The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

For those of you who have NEVER played the game before, or can't remember at all, here are some tips I thought of:(although these are all from the original)

Mining:
Ignore the largest planet types for mining, they are all gas giants. However, some giants have moons to mine.

Ignore all Commons and Corrosives (Blue and Red minerals). They are a waste of cargo space.

Visit the hottest stars whenever possible: White, Blue, Green, Yellow, Red (In descending order of heat). They yield better results (but more dangerous conditions). Their sizes range from Supergiant, giant, and dwarf. (Don't think there're any others). Logically, size matters, so a red supergiant is still hotter than a white dwarf.

Planets to investigate: All orange and purple planets of any size are always worth investigating. The orange ones are mostly metal and radioactive worlds. Purples are generally exotic worlds (or else completely worthless). Medium sized orange worlds (Shattered Worlds) are the biggest finds of all (next to Rainbows), but are only found in Mycon territory. Medium Purples are also a great find.

Valuable Green and Yellow planets of all sizes tend to be either Lithium (Forgot name?) or Treasure worlds, containing Rare earths and Precious metals respectively. Rainbow worlds are medium yellow worlds, always the first planet, but there are only ten of them. Other precious medium yellow planets include Plutonic worlds, which are even richer than metal worlds because of their large variety of rare and semirare resources.

Small yellow worlds tend to be urea worlds, which are worthless.

All small red planets can be safely ignored. 99% of them are worthless. (I remember 1 or 2 small ruby worlds, but their yields were too small to bother) Some of the medium sized ones are Ruby Worlds (Exotics)

Small Blue planets aren't normally worth checking out. Check the medium sized ones. (Noble worlds, or Water worlds)

You can ignore all the white planets.

Mining tips:
The age-old tip: MINE THE ALPHA CENTAURI SYSTEM!! The Ruby Worlds there are INCREDIBLY rich and capable of supporting your early mining efforts easily.

In my early games, I will always have at least 2 crew pods, 3-4 fuel pods, and all the cargo bays I can carry. Then I simply raid the Centauri system, the stars nearest to the Ilwrath (some have ridiculously rich worlds) and most of the Spathi systems. Also, the Orz giants are good places to go.

Have at least 6 thrusters and 6 turning thrusters before you go anywhere farther than Rigel. The best is to fill up your thrusters ASAP.

You can still take on super-dangerous worlds with incredible resources by noting where your lander goes after choosing a landing spot, then compensating. Drop the lander on the mineral, take off, come back. Don't try this on planets over 1500 degrees Celsius though.

Searching for life (Bio points for the Melnorme):

Always check the planets with green bands around the stars first. Green bands always carry the best conditions for life. Then when scanning, check for an atmosphere. If there is no atmosphere, discontinue scanning for life.

Grey and even occasionally orange bands can support life too. Water worlds with atmospheres in the green band almost ALWAYS support life. Blue, then green, orange, yellow, purple and red (in descending order) have corresponding occurences of life. White rarely carries life.

General Tips:

Earthling cruisers are pretty lousy. Work to get the Slylandro Probes off your ass as early in the game as possible to survive the early game. You can find a clue with the Melnorme, but just go to one of the stars near Vega (I won't reveal it) and look for the Probe's masters in one of the most unlikely places.

Also, get the Portal spawner as early as possible. (The Warp Pod you need is in a system whose name is similar to a certain mythological winged horse....)

Rainbow worlds are the most important finds in the game! Always remember at LEAST 3 or 4 of them.

Master the Utwig Jugger. I effectively took out the 12 or so Ur-Quan/Kohr-Ar ships guarding the Sa-Matra, then half of that thing's defences, with one Jugger. The other took care of the rest.

That's it for now... if you have any more questions, ask me. ;D

One thing I forgot, and can't seem to find anywhere online, is what all the scan data means. Some of it is obvious, like temperature, but others are rather obscure and their meaning I can only guess at. It makes mining frustrating because I can't always tell how dangerous a world is before I land. More than once i've unknowingly dropped my poor crew into a mess of a world that would make Hell look frozen, or Thor like the god of Static Electricity. :P


The only other things that are bugging me is just stuff i've long forgotten, but will (hopefully) eventually rediscover. For example: How to fight and not get my ass completely wasted  :-X
Or, a better example: Where the hell I should be exploring and who I need to talk to, because random wandering sure as hell doesn't work (I remember that much!  ;D)



TYIA

Well, for the planetside conditions...

Atmosphere: Is there one, and a deciding factor on the availability of life.

Weather: How many bolts of lightning per second. ;P

Temperature: Anything at 100 or above will cause hotspots.

Tectonics: 1 is minimal. 10 is like the Kobe Earthquake x 5

The other stuff isn't too important.

As for the wandering part... well, I can tell you some of the stuff these races are for... *SPOILERS* you'll need to figure out what to do with them though.
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Spathi - Basic starting out. Plus the Umgah Caster (Not necessary, but the caster is useful.)

Umgah - Dynarri
Druuge - Rosy Sphere
Pkunk - Clear Spindle
Chmmr - Duh...
Utwig - The Utwig Bomb (FLASH!)
Supox - The broken Ultron
Thraddash - The Aqua Helix
Orz - The Taalo shield
Syreen/Mycon - You'll need their help to get to the endgame

The less important things are:

Arilou - Portal Spawner. Major time saver.
Slylandro - GET THOSE PROBES OFF MY BACK!
ZoqFotPik - Erm.... nah. Just forget them.
Yehat/Pkunk - Good for some extra ships at the end. Related to the Shofixti.
Shofixti - There's a trick involved in fighting him... the reward is very convenient.
VUX - Related to the Shofixti, you need to get the mother of all monsters.
Ilwrath - Great for a few laughs... use a caster.

I don't remember anything else...

Oh, a note for people who want to play with point defense systems in their game: Every PDS you add to your ship increases the damage the PDS can do by one point.

If I remember correctly, an Ur-Quan fusion blast does 6 pts of damage. Using six PDSes, you can cancel out the shot in one go. Try using that as a weapon.

If I remember correctly, the Melnorme said that only 3 point defense is the maximum effectiveness. Unfortunately, you never need more than one because at full power, you can kill an Ur-Quan before it even gets in range.

Also, about the newbie tips, I started out a couple months ago and figured all those out pretty quick. We newbies aren't that newbie. ;)

Just to clarify, that's for the guidance things, the PD modules are cumulative with no limit - I have had 6 PD modules in place just for fun - especially to play with the Spathi  ;D

my bad. Point defense just seems so silly when you can have a duo or trio of hellbore cannons that can vaporize the comp before they get to even close in on you. :)

They can help you find one of the keys to getting the Syreen on your side.
They can also tell you where to find the ultimate target of the game- if you took too long wandering around that is.

*Chuckles*

Well, that PDS one was for fun. Imagine what it would be like to take on 3,000,000 Ur-Quan Dreadnoughts and not lose a single crew because you could intercept all their shots, then disgrace them by killing them at point blank.

But that aside, the tips are for those who don't have time to figure out everything at one go...  I should know... (grumbles)

Ah, so the ZFP have THAT use eh? I never took that long to finish a game, except on my first try (when the game ended in another less pleasant way.   :-/ ) Thanks...

"The Warp Pod you need is in a system whose name is similar to a certain mythological winged horse...."
--------------------------------------------------------

I'm obliged to participate at this point, because the hint is wrong. While you can find something valuable in that system it is not what the little green men want you to find.

hm...? Sorry then... hehe. Was it Corvi? Been a while. Please correct me.

Pavonis.

well where i find Umgah? and where is Spathi orinary homeworld?

One question that I have is this: Are you expected to battle in the early part of the game? Everytime I leave into hyperspace, I'm accosted by a robot that "comes in peace". (Then procedes to attack me).

I can never seem to win super melee.. is there some trick I'm missing? I find the combat model very frustrating... I can't seem to steer my ship!

Anyway, thanks!

What? You have to thrust forward and then live with the momentum you've gotten? Or is it the abrupt maximum speed problem?

Are you using the supox blade or the slylandro probe or arilou skiff? Those have different maneuvering characteristics.

Just remember that to slow down you're going to have to turn around ahead of time.
If you're cooking along at max speed far from the planet, you can turn by continuing to thrust and turn.

Also, perhaps you're experiencing key jamming?

Heh don't feel bad. That Robot is the Slylandro, and they're one of the nastier races to fight in the game (imho) ESPECIALLY if all you have is the Earthling cruiser or a low-power mothership.

To make the robots go bye bye, you need to find out who's sending them, and go deal with that at the source. I won't tell you exactly who or where that is, but somebody else might ;P

A cpl other tips for newbies, in addition to the very fine hints above:

- Always explore all the conversation branches with the species you encounter, and resist the urge to be a punkass. You can get a LOT of info right from the starbase commander at the beginning, which will guide you to other places to look, which will in turn give you more info...

- Go for the Melnorme technology as fast as you can. Most of what they have is invaluable. (Who are the Melnorme? heh, heh)

Jeff "Thrawn" M

I think perhaps I might be experiencing key jamming. It seems to me that when I press the left or right arrow keys, it takes a while for the game to respond. (Sort've like the delay when typing before a key repeats.)..

But theoretically, even an inexperienced player should be able to win the super-melee, if they set the AI to "Weak Cyborg", correct?

The Starbase Captain gives you this mnemonic:

Very Young Orangatanes Can Grow Bananas Perhaps Rather Well

In case you haven't figured it out, it stands for

Violet Yellow Orange Cyan Green Blue Pink Red White

It's the colors of the planets you should mine, starting from most valuable to least valuable. :)

I agree 100%


You meant Lanthanide ... filled with rare-earth (green).

Personally, I never leave a world unchecked (except for gas giants).  You never know what you might find.  For the most part, what you say is true, but you just never know.


I disagree.  You should pay attention to gravity ... it directly affects fuel consumption for your lander.  Most of the information is based on Earth as a standard with values of 1.0.  In terms of weather, that's not true.  Worlds with a rating of 2 or lower for weather and/or tectonics will not have any lightning or earthquakes.  Also, I believe the scales for tectonics and weather are from 0-8.  I've never seen a world above 8 ... Shattered Worlds are all about tectonic instability and they are set at 8.

Although the Dill-rats are good for a few laughs, they are more trouble then you claim.  You really do need to get rid of them eventually, especially if you want to pick up the aqua helix without interference and get help from the Chmmr.

I really think you should be actively playing the game before you start dealing out the hints to any one new.  Too much of what you said is inaccurate.

zixyer - I think you meant Purple and not pink ... I've never seen a pink world.  Aside from that, I don't trust the complete accuracy of this in game hint.  Some red worlds are Ruby or Radioactive and these hold some of the most valuable minerals in the game.  Also, as ranmafan stated, some yellow worlds are Urea, which tend to be worthless (unless they have Bios).

I wrote extensively on all of this in a topic called "colors and mining".
http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1039125066#12

Check it out.  I noticed in there that I never had Purple (the letter "P") in the planet color list.  Either I didn't write down the mnemonic correctly or I just ignored it ... seriously, who here can distinguish Violet from Purple, especially in a game with a limited palette.  And since I found this "hint" to be generally unhelpful anyway, I didn't really care.

-PsiPhi

Been playing the game since I got my first 286. I'm sorry if my memory is foggy, but in my own experience, the hints have gotten me very far very fast.

I'm also speaking from the PC experience.

Hm, you're right though, the scale is only from 1-8. Sorry.

But as for 1 having NO earthquakes, you're wrong. For weather, you're right about 1 having no lightning. But as for tectonics, even a 1 will result in minimal earthquakes. They are VERY rare and because they are scattered around the planet, you may never encounter one.

I didn't mention anything about Gravity. But good point there.

I mentioned medium sized red worlds are very valuable. Small red worlds are rarely, if ever, radioactive worlds. These have such small yields I normally discard them as a waste of resources. Mostly, you get Dust worlds, Carbide worlds, Infrared worlds, Crimson worlds, or other similarly worthless planet.

Purple and Violet are the same thing. Violet is the graphic designer's/artist's term for Purple. I've never encountered many valuable small purple worlds, although they still contain rare minerals, again, small yields are not worth it.

Hm, the Dill-Rats are not critical to finishing the game... I DID get the Aqua Helix without trouble, once your mothership is fully upgraded. But I agree that they make your life much easier. Still....

Scott: Thanks for clearing that up.

The Umgah can be found in the general area around the Orion system. You can buy the information of where the talking pet is off the Melnorme, I think. Again, fuzzy memory.

Well, cheers.

DO NOT FORGET!!- AS SOON AS YOU CAN get the tracker system for your ship's guns! if you go into combat without em, almost anyone can wipe you out!

Not if you, say, know how to aim. Not to be rude, but it can be done. Even by newbies.
(edit: last sentence)

Hi - Newbie question:

I've accidentally killed the shofixit guy -- is there anyway to get him back or am I going to have to start all over again if i want to get him alive again?

Thanks! =)

Load a saved game, there's no other way, I haven't killed him yet, but I did once on a whim. The moron actually attacked me, stupid stupid little creatures. I quickly melted his ship into molten slag.

Actually i think there are two surviving shofixti, Tanaka and Katana, and the second one will show up if you end up killing the first one... (once the first Shofixti dide by flying into the planet while i was warping out of combat)

Indeed. Katana will AFAIK show up after getting the other part of the... erm. He will not be happy.

They're right.  Don't bother loading the game.  Just keep playing as though Tanaka were still alive, and do the rest of the quest, then come back to Tanaka's star system and the rest will take care of itself.

 :D

Thank you all for your help! It is much appreciated (as now i realize i DON'T have to start all the way from the beginning again seeing as I didn't have a saved game that i could go back to!) =)

I can't find the system vega. May someone please help me? ???

Ok I managed it. Cu

Look for the star named Zeeman and zoom in.  WAY in.

Make sure to save before you go.  You'll thank me later.

One thing newbies could try is rushing straight over to Orz/Androsynth space after acquiring the starbase (and possibly mining some of the Centauri stars) for four reasons:

1: Orz ships. They can stand up to pretty much everything reasonably well. The Orz will ally with you as long as you show a little courtesy and not ask about the Androsynth.
2: They won't make you do any dumb errands for them.
3: There are many auric (gold) worlds around central Orz space.
4: You'll need the Taalo device to finish the game. Might as well get it while you're digging up gold.

Sure Vela is interesting, but there isn't anything to DO there besides look at the pretty red shield around Unzervalt...

and...
 :o
you get a big green circle in the middle of your map, if you survive. This is similar to the main reason to go rescue the Zoq-Fot-Pik.

About those planet colors

Violet Planet do in fact exist, they are named oolite and yttric... don't know why they are supposed to be the richest though? as opposed to the purple named Super-Dense, Vinylogous, Telluric, and Purple (duh).

also radioactive worlds are orange, not red.

oh and be sure to visit delta tauri, it's loaded

If it helps, there's a mineral density map of hyperspace which I downloaded from "The Pages of Now And Forever" and printed out.  If the site is still active (I'm not sure), you may be able to do a search and locate it.  If not, I might still be able to locate the file I downloaded and send it to someone to post somewhere (with credits of course).

The Pages of Now and Forever are still very active, so hop on over there and grab the chart if you need it.

-Will

I've seen quite a few pink worlds, though it could just be my monitor. I doubt it though, having seen plenty of violet (closer to indigo, really) worlds and plenty of dark red (Mars) ones.

My recommendation to newbies would be to visit the rumors Hayes tells you about, regarding new races that the Chenjesu encountered. The closer one being in the Giclas stars. And the next order of business is chat up any friends repeatedly for interesting information (and take notes!) until they basically tell you to go away now.

Oye, is Tanaka ever even remotely a threat? The poor guy is coated with limpets; it takes him a light year just to get to you. He's more of a threat to himself than anything, given that with that much limpeted thrust you can't possibly escape a planet's gravity.

(Poor guy. Someone has to crawl out and clean up the limpets off of the ship after battles, but the guy had noone to hold the steering wheel while he went out and cleaned off his ship, did he? I can't blame him for being deranged and attacking you so blindly. After 8 years in hyperspace and having nothing to watch except 'Winky's Happy Night' 65536 times, and nothing to eat except a random VUX limpet scraping or two, I'd be a little blind with rage as well.)

Actually, considering that every ship in SC1 can start a colony, he probably had enough food on board and could set up an ad-hoc farm for more... Anyway, waste renewal is the name of the game.

While I'm here...
lose one geek point for using light year as a unit of time. ;)
okay, 4 geek points for using 2^16 where not necessary. To quote Snow Crash:
:)

That's an interesting point. Maybe he did have a farm set up somewhere to keep him with food. How'd he solve the fuel issue though? He can't have been carrying that much, can he?  And I imagine that landing anywhere with that limpeted ship could be quite awkward.

Speaking of which, seeing as any ship could set up at least a small colony in SC1, why didn't Fwiffo's people set him up some sort of cozy and safe little base on Pluto before they left him? It'd be the least they could do.

Colonies can only be set up on water worlds...

But yeah, if they have the materials, they should be able to cook SOMETHING up...

Yeah, they wouldn't be able to set up a proper functioning colony. But if they can build a moonbase for all of them, then a snmall shack on the moon shouldn't be too hard.

*shudders as Tanaka's ship hurtles into the surface of a planet*

I wonder why the old goat didn't scrape off them limpets after landing on a planet, too.

Maybe he hibernated somehow? Woke up every now and then?

[necro]Spirit of this thread! I, Valaggar of the Bloody Fangs, beseech you!
A drop of your coagulated blood is in this pot. The putrid remnants of your earthly meat is burned hereby in tribute to the Dark Gods! The un-marrowed bones of your living time are in the grave.
Raise from your grave, o, Thread, and obey my commandments, for I am the vampire, Valaggar of the Bloody Fangs, who brings you from death to undeath![/necro]

Why stay awaken for five or six years on end, then? After all, how did Fwiffo survive for eight years hiding beneath the table?! Probably their food is very concentrate, for example nutritive pills - that's why the Talking Pet complains about food.
If you eat 9 square centimetres of concentrate a day, in 2922 days, i.e. 8 years, you eat 26298 square centimetres. Fwiffo wasn't desperate about food, so he must have had a lot remaining. That is, 40000 square centimetres, i.e. only 40 litres
 - 34 cm X 34 cm X 34 cm.
Reasonable, eh?

Certainly, if you assume that they only eat 9 square centimetres a day. Any certain reason for that number?

Oops, I meant 9 cubic centimetres, not square centimetres.

I'm calculating an exact quantity:
A human body burns about 1,800 calories a day; 100 grammes of chocolate have around 500 calories; concentrate food is more concentrate than chocolate. Concentrate food has to contain around 800 calories per 100 grammes, which means that the 5,259,600 calories needed in 8 years can be provided by 657.450 kilogrammes. Which at a density of 100 kg/cu.m mean 6.57 cubic metres, circa 1.86 m X 1.86 m X 1.86 m. Or, if 100 kq/cu.m food is too heavy for you, 30 kg/cu.m means 21.915 cubic metres, circa 2.8 m X 2.8 m X 2.8 m.
Still reasonable.
Especially since rats&clam/Dravatz eat less than humans.

Ever heard of waste reclamation? Certainly you have, if you read this thread. I mentioned it earlier.

Food already used cannot be reused (otherwise Fwiffo's ship will turn into a perpetuum mobile). And a system capable of recycling food would be large and would gulp large quantities of energy. Not really effective.

Why would they eat less? Shofixti (I assume that's what you mean by rats) have an awesome metabolism, if they grow and mature quickly enough to reproduce a species at that rate. Spathi are very alien, but I imagine that hypertension of theirs burns a fair few calories, always being on the lookout for enemies is energy exhaustive.

Also, I think what death means is that the waste you pass can be recycled and used again. Even crap contains some energy, at least on the first few runs. Just because it's not as effective doesn't make it worthless (nor a physical impossibility). Besides, for all we know there are machines on those ships that can recreate food from a sample, given enough energy and raw materials.

That has to be the stupidest argument I've seen from you yet.
You don't contest that he has an energy source of some sort, right? Well, I think we can agree he does. And we do agree that it would, eventually, run out. All that is necessary is that it has enough juice to power the waste reclamation system on top of the lights, the heat, his video game habit, and blowing away the odd planet lander.

How silly or clever are other arguments you have seen from me?

Calculating calories wasn't too daft. It gives us some sort of rough numbers, if we're willing to make enough assumptions.

No, I was referring to my arguments in general.

I haven't been keeping track, but it's not hard to catch a blip like that.