advantage of the blind spots that literally go all the way up to its hull.

Ha, I remember that. You might have noticed it earlier, but I didn't know until we played Androsynth vs Ur-Quan repeatedly. The tiny little comet could attack Ur-Quan head-on without taking damage. That was beatdown of the century for Ur-Quan.

Here's an SVN diff, replacing my old file diff. This one also uses indenting more consistent with the rest of the code.



Having played a little with it, I think it's a dramatic improvement.

Sorry to ask such a silly question but how can I use this code on my UQM ?
 ::)

Apply patch to source code and recompile. If you don't understand the previous sentence, I estimate it'll take you several days of work to sort it out, and in the meantime someone more knowledgeable (and with a working UQM development environment) will have provided you with an easier solution (this is called "waiting for a modified binary").

Is it possible to compile windows version of UQM with any free compilers ?
Is it only one file which is being compiled, not the whole game ?

Yes, I favour MinGW. I have written some brief instructions on compiling UQM with MinGW (http://koti.mbnet.fi/lonnberg/MinGWUQM.txt), but it's been a while since I tested them.

If you have suitable object files for all the other source files, you only need to recompile the modified source file and relink. If you don't (most likely if you've never compiled UQM), you'll have to build it all.

I agree that the ur-quan is over-valued, though not for any particular tactical shortcomings (in my opinion, it can hold its own against almost any ship rather well), but rather because it simply lacks endurance. Fighters are powerful but tend to get killed by asteroids/stray fire/collisions with ships. If you want to have your ur-quan last, you need to use them sparingly. They're also quite unintelligent, mindlessly pursuing an enemy instead of plotting an intercept course (like looping around the screen, maybe).

     If we were to make a Melee mod, I would recommend some of the following as potential ideas:
1. Make the fighters behave like Orz marines: bounce off ships and asteroids instead of crash into them; pull gravity whips; fly smarter (not fly in a predictable straight line towards target but "deek" a bit;  try to plot intercept vector. )
2. Make it so that the fighters don't expire. Sure, they should have to "return to base" instead of stay out perpetually, but actually having them die sucks. I think this is a huge problem and should be fixed. Their engagement time should be limited but they should not actually die.
3. I really don't think that the ur-quan should be made more maneuverable--its lack of maneuverability is the only thing that smaller ships have on it so they can get behind it to tongue/whatever. I wouldn't be opposed to a longer range blaster, however, for standoffs, or maybe a faster firing rate for those close encounters.

Either that or just reduce the cost of the banana boat. Personally though, even though it's a weak ship, I love the ur-quan.

Time to revive an old topic with a new idea.

The problem, as I see it, is that the Ur-Quan sucks and people want its projectile to be homing. People also don't like it seeming like a Cruiser missile. So, for starters, how about making the plasma projectile strafe? Not only does this improve the uniqueness of the ship, it also prevents sprites-looking-like-crap-because-they're-rotatedness. Of course, it's not quite as homing as other weapons but if the guns were mounted in the nacelles instead of the nose and the turning ansd speed were improved AND the fighters were given the improvements previously discussed, the Dreadnought could once again rule the stars. As it is it's a sick, green, fatassed joke.

Okay, I’ve just read all 7 pages of this thread.

Going back to what Angus said aaaages ago, I think he’s right about the Ur-quan being valued highly in SC1 because of the fortress destroying thing.

Nevertheless, I believe that the Ur-Quan SHOULD be a feared and destructive ship. When I see an opposing player’s fleet contain an Ur-Quan, or when I bump into four-strong squadron  of Ur-Quan in the full game, I want to crap my pants

There’s any number obvious things you can do to make the Ur-Quan a better ship.

I’d like to see subtle changes that keep the essence of the Ur-Quan. It’s supposed to be a big mean ship with awesome fire power.

It should demolish most small ships, but it should also be vulnerable to the Chmmr – remember, the Chmmr was designed to destroy Ur-Quan. Ideally it should be able to foot it with a Kohr-ah too.

I think only three things need to be changed:

• The fighters should bounce off/evade asteroids and enemy ships – and they should not expire.
• Fusion blasts should be less fuel intensive. I think this would have a BIG impact, especially against other cap ships.
• Improve the turning rate so it can’t get so easily picked apart by small ships and Orz marines

Interesting idea:

• Could you make it so some small fighters diverted their attention to Orz marines, DOGIs etc?

After this, we need to fix the Yehat and the Chenjesu. And the frickin Thraddash!

P.S. homing fusion blasts is a crap idea

This may be the case in SC2's canon, but it is not in melee. Not even against the AI. You would have to mod the Chmmr to change the balance of power between 30 point ships, and that sounds like a bad idea to me. The current Chmmr is powerful, fun to use, fun to destroy and very unique in feeling.



Yehat and Chenjesu are easily fixed by lowering their prices. They're still quite playable that way. Of course that still doesn't solve the headache that is Yehat vs Spathi, which never occurs in vanilla melee but probably would if people got serious about playing a balance mod.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say about the Chmmr. I’m just saying that it’s acceptable for Chmmr to overpower an Ur-Quan so there is no need to make the Ur-Quan too powerful.

I just believe that the Ur-Quan should demolish most other ships.

As for the Yehat and Chenjesu, well those are just some other ships that to me should be powerful ships (based on their role in SC1). That’s just my own personal feeling. The Chenjesu especially. I think I would rather enhance it in some subtle way rather than reduce it to average ship status. I expect most would disagree…

Actually, once upon a time I brought up the idea of having Chenjesu's primary explode into shrapnel that spun outwards in a spiral rather than traveling in a straight line. You could even make the spiral alternate between clockwise and counter-clockwise so that Chenjesu didn't leave any blindspot around itself whatsoever when spamming the primary at short range. That would be an elegant way of making Chenjesu more dangerous. That doesn't bring it up to 28 points, but it might make it worth 24.

I don't like the idea of fighters not being able to expire. I think it's good that they can from a story standpoint - they're just thralls, the Ur-quan don't really care all that much about them and probably wouldn't design the fighters to ensure they won't die. Making them take longer to expire would be fine, though. Fighters should also cost less fuel to launch. I think letting them bounce off asteroids would make them too similar to marines, but they should definitely evade them.

And they have a couple of other AI issues. It really sucks how sometimes half your fighters will ram right into the enemy ship when they get to it and die. If the cruiser didn't have point defense, it would still have a somewhat effective defense against fighters just by spinning a lot!  Also, perhaps the fighters could launch out the sides instead of the back? That might make them a more effective short-range defense against small ships. Letting fighters shoot down projectiles, DOGIs, etc. is an interesting idea, but it might be too big a change. It's worth considering, though.

The biggest problem with the Dreadnought isn't its turning rate per se. I mean, that is a weakness, but not a crippling one and it's a weakness it should have. The problem is that it's quite large and that ships can only turn in 16 different directions. This means that many ships, even some big ones, can get in a position where they are in range of the cannon and the Dreadnought is facing them, but it can't hit with its fusion blasts, because the ship has fit between two turning positions and the bolts will miss. The Ur-quan has to change its course to fix this, which is easier said than done (partly due to its turning rate) and often leaves the Dreadnought vulnerable. It also makes it a lot less effective at shooting down projectiles, particularly against the Kohr-ah and the Cruiser.

I don't like some of the fixes proposed for this. Homing fusion bolts, double fusion bolts, exploding fusion bolts - these alter he fundamental design of the ship too much, I think. How difficult would it be to mod the game to have 32 or 64 turning positions? This might cause other balance issues (the Druuge would probably be really scary), but it would be fun to experiment with. Making the blasts alternate from the sides might be a good idea. 

I agree that having the fusion blast just strafe laterally toward the target is a much better idea than making it seek like a cruiser missile. That might be a good solution. Or maybe make the fusion bolts signficantly bigger and wider.

I'm a big fan of the Dreadnought despite its problems. It's just a fun ship. And the Yehat and Mycon and Chenjesu too.

Double-or-quadruple-the-number-of-sprites-to-avoid-it-looking-like-ass difficult. But a good idea all the same, and if anyone who feels like doing that also feels like taking the time to clean up the existing sprites that would be brilliant.

Which is to say, not hard at all? Why redraw the sprites when the computer can?

http://www.students.uwf.edu/aen3/mauler.zip

That was like...2 minutes of work. A minute-and-a-half was spent looking for the "rotate-sprite-and-avoid-looking-like-ass" program.  ;)

Rather than wait for Hell to freeze over, I will be working on this balance mod myself starting now. The first change will be to give the Dreadnought's fusion bolts extra width. The extra width makes them better for scoring hits and blocking incoming projectiles. This has been completed already. I will not be releasing my work onto the Internet for download until I've made more changes to other ships.



Here's a diagram showing the new bolt I made right next to the original at various firing angles and distances:

(http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb278/SunBloom/Jumbo_Fusion.jpg)


The fighters on my current mod Dreadnought evade asteroids, have a much longer time period to return to the mothership before expiring, do not use or return crew and fire their weapons less rapidly (8 frames => 12 frames). Is this balanced? I have no idea until I try playing it against Elvish Pillager.

On the fighters front, have you considered including Nic's mod that lets the fighters shoot things like incoming enemy shots and asteroids?

When I played with them, those fighters presented a serious barrier to incoming fire. It was an entirely different use vector.

For the record, I can't write code to save my life. EP did the difficult coding for me. I'm pretty sure he's already tried most of this stuff out by himself and the stuff he gave me was a simple copy-paste into IRC.

I'm trying to keep Ur-Quan fighters as more "quantity" than "quality". One thing I already tried was to raise their speed but keep the crew usage. I didn't like how similar the fighters felt to Orz marines when I did that. Shooting at asteroids and incoming projectiles would tend to push fighters further off towards being individually powerful. As it stands, the asteroid dodging and longer time before expiration are mostly aesthetic changes seeing as how the fighters are currently unmanned drones.

First of all your images were off centered... not a big problem to solve but still. 2nd where is your program where can I find it?

TapamN doesn't regularly check the forum. It's unlikely you'll hear back from him anytime soon, if ever.



It doesn't actually matter if ship images are off center. There's a file where you can move the game's "hotspot" to the center of the ship for each individual image.

The interdiction-capable fighters were still very fragile, no need to worry about that; and they weren't all that great at interdiction. On the ease front, I suspect that the two changes could be merged successfully. If not, either of the authors or I should be able to untangle it so they mesh.

@shiver: Thank you I did not know that you could off center picture. will make it easier for me!