The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The UQM-Arena regulars have often expressed dismay that more people don't participate in online melee. By my estimation, this is because most players haven't seen something to make them want it bad enough. Let's fix that.

If the files aren't playing correctly, you don't have the right codecs. This website (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows) should have them available for download.




-----[Shiver]

I've hosted all of my vids on zShare. You'll want to watch them on the highest resolution, which should be "770". If that doesn't work, just download directly.

Zoq-Fot-Pik vs Kohr-Ah (http://www.zshare.net/video/23171783dcae07/) (9.68 MB) -- This was the video I kicked off this topic with. I barely manage to win against the computer here using one of the worst ships in the game against the best.

Orz vs Androsynth (http://www.zshare.net/video/23176076471165/) (7.92 MB) -- Androsynth is widely regarded as the "Orz killer" in net melee, so I thought I'd show how an Orz can squeak out a win against its natural predator. This involves heavy use of the planetary gravity whip.

Chmmr vs Utwig (http://www.zshare.net/video/2418235e6f8eae/) (13.1 MB) -- Like the match above, this demonstrates how Chmmr can win what's generally considered an unfair fight. The Utwig is dragged into the planet several times to soften it up, then killed by the Chmmr in a close range shoot-out. The computer's shield reflex isn't perfect, and that is best taken advantage of by firing in erratic bursts rather than simply holding down the attack button.

Ur-Quan pulverizes Chenjesu, Yehat, Mmrnmhrm, Arilou, Syreen, Earthling and Shofixti (http://www.zshare.net/video/2478644f59572f/) (26.95 MB) -- This is the hardest melee feat I've pulled off against the AI so far. The Arilou is especially horrific in the hands of the AI, but I managed a lucky shot on it that made the rest of the challenge more bareable.

Thraddash Demo (http://www.zshare.net/video/444828870f2d11/) (49.7 MB) -- This one is a bit... different. I use one Thraddash against six different ships controlled by Koowluh. This video was the centerpiece of my argument in this thread (http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/index.php?topic=3882).

 Shofixti vs Kohr-Ah (http://www.zshare.net/video/4843919f71d8e7/) (14.07 MB) -- Similar to Zoq-Fot-Pik vs Kohr-Ah, but several orders of magnitude more difficult to pull off. This match-up is a complete nightmare that no one in their right mind would ever try to win.




-----[Elerium]

3 Earthling vs 3 Chenjesu (http://www.zshare.net/video/24993475b6e65d/) (22.10 MB) -- This was my favorite guest contribution. The match itself isn't overwhelmingly difficult, but the combat flows well and the added dialogue makes it very nice. Elerium clearly put a lot of work into this.




----[Bluhman]

Bluhman's videos aren't the most impressive piloting feats, but the music and subtitles he threw onto them make them hilarious. They're definitely worth a look.

Slylandro loses to Ur-Quan with style (http://www.zshare.net/video/2317720af9976d/)

Supox beats Yehat and Ur-Quan (http://www.zshare.net/video/2538380ee47e15)

Supox beats Utwig and Chenjesu (http://www.zshare.net/video/258124155f2ba5/)




-----[minä]

Arilou vs Kohr-Ah, Kohr-Ah, Melnorme, Spathi and Chenjesu (http://www.zshare.net/video/27285017b2ffd8/) (53.32 MB) -- This is certainly an impressive show of fancy footwork with the skiff, but mina really could have compressed this vid down to a smaller size.




-----[Valaggar]

Shofixti inflicts heavy damage on Druuge (http://www.zshare.net/video/2320295c1500d7/)

Ilwrath incinerates Kohr-Ah (http://www.zshare.net/video/2335674f32463f/) - Beating the computer's Kohr-Ah with Ilwrath isn't too difficult actually, and Valaggar proves it with this.




-----[Galactic]

Pkunk and Chenjesu wipe each other out at the same time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6SuE8QEHTw)

Arilou gets stuck in Spathi, glitches out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9_FwWS6IHY)

In Chenjesu mirror match, one of the two ships hits an asteroid and goes speeding out of control (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5qoB7tRBUM)

Melnorme beats Chmmr (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn2Fhci407c)

Mycon exploits Chenjesu AI firing pattern (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC6DTMfWNdk)




-----[gaeamil]

Pkunk beats Chmmr after four revives (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY1d2SH2kAU)

An alternate Pkunk vs Chmmr (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsIFgGw68oQ)




-----[knockout08]

Chmmr defeats Utwig by attacking it from a gravity whip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WRGw8on8JM)

Wow! That was absolutely amazing. And also demonstrates that I was ever to play NetMelee, I would be badly beaten.

Sounds like something for http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/SuperMelee_demonstration_videos (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/SuperMelee_demonstration_videos).

Heh, never knew that existed. If you want, I've got a much larger and better looking copy of ZFP v Kohr-Ah. The videos you've posted seem more like examples of perfect play; I was opting to make my video as "Hollywood" as possible.

Well, I for one would love to see more difficult matchups on that page.

The other day I created a group on youTube for Star Control videos: http://youtube.com/group/starcontrol

It's an open group, anyone can post their videos there.  I went through the existing Star Control videos and added a bunch of them, and added their owners to the group.  Currently there are 14 videos and 6 group members.  I have no idea what value groups add within youTube, aside from the fact that all the videos can be shown from that URL above. 

May I:
* upload the videos currently posted as downloadable AVIs above (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/SuperMelee_demonstration_videos) as youTube videos instead?  There's no indication of who actually owns the videos; maybe the owner would prefer to upload the video to youTube or decline altogether. :)
* add these videos to the youTube StarControl group
* add links to the youTube videos to the Wiki in addition to what's there already? 

Impressive! Nice flying, hotshot.  ;D

Reminds me of a moment I had earlier when getting some practice v. the AI (because I still suck at melee) where I dodged two very tight and close fusion blasts from a 'naught in the Transformer's Y-Form.

What music was that?


I doubt you would drain your battery chasing the ZFP out of your own minefield. Very much 'awesome' AI.

YouBastrd: I think it was Captain Smith who created these videos.
To be included in the Ultronomicon these videos should at least be redistributable, although there was no copyright info added to them, so I'm not sure whether the submitter of those videos understood that.
I'd rather not link to videos on external sites from the Ultronomicon, when they can be stored at the Ultronomicon itself, as it decreases the chance that they'll still be available a few years from now, but if there's an interesting demonstration video only on YouTube, I think it could be included in the list.
But is should be more than "look at this funny thing that happened when my friend and I played SuperMelee"; it should at least show off some technique or generate an "I didn't know you could beat ship A with ship B".

God of War II OST. They play it when you're fighting Perseus, then later Zeus. Unfortunately that also means I have to record a second ZFP vs Kohr-Ah bout for the Ultranomicon so I don't get this community into hot water. I will do this later today and post the link. Meanwhile, I'm trying to convince Elvish Pillager to get video recording software because he can do even crazier matches (Ilwrath Vs Chmmr!) than me.

Ok, we'll go the other way then, the YouTube group can point to the Ultrinomicon, and the Ultrinomicon can be the central point for strategy videos.  There's a message (http://youtube.com/groups_forum?name=starcontrol&topic=3-bhji5ACIc) in the YouTube group to that effect. 

Still, it might be possible to embed YouTube videos directly into the Ultrinomicon pages.  There exists a mod for MediaWiki that allows this: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VideoFlash  .  Her'e a random example (http://www.wikiela.com/wiki/How_to_make_a_spicy_tuna_roll) of a Wiki with the video plugin, in this case showing how to make sushi.  It's up to you if you want to go this extent just to add some details to one page.  Still, I think it might be worth it, but it'sobviously not time time we're speaking about. :)

Edit: for completeness, if you do want to do this, one last step is to document how to post YouTube videos to Help:Editing (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/Help:Editing) with the summary in the comments of the VideoFlash page.

Erm... the point is not to have any external dependencies. With that video extension the file would still come from YouTube.

Ok, I'll leave this stuff as-is.  If there's anything else you need, post it here, I'll check the RSS feed once in a while.  Cheers!

I'd like to make a video of Ilwrath vs Ur-Quan, but Ur-Quan fighters are not visible on YouTube's paltry resolution. Is there somewhere else I could host these things?  I plan to throw in another music track and make it all theatric again so it probably doesn't belong on Ultranomicon. Google Video was even worse when I tried to use it, despite it not requiring a tiny resolution.

Every such service will compress the heck out of the videos.  You can't count on tiny details surviving the compression. 

The easiest way to show off the small projectiles (Dreadnaught fighters, Syreen primary, Thradash primary) is to make the view close in so the projectiles take up a larger % of the screen.  Stinks, but it works; this is what we did for the TW-Light video.

The larger picture is that in-game, such projectiles are hard to see.  To put it another way, imagine someone complaining: "You mean to tell me this game will cause me to lose because I didn't see something on the screen that was one pixel big?"  With the audio cues and paying attention to the game, you can somewhat know where these things are, but it's still not all that approachable.  Modern games are designed to be completely obvious as to what's going on in the game. 

Very well. That will be my only Star Control YouTube video. I will have to host everything else on Ultronomicon and not put in my own background music.

So that was original music on it? I liked it alot.

As for not posting on YouTube, why? Anything that sends people to the Ultronomicon isn't bad. Besides, how painful is it to upload a video to YouTube, really?

It wasn't. I already answered this question previously.


Because if you can't see the Ur-Quan fighters getting swatted down, what's the point of playing Ilwrath vs Ur-Quan?



Also, I was hoping to get some sort of turn-out in this topic of other people posting what they had done.

Have you tried zShare? zShare, I'm pretty sure, allows you to upload uncompressed media files and let them contain all details, if I'm not mistaken. Just google zShare and the site should come up.

Thanks for this. I'll be putting videos on zShare from now on. The first post will be updated to show this.

Well, I bet somebody could do much better than I could, but I just tried to defeat the Kzer Za Dreadnought using the Slylandro Probe. In the end: http://www.zshare.net/video/2317720af9976d/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/2317720af9976d/)

I get decimated, but I manage to whittle the Dreadnought down to 10 crew.

LOL! Bonus points for using Megaman.

Now I need to learn how to edit videos like that to compete.

If I hadn't of edited it, it would've been absolutley mute.

Yeah. I really need to find a recording program that picks up sound. I DO have FRAPS, but I don't want to pay for it. The other problem is that jaw-dropping melee feats USUALLY take more than 30 seconds to finish...

The angry Shofixti civilians against Activision and their crooks:
http://www.zshare.net/video/2320295c1500d7/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/2320295c1500d7/)
Shofixti nearly kills Druuge. Only 2 crew left.

That was VERY hard! I tried for tens of time and that's the best I could do.

Skiff Vs Marauder:
http://www.zshare.net/video/2324183390df56/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/2324183390df56/)

That's all I'll tell you.

I kept on trying to move my mouse out of the way.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but what program are you using to capture this?

Me? I'm using some freeware called VidShot Capturer. I'm pretty sure Valaggar here is using it as well. Shiver is using a registered version of FRAPS, I'm almost certain.

For more accuracy, Shiver and Valaggar are CERTAINLY used registered versions of FRAPS (sorry for not recording sound, but I've just figured out that I had to de-mute Stereo Mix in Volume Control).

If we're talking about sound, I've done a Cruiser Beats Marauder (http://www.zshare.net/video/2327142902fe62/), though it's not a very spectacular match and I didn't edit it this time. But just to showcase the sound recording feature. And the style fits the Ultronomicon, though I'm not sure if it's worth classifying as a "difficult match-up".

Fix that Cruiser nuke sound if you want your file listed on the first post. It's way too loud.

Yes. Mine is much better.  ;)

EDIT: I've just tried a technique: Recording sound, and then inserting it back over the clip to... Well, give it sound. My result is hardly jawdropping, but it is worth watching:

http://www.zshare.net/video/23302342d3cc1b/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/23302342d3cc1b/)

To illustrate Elvish's method of killing Marauders with an Avenger:
Elerium sacrifices Valaggar to the Deific Duo of Destruction (http://www.zshare.net/video/2335674f32463f/)

Holy crap, Valaggar made me epic and awesome o_O

I think I'm going to join the bandwagon and make awesome Star Control movies now.

In response to Valaggar's video:
I like the idea of editing full-game speech into the video. But the match is not interesting.

I got one.  It's an Avatar dying against a Fury.  Took me 4 lives, but I swear that I did it without dying once.  But I didn't have a recorder at that point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY1d2SH2kAU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY1d2SH2kAU)

If yer talkin' 'bout the Ilwrath/Kohr-Ah match, yeah, that's true.
If yer talkin' 'bout the Shofixti/Druuge match, kind of, but it's much more exciting to actually fight that match, not just watch it.

I've done it too. Yes, without dying. I did it ONCE, just in a common battle between a ton of different ships.

After watching that, I see we take slightly different approaches to fighting the Avatar. You just rush in there and shoot him up. I use the tractor beam to literally crash into the Avatar at an unfathomably quick speed so that the Zapsats don't get me.

Got it recorded for essentially one life.  I died without doing damage, so it really doesn't count, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsIFgGw68oQ

Alright, I did Chmmr vs Utwig in under 2 minutes. See first post.

Got a real treat for you guys. Ur-Quan versus Chenjesu, Yehat, Mmrnmhrm, Arilou, Syreen, Earthling and Shofixti. That's right kids, it's a video of the entire Alliance line-up getting splattered across the pavement by one ship! Updating the first post to show this now.

There are two problems with the video:

*The Syreen took a lot longer than I'd like, although the end of that match has a pretty good "Screw you!" moment.
*My mediocre performance against the Mmrnmhrm is inexcusable.

The rest of the fights demonstrate perfect play with the Dreadnought, particularly Yehat, Arilou and Chenjesu because you get HOSED if you do any of those wrong.

And where is the actual video?

I'm listing every video in the topic on the first page. If you're already on the right website and the video isn't showing up, that means you aren't waiting long enough. Regardless, try clicking on the download link if the file isn't loading off the page. It works just fine for me.

Niiice. I can see why the Yehat, Arilou and Chen could be difficult, but you just blasted all of them out of the sky!


You know, I really want to see somebody rip up enemies with the Supox Blade. I know that ship just has so much potential to be great, just as the Slylandro Probe does.

Trust me, it doesn't.

I got bored today, so I decided to do a parallel universe first contact between the Chenjesu and xenophobic Terrans with voiceovers. It's essentially a 3 Chen vs 3 Earthling but still, enjoy :P

http://www.zshare.net/video/24993475b6e65d/

That's better than most of the vids in this topic. I think I'll bump you up next to the top slot, good job.

Blade defeats Terminator and Dreadnought.

http://www.zshare.net/video/2538380ee47e15/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/2538380ee47e15/)

Pshiw pshiw pshiw!

That was AMAZING! Incredable blade control. It's practacly like you were using WADS and the mouse. Perfect range control, perfect everything. Really demonstrated the danger that a blade can be.

You know, stupid as this may be, I've never realised that the Ur-Quan secondary weapon actually gives off the words "Launch Fighters". For some reason, it's always sounded like "Moms Parkers" or some such gibberish to me. I suppose you learn something new every day.

Are there any versus battles here? Most of these, though pretty, are ultimately demonstrations of AI weakness.

I may get to that eventually. Some very, VERY cool fights have occured with me in the past although 95% of player versus player is not that visually stunning due to the standoffish nature of many of the match-ups. Basically, I will have to record every PVP game I play if I want to ever catch an elusive "OMGWTFBBQ!!" moment. The one I regret missing the most was my heavily limpeted Ilwrath killing reigning champion (::)) Elvish Pillager's VUX with a stupid little surprise maneuver.

Yeah, but having the PVP where Fred got creamed would have been a sweet one to see. Celebrity melee matches is really what I'm interested in seeing.

The videos download so slowly :(

That's because practically nobody is bothering to compress them any.

Except for me. Mine are minimally compressed.

EDIT: I think I compressed this one too much. Nonetheless, it's more Supox Shenanigans, with the Supox dealing with the Chenjesu and Utwig.

http://www.zshare.net/video/258124155f2ba5/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/258124155f2ba5/)

Now that's just false. You really do not want to know how big these files are before I run them through compression. I'm compressing with "Divx 5.2.1" using VirtualDub. Is there another one that doesn't make everything look like spew? Additionally, the rest of us want to keep our videos at a resolution larger than 320x240, sorry. If people really, really want fast loading videos I can always change mine around.

And while I'm asking you questions, I may as well inquire as to how you threw subtitles on your last video because I could really use something like that.

I use Windows Movie Maker to throw in subtitles, titles, and other effects onto my movies. You can also use the maker to save movies as WMV files, which are a LOT smaller than AVI's, though a bit lower in quality.

I Managed to kill a Mauler with a single shofixti.. Sorry about the crappy video :-\.C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Desktop (http://C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Desktop)

I am so sorry for providing a broken link :-[ Here is a Working link. Sorry again about the quality of the video hope you can see the ships...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXOmwySNe9s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXOmwySNe9s)

Wow, very nice! Looks like one of those UFO sighting videos.

That's right :-[  My trusty cellphone is just not enough. If i could get a  decent video capture program i would make "A single podship Beats The Old Alliance."  Where can i get one, i have a zero-budget.

No, I really like this StarFlight-esque look! Anyway, here's a freeware program for video capture: VidShot Capturer (http://www.geovid.com/Screen_VidShot). You don't need to register it, don't use the 29.95USD button.
(for Windows. If you have Linux, you can use recordMyDesktop (http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/downloads.php). On Mac, I don't know.)

Thanks a lot!

You know after hearing most of the sounds on here I suggest we band the best together to make an unofficial sound pack for UQM net melee, because personally I think most of the sounds can be changed to sound better, anyone agree?

I agree, new FX for the weapons and stuff. I also don't like most of the new victory ditties. The old ones are cool, but their sound quality is from a bygone era.

Yeah. I started with replacing a lot of the sounds I thought needed replacing, though I left in the ones that I thought had an essence that really couldn't be replaced by any of the sounds I had.

Anybody interested in working on replacing Melee sounds, I'll be making an official thread about this unofficial sound replacement pack.

Looks like extensive work has already been done in that regard.
http://www.medievalfuture.com/precursors/ (http://www.medievalfuture.com/precursors/)

I think they mean sound effects, not music like the Precursors are doing.

That's purely music, not the actual firing sound effects and whatnot. The remixed victory ditties are in the first pack, however.

Does anybody have ideas for some new melee!  vids? I like the idea of a supox...

Going to do a skiff vs chenjesu, melnrome and kohr-ah but Screen VidShot seems to support no video compressors at all and RAW video results in file sizes larger than 8 gigabytes... What compressors you use?

I use VirtualDub (google for it) with DivX 5.2.1 compression on graphics and Lame MP3 on audio. I don't know if VirtualDub will work with something made from VidShot. It's great with Fraps, though.

A hard, at lest for me, match where a Little dude With Attitude (skiff) blasts The Unbalanced Team  1 (Trader, Eluder, Broodhome & 2x Marauder) without getting hit.
Now with better video quality. It is found here: http://www.zshare.net/video/27285017b2ffd8/ (http://www.zshare.net/video/27285017b2ffd8/)

PS: I know, it would be great. Reassemble the alliance, fight the Hierarcy and this time sit back and let the Arilou win the damn war!

53.32 megs, yikes. The video is decent enough, though.

This is not impressing but my only Supermelee video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6SuE8QEHTw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6SuE8QEHTw)

I love the music in that video! He He -The old Star-Trek beep sound was just too funny.
(News to me at least - I've never heard that before.)

The fanfare in the end is ripped from Heroes of Might and Magic III. :P

Hey and why Shiver put it with a name 'Pkunk wins over Chenjesu'? It's a draw, Pkunk didn't resurrect after that. ::)

The game thinks you won because you killed the Chenjesu a milisecond earlier than it killed you. Matches are decided like that when a near-draw occurs.

A 10 second video of CPU Skiff maneuvering error.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9_FwWS6IHY

Just to point out, but the link to my 4th video in the first post has got an extra HTTP thrown in at the beginning of it, breaking the link. Should prolly fix that.

What's it with most o these videos, the load very slowly and even if I download them there's only sound

You're apparently missing the video codec used. A lot of people here seem to use DivX (http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/). XViD (http://www.xvid.org/) ought to be a compatible open source alternative, but the Windows version's site seems to be down. If you don't want to fiddle with codec installation, a stand-alone player like VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) could be an easier choice.

Thanking you.

There's a funner way to beat an Utwig with a Chmmr...

Nothing in this match-up could possibly be more entertaining than lobbing the Utwig at a nearby planet like a beach ball. If I weren't trying to win my matches within a short time frame I would have tried to drop it down to 6 crew before getting into a direct fire fight with it.

Turbo Broodhome! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5qoB7tRBUM) :P

Same on Mediafire, http://www.mediafire.com/?cdsj42isggh

Melnorme Trader vs Chmmr Avatar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn2Fhci407c)

Guess who wins. :)

Aw come on, do you have to play in slow motion like that? Melnorme isn't that hard to aim with.

I know, but Hypercam causes the game to slow.

I still think a high speed "chase" is more entertaining:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WRGw8on8JM
(Sorry about the terrible compression)

It works, but has questionable effectiveness against a live player.

Another AI weakness! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC6DTMfWNdk) :P

I spritzed up the first post and added some explanation for the videos I really liked. Maybe that will get more attention now.

I was under the misconception that these videos were AI-whomping-themed.  I see now that it is to get people to play net melee.

The reason I know how to kill a computer Utwig with a Chmmr is that once, I was trying to make a list of all the computerized ships you could beat on Awesome with any other ship.  The only one I had trouble with against the Chmmr was the Utwig.  :0
Most of the CPU ships are beatable with any ship.  I have half of the list done, if anyone's interested.

I'm interested, if only a little.

how do you beat chmmr with a earthling?

You don't. Even if a Shofixti suicide bombs all three satelites, the Chmmr tractor beam drags Earthling in so fast that it can barely fight back. Anyone is welcome to FRAPS together something proving me wrong, but I don't see how that would be possible.

I remember doing something like 10 Cruisers against an Avatar and winning but the sheer loss of human crew and materials makes this matchup really stupid :).

I made another treat for you guys here (http://www.zshare.net/video/4843919f71d8e7/). It's Shofixti against Kohr-Ah, the most ridiculously difficult match-up I've ever slogged through.