The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

A. I wonder why don't the Yehat and Utwig use shielding computers as the Earthlings use Point Defense computers for automation.
Or why didn't the Umgah mount their retropropulsion in the front of their ships.
Of course the reason would be "balance and fun", but besides that, I would like a background story.
So far I have come with two possible explanations (psychological / physical):
1. Psychological The honour of the Yehat makes them want not to use "unfair" aids such as automatic shielding.
    The sophisticated culture of the Utwig makes them to consider even shielding as something that must be done with a ceremony, so this doesn't allow automation.
    The inventor of the retropropulsion made a prank to the rest of the Umgah by mounting the retropropulsion at the backside of the Drones, although it was supposed to be in front.
2. Physical The Yehat&Utwig shields must first be "charged" before usage (and this takes a random time). As such, they can't target the activation time so well.
    Mounting the retropropulsion forward would cause the Drone to collide with its own antimatter cone.

I would rather believe in the psychological explanations.

B. If an Utwig captain times perfectly his shielding everytime, in SuperMelee he would be invincible. However, in the game's universe, there must be a way to break the shield. Perhaps by attacking with a very powerful weapon or by continously shooting until some energy finally breaks through?
Plus, the shield doesn't protect the ship from damage via collision with the planet. Why? Perhaps the shield does not defend against kinetic weaponry that is powerful enough (the Kohr-Ah disks are not enough).

Maybe they feel that the shielding is so important that they want to control it manually. After all different tactics and different flying patterns/manoeuvres require applying the shield at just the right second and no-one (i.e. a computer) knows exactly what the captain wants/is going to do except himself.

Maybe they came across program glitchings. Perhaps the shield was firing too late, and ships were getting hit anyways.

Then again, creating vast fleets of ships costs money and resouces, n'est pas? Perhaps highly integrated, intelligent computers would cost a pretty penny, and these races decided that it would be better to build 5 live-manned ships, to 1 expensive but automated ship.

As to the Umgah, were there not some issues of pilots pulsing themselves into their own anti-matter cones? Therefore, a retropulse system was made instead.

Where did you get the Umgah data from?

And the shields - ah, costs? Quality is better than quantity, especially in this case and for the Utwig. They would be virtually unbeatable! I'd rather incline to the psychological explanation here.
Plus, how much did you pay for your computer?
And how much did you pay for your house?
Well, a Jugger is even more expensive than your house.

Maybe they have auto-shielding but it's disabled. Maybe their enemies could abuse the auto-shielding and deplete their energy. And if the timing of the shields are off you could run out of power and be defenseless. Like I said, the captain may want to perform a special attack pattern and wishes to control the exact timing of the shields. The computer doesn't know what he's planning like he does.

Early prototypes of both Terminators and Juggers both incorporated threat detection AIs paired with the shielding mechanisms. However, the same problem was encountered during field testing on both models: simply activating the computers created a tremendous strain on the power generation capabilites of the ships batteries. In the case of the Yehat, they found that the computer was so energy intensive that it quadrupled the energy consumption of the shield when activated, making the activation window very brief indeed, and halved the regenration rate of the batteries when the shield was turned off. Their engineers deemed the AI an unacceptable drain on the ships resources, which hampered the ship's performance greatly, and the system was scrapped after several updated prototypes were unable to reduce the energy consumption significantly. Utwig engineers experienced a similar situation during field tests, but even more exaggerated; they were surprised to find that the shields never activated at all, and dismayed the discover that their AI emptied the ship's batteries within seconds after activation before mock-combat could even be engaged, rendering the entire shielding system useless. This was considered an instantly fatal flaw in design, and the project was cancelled and personnell reassigned after the first test, before the prototype could even be updated once.

Why did the Umgah attach their boosters as retro-rockets rather than afterburners? Because they thought it would be pretty funny to hurtle at an opponent full-tilt with the ship facing backwards. Har har har!

Ah, I see that the Umgah problem is very simple. Everybody agrees with the psychological explanation, even if there as some small variations.

About the shielding though:
A. jucce's argument: Auto-shielding means shielding everytime when it's needed. Not shielding when you're not going to be hit. You aren't going to fall for such shielding tricks. So in fact auto-shielding would only do good.
B. Draxas' argument: While I like the way you present this explanation, I am forced to reply: No, the AI doesn't consume so much energy. I mean, keeping your computer open - even if your house is running on batteries - isn't going to hamper greatly the energy reserved for lighting.
I mean, an entire colossal ship consumes only twice or so than a computer?! Huh?

Even a scaled-up Analytical Engine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine) probably wouldn't use that much power. Computing technology is not mentioned much in Star Control (apart from advanced Precursor ones), but I still find it hard to believe that a spacefaring race would not be able to implement threat detection far superior to manual shield activation with only minimal power requirements (especially since current Human technology would be more than adequate for the job).

So we should stick with the psychological explanation for everything.


Anyway, there was also the second point to discuss:
B. If an Utwig captain times perfectly his shielding everytime, in SuperMelee he would be invincible. However, in the game's universe, there must be a way to break the shield. Perhaps by attacking with a very powerful weapon or by continously shooting until some energy finally breaks through?
Plus, the shield doesn't protect the ship from damage via collision with the planet. Why? Perhaps the shield does not defend against kinetic weaponry that is powerful enough (the Kohr-Ah disks are not enough).

As for the Umgah, I thought that the retro-thrust system was in some way the same system as the antimatter cone, so that they had to be oriented the same way.

Bah. It was just a silly, if completely different, theory than the ones proposed. I was just (perhaps not-so-subtly nor terribly effectively) pointing out that there could be technical limitations that we are unaware of.

If you prefer, how's this explanation: The best AI either race could come up with for the shielding systems was the Awesome AI, so they decided it would be more prudent to just work the system manually. :P

 ;D
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL


Anyway, there was also the second point to discuss:
B. If an Utwig captain times perfectly his shielding everytime, in SuperMelee he would be invincible. However, in the game's universe, there must be a way to break the shield. Perhaps by attacking with a very powerful weapon or by continously shooting until some energy finally breaks through?
Plus, the shield doesn't protect the ship from damage via collision with the planet. Why? Perhaps the shield does not defend against kinetic weaponry that is powerful enough (the Kohr-Ah disks are not enough).

Starships in the Star Control universe are not designed for atmospheric flight, which is why landers are used. A "collision" with a planet actually represents a near-miss, with the ship taking damage due to the lack of heat shielding necessary to protect against reentry. Utwig and Yehat shield systems are designed to absorb energy projectiles and deflect kinetic projectiles, but this all-around heat damage is too much for the system to compensate for.

As for the perfectly-shielded Utwig... Well, no pilot is perfect. Eventually they'll screw up.

Well if we look at the Utwig, when they take a hit, their energy goes up, so its fair to say they absorb the energy. Now if science fiction has taught me anything, its that if you charge enough energy into something it'll eventually 'splode!



We have energy shields??!??!

:) No, but we have the computers to control them.

They could dump the excess energy.

Maybe the shields generate a lot of heat, and it's just too hard to design computers and sensors that keep working despite the heat.

Plus, it's not very useful - and thus, not worth it - since most of the enemies are too Awesome to fake out normal-skill pilots. :D

Ah, the computers can't operate in hot temperatures, but the shipmates can? It would be just the reverse in reality.
As to facing just Awesome AI opposition - you'd better be prepared for anything, who knows when an invincible Elvish Pillager team of four Androsynth and three Chmmr shows up?

Additionally, we were talking about point B. now - how can shields be overcome.
I would incline to the hypothesis that a large quantity of kinetic energy can pass through them, since that is the case with planets AND Blazers. Also, the shield is named an "absorbtion shield", implying that it absorbs ray weapons primarily.
However, it absorbs very well Kohr-Ah spinning blades too. What's the difference? Simply - the spinblades are NOT concentrated in a single point, so they are not taken for their total damage, since it is dispersed in multiple locations.

Not mainly the computers, but the sensors. The crew holds can be cooled, but the ship would have to have some kind of electronic devices on the outside to detect incoming shot. It might not be affordable to have extra coolers for all such devices. The captain can use windows in the ship, and mirrors, to see incoming shot, but computers don't have that kind of skill.

Blazers don't go through the shield, they just don't get absorbed by the shield.

What theory can explain the difference between shots (blocked and absorbed), Blazers (blocked but not absorbed), and planets (neither blocked nor absorbed)? Or should Blazer vs. shield be written off as a gameplay quirk.

I don't see how "absorbtion shield" implies anything more than that it absorbs stuff in general, especially when the gameplay directly contradicts your interpretation. The shield is notably weaker against ray weapons (because it's impossible to react to them.)

Hm? Are you sure? Especially on a black background. And of course, since it is also the computer that simulates the battle.  ;)

What about...
The shield can block attacks up to the power N. But it can absorb energy only until power N-m. Since there are two separate systems in fact: Blocking shield AND Recharging shield.

Impossibility to react doesn't mean that the shields don't absorb them well - it's related to the captain.
Also, I know that in-game there's no difference between kinetic and beam weapons absorbtion&defense (save for Blazers&planets), but that's because their powers are too small.
In fact, the shield probably can block beam weapons up to power N*m, let's say, but kinetics only till N.

(N, m are rational numbers, m>1)

Most of the time, the Blazer does more damage per hit than the planet.

Almost everything in UQM is manual control, why would the shields be any different? Sure
you could argue a computer could control shields better than a living being, but you're
ignoring tatics. Sometimes it makes sense to take a hit now, rather than raise shields. Sometimes
you might want to raise shields where there is no threat for some reason. I'm sure anyone
who has fought against a Blade or Ur-Quan fighters will understand the benefits of manual shielding.

As for the Drone's retro-thrust, I think that's to allow the Drone to retreat quickly. It
might be nice to have a forward-motion one too (I know I'd use it) but retreatnig
can be very useful. Get out of the way, while the enemy fires, then attack. Har har...

Ships with shields take damage when they run into the planet. That makes sense. The
ship itself doesn't take damage so much as it just gets really hot in the atmosphere. A ship
can run into a meteor at an amazing pace and nothing happens, but meteors don't
have atmosphere. A ship speeding through air can get a lot hotter than any FRIED. The
crew gets cooked. I'm not sure how this applies to the Mycon, perhaps they explode seedless
in high temperatures.

About Zeep-Eeep's explanation of planetary collision - yes, but as Elvish Pillager said, the Blazer deals more damage.
Also, high temperatures are still damage, as you can tell from the FRIED, for example. So they should be absorbed - unless they are too high, which fits in my theory.
Anyway, the collisions with the planet are quite abstract, as you can tell from how you... bump back from it.

Additionally, hot temps are "beam" weapons, meaning that they would get better absorbed by the shield, but... nope. They aren't. But, as I said, collisions with the planet are abstract, so they shouldn't be taken into account as proof for any theory.

The retro-thrust is to allow the Drone to retreat? It's always used to attack, in fact. I think it's about their psychology, not tactics.

As for manual shielding - sometimes it's better, sometimes not. When it's not, it's better left to computers.

o_O

O_o

o_O

O_o

Why are you surprised? It's a similar thing - anyway more similar to this than to a kinetic weapon.
And as I have said, we can't take collisions with the planet into account due to the fact that they are so abstract.

And the fact that the shield could crumble after being hit very many times - it is debatable, of course, but it's not a central part of my theory.

But its better capability of defending against beam weapons seems logical, as that would be easier for a "shield" (and it's something found in many sci-fi universes).
Also, the shield can't be omnipotent - some energies must be too high for it. Such as the Sa-Matra's main weapon (annihilation toroids) - no, not those comets you get to block in the final battle, but those toroids that the Chmmr had spoken of.
Also, as we can see from the Blazer, the absorbtion capability of the shield is smaller than its blocking capability.
I wouldn't say that the Blazer is a bug. After all, I haven't either said that persistent QuasiSpace portals from your Spawner are bugs... since they present such interesting possibilities.

Model for shield: create a wormhole, as it were, between one side of the ship and some sub-dimension, from which energy can be safely extracted. With this model, there is no reason a more powerful attack would be able to break the shield.

It also explains why the ship can't shoot while shielding.

That's what I thought some time ago too... but a portal so small and created with such accuracy would need advanced IDF technology - and if the Utwig had it, they would have long been killed by IDF parasites.

It doesn't have to be the same kind of dimension the Orz use. It also doesn't have to involve knowledge of the _theory_ (it could be that some sort of concentration of matter creates this effect, no one knows why)

Your theory is much crazier than mine, though. Of course, just like the theory with Tobermoon entering a time loop in Oort Cloud, it works.

With regards to automation and shielding.

Extensive field tests have revealed that computers, no matter how powerful, simply dont have the cajones for field combat.

Space battles are by their very nature far too complex for the strictures of logic, the realm in which computers are forever chained. There is frankly too much information to be processed in too little time for any logical, non-sentient machine to handle.

Gut instincts, reflexes and sudden random bouts of insipiration put logical non-sentient machines to shame in the battlefield, leading to the preference of manual control of vital systems such as fire control and shielding.

Special exceptions to the rule abound however.

Human missiles were upgraded at the start of the war with a special bio-crystalline guidance system from the chenjesu. The creature, a semi-sentient thermovore was the perfect candidate to replace the outdated 20th century electronics. Capable of adaptivity and diabolical cunning, the creatures resistance to radiation, fecundity, crystalline nature (rendering it somewhat immune to electronic countermeasures), and ability to go for centuries lying in dormancy made it the quick, cheap, and effective way to upgrade humanities effective but inept weaponry at the start of the war.

Chmmr Zapsats are controlled by a similar creature that in it's natural environ employs a ray of light to scare predators away. With some creative engineering, the chmmr have bonded these creatures to compatible Mrrrnmhrrm technologies to create one of the most powerful automated defense platforms available to the alliance fleet.

Heh, I like the idea of the Chenjesu using "thinking" crystals in their ship's equipment. Could create a lot of possiblities...

I remember reading somewhere that if you dont go at a planet from the right angle / speed you will bounce off the atmosphere... if this is true that means that planetary damage is the same thing that happens when your car hits a cliff going 100 mph... the tougher the car, the more it will hurt the crew when THEY hit IT. (to break the analogy, the crew is smashing up against the ship hull...)


As for automatic shielding, it will be immensly valuable, yes its problematic at times (ex, when you are attacked by ur quan fighters). Ideally button 2 would be to disable / enable shield automatation. But if the yehet were invincible the game wouldn't be any fun :)


Yes its fun to try to make theories, but some things can ONLY be explanained as "this is a game"...


the umgah reverse thrust is useful for escape, but my guess is that it is related to their antimatter cone... actually, a better way to think of it is that the umgah ships fight backwards... their immensly powerful antimatter engines can be used to quickly propel them, or they can just eject a cone of antimatter... while their slow "reverse thursters" move that deadly antimatter cone from their primary engines towards the enemy... (ie, we just THOUGHT it was reverse thurst, but they were flying forwards, they just dont have any guns, instead they blast the enemy with the antimatter engines).
Or its psychological, there are plenty of races that are complete WHACKO in the SC2 universe...
Psychological can be the explanation for almost everything, cause it actually FITS with the plot so well... spathi are cowards, umgah insane pranksters, orz are the bizzare manifistations of an extra dimensional entity... etc etc...

Eh, you see? We must use the psychological explanation.

I mean, jucce, there are such good AIs in the world already and you say that 147 years in the future there won't be? Especially since the Utwig and Yehat are older starfaring species than Earthlings. Plus, even the Awesome AI is good enough at shielding, only if you revert to manual shielding in that "faking" cases.

As for the limits of the shield - taltamir:
What do you mean by this? That collisions with the planet actually don't damage the ship, only the crew?

This is true _some_ of the time. As I recall, the blazer does 3(?) points of damage. When a ship hits the planet
it loses 1/4 of its crew.  I think it's possible for a Chmmr (for example) to lose ten crew at once hitting the planet.
I don't think there are any cases where one hit from a blazer can do this.


Again _some_ of the time it's used for attack. The Drones also use the feature to get out of the way or circle behind a
slower ship in close quarters. Human players may also use it to attack or retreat. Sometimes both.

Arguably, the retro-thrust would be better for attack (mounted forward).

As for the planet-Blazer comparison - I said that collisions with the planet are too abstract, so we must not take them as arguments.

There's a fairly easy answer for B... concentrated fire from a fleet.

Since SC2 melee is always one-on-one, that solution isn't available.  But within the fictional universe, fleet combat is indeed possible.

Either the Utwig shield loses some amount of energy every hit as heat, or it violates thermodynamics and can reverse entropy.  Let's assume the former.  Presumably, the more energy the shield has to block at once, the greater the loss to entropy.

Observations in SC2 melee suggest that none of the in-game ships can cause enough loss to overcome the shield.  But perhaps 4 Avatars concentrating fire can cause an appreciable energy loss.  Alternately, the shielding system may simply not be able to disperse heat beyond a certain point and may be forced to shut itself down.  Again, so long as the threshold is posited as greater than the damage a single SC2 ship can pump out, you need a fleet to succeed.

Narsham

Neither. It is able to keep going because the enemy keeps handing it free energy.

Well my idea is basically what Cronos was saying too. But who knows if the pilots are arrogant thinking they can handle it.

Yes, rather arrogance.
As I said, even present AIs (e.g. Awesome AI) can handle such a simple thing as shielding.

So just as I said: concentrate enough energy in a single spot on the shield to break through it.

I really have to suspect the shield is only really effective in brief combat conditions.  Otherwise, if it can absorb and retain so much energy without strain on the system, then the Utwig would have potentially limitless access to energy by using it.

The power of SC2 ship weapons isn't going to approach the energy output of a sun.  If the Utwig shield doesn't have some sort of breaking point or stress point, the Utwig could absorb solar power, too.

At the very least, whatever means they use to shunt the energy absorbed by the shield to ship's batteries must involve massive inefficiencies compared with the (postulated) efficiency of the shield itself.

I think it's pretty clear the ability of the shield to absorb infinite amounts of energy even when batteries are full, without doing anything at all with the extra power, indicates a game-mechanics decision.  Unless the ship's shields dump their excess energy into another dimension.  That might explain why the Orz were so eager to get into Realspace...

Narsham