The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I used to play star control 2 melee alot as a kid.
Maybe I am exagerating, but I remember setting battles of me having 1 arilu ship against the hardest computer with all the ships.
Today, years later, the toughest computer is too hard to me.
I didnt play much due to the fact that I dont have a gamepad and the keyboard isnt really suitable, the keys don't respond too often. Maybe I will buy a gamepad and start playing again.
Anyway, my question is, if someone won't touch the game for several years, how much of his skill capabilities will be reduced?
Is it possible as I got older I got worse at games in general? (I sometimes get this kind of fealing)
Maybe to be good at a game you need to invest a lot of time, and I didnt, so that may be the reason?
Any other thoughts?

It depends on the person. For me, if I come back to a game after a long time, it takes me a little while to get used to it again, but after that I tend to be better than I was before.

I get that a lot; I come back to a game I found difficult years ago and easily find a strategy that solves the problems I was having back then.

For example, in full game SC2, I used to waste a lot of time collecting minerals and biologicals and spent too little time trying to pry information out of other races. In SuperMelee, I relied on heavy ships too much.

If the keys aren't responsive, there's something wrong. They should be.

It's like any skill; if you don't use it for a while, you start to lose it.  Novus mentions the purely mental aspects (and you can get better at strategy and logic, thinking in general, through other things, and hence be better after a long pause), but sheer reflexes and timing play a part, too, as does familiarity with the ships--having an actual sense of turning speeds, weapon ranges and speeds, etc., instead of just sort of knowing about them.

You probably have gotten worse at games in general¹ if you've stopped playing them.

If this were about ping-pong or playing an instrument or something, there'd be no question.

¹I'm going to assume you're talking about games that require reflexes, and not, say, chess.

To clarify, I also get better at reflexes after a long break.

Why?
Dont you know that on some keybaords when you press too many keys together (even two), at least one of them wont respond?

Now I'm jealous.  Heh.


You're saying you think it's supposed to be like that--that it was like that even when new?   ???  A keyboard really needs to be able to deal with multiple keys being pressed at once, at least three (since there are three-key commands) and preferably more.  If it can't, it doesn't work properly.  Are you sure it's the keyboard and not the computer?  Can you connect it to another computer and see if it does the same thing?

Keyboards suck. See See here (http://uqm.stack.nl/wiki/The_Ur-Quan_Masters_Technical_FAQ#When_I_press_multiple_keys_at_the_same_time.2C_some_keys_won.27t_be_recognised) for more info.

Oh, I see... and here I was thinking that it must just be a defective/broken one, because surely no-one would build it that way because that would be stupid etc etc.

Learn something new every day, I guess.

I've found that if I stop playing a game and go back to it a year or two later I'm much better at it, because I start over and relearn what I used to know.

But trying to get the hang of melee after not playing a proper keyboard game in more then ten years? That was a royal pain.

Was it not SC1 that had the keyjamming screen?  Maybe that could be incorporated one day.

-Kwamp

The Key Jammer was in the SC2 directory, I'm positive.

Of course, I could be positively wrong :) But I'm sure I'm not.

The keyjam utility was included in the SC1 package and was absent from the SC2 installation.

Maybe you push yourself beyond the limits and require some rest?

Because while you are playing something, your brain learns new tactics and ways of winning, but also grows used to the old, not-as-good way of playing. The tactics you learned are forgotten much harder than the habits, so when you return after a time you are no longer tied to your old views and methods, but still possess the theoretical tactics and easily transform them into a habit.

No.

My SC2 does have a keyjamming utility included.

As alluded to earlier, it is possible to avoid this entirely for the one-player game, and minimize it for two players, by properly selecting keys.

Generally, the keyboard has the capability of understanding multiple modifier keys simultaneously with letters (shift, control, etc), so those are good to use. if you're using wadkl or something like that, then you'll be likely to get in trouble in a way that wad (shift) (control) won't

Lacking a keyjamming utility in UQM, you'll just have to work it out. One player shouldn't take too long. Two would be extremely difficult without such a utility.