The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=53AA4F9E875FB1B4 (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=53AA4F9E875FB1B4)

This is a video series that I intend to make. Essentially, I play through UQM, trying to do things that a beginner would be expected to do. This is kind of an experiment; I want to see where this forged "beginner" player ends up at.

The video has been set up much like a movie. That is, no cutscenes or speech is skipped, and some small things have been cut out (namely, the ship selection just before the Ilwrath encounter).

Episode 1 is the intro, essentially. It starts at the beginning and ends after the encounter with the damaged Ilwrath.

Episode 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX4tkMPT8hA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX4tkMPT8hA)

what video capture program do you use?

The FPS is a bit low. It might be possible to improve it depending on your capturing software.

Also, quite a few people have asked what program to use for recording on the arena, so I'll type mine here.

Fraps: Costs 40 USD, but works nicely. They've been developing it for many years. I've used this program myself for years.
Camstudio: Free. Discovered only recently, but seems promising. You can select an area on the screen to record, so you don't have to record full screen and then later on crop the video to the desired area. Also takes less CPU when the selected area is small.

On the topic, Deceased Crab already did something similar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJWEWst6bFQ), but it's interesting to see how this "like-a-newbie" approach works. Nice to listen while working, at least!

CamStudio.


It's set to max (200 FPS) but my laptop won't allow it to go much above 15 FPS. Sadly, this is something I just have to deal with.


I'm not interested in buying anything. Probably because I don't have a job, so $40 is hard for me to come by ATM. I'm using CamStudio.

I don't know jack or squat about making videos like this, but if the limiting factor is your laptop's processing power, maybe you could get better results by *lowering* the FPS.  I hear tell that anything above 24 FPS is indistinguishable to the human eye.  Maybe one of the reasons it's chunking up so much is because it's trying to take 200 frames every second and it just can't process that much.  Drop it down to 30 FPS or so and see if that helps improve performance/recording.

Yeah, Camstudio is great for recording if you don't care about sound or your videos are less then 30 seconds.

Otherwise it's useless because the audio and video will be noticeably out of synch within a minute. Anyone know a work around for this?

That 24 FPS thing is not true. I'll find a reference later. But anyway, no; the game itself is running perfectly fine. What's making it choppy is the fact that it is only actually recording at about 15 FPS (or less). Lowering the max framerate wouldn't solve this.

Yeah, it is possible for a human to perceive a frame lasting as little as 1/200th of a second under ideal conditions.

OK, I've split Episode 1 into two shorter episodes. Episode 1 and episode 2 (what was formerly episode 1) have been uploaded. I have also figured out how to get Windows Movie Maker to not create those ugly grey borders.

Episode 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX4tkMPT8hA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX4tkMPT8hA)

Episode 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuzDGk8TDUc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuzDGk8TDUc)

I have recorded the next part (which will be episode 3) also. This time, I recorded it in 320x240 (something I should have done for the first episode), so it runs a bit more smoothly and is a little more crisp. It's not that interesting; just a briefing with Commander Hayes, but it needed to go in, so... sorry! :(.

EDIT: Wow... somehow, YouTube really sucks at scaling videos up. C'mon, Microsoft's main business is its operating system, not videos, and even Windows Media Player does a better job than that! I guess I should record in 640x480 from now on, then.

Episode 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLt_NTuNq_Y (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLt_NTuNq_Y)

I hope it's OK for me to bump this topic. It's been over 19 hours since my last post, and I think at this point editing my last post to inform of a new video would be a death sentence for this topic.

Anywho... I've recorded and uploaded episode 4. It's split into 2 parts because the conversation with Fwiffo was 13 minutes long, with the total time being a little over 21 minutes.

Episode 4 (part 1): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9K6ZpnNnmM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9K6ZpnNnmM)
Episode 4 (part 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSNV2Cy_CL8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSNV2Cy_CL8)

Funny thing is, when I first played, I didn't play at all like this. Partially because I didn't know all the game mechanics (a piece of knowledge I assume in this series), and partially because of my personality at the time. Some points of interest:

• I didn't notice the difference between radioactive and corrosive minerals, because they have similar color.
• I didn't notice that landing on planets costs fuel for some time; I assumed that moving consumed fuel.
• I was horrible at mining; I often mined vurtually useless materials (Common, Corrosive, Base Metal), mostly because I didn't fully understand the system. For the longest time, I believed that Common minerals were more valuable because (I kid you not) they look shinier and bigger.
• When I first met the ZFP, in fear that they would get hostile, I ended the dialog with "You have given me valuable information. Goodbye."
• When the Ur-Quan drone commanded me to "remain here", I obeyed, quite literally, for at least a minute if not longer.
• I thought that the Druuge caster was more powerful than the Umgah caster
• When I first met the Kohr-Ah, I thought they were agents of the Ur-Quan, i.e. drones. This is partially because the Ur-Quan image is used for the Ur-Quan drone.
• I never found the ZEX beast.
• I never even discovered the Dnyarri's existence until the Kohr-Ah had wiped out the Umgah. I didn't have the Taalo shield, so I was confused about his references to a "shield" and the dialog choices calling him a "lying, boneless dweeb". I also believed his story, because I had not been told the true story by anyone.
• I never knew about Procyon
• I could never figure out how to make the Ilwrath think I was Dogar and Kazon. I also never knew of their homeworld.
• I allied with the Thraddash. I instructed them to be kind and talk "like us" (I think).
• I was 100% space-hippie
• I never learned of the Androsynth's fate or "Them".
• It took me a while to understand what the Melnorme meant by "biological data".
• I never discovered the Slylandro.
• I never figured out how to fix the Ultron. It wasn't apparent to me that I just needed to "activate" the repair parts, so when I accidentally did this, I assumed that the artifact was simply thrown away.
• I didn't know of the search feature, so I didn't use it. To find stars, the only way I knew was to scroll through and search star by star. Alpha Pavonis took me an especially long time to find.
• When I first confronted the Kzer-Za, I surrendered.

Oh, and of course, I lost. Kohr-Ah finished their death march.

Here's what I did my first time through

-Talk to Hayes, grab his radioactives, die to the Ilwarth a couple times due to having no clue what the controls for combat were or how it works.
-I found Fwiffo, mined the solar system and got the clue about Rigel.
-I went to Sirius, the nearest star, but it was too dangerous to mine anything.
-I went to Rigel, and then the ZFP homeworld, but I decided to restart because their ship sounded stupid and I didn't want to fight my way home through the Ur Quan again.
-I went to the Spathi homeworld and got attacked and killed.
-I went off to Beetleguese, following Fwiffo's bugjuice clue, and met the Syreen. They weren't very helpful so I left again.
-I met the Orz and got attacked and killed. (See the common pattern here).

At this point I give up. A couple weeks later I started again, this time using a walkthrough.

Wait a minute... how did you get attacked and killed by the Spathi?! I realize that the Orz attack you if you even mention the Androsynth, but the Spathi don't attack you as long as you have the secret cypher, which Fwiffo gives you as soon as you meet him.

Do you ever pick the conversation option when encountering new aliens? That sounds like the problem to me O_o

Yeah, I talked to everyone, even the Ur Quan. Well, I gave up on the Probes after a couple tries, but I talked to everyone else.

As for the Spathi, it was one of the random patrolling spaceships I ran into, not the Safe Ones. I didn't ever make it to their homeworld.

Well, they NEVER attack you. They only respond to hostilities ("Are you ready to die today?" "Let's Fight!" "Evil squid, you must die!"). So what you experienced was not an attack from them, but a response to your own attack.

Oh in that case, I probably accidentally attacked while trying to threaten them into agreement.

Episode 5 is up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEETHoggj8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvEETHoggj8)

I skipped a mining expedition, because it was rather uneventful. The episode starts off with Captain Zelnick returning to the starbase.

The next episode will have the Captain going to the ZFP homeworld to form an alliance.

At this point, here is what Zelnick knows:
- The Ilwrath have mentioned a race called the "Pkunk", who they have hinted can be found in the Giclas constellation.
- Commander Hayes has mentioned some kind of super-weapon supposedly owned by the Ur-Quan.
- Fwiffo has informed Zelnick of the Shofixti's final fate (the Blaze of Glory).
- Fwiffo has said that the Syreen are in the "bug-squirt" star system.
- Fwiffo has said that the Yehat are now combat thralls
- Fwiffo has told Zelnick of the coordinates of Spathiwa. He has written these coordinates down and has found that this is where Epsilon Gruis is located.
- Fwiffo has told Zelnick the Spathi Cypher (Huffi-Miffi-Guffi)
- The ZFP have hinted that the Ur-Quan are in the middle of a war with aliens piloting mysterious black ships.

I will list what has been learned in each episode from now on, just so it's easier to follow along.

One thing I like about your UQM videos compared to some of the others on youtube is that you don't narrate while you are playing. In fact you don't say a single word and that is a good thing. Also the text message reports from the surface are clearly visible and easy to read.

btw I always wondered why the UQM team didn't use the 3DO opening with speech or add speech to the planet reports.

I'm not recording from a microphone, but from the speaker output ("stereo mix"), and it's a good thing too; you wouldn't want to hear the loud air conditioner in my room, and I wouldn't want to blow my ears out so it's hearable. XD

I think I have answers to your wondering:
- The 3DO opening/endings weren't used because the copyright is owned by someone else.
- Adding speech to planet reports would be a pain in the butt for a community-based team. Besides, it would take away that feeling of it being a "report". :)

Here's my first time(I'm still a novice right now though)

• I go to Earth
• I talk to Hayes, get some radioactives, go to the moonbase and shoot all the robots and get the moon base.
• I kill the ILLWRATH with the ship and name the alliance.
• I go to Venus and loose my lander
• I go back to the base and buy another cruiser
• I complain on Bugzilla that I have a lander but can't land on the planet (uh...sir...that's a cruiser you're talking about...)
• I mess around, skip Pluto because I thought it was a star in the background and couldn't find it went to the nearby stars and did some mining
• I go to Vela and suck bad there. (I THINK I went to Vela)
• I try Super Melee to better prepare myself
• Game crashes. Game never reloads
• I forget the game but then I get Fedora 11
• Then I replay for a while, then I use a walkthrough (which makes me feel ashamed...I'm a novice that had to use a walkthrough to crawl along! Never even finished it without one(out of boredom)

What does this have to do with the topic?  I don't know.  I just had to tell my first time through the game.

The outcome of this video series is looking pretty grim. I was kind of doing a similar thing (just without the video), and I ended like this:
- I never noticed any mention of the Utwig or the Supox. I still don't "know" about them, even after buying all Melnorme information on alien life forms.
- I know about the Syreen and about the sun device, but I still don't know about any other Shattered Worlds. I also don't even know that these shattered worlds exist.
- I don't know about the value of the Rosy Sphere or the clear spindle.

I stopped going through the game without recording it. Only time will tell if the same fate awaits Zelnick in this series...

You need to buy current events to hear about the Utwig. Current event #1 mentions them, and current events 7 and 8 give their location.

By the way, are you using the savescummng trick of buying all the information at one go, then reloading? If it's a 'playthrough' then that'd be legit (we did it our first time through), but if it's a 'what Zelnick would do', then obviously it's not. Also note that one of the developers kind of suggested using this trick...

Ha, yes, I know, but it's more "what Zelnick would do". :) Besides, it's not really necessary. The nearby stars (I discovered) have plenty of bio data to get all the information without using that trick.

Episode 6 is up.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z85PMHHcu2s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z85PMHHcu2s)

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENlRtEa1IFw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENlRtEa1IFw)

I used Hypercam 2 instead of CamStudio this time.

Here is what Zelnick has learned:
- He has met a probe for the first time. They profess to be on a peaceful mission, and then attack suddenly.

Technically, Zelnick also spoke with some Spathi in deep space, and learned of the variable star, but I decided to cut that out because it didn't fit very well chronologically.

I think you shouldn't cut the "Variable Star" out. That piece of information is relatively hard to be acquired - especially compared to the importancy of it. Without the Portal Spawner the player spends insane amount of time on travelling.
(At least, that's happened to me when I played SC2 on my first time and I had to restart the game. But, others told me the same, like "who the @&#% thinks that watching the stars rubbish is that important?!" )

Technically, Zelnick already knows about the probes at the start of the game because he got attacked by one on the way to Sol.

That's questionable, since there is some debate on whether the pre-game probe and the Slylandro probes are the same based on their behavior.

I'm going to return to Spathi space to properly converse with them on my way to the ZFP.

Commander Hayes seems to think they're the same though IIRC.