The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Ok first off, I'm not putting down the game or the project.  I love the effort into renovating a quality game. 

I know it's quality because I enjoyed Star Control 3 and the consensus is that 3 is a pale imation of 2 (from what I hear).

I just burned 3-4 hours trying to find what makes it fun.  The only ships I can build are human crusiers, the only ships I can fight are Ilwrath and the virus like ships with the lightning attacks, both of which are uniquely suited against a long range/slow firing/homing missle ship like the humans.

So it seems like the only thing left to do is mine until my mothership is powered up.   So I mined for about three hours.  I've got manuvering jets maxes, 3/4 of the thrusters in place, 3 ion cannons, and it still can't survive either of those two enemies charging in and blasting away at close range.

What am I missing here?  I really enjoyed SC3, and I want to enjoy SC2, but it seems that my only options in the campaign are endless mining (not what I am playing this for), or continuous suicide by Ilwrath.

Maybe you will find this thread helpful:
http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3621.0 (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3621.0)

and these non-spoiler hints:
http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Non-Spoiler_Hints (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Non-Spoiler_Hints)

Thank you.  I had read the thread before posting, but I was not aware of that faq.

You need to go out and meet other alien races, both friendly and not-so-friendly. Fwiffo and the other Spathi can give you some leads, and so can Commander Hayes (ask him everything you can about history and races) and of course the Melnorme. You can go to the Vela system (the location of the science mission) to find a Dreadnought to fight as well. Write down every constellation, coordinates, or star system that anyone mentions.

You really shouldn't need to make trips specifically for mining except maybe one or two trips early in the game to get you started. Generally, it's a good idea to have a specific location or race you want to visit and mine while you're in that area.

I've never played SC3, so I dunno where I could draw parrellels for you lol, but for me, the best way to play SC2 is to relax and explore around. Of course, before exploration you wanna have a quick ship, so max all that stuff out.
After that, just fly your ship around. Talk to Hayes (the dude in the Starbase) about old races and explore any areas he mentions. Sometimes he will get transmissions and tell you in which direction they came from.

As for beating Ilwrath and Probes. I've never been good at fighting the Ilwrath, hehe, but you can bone up in the melee function, against the AI. As for the Probes......your answer lies on Pluto...well sort of. Just...go to Pluto :P

Nothing on Pluto, but there was an orbiting probe around the planet Jupiter in the Sol system, please help me? ???

There IS 'something' in Pluto. Just scan for energy and you will find the 'something.'
And about the probe; by time those probes get coming in star systems too, so avoid them! (And get the speed- and turning upgrades as soon as possible) If I remember right, in the original version they didn't come to star systems.

That was a bug. (bug #768) (http://bugs.uqm.stack.nl/show_bug.cgi?id=768)

You really don't need to fight neither the probes nor the Ilwrath. The first thing you should buy is maximum thrusters and then you can outrun even the probes. And if you think you are not capable of taking care of yourself yet, don't wander off into hostile territory (Ilwrath space) since you don't have any crucial business there anyway. Follow all leads and make strong allies as fast as possible. If you got no else place to go, start by checking out the races whose location is known from the previous war. (Hayes can tell you all about that.)

I knew you were in trouble when you said full turning and 3/4 thrust. It should go the other way - how much time do you spend turning? How much time do you spend going in a straight line?
There are more thrusters than turning, so you'll end up full thrust and half turning, but it's worth it. Just swap it in and observe your survival time go way up.

don't use the flagship to fight in such early stages. you don't even need a cannon. use that RU for mentioned thrusters and and a turn jet or two and the rest on fuel and storage space.

after you meet the Melnorme, you'll be able to buy new tech for your flagship. you'll have to "mine" lifeforms or find rainbow planets for that, so essentially mining isn't the most important thing in the game. you just need it in the beginning.

in fact, once you are high-tech your flagship is quite potent, and instead of mining you can just blow up hostile ships for the RU, no need to mine, or alternatively mine exotics (on very dangerous worlds) when you have all the lander upgrades.

to sum it up - if you spend too much time mining it means you're going wrong at it.


the following might be considered a spoiler, though I don't think it is (copy & paste to notepad or enlarge font size):
there's a time limit, so you can't mine forever.. if you spend too much time on nonsense you'll eventually lose.