The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

In a previous topic, I asked you what's great about SC2 (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4775.0). This topic is exactly the opposite: What do you feel SC2 lacks?

Please don't post just to say that "nothing" is missing or wrong with SC2. Although I too love SC2, such posts add nothing to discussion.

Like in the last topic, I'll wait to post my opinion for a while.

The one thing I can think is the strategy factor in the battles - one-on-one battles are not right when you have fleets.

The main thing I don't like about Star Control 2 is the clumsy controls and lack of a quest log.

More planets, colonies, something. It's hard to understand why, exactly, of all the sentient races roaming the galaxy the only ones with a colony of any sorts are humans.

Mycon too. But the claim is valid.

Despite their importance in the first SC, it seems the only races with starbases in SC2 are under slave shields. That's always bothered me.

Some of the races simply aren't fleshed out enough to compare favorably with the others. Supox are the worst offenders here, but not the only ones.

Where do Tanaka and his harem settle down? Despite his offspring joining the alliance, their new home is never identified.

Most of those are minor, nitpicky things, which really speaks volumes. Of course, the most important thing SC2 lacks is a sequel that does it the justice it deserves. ;)

Tanaka's family, as far as I understand, settled at Earth's starbase.

Alright, I guess I'll answer now.

The main thing that I dislike is the combat system. It has one major advantage: since you have full control over every ship, AI stupidity can't possibly mess you up. However, in addition to being unrealistic, it offers few possibilities for combat; to be exact, 625 in SuperMelee and 320 in the main game (including fights against the Sa-Matra and Tanaka). Here is my math (Note: brackets [] explain where the numbers came from):

SuperMelee: 25 [total number of ships] ^2 [because there are two players] = 625
RPG: 16 [number of "ally" ships, including flagship] * 20 [number of "enemy" ships, including Sa-Matra and Tanaka, but not the damaged Ilwrath] = 320

I think a much better system would be to send all ships into battle at once, with a main ship controlled by the player (the flagship in the RPG, and a designated ship in SuperMelee) and the rest controlled by AI. This would do a few things: First, it would make combat more intense and fast-paced. Second, it would be more realistic. And third, it would allow for many, many more different battles; 6.76*10^14 in SuperMelee, and (excluding fights on homeworlds) about 41860 in the RPG (there are far fewer in the RPG because you wouldn't be able to select your "lead" ship, and enemy groups can only consist of a single type of ship). Here is my math (Note: brackets [] explain where the numbers came from):

SuperMelee: (25 [number of possible ships] nCr 13 [number of possible slots, excluding the "mother" ship]) ^2 [because there are 2 players] * 25 [number of possible "mother" ship selections] = 6.76*10^14
RPG: (15 [number of "ally" ships, excluding flagship] nCr 12 [number of "slots" for ships]) * ((18 [number of enemy ships found in groups] * 5 [assumed max group size]) + 2 [Sa-Matra and Tanaka]) = 41860

Both of my RPG calculations are horribly simplified, mostly because I didn't take into account the many different possible configurations of modules for the flagship, but we can still compare them. Also, in case "nCr" isn't understood, forgive me; my math teacher only briefly went over it and I don't know how to do it by hand or even vaguely understand how it's done. That's just the function on a graphing calculator for calculating the number of possible combinations (i.e., order doesn't matter).

Another thing that bothers me (and it surprises me that no one has mentioned this) is the limit to only 16 viewing angles. This causes a few problems:
1. Ships appear much more sluggish than they really are
2. The movement is unrealistic
3. It is far more tedious to edit the graphics
4. The rotation "pops", i.e. it doesn't rotate very smoothly. Take a look at the flagship rotating at full speed in full zoom and you will notice that the rotation is far from smooth.
5. Firing angles are restricted

It would be much better, in my opinion, if only one sprite was used, and this sprite was rotated to achieve different angles. I don't know how easy or difficult it would be, but it would be a MAJOR improvement in my opinion.

It would be really hard to balance a fight with multiple ships though.

Perhaps, but in the end, that setup would prove to be much more entertaining (as long as it's balanced properly). The thing is, though, there's already a relatively large amount of imbalance in UQM; that's why Shiver made the balance mod.

Combat with multiple ships would've been cool, although personally I would have preferred a turn-based system if that were case.  Turn-based gameplay is becoming a lost art these days, though, so maybe that's part of it for me.

As far as what else could have been added - working with the technology of the time I have to say it's hard to imagine what could have been added.  I mean, TFB coded all those planets and their contents BY HAND from what I hear.  No random generation program or what not.  It seems to me they already bent over backwards loading it up with everything they could.  Voices were something I remember wishing for back then, but then the 3DO made that part a reality.

If we're talking magic wishlist, though, I wouldn't have minded a bit more detail on the Orz and their background, either as a side-quest or a storyline.  I mentioned in your other thread how I really loved customizing the Vindicator, so I'd have REALLY loved being able to customize ALL my ships on a similar, if somewhat smaller, scale.  The ability to target specific parts of a ship in combat to take out its weapons or its engines would also have been cool, though it really wouldn't have worked without a turn-based combat engine, I don't think.

They manually placed the stars, then they randomly generated the contents. They did tweak the random seed or the exact star placement to ensure that the results were reasonable (Alpha Centauri doesn't look accidental)

As for what SC2 lacks... I think multi-ship combat is way too central a change to be considered, but sure, that's a problem. Of the other points raised, I'd second more colonies and starbases, and more dialog (there's already a lot, but if they had had more time, a lot more could have been added).

New points: slaveshielded races that weren't in the AoFS; fortifications; smarter pursuit algorithms; being followed into and out of hyperspace; something visible occurring at Organon.

Fortifications and smarter pursuit algorithms would make combat capability substantially more important, as you can't just fly around in loops and go wherever you want.

Actually I think TfB was originally planning a much larger role in the game for the Orz. Including *bad* stuff that would happen if you ever took them into Quasispace.
But since the game was 6 months behind schedule, they had to cut a ton of stuff.

After watching some Youtube, I've realized one more thing - the ship description screens of SC1, these were awesome.

I'm glad they kept it vague to give some material for a sequel. With the Kzer-za and Kohr-ah defeated and the Sa-Matra turned into flaming wreckage, there needs to be more powerful, more mysterious enemy. Extra dimensional threat is not such a bad idea, although the blasphemous SC3 botched it horribly (along with almost everything else).

I've never played SC3, but from what I heard, it sounds they took way too much from the Spathi's mention of the "Ultimate Evil" and way too little from everything else. The "Eternal Ones" sound a whole lot like the "Ultimate Evil" that Fwiffo describes to me.

SC1 style artifacts are a lousy idea, as SC3 so (un)brilliantly illustrates. Their addition to your ships breaks the combat engine entirely, so why bother with any useful strategies?

You could be right - hence my "only if....." caveat.  I don't think I've ever played more than a few minutes of SC3.

But does combat really need to be balanced in single-player? Of course, in multiplayer you would either have to disable them permanently or make some kind of a point-build system... hard to balance, sure, but not impossible.

Sylandro Probes

Fair point.  I was definitely left hoping for a sequel that would explain more about the Orz when I first finished SC2.  I also agree that they had just enough hooks to make great potential for a new and bigger threat than the Ur-Quan.  I was also greatly disappointed by how SC3 handled them.  I don't even remember what happened anymore, but I remember it sucked. =P


Yeah, that tracks with what little I remember of SC3.  It was like the programmers played SC2 for all of an hour or two and said "hey, these crazy aliens are hilarious!"  Then they went on to make a sequel that exemplified that aspect of the game without any of the subtler details SC2 had lurking below the surface.  In SC2 there were some wacky aliens for comic relief and some not-so-wacky aliens who did outlandish things for what would've been logical reasons to their alien minds.  In SC3 it was just one-liners and crazy shenanigans.

The bigger enemy was supposed to be something the Sa-Matra type ships were built against, I think. The ORZ or the Eternal Ones is not it.

Waiting for them to spawn randomly isn't very interesting either.  Plus, for new players, it takes a while before you get strong/experienced enough to actually gain some sort of steady cash flow from Probes.

Not to mention for the SC2 races the vast majority of the dialogue was copied and pasted directly from SC2, word for word.




Wasn't the Sa Matra a one of a kind ship? Either way the Precursors all went coreward for a mysterious, though important reason, but the Kzer-za found the derelict Sa Matra in a completely different part of the galaxy, so I'm guessing something went wrong? It's a big mystery that I hope the real sequel to UQM will delve into. SC3's approach (the cosmic undevolver) was cosmically underwhelming (totally sucked).



In SC2 mineral hunting was absolutly essential because the starbase was completely isolated and on its own. Now there's the New Alliance of Free Stars so mining isn't necessary.

   

It was one-of-a-kind in the SC2 time. I really doubt it was alone in it's class, considering the vast space Precursors occupied.
Though most likely their ship of choice were the "Mark2" circular ships, as this is described by Slylandro.

The Ur-Quan identify the Vindicator as a "Precursor service vessel" and TFB have referenced it as a "Precursor tug". The Sa-Matra looks more like a "Precursor Battle Station" or "Precursor Warship". I agree that there are probably similar ships out there.

IIRC, someone identifies the Sa-Matra as a precursor cruiser. Not a battleship, but getting there.

One thing i miss very much is instant save (ex: F5) /instant reload (ex: F9)

It's easy to come up with ideas or what I think should have been different, or what would be neat to add if they had lots of resources... but it's interesting to think about features that I miss, features which could have been made at the time with somewhat limited resources.

So, a few things at the top of my head:

- Something to help marking stars that you've visited would be neat. Maybe an 'a:visted' and a comment system for the map. A fog of war-ish thing that you erase as you travel could also help to engrave a little sense of history onto the star map. Yeah, I know there was a printed map you could make notes on, but it's less immediate. Overall, I'd like to see more persistent marks of history. This way when you reload an old game, you'd see the history and go, aah, that's where I left off.

- A little captains log could help here too. It could be as simple as some lines of text and a date when things happened. Bonus points for being able to write your own entries. Maybe some obvious clues could be put in here after conversations (stuff that the player might have noted anyways). However, there's a danger that this will make the player lazy, hurry past dialog and trust the log too much.

- I would've liked to see more art which establishes the various settings and aliens, kind of like how the moon Spathi get their own image.

- I liked the artifact system in Starflight. Even if there were a lot of red herrings, it was nice to be able to find more stuff. SC feels a bit empty.

A proper sequel!

I honestly cannot understand why the hell hasn't this appeared yet on XBLA or PSN, as there are tons of worst games in those console networks and they still sell like hot cakes.

This is sure to be a guaranteed success on any of those platforms!

Anyway, I'd even settle for a remake (a good one) if that helped build interest for a proper sequel for this game...

I think the crew concept for damage was a bad idea, since casualties come in so fast early game. You can lose 20 people mining a few minerals, if you had to replace half your crew every time you went back to Starbase people would be pretty concerned about joining you Or 1 shot in battle killing like 2-6 people.. Really?

I would have made it hull strength for most of damage taken and then crew for a smaller portion of damage taken. You'd use RU to repair your hull.

That's what I think, too; make weapons do damage to the hull and then possibly (but not always) kill a few crew, maybe up to half the power of the given weapon. But there's one problem: where is the need for full crew in that case? Crew is basically just cannon fodder in SC2, so the removal of this purpose would make crew entirely useless. There might be solutions, like increasing ship performance with more crew, but that might throw the game out of balance.

You still have the spend the resources repairing, and perhaps make crew a little more expensive.

More crew improving performance would also break the Penetrator beyond recognition; it could cripple its opponent while simultaneously boosting itself past normal maximum performance. It also makes ships like the Dreadnought and Nemesis pretty useless, since they fire crew out the airlocks for their attacks.

And on the other hand, keeping it as is and adding hull damage would break the Orz Nemesis and Ur-Quan Dreadnought beyond recognition, while making the Penetrator completely useless.

Exactly what I was saying.

Enough clues to saving the galaxy before the game ends 3 times.

I think the Melnorme say the Sa-Matra is a battleship.

I keep meaning to create a Quest Log mod so that it's actually possible to win your first time, but I'm always so busy.

I completed it first time

Then you are a god gamer. I was wiped out by the Kohr-Ah Death March my first time. There was so much I never learned about in that game, it's not even funny.

No, I'm kinda crap... In a way. ???
 I was like at 2160, right at the beggining of the year. And I spent ages going back on saves as well.
I didn't do the sidequests, I don't think.
It was a while ago.

I won my first time too, but that's only because I took a month long break and couldn't remember anything I was supposed to do. So I got frustrated and read a walkthrough.