The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

How can i fight them? Can i make them stop coming after me in hayperspace?

You fight the Sylandro Probes very carefully.  And yes you can make them stop coming after you (but would you if you get good/strong enough to fight them and win?).

Can you give me some tactical tips?

Learn the way of the Spathi Coward/Lamer, the combat style that you should NEVER use on a human being. Only, instead of jetting away firing BUTT missiles, jet away only enough to give you some velocity and just coast. Get a feel for the point where the probe gives up chasing you and turns around. If you can stay a bit away from that point and fire missiles, he won't turn around and just try to dodge them. He can't dodge two, much less three.

Usually I get torn up by the probes using the earth cruiser.  I can manage with the Spathi but it gets way too annoying sometimes.  The Pkunk and Arilou are effective but sometimes not effective enough (I will use these two ships if I'm in a situation where I have to).  Usually early in the game I use the main ship with the gun spread.  Later on, the Yehat, Supox, or Utwig seems to work very well - although by the time I even meet any of those species my mainship is powerful enough that it's a one-shot kill.

If you get slaughtered if you immediately go into hyperspace, maybe you shouldn't immediately go into hyperspace... (HINT).

Well, you _could_ always find out where they are coming from, why they attack everything in sight, and how to stop them.  But I guess that's a ways off still.   ;D

Here's a tip: The Earthling Cruiser is only really good for mopping the floor with Spathi and ZoqFotPik ships. Neither of which you will fight outside of melee if you have any common sense in you. Sell it and the crew and put that money toward buying your flagship some turning jets and speed booster thingys so that you can move faster in hyperspace. You SHOULD then be able to make the trip to Alpha Centauri or some nearby stars without dying so much.

Don't let Fwiffo die. Spathi ships are worth their weight in gold, especially if you make a mistake and hit VUX space. Heck, they're not that bad against the BIG BAD UR-QUAN OHH DEAR. Have at least two or three shortly after you get a treaty with them. If you're filthy rich, you could buy more than four and let a couple go down in tougher fights, but with that money you'd be better off upgrading your own ship's turning and boosting power (Or some better upgrades once you find them.). Still, two or three total Spathi Eluders won't hurt your fleet.

I fully agree.  Humans hate it when you use Spathi ships on them, but they're very effective against the computer.

Yes, Eluders are very effective.  Pity that a bug makes them hit themselves.  
Well, I REALLY like using the flagship agaist probes after I have full jets and 2 Fusion Blasters.  I dont even have to move; I just turn towards the probe and fire once they're in range.  BOOM.   ;D

I'm told the bug is fixed in the latest build--you can download that one from one of these threads.

I find that the best way to take out Slyandro Probes near the beginning without requiring any significant skill would be to install a front and arc firing blaster in your Precursor ships (which you can easily afford if you mine out Sol, especially considering that the moonbase debris lands you with 2500 RU and the ship comes pre-equipped with a blaster) and to make sure you fill up on turning jets, since the probe likes to get on your side and back. Then when you encounter it, just wait till it's 'in range' and keep tracking it and shooting it. If you have a full crew of 50 you should survive. Yes, 'survive'.

Once you get as far as the Alpha Centauri star (shouldn't be too hard of a challenge) and start mining there, you should be able to gather yourself enough bio units (there are some in the other Centauri stars) to buy the blaster upgrade from the Melnorme, hopefully enough credits to purchase two or three dynamos, and ideally, upgrade your blasters and buy another crew pod. At that point even newbies of little melee skill will be able to sit and blast away at probes with little difficulty.

That's funny, I never had that much trouble with the Slylandro, I just used the Earthling cruiser you have in the beginning. Fire off, run like hell whilst recharging and fire again. It dies kinda quick, and you dont take too much damage, if you manage it right (admittedly there is some luck involved, but still).

I max out the thrusters before leaving the system (so I can outrun them in hyperspace), and never fight them until I have the ability to WHOMP them without half trying.

*nods* I tend to feel dirty when I reload a saved game after I've been killed, for some reason. For that reason I like relying on methods that require no luck, just skill (or even not much of that at all).

I generally just take my losses and carry on. As Death said, pretty soon you can outrun them (although I usually can't sraight away), and til then the crusier mothership combo will keep you safe enough.

Fwiffo can kill Probes taking little to no damage... it just takes a while to get the Probe to get in a proper pursuit of the Eluder.

Auto Tracker-Solves all your slylandro problems

Solves all your anything shooting at you problems...

Well, except for the Tanaka problem, it's not much good in that situation ;)

Well, if he gets close enough to actually shoot at you, there is a serious problem.

Not really, it just tickles :)

Getting back to probes... Umm... Well, it took me a long time to figure out the propulsion system for them. Quite different from the others...