The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Demo has been posted!   :)

http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/UQM_XNA_Melee.rar (http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/UQM_XNA_Melee.rar)

Windows XP / Vista
Supports both Xbox360 Controller and Keyboard
-  Xbox360 Controller utilizes rumble, and the left stick control will aim the ship in the direction, rather than traditional Left/Right steering.    (helps alot for fast ships)

Make sure you have the required componnents installed or it will crash on start up:

   .Net 2.0 PLUS the C++ 2005 SP1 Redist -OR- .Net 2.0 SP1
   DirectX9.0c http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3)
   XNA runtime 2.0 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=15fb9169-4a25-4dca-bf40-9c497568f102  (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=15fb9169-4a25-4dca-bf40-9c497568f102)

   More info on the components needed available here (http://forums.xna.com/thread/9924.aspx (http://forums.xna.com/thread/9924.aspx))


(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/intro.jpg)
A quick intro page

(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/ships.jpg)
Still a few ships that need work.

(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/survival.jpg)
Test your might  :)

Feedback or comments are welcome. 

ps: Am i posting in the correct section, or does this belong in Cafe?  : p

It's a good start.  ;)

I wasn't able to get very far because I couldn't get used to the controls. Maybe they can be made customizable? I find it hard to use the right and left control keys to fire while using space + arrows to navigate. Maybe that's just me though.

Good to know you got it working, thanks for playing  :D

As for the controls, certainly.  : )  I'll make a config file that can be modified the way u want.

The survival mode is actually pretty hard.  I think i can reach about 40000 total
points max.  I think I will have to introduce some power ups, extra lives or something to make it more rewarding.

Silly question: will it always be necessary to install this XNA thing separately?

Yeah, it is a requirement for all XNA games right now.  I'm not sure if they have plans to change that.

Some XNA games have nice installers that will install it for you, but I've never made an installer before :I
For right now, I thought it best to just show off something and save the installer for later :p

EDIT: Now you can modify your keys via xml file, and two players can both use the keyboard.
I have updated the rar files, and put one with just the exe here :)   
http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/uqm_updated_exe.rar (http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/uqm_updated_exe.rar)

Will this eventually run on a 360?

Eventually, yes :)
However a Creators Club subscription account will be needed to run it on your console
Because I'm using copyrighted material, it will not be available from the future XNA Community Games  :(

At least you can pretend your playing on xbox if you plug in your 360 controller  :p

I am looking forward to playing this. Seem really nice, actually. I have lots of problems with that blasty XNA. Let's see if I can fix them.

Mr Brian, "copyrighted material"?
Note that UQM's content is licensed under CC-by-nc-sa 2.5 generic:
http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/The_Ur-Quan_Masters_Project_FAQ#Under_what_license_is_the_game_released.3F
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

I know that CC-by-nc-sa is still a form of copyright, but I'm wondering if you're allowed to use it for XNA Community Games. I'm not familiar with XNACG at all, though, so I might be missing something here which makes it obvious why you can't use the UQM datafiles.

CC-by-nc-sa is a form of licensing. The copyright is still with TFB. This license says basically that you're free to use it as long as the authors are credited, you don't make any money off of it, and derivative works are licensed under the same license.
That doesn't preclude getting permission from TFB under another license.

I'm very happy to hear that SC2 is being ported for play on the console systems. It looks wonderful and sounds even better.
You may not know, and it has been taking me a while to complete, but I am re-doing all the media originally found on the 3DO version of SC2. This material will be publicly available free of license. I encourage you to consider using it in your port.
Best of luck with your project.
***Thumbs Up***

@Gekko:
Hope you get it working! 

@Megagun:
Hmm..  Well, I suppose theres always the chance TFB could let me put it up on XNA CG :)
I did email the game to them, so they are aware of it.   :)     

@Amiga:
Thanks, I've indeed seen your videos- would be pretty cool using them in the game
I'll gladly toss em in when XNA gets some integrated video support   :)

Just updated with a new video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW9XnbjxE9s

Some new features I just added: 
        -game runs at 60fps
        -ships no longer constrained to 16 angles
        -Also the Challenge mode I've had in there for a couple weeks

(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/challenge.jpg)

It looks like this can run more than 2 players at a time. I'd love to try it once you get all the ships working. Don't know if I like the background nebula. It looks good on its own, but clashes with the pixelized Star Control ships.

New video update-   This time with awkward commentary!  :P

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

Shiver: The background is still a placeholder.  It will eventually change but I haven't spent time on what it should look like yet.  I've been thinking it could be fun to have several backdrops (eg: our solar system, .. other ones / milky way?)  Of course there can always be a classic style mode

Looks pretty awesome. Any chance for a high-res video?

The one thing that bothered me is that the mouse cursor is mirrored. (Yes, I'm that weird.)

The commentary was somehow amusing. :P

A few concerns:

The camera zooms in and out. Is there a target lock-on feature? You'd need it if you wanted to hit someone in particular with Earthling, Orz, Mycon, etc.

Player 1's VUX didn't VUXdrop on anyone. Is it possible to single out a particular player and do that?

Is it possible to adjust the number of planets and asteroids?

That nebula's still in the background... one idea I've had was a putting nebulas in some parts of Star Control 2's main game, and combat within them would have actual friction involved causing ships to slow down back to zero slowly over time if they let themselves coast for a while with the acceleration off. This might be too much work to code so feel free to disregard.

alpharesh:  A high-res video is available here (hopefully you can view .wmv):  http://cid-e4f1227696c43a98.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/UQM|_Arcade.wmv   and I'll fix that cursor  :)

Shiver:  Yes, I didn't show it in the video but you can target a specific ship with your weapons.  Or did you mean with the camera?  That wouldn't be too hard to do.  You can see some targetting in the previous video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW9XnbjxE9s).  Its the red ring that shows up- I'd like to change the reticle style eventually.
re Asteroids/planets:  Not right now but I can add an option menu for those sometime.
VUXDrop hasn't implemented yet, but being able to specify a target before you select a ship should be a pretty simple task.

On another note, I've made the source available at http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/uqm-xnamelee.  This is still an Xbox project but considering the not so good chances of released on Xbox Community Games right now, I'd eventually like to port it to SDL/something more PC friendly.

New video
http://www.viddler.com/explore/mrbrian/videos/1/ (http://www.viddler.com/explore/mrbrian/videos/1/)   -higher res Viddler site
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-ihjeoJUk&fmt=18 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-ihjeoJUk&fmt=18)  -regular ol Youtube

New: Glow effects / Team play / Better camera tracking

(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/glow_ring.jpg)

(http://www.bwoot.com/xna/images/glow_arc.jpg)

Working on XBOX Live multiplayer now...  If you are interested in getting this on your Xbox,
instructions are here: http://bwoot.com/xna/?p=62#comment-275 (http://bwoot.com/xna/?p=62#comment-275)  (only works until end of September when they will stop giving out free XNA memberships)

It looks nice. I am wondering though, can you still see what direction the ships are facing when you're playing this on the Xbox? I bet you need HDTV, right? (Or is HDTV mandatory with an Xbox anyhow?)

Just about. I could barely read the subtitles in Mass Effect on my regular TV so I had to borrow someone else's HDTV every time I wanted to use my Xbox 360.

Hm, on a non HDTV you probably would have trouble seeing where you face, I have been playing it all on my monitor.  But thats one advantage of using the Xbox controller, if you play with the analog stick, the ship will face where you are pressing it

It looks nice.  The thing that I'd love to see is a dual screen or dual monitor mode which has the original or zoom in camera and the whole map on the other screen for situational awareness.

I've always kinda wanted whole map mode for melee to planet location.

I'd also miss the discrete turning mode if that dissapears since that tends to help out the little fast guys who are more fun to play for me.

I'm guessing the wrap around must play different now so that would take some getting used to