The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Dunno if anyone still cares, but long ago when I was working on Star Control: TimeWarp, there was a game included called Gob that was SC2 ship combat vs a never-ending horde of enemies that got gradually more powerful and more numerous over time.  Where you got money for each enemy ship you blew up and could buy upgrades and stuff.  It was intended as single player, though technically is was possible to force some versions to play multiplayer. 

A year or two ago I wanted to show it to someone, and found that the version on sourceforge was hopelessly screwed up, so I went to my archives and pulled up a working version and threw in some new improvements. 

Improvements in this version include new upgrades, more enemy types, uber variants of each enemy type (not particularly uber... an uber zoq-fot-pik stinger is still just a zoq-fot-pik stinger...), bug-fixes, difficulty tweaks, upgrade price tweaks, etc. 

There is little or no plot, and the setting does not particularly make sense in the starcon universe.  There is no victory condition per se... the goal is simply to survive.  Scoring is basically how long you survive and how many enemies you kill and how uber your ship gets.  Difficulty probably maxes out around 7000 seconds (2 hours).  You start with a Supox Blade, and can buy Supox Blades, Kohr-Ah Marauders, Orz Nemesis, or Utwig Juggernauts.  You can also find a wide variety ships in special sites called "Rainbow Abyss".  There is only one Rainbow Abyss at a time, when you get it it will respawn at a new location. 

For the moment it can be grabbed at:
ftp://71.115.199.25/gob.zip

Files size is about 55 MB.  If there's demand I'll figure out some longterm place to host it with more bandwidth, maybe the sourceforge page or as a torrent. 

Here is a list of all upgrades available in the game:

Generic upgrades include:
Add Crewpod
Add Battery
Upgrade Thrusters
Upgrade Control Jets
Upgrade Dynamo
Upgrade Sensor System (new to this version)
Field Repair System (new to this version)

Ship-specific upgardes include:
Upgrade Glob Hurler (Supox)
Upgrade Glob Former (Supox)
Add B.L.A.D.E. (Supox)
Upgrade Missiles (ORZ)
Upgrade Marine Suits (ORZ)
Absorbtion (ORZ)
Increase Shuriken Sharpness (Kohr-Ah)
Increase Shuriken Velocity (Kohr-Ah)
increase F.R.I.E.D. range (Kohr-Ah)
increase F.R.I.E.D. damage (Kohr-Ah)
Upgrade Bolt Charger (Utwig)
Upgrade Bolt Generator (Utwig)
Mask of Honest Demeanor (Utwig) (max 1 mask)
Mask of Elephantine Fortitude (Utwig) (max 1 mask)

Starbase-specifics upgrades include:
Divine Favor (Orz Starbase)
External Defense System (Kohr-Ah Starbase)
Advanced External Defense System (Kohr-Ah Starbase) (new to this version)
Planet Locator (Supox Starbase)
Roswell Device (Utwig Starbase)

Special upgrades include:
the Devil protects his own...
Chronotronic Dynamo

It's more than a little bit crash-prone on my PC, although that is a big step up from my previous experiences with time warp. Neat game regardless. I remember reading about it years ago and wanting to try it.

When does it crash?  Is there an error message?  I put up a new executable file there:
ftp://71.115.199.25/gob.exe
which should print out a more detailed stacktrace for Gob games, assuming it manages to print one out at all. 

Heh, I remember this. It was quite fun, but prone to locking up every now and then. I'll have a look at the new version.

More details:

Enemies in order of appearance:
Thraddash Torch
Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger (special weapon nerfed)
Shofixti Scout (special weapon nerfed) (50% not allowed to self destruct)
Drax Griffon (special weapon tweaked)
Ilwrath Spider
Kahr Boomerang
Kterbi Saber
Syreen Penetrator (special weapon nerfed)
Urquan Kzer-Za Dreadnought (special weapon tweaked)
Mmrnmhrm X-Form
Lk Sanctorum
Druuge Mauler (battery regen nerfed)
Earthling Cruiser
Virtau Limb
Yehat Terminator
Herald Exterminator
Narool Lurker
VUX Intruder
Arilouileelay Skiff
Chmmr Avatar (normal weapon nerfed, special weapon tweaked)
Ploxis Plunderer
Alary Battlecruiser
I think 6 of those are new to Gob in this version but I don't remember which 6. 


All uber ships have these generic buffs:
1.4x crew & max crew
1.3x max speed
1.3x acceleration
1.3x turn rate

Specific uber ships have these additional buffs:
Uber shofixti have long range, high damage, tough bullets, and have their special unnerfed
Uber ZFP have long range, high damage, tough bullets, and have their special unnerfed
Uber Syreens have long range, high damage, tough bullets, better special weapons, and have their special unnerfed
Uber Druuge have long range, tough bullets, fast battery regen, fast bullets
Uber Green Urquans... 75% have long range, tough bullets, fast bullets, and rarely launch fighters, the other 25% have fast, long range, high damage fighters whose lasers are longer range
Uber Earthling missiles are fast and tough
Uber Chmmr have their laser unnerfed, and their tractors beams are long range and strong

got instructions for compiling the thing?

I could host a larger version with the VC7.1 project files and stuff if you wanted, though that would take forever to download from my computer (slow DSL, very little upstream bandwidth). 
The compilation process is fairly simple... all .cpp files and all .c files get compiled and linked with each other, plus the Allegro library (4.1 here, though latter versions should work with little or no extra effort) and JGMOD library.  And on windows it also needs wsock32.lib (unless you disable networking) and probably winmm.lib.  If any of those are hard to find, I can put my copies on the ftp server.  I'm putting JGMOD on the ftp server just in case, as IIRC it was discontinued many years ago. 

note: just in case it's unclear to anyone, this stuff doesn't need compiling or anything fancy, windows binaries are included. 

...unless you're on a Mac.

Anyway, I tried that, and it gave a bajillion errors. Oh well.

Ammended instructions: compile and link all .c and .cpp files except those in source/games/old (those are outdated files). 

If a bajillion is like 200-2000 then I'd guess that either your C/C++ compiler is different enough to not like some syntantically questionable bits of TW code or your Allegro install is not quite right or not quite the right version.  If a bajillion is like 10000+ then I'd guess your Allegro install has something majorly wrong with it. 

An attempt at a strategy guide:

Keys to know: (default configuration)
besides the usual fire, special weapon, thrust, turn left and turn right you also need:
Zoom In: the equals/plus key near backspace
Zoom Out: the minus key near backspace
Zoom Forward: the zero key near backspace
Target Closest: (only needed if your ship has homing projectiles) the "P" key
Target Previous: (only needed if your ship has homing projectiles) the "[" key
Target Next: (only needed if your ship has homing projectiles) the "]" key

Early game:

The starting starbase is always at the same coordinates.  Remember them so you can find it later if you get lost.  It's 12000 x 12000 in the current version. 

Try to get lots of asteroids so that you can afford the external defense system you'll be buying in early-mid-game.  Don't be afraid to leave the planet behind to go hunting asteroids in deep space, but make sure you get back the planet with 2 or 3 minutes for repairs and upgrades.  Grav-whipping can get you a better velocity to make finding asteroids quicker, but if you have to maneuver to reach the asteroid that will burn off some of your extra velocity that you can't get back without finding another planet. 

Strafe a lot.  Try not to let Shofixti self-destruct on you - not only does it damage you, but you also don't get the starbuck that killing the Shofixti would give you.  Try not to let too many Thraddashes gang up on you.  They outrange you and can take you out without too much trouble if there are several of them.  Don't focus on weapons upgrades much yet, you can take out anything that spawns early by strafing enough, and there aren't enough enemies yet anyway to justify the cost of serious weapons upgrades. 

Buy crewpods when low on health instead of repairing, to save on credits.  Buy sensor systems so that you'll have an easier time finding asteroids, planets, rainbow rifts, etc.  It will also let you see enemies coming earlier.  Buy a thrusters upgrade too, so you can get around more, and escape most enemies more easily. 

Suggested Upgrade Order:
crewpod
sensor system
crewpod
thrusters
crewpod
sensor system
field repair system
crewpod
planet locator
external defense system (only available at (cyan indicator) Kohr-Ah starbase)

Middle Game:

Once you have the planet locator, find the Kohr-Ah starbase.  Buy an external defense system there.  It's not much use against enemies with high rates of fire, but against almost everything else this is useful, and against a few (earthling cruisers) this is critically important.  Also, this is important as it is one of the very few upgrades that you keep when you switch ships. 

Consider an exploration strategy: with lots of thrusters and lots of sensor systems, you can see a large area of the map quickly while evading most enemies.  This is good for finding the Rainbow Rift, or just hunting down asteroids.  Beware however that high end sensor systems can get very expensive, and work better on non-supox ships. 

If you prefer to get your wealth by killing enemies, it's time to either start buying the big offensive and defensive upgrades, or to begin planning how you're going to finance switching ship types (when you switch ships, you keep a few upgrades, but most get sold off for like half or 3/4ths of what you paid for them, which makes it very important to get speed, maneuverability, and max crew upgrades right away... and if you used a rainbow rift, that can be rather difficult since you can't buy upgrades until you make it back to a starbase).  For offenive upgrades, start with dynamos then add (if supox) a battery, a glob former, and a glob hurler.  Do NOT get a second glob former, or at least not until you have at least 5 dynamos. 

The 3rd possible way to make money is practical for the mid-game only: consider buying an Utwig plus a Mask Of Honest Demeanor and some thruster upgrades.  If you can make it to a non-Utwig starbase, you can sell an Utwig Ship with that mask for more than it cost to buy.  This is a dangerous route, but if you can do it once or twice early on it can produce a lot of money.  Do not try to do this more than a few times, as enemies will get tougher, the loss from selling the other upgrades you need will increase, and eventually the whole scheme will either become too dangerous or unprofitable. 

Try to get a 2nd external defense system when you can, though the cost for them ramps up rapidly.  Consider a 3rd as well, but do NOT buy a 4th yet. 

Late Game:

Once you have 2 or 3 external defense systems, focus on getting an advanced external defense systems... they are ridiculously expensive, but utterly critical to fighting Arilou Skiffs, Narool Lurkers, and Herald Exterminators. 

The Chronotronic Dynamo should show up soon, but is likely to be a bit expensive at first.  The price will drop over time.  If you are limited by battery regen rate then buy this as soon as you can afford it, otherwise wait for the price to go down.  Once you have this plus a few dynamos, you'll have nearly infinite battery regeneration. 

If you end up with far more starbucks than buckazoids, unload some starbucks on Divine Favor at the Orz starbase.  Don't buy it unless you have no better use for your starbucks though. 

For late-game, ships I have had success with include: Supox Blade, Kohr-Ah Marauder, Orz Nemesis, Mycon Podship (from the Rainbow Rift), and the Androsynth Guardian (from the Rainbow Rift).  I have little success with the Utwig, as it seems to take too many thruster and control jet upgrades to get a reasonable speed out of, and too many rate of fire upgrades to compensate for the big damage upgrades.  For the Kohr-Ah, make sure to get lots of dynamos and FRIED upgrades.  For the Nemesis, get Absorption and a few marine upgrades.  For anything from the Rainbow Rift, focus on dynamos.  For anything at all, also get a bunch of repair systems.  Get enough thrusters to make sure your max velocity is always well above your enemies max velocity. 

What does the Field Repair System even do? I bought it several times and I don't see my crew recovering at all.

It regenerates your crew.  There are a couple limitations on it though: it will only regenerate a percentage of the damage you take, and it will only regenerate damage that you take while you have a field repair system (ie repair immediately after you buy it).  It works most quickly right after you take a lot of damage.  To see the results clearly, buy a bunch of crewpods, buy 2-3 field repair systems, take a bunch of damage, and then watch your crew for a bit. 

regeneration percentages:
level 1: 40%
level 2: 75%
level 3: 90%
level 4: 95.6%
level 5: 97.7%
level 6: 98.6%
...

In addition the increase in efficiency, each field repair system upgrade also increases the speed at which it repairs. 

Due to limitations in the current way it measures the damage you take, various non-damaging actions that reduce your crew (launching marines, launching fighters, hearing a syreens call, etc) will count as damage and be regenerated. 

updated executable:
ftp://71.115.199.25/gob.exe

bugfixes:
Fixes a bug that sometimes caused crashes when AI controlled ships died in Gob and other non-melee games. 
Suppressed pointless "already dead" errors. 

game balance changes:
Rainbow Rift now takes time to spawn and respawn - time is random, averages 30 seconds + 5 seconds per time the rainbow rift has been used. 
Changed regen rate for repair systems. 
Tweaked ramp up of sensor upgrade costs. 

Here's a faster download linky to the bigger file. If you want the exe to the server, just poke me.

http://gekko.frud.biz/uqmtutorial/gob.zip (http://gekko.frud.biz/uqmtutorial/gob.zip)

Hey, this rocks. I loved gob. I wonder if it still has my old space station design. I guess I'll have to play it and find out.

Thanks, Orz! Will check this out fer sure.

Would you mind describing in more detail what each ship-specific upgrade does?

And are there Earthling Cruiser upgrades in this game? IIRC you said one build had toyed with extending the laser range, etc.

Is this supposed to happen? :P

Go for 1024x768.

update:
You can get 99% of the changes with just the new exe:
ftp://71.115.199.25/gob.exe
The .zip has also been updated, but only with a few minor ini feel tweaks.  

bugfixes:
all shofixti scouts were able to self-destruct, contrary to documentation and intent (now 50% are prevented)
divine favor upgrade was not working properly
was crashing immediately on big-endian CPUs (ie most PowerPC based systems), fixed
hopefully fixed the thraddash fire to not deal damage to friendlies (didn't get around to testing if the fix worked)
space station should no longer trigger multiple times when you run in to it

game balance changes:
buffed ships are stronger, regenerate health to some extent
distribution of enemy ships changed slightly
ilwrath spider ships no longer give 2 starbucks
a few late-game enemies also had their rewards tweaked a bit, mostly fewer buckazoids for late-game ships, though buffed ships give more starbucks now
added new ship-specific upgrades for numerous SC1/2 ships:
androsynth: comet damage upgrade
arilou: range and damage upgrades
chenjesu: main weapon damage and DOGI upgrades
earthling: main weapon damage/range and special weapon range upgrades
urquan: main weapon damage/range upgrade
spathi: main weapon damage/range upgrade
syreen: main weapon damage/range upgrade

ini file changes:
(not included in the .exe update, only in the large .zip file, despite the fact that these are just tiny changes to itty bitty text files)
Default physics rate changed from 40 hertz to 100 hertz
Urquan shot velocity changed from 80 to 120

The supox starbase graphic comes from someone who posted under the name Drink_Pepsi.  The Orz and Kohr-Ah starbase graphics come from someone who posted under the name Gueest, who also mailed me chocolate bars.  The Utwig starbase recycles one of the other 3, chosen at random each time you start a game of Gob. 

Change resolutions by editing client.ini or by using command line parameters:
"gob.exe -res 1024 768 -bpp 16" would be 1024x768 in 16 bit color. 

There were no ship-specific upgrades for the cruiser in any published version when you asked, but now there are. 

Old ship-specific upgrades:
Upgrade Glob Hurler (Supox): increases supox main gun range (20% on first upgrade, smaller absolute distances on later upgrades) & velocity; diminishing returns
Upgrade Glob Former (Supox): increases supox main gun damage by 1, also non-linearly increases battery necessary to fire; requires dynamos
Add B.L.A.D.E. (Supox): gives supox ramming damage
Upgrade Missiles (ORZ): increases range (15% on first upgrade, smaller percentages on latter upgrades though larger absolute increases), damage (by 1); no effect on velocity; increases battery cost linearly
Upgrade Marine Suits (ORZ): increases marine toughness (by 1), max speed (linearly, by 20% of the base speed), and acceleration (by 15% on the first upgrade, smaller absolute amounts on later upgrades); can make it difficult for your marines to dock with you (ie they may get stuck orbitting you)
Absorbtion (ORZ): marines onboard enemy ships have a 27.8% chance of increasing your crew by 1 each time they kill an enemy crew member.  counts as 3 upgrades for the purpose of increasing the cost of other upgrades. 
Increase Shuriken Sharpness (Kohr-Ah): increases main gun damage by 2.  increases battery drain by 2. 
Increase Shuriken Velocity (Kohr-Ah): increases main gun velocity linearly by 20% of the base main gun velocity.  passive homing velocity is increased in proportion. 
increase F.R.I.E.D. range (Kohr-Ah): increases special weapon range (20% on first purchase, smaller percentages on later purchases), velocity (5% on first purchase, smaller percentages on latter purchases; also increases battery drain of special weapon by 2
increase F.R.I.E.D. damage (Kohr-Ah): increases special weapon damage by 1, also increases battery drain of special weapon by 2
Upgrade Bolt Regulator (Utwig): increases Utwig bolt range by 80 pixels (aproximately the length of an Utwig)
Upgrade Bolt Charger (Utwig): increases Utwig bolts damage by 1 (yes, this means EVERY bolt in the volley); also increases the delay before you can fire again by 250 milliseconds
Upgrade Bolt Generator (Utwig): increases the Utwig rate of fire.  Cannot be used to increase the rate of fire to better than normal, can only be used to cancel out the penalties that Bolt Charger upgrade applied.  It takes 5 of these upgrades to fully cancel out 1 Bolt Charger upgrades RoF penalties. 
Mask of Honest Demeanor (Utwig) (max 1 mask): increases the resale value of your Utwig
Mask of Elephantine Fortitude (Utwig) (max 1 mask): sometimes reduces the damage you take from large attacks by 1 per hit; (33% for 1 damage attacks, 66% chance for 2 damage attacks, 100% for 3+ damage attacks)

New ship-specific upgrades:
Upgrade Comet Form (Androsynth): increases comet damage by 3 per hit, increases comet velocity by 5%.  Velocity increase is slightly greater than linear. 
Upgrade Laser Wattage (Arilou): increases laser damage by 1, increases battery cost nonlinearly
Upgrade Laser Range (Arilou): increases laser range (20% on first purchase, less percantage-wise but more on an absolute scale on later purchases)
Upgrade Photon Shards (Chenjesu): increases main gun damage by 3.  Fragment damage is increased by 1
Upgrade DOGI Systems (Chenjesu): increases DOGI armor nonlinearly, increases DOGI battery drain on enemies non-linearly, causes DOGIs to also deal regular damage (damage = to number of these upgrades)
Upgrade Warheads (Earthling): increases missile damage by 2, unlike other damage upgrades has no effect upon missile toughness.  Also increases range (why? I don't remember)
Upgrade Point Defense System Range (Earthling): increases point defense range, 25% on first purchase, smaller percentages on subsequent purchases
Upgrade Fusion Blaster (Green Urquan): increases main gun damage by 2; also increases range (20% on first purchase, smaller percentages on later purchases)
Upgrade Spathi Gun (Spathi): increases main gun damage by 1, also increases range (20% on first purchase, smaller percentages on later purchases)
Upgrade Stileto (Syreen): same as Upgrade Spathi Gun, but for the Syreen

My server ( ftp://71.115.199.25/ ) was down for a few days due to (unidentified, but apparently resolved) computer troubles here.  It's back up now, and hopefully it will stay up. 

Anyone having trouble reaching my server (or receiving data from it too slowly) should check out the mirror Gekko put up at http://gekko.frud.biz/uqmtutorial/gob.zip .  I'm not sure if that is the most recent version, but at least it is a recent version. 

since i can't save/load, i would really like to be able to find the rainbow continuum more easily by being able to zoom out as far as i want, or else hit a cheat where it tells me the coordinates of the anomaly.
I hate looking around forever for it just to play the ship I want.

Also... no Tau missile cruiser? :(

Hm... maybe have an immobile enemy (say, an Alary Battlecruiser with its max speed set to zero) spawn at the start of the game at fixed coordinates, with the rainbow abyss starting there?  So you'd get one spawn of the rainbow abyss at a known (but dangerous) location?  That would reduce the incentive to explore early on, but would provide a clear route to getting any ship. 

Or perhaps instead change the utwig starbase to sell you any ship type you want, at full cost.  That way it would still be difficult to get high point cost ships. 

I don't know why the Tau Missle Cruiser isn't included.  I'll take a look at getting it back in.  I might split the big zip download in to two parts, one with all the ships that are needed for Gob plus the rest of SC1 & 2 ships, the other with extra ship types users might want from the rainbow abyss. 

not a fan of the alary battlecruiser idea...

the reason i wish it were different re: rainbow abyss is that in some versions of timewarp, you can zoom out about 2x as far as in the version you released. In the latest version of TW-Light, I can zoom out infinitely, thus instantly finding it. Due to a lack of a savegame feature, I would just like to be able to not waste my time searching for it so that my gameplay experience is more enjoyable.
Zooming out further is one solutions, enabling a cheat that gives you its coordinates is another.
Being able to save your game is the best solution, though also would take more work.

Oh yeah. I forgot who i had mail those chocolates encouragements to. Jeeze, I hope that wasn't as creepy at the time as it felt just now saying I mailed you chocolates. Cuz it wasn't like that.

Man, that really marks the passage of time for me, tho. Makes me feel real old, now. And I'm still playing the same games. Sheesh.

The creepyness of that depends on if they were real, physical chocolates or just a bunch of pixels on a screen.. ;)

I was rather shocked the mail actually worked.  I have generally had bad luck with mail, having it arrive very late, never, or in very bad shape.  I had a package mailed to that address that consisted of a small, sturdy steel box, about 6 inches by 6 inches by 2 inches, with an embedded computer inside.  When it arrived, it appeared to have been run over by an abrams tank, and then danced upon by a circus elephant. 

Back then, I played Master Of Magic, Master Of Orion 1, Princess Maker 2, Nethack, Hexagon, Unreal Tournament, Grand Theft Auto 3, Doom 1, Minesweeper, Daggerfall, and Star Control 2.  Probably a few others that I've forgotten. 

All of those except GTA3 and UT were old at the time. 

Today, I play Master Of Magic, Dominions 3, Master Of Orion 1, Grant Theft Auto: San Andreas, Star Control 2, Warlords Battlecry 3, X-Com 1 aka UFO aka Enemy Unknown (I would have played it back then, but didn't have a version that worked under windows well enough), Starland TD, Freecell, Oblivion, Rise Of Nations, and Portals.  And I'll probably get back to PM2, Hexagon, Minesweeper, and Nethack in a few months.  Maybe even UT if I can find a working install of it again. 

All of those except Portals and Starland are old, and I'll probably finish with Starland in a day or two.  Well, RoN and Oblivion and Warlords Battlecry 3 and GTA:SA are only semi-old - they use hardware accelerated 3d. 

A bag of of snickers bars IIRC.  Or maybe it was 3 muskateers.  Physical. 

Snickers.

And I'm playing HL2 and a bunch of "indy" titles now, but I also just bought the X-Com collectors series on steam, so i'm still steeped in the old school.

Seems that if your maximum/native screen resolution is 1280x1024, as is the case for my monitor, you need to run in fullscreen mode to make it work (which kind of makes sense).  Had the same error but changing to fullscreen in the ini fixed it.

Anyway, nice work Orz! I remember spending hours on this game back in the day, and now I'm relapsing again, haha. Would be cool to see it more fully formed as a standalone game.

What do I do when I get limpeted by a VUX??  Repairs don't seem to remove the pesky things... is there no solution besides buying a new ship and hiring an accountant to figure out how to break even on all your lost upgrades?

Two limpets when a VUX spawned next to me... that was all it took to ruin a super souped-up Supox. :(
(by the way - seems like the limpets don't appear over your ship's image in the info panel, either...)

It was originally a stand-alone game, but that kept causing problems when bugfixes were applied to it but not the rest of TW or vise versa.  This version was moved back closer to being stand-alone just to avoid confusing people, it's only a one line change to turn it back in to being regular TW. 

There is no way to repair VUX limpet effects.  That is intended, and is the reason why VUXes don't show up until relatively late in the game despite short range and poor mobility.  The limpets not appearing in the info panel is probably a bug. 

I guess the only feature that's glaringly missing (as a stand-alone game) is the option to restart when I die... instead of having to quit and run gob again. Unless it's there and I'm just blind and not seeing it  ;)

About the limpets - oh well, I've learned by now to get a bunch of defense systems before the VUX start showing up, so limpets aren't a problem.  Seems like I was wrong about the limpets not appearing in the info panel - or maybe they simply disappeared after I tried to repair that time (despite not actually being repaired), I'll have to check to make sure.

Another couple of questions...

1 - You wrote you had success with the Podship (from the rainbow rift).... I tried it, and it's not doing me much good, especially since I can't get my weapon to home on asteroids (for the buckazoids).  Pressing "P" for nearest target selection seems to work for enemy ships, but not for asteroids - how do I do that?

2 - Are the big triangular ships (Alary Battlecruisers?) really supposed to give 0 $s / 0 $b?

Yeah, people have been asking for the ability to restart it without quitting for like a decade now.  I've been meaning to do it for a while too. 

I'm having a hard time with the podship in the current version.  With its speed its fairly critical that the rift be located close to a starbase.  For asteroids, I usually either take them down with point defense or fire plasma at an enemy whose angle is known or at point blank range.  And the dynamos are awfully expensive for them.  Still, not many ships can exploit rapid battery regen as well as a Mycon can. 

The Alary Battlecruisers are supposed to be worth... 4 starbucks + 3 buckazoids I think - that's the most buckazoids of any enemy in the current version.  I believe that's a bug related to the Alaries alternate death animation. 

The download link via my ftp server has changed, it's now ftp://71.115.244.39/gob.zip

The mirror at http://gekko.frud.biz/uqmtutorial/gob.zip is still up. 

Hey, just found this...  I used to love playing gob back when it worked in tw; kept a version where gob worked for about a year after it broke in tw just to play it, until I lost that version in a hard drive crash.  I had totally forgotten how much fun it is!  Thanks, orz!

I do have a couple questions:

Twice now my game has died fairly far into the game ( > 4000 seconds) with the following error:

Ack(1)!!!
An error occured in the game
But I don't know what error
  melee\mgame.cpp:211
called from melee\mgame.cpp: 537
called from scp.cpp: 407
called from scp.cpp: 636
called from scp.cpp: 629

Which is something to do with new ship creation, but my attempts to compile to try to isolate it further have not thus far been successful.

Anyhow, I don't know to what degree you are supporting gob versus just allowing us to play a great game that you enjoy writing, but wanted to pass along what I have seen.

Thanks again!

Try this version:
ftp://71.115.192.77/gob.exe
or
ftp://71.115.192.77/gob.zip

I don't think your stacktrace can be produced by the latest version.  Possibly your bug has already been fixed... mine has STACKTRACE macros in every function called by that function, and that function looks unlikely to crash outside of those callees. 

Orz, thank you for your reply; you are most likely correct; the version I have is not stacktraced within ggob. 

I got the version I got from the last mirror in this thread; for whatever reason I have been unable to connect to your ftp server; I keep getting connection closed by remote host. 

I am beginning to suspect I missed something I need to authenticate with your ftp server.  I will keep working on it.

Hm... possibly my routers port forwarding configuration has gotten screwed up again.  Try it again now. 

Excellent...  downloading it now and looking forward to more great fun (I got 6 advanced external defence systems for the first time just now...  it makes the game quite straightforward once you get past 3 or so)

Any help here:

"Ack{2)!!!
An error occured!
But I don't know what error!

Stack trace:
scp.cpp: 407
called from scp.cpp : 636
called from scp.cpp : 629
"

Downloaded the most recent zip, as well as the separate .exe thinking maybe that was the problem.  Getting this error when trying to run the .exe file.

Hm, I might try this at some point... when I have more time...

it's great :). But extremely frustrating when your supox dies 45 minutes in the game ;)

Oh man, this game is so adicttive but oh so frusterating at times. Anyway, I've got a few problems. Your server links don't do anything usefull when I click them, does the gecko site have the newest update? How do you get those other ships like the Androsynth? The squigly rainbow doesen't appear to do anything. Other then that, the game could use a save game option, Im not forcing it though. :)

Any news especially about the save feature?

I've discovered a couple problems: an Androsynth comet can "Sell" dynamos to regenerate energy (unlimited comit), Slylandros gun will eventually jam, Some ships I imported like the Orion and the Aktun don't work, rouge squadren dies once you get them at rainbow, advanced defence system is WAY to expensive, No way to see your ship when cloaked, Syreen are a little wild with there special and I don't think weapons spawned from other weapons (mines, Chenjesu shards) do anything...

The servers are broken.

It's still up on Gekko's web host (http://gekko.frud.biz/uqmtutorial/gob.zip).

(Excuse the thread necromancy)

Does anyone happen to have the latest .exe that orz_tw had posted?  The version hosted by Gekko above has the 26-Oct-2008 executable, which is what I have, and this doesn't include all the new ship upgrades / tweaks / additions.
See the date on orz_tw's post below - I assume that this newer executable should be dated December 2008, so if anyone happens to have it and can host or send it somehow, it would be much appreciated.

turns out I don't have that one ;). Perhaps on my laptop though.. Remind me to check that.

....Reminding you to check that  :)

Nobody else?

I'll bump too. If you have the latest one I'll update my webhost.

luki will prolly kill me for this, bump for myself too.

Er, sure. With a red hot poker. Or something.  ;)

Also if you have a newer version I could smack it up on the PNF as well, which would be handy. Or just link Gekko's mirror, whichever.

I emailed the guy a month ago, so just like the iphone guy, someone must have killed him too.

When I try and load the game, it comes up with an error:
"Critical Error!: Error switching to graphics mode
(1280x1024 @ 32 bit)
Resolution not supported"

What can I do to fix this?

The last time I played Star Control: TimeWarp, I, confident in my computer's modern capabilities, turned the graphics settings as high as possible and was given a similar error. Going back to the default settings fixed my problem. I recall that various non-default graphics configurations did not want to work with the game.

No, my computer is at default settings. Even when I turn it up or down It still doesn't work.

Unless i'm changing the wrong thing.

Can you access the game menu? From there, you should be able to access the "Preferences" menu. Once there, go to "Video Mode", change the resolution to 800x600, uncheck "Full-Screen", and click Ok. Then, go back to Preferences and select "Game & Rendering". Disable AA :Non-integer, AA :Blend, and AA :Alpha. Click Ok. After you've done this, try starting a new game. If it still doesn't work, mess around with the settings until it does. I apologize for being too vague.

If you can't even access the menu, I think there are command line switches you can use to change the resolution the game uses. I do not know what they are though, so relying on Google or waiting for someone else who does to show up is probably your best bet.

thanks for your help.

Still isn't fixed since I can't get to the menu.

then go into the ini (or txt) file in the directory and change the settings in there.

I have no idea where that file is.
Please Elaborate.

I can explain that. Go to the folder you installed Timewarp to. You see, I did some snooping around in my own installation (actually, a lot of snooping), and I found a fairly self-explanatory file called "client.ini" in the default_ini folder, which is located in gamedata. It contains all the settings you would see in the Preferences menu of the game plus some you don't.

I am happy to assist.

Thankyou, I'll test it when I get home.

Had a go at it and it said:
"Unsupported Colour Depth!"
What do I do now?

You could try changing the BitsPerPixel setting in that ini file I mentioned to a lower vale, but other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

Tried that, lowered it all the way down to 16... still doesn't work...

Well then, I'm stumped. Perhaps you could consult Google for the answer?

Yeah, but my computer broke anyway, so I can't do it until it's fixed...

It goes down to 8, you could try that. ???

Nope, Doesn't work...

I got it to work, but I can't control it. How do I change the controls?

I'm still trying to change them so I can play on a laptop...

by default its 4-8-6 on the numpad

We only have laptops in my house.

Looking forward to trying this out. :) Perhaps if it's good enough we can get the source to port to android along with the ur-quan masters port. :)

I'm still alive.  
Here's an update, if my ftp server is up atm:
ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.exe (ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.exe) (whole package)
ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.zip (ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.zip) (executable only, overwrite the executable in an old install with this)

edit: note the forum software seems to like mangling the URLs.  If you see the URLs prefixed with http:// then you'll have to remove that part, those are ftp URLs.  
edit2: fixed the URL mangling

Server is down. I'd love to stick something on PNF, so I'll keep trying now and then.

The server thinks that it is up.  Which doesn't necessarily mean that it is, but the logs say that two people appear to have downloaded gob.zip, so it probably really has been up at least some.  
edit: do note that the forum is mangling the URLs slightly, you may need to manually de-mangle them. 

So... what ships have people succeeded with?  I've managed Supox, Kohr-Ah, Androsynth, and Arilou with recent versions, and Mycon and Orz with old versions.  

just go to ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.exe (ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.exe) or ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.zip (ftp://96.239.206.102/starcon/gob.exe)

Ack! both place only host gob.exe

These links work fine. Thanks for uploading!

Latest version is now up on sourceforge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gob-tw/

This uses Allegro 4.2.3, and is crashing on exit for me. I may switch to Allegro 4.4 or 5.0 sometime in an attempt to fix that.

Wow, I didn't know this was still updated. Thanks!

I miss some of the old ships... too bad they are not compatible with the newer version.

Does anyone play netmelee with Timewarp?

Pain in the butt, re: Alleg42.dll

It would have been nice if you had included alleg42.dll in the package. When I ran the program, it asked for this file and wouldn't load. It took me quite a while to find the right version, but here it is:
http://static.allegro.cc/file/library/allegro-4.2.3/allegro-mingw-4.2.3.zip

Also, it is a pain that I cannot change the controls. I had to load an older version of Timewarp, set a config, and then copy/paste the contents of scp.ini into GOB's.

Oops.  I'll add the Allgero 4.2 dll to the package real soon now. 
For changing the controls, you can access the main menu with the -menu command line option if desired. 

Could you please add these ships to SC TimeWarp Gob before next update;

- Defiant class Starship
- Akira class Starship
- Galaxy class Starship
- Sovereign class Starship
- Dominion Battleship
- Romulan Scout
- Romulan D'deridex Warship
- Klingon Bird of Prey
- Klingon Vor'Cha Warship
- Klingon Negh'Var Warship
- Imperial Star Destroyer
- Super Star Destroyer

Do you have any idea how much work this is?

Clearly not. Good lord, did one person design that many ships for Timewarp at all?

Wait, I forgot 2 more ships are not be listed to be added to TimeWarp. My suggestion is add 2 more ships including Borg Cube and Keldon Class Battleship.

OK, for a start basically every star trek ship has the same boring weapons, so you may as well just have one of them and call it a day. Second, these ships have no place in Timewarp at all. It's debatable whether there should even be an Imperial Star Destroyer in P6014 (there was a debate about it and everything). The ships in Timewarp, as far as I understand it, are ships already in Star Control games, even Star Control 3, and original creations specifically for Timewarp. It is not simply a repository for fans of every sci-fi franchise known to man to make a list of every ship they can think of and assume people will make it for them. If this was a less enlightened forum I'd have a few other things to say, but that would be flaming and is bad and wrong.

Controls are quite shitty due use of key bindings which seem to not exist in some non-English keyboard layouts so I'm unable to shoot in the current version. Please, consider making control settings configurable in a next release.

My suspicion is that he was joking.  At least some of those would violate someones IP, violate cannon, etc.  There's already like 143 ships in Gob/TW I think, though only like 15 or so have ship-specific upgrades available for them and only like 22 show up as enemies.  And a lot have been removed because we had too many.  I think Geoman, Tau, Launchpad, a few more guys like that, each did like two dozen ships.  I think I personally did 3 ships that are still around (Estion Gunner, Virtao Limb, and Fieras Arbiter), plus one more early crap ship that I got rid of later (Migo Mirage), and helped others with several other ships.  

Though a lot of the more obscure ships in there seem to be bugged.  The Yush Ranger for instance is a ship I'm fond of which looks like it broke somehow when I wasn't looking, and I think I've seen several others crash.  And networking has been bugged for some time now, but TW doesn't have a big enough user-base anymore for it to be worth the effort to track that down, especially since it's probably multiple bugs.  

edit: Yeah, I'll try to have the control configuration menus easier to access in the next version.  

And besides, you have better things to be doing. Remember? ;)

Oh, good point there. Lotsa exam revision  ;).

I played the GOB bundled with TW quite a few years ago, and I just recently downloaded TW-Light again.  I've been playing the GOB in it (which is clearly an earlier version than the one mentioned in this thread), but I was wondering... Is there anything that I can do at this point.  I've been playing well over two hours, created a virtually indestructible Kohr-Ah (as long as I hold down the FRIED button)  worth 700+SB and 550+BZ, 450+ Kills, and no new enemies seem to be appearing.  Anything else I can do at this point?