The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Hello:

I am a fan of Star Control II.  I played it as a kid in high school on a 38SX-T.  Some ten or so years later, I was thrilled to find it again on a Macintosh (downloaded from the UQM web site).  I didn't know the game had voices for the aliens and was also thrilled to find them and install them.

Though I have not mastered Star Control II completely, I am interested in Star Control I and Star Control III and am willing to pay for them.  Do UQM's exist on any video game platforms, like Nintendo?

I'd appreciate any help you can give.  Maybe it's just a matter of knowing where on the web you can download (?)

Tnx,

BYE.

Hello:

Thanks for all the responses!  I'm afraid I don't understand most of the help I have.  I have a PC (with XP) and a Mac (with OS X).
I have an NES and a Nintendo 64.  I'm primarily interested in knowing how to obtain SC1 and SC3.  I will follow advice I've gotten to not spend money on SC3, but if I can get it for free, I'd like to try it.

Can I run a DOS program (SC1) on my XP PC?  Are there Mac programs for SC1 and SC3?  How to I download or otherwise obtain these games (eBay?)?

Tnx,

BYE.

I've never played any of them, but I'll tell you what I know (or, think I know):
- Star Control is either a PS1 or Genesis game (I'm not completely sure), and also a PC game.
- Star Control II is a PC and 3DO game
- I think Star Control 3 is just a PC game. It probably isn't worth your money.

The original Star Control was released for a multitude of platforms, but all except the PC and Genesis versions had to cut significant portions of the content. Of those two, the PC version is your best bet. Star Control 3 was only released for the PC, and is generally considered inferior to SC2, in no small part because the original developers were excluded from development.

Honestly, your best bet to find either is to check abandonware sites. So long as you're OK with the grey legal area, that's the easiest way to play either game, since original copies are both rare and expensive.

Of SC1 there's a version flowing around on abandonware sites. Look for the genesis version (which you can play with an emulator that is included).
SC3 I don't know, but it's a nice game to play if you have the spare time. It does have some great voice acting and some nice character designs ;).

If I may set the record straight (http://xkcd.com/386/), Star Control (http://www.mobygames.com/game/star-control) was originally released for PC/DOS and Commodore Amiga. The Amiga version (http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php%3Fid%3D997) is fully-featured, although it has very slightly lower quality graphics. The PC version has all the gameplay and looks great (in VGA), but lacks the digitised sound effects (substituting bleeps on devices like PC Speaker, Adlib or MT-32; PC users had to wait for SC2 to get digital SFX and MOD music) and has different music. The Genesis version tries hard to be a faithful port, but is slightly unfinished and hence very slow (and loses a little bit of graphics and sound quality in translation). In the Genesis version, the scenario editor is also removed, although you get some extra scenarios to compensate. The Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions (which TFB had nothing to do with) lose about half of the ships, have horrible gameplay and look awful. I'd recommend the PC or Amiga version, depending on whether you place more importance on graphics or sound.

SC2, as you probably know, was originally released for PC/DOS, then 3DO, then much later as UQM for more systems than I can be bothered to mention.

Star Control 3 (http://www.mobygames.com/game/star-control-3) was released for PC/DOS and Macintosh. Both versions are apparently pretty much the same, but the Mac version is hard to find any information on.

The was going to be a PlayStation game called StarCon (http://www.playstationmuseum.com/Games/GRAVEYARD/BTA058/), but it was cancelled. A pathetic Flash game called Star Control was apparently made in a few days to preserve the trademark (http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4044.0), but has since vanished.

I had completely forgotten about the Amiga version of SC1, Novus is correct that it is also a complete version of the game (versus the C64 and other computer versions other than PC).

Star Control 3 was an abomination, inferior to its predecessor in major ways.  Here is a good comparison that shows what went wrong with it. (http://www.spectaclerock.com/2008/10/26/how-did-you-screw-this-up-part-ii-star-control-3/) If you still have any questions about its inferiority, don't hesitate to ask.

I think that "standard" Amiga video modes were limited to 32 colors (=5bpp) around SC1's release, while the PC version supported 256-color VGA, so there's indeed a decrease in color depth but it's only really apparent when vieweing the ship info screens.  The rest of the game rarely ventures beyond 16 colors anyway.

Sound was superior on the Amiga of course, but the Alliance had cooler victory music on the PC IMHO :)

Actually, Amigas at the time (OCS/ECS) could also add a half-bright copy of the 32-colour palette, for a total of 64 colours. And, if you were brave enough, you could use Hold-And-Modify (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hold-And-Modify) mode to get all 4096 colours at the expense of using a video mode where you can change red, green or blue from the pixel to the left (or use a 16-colour palette), but not two or three components at once.

Hello,

I realize you weren't talking to me about this, but I did start the thread.
I was just wondering, what is an Amiga?  Is it a really old brand of computer or ... ?

Thanks!

BYE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga)

[quote author=Kzzrn link=topic=4793.msg63908#msg63908 date=1277189860Star Control 3 was an abomination, inferior to its predecessor in major ways.  Here is a good comparison that shows what went wrong with it. (http://www.spectaclerock.com/2008/10/26/how-did-you-screw-this-up-part-ii-star-control-3/) If you still have any questions about its inferiority, don't hesitate to ask.[/quote]

The above article is only really truly incomplete in its failure to mention the game's extreme bugginess, carelessness with details, generally being incomplete, and having a boring set of central mechanics.

The bugginess is top. If it hadn't been for that, I could have finished the game. As it was, I would have had to start over.

And general carelessness. planets had a black background that wasn't quite black. So all planets had a square outline. Similarly, cloaked ships weren't invisible. They were dark gray, though clearly meant to be invisible. One ship had a pretty decent weapon concept, but it doesn't work around half the time. That's just unacceptable.

And being incomplete, when you choose the wrong dialog entry and lose, the result is clearly a placeholder that was intended to be filled in, but never was.

As for the central mechanics, see the thread on why it wasn't modded.

I can't tell you too more about the game because after long and calm deliberations, I smashed the CD.

I kept a disk image, just for the music.

Which one? There were a few ships with wonky weapons, but I don't remember any that outright didn't work.

The Vyro-Ingo ramming weapon had the same radius as the ship's outermost points (such as its nose apparatus). You could easily ram someone and bounce off based on your hull and not the weapon, and do no damage. It was also totally ineffective as a shield, despite its being called a shield.

Somehow that's the ship I figured you were talking about. Though I always chalked up no-damage collisions to the fact that the weapon ate battery power super fast and tended to flicker on and off by the time you made it to ramming distance. Then again, we're talking about what must be the most ill-concieved design in a game full of lame or overpowered ships. Did anyone even try to seriously fly this ship? I know I dismissed it out of hand when I saw how useless its weapons were even when they worked right.

I did. But only pooped "black holes", never used that grid thing.

Same, but sometimes I had to bump them into the vortices. And when I did so, I'd try to use the shield. It was unconscionably ineffective.

Really?  How much do they go for?  I have both!

Try eBay or Amazon.

There's quite a few of SC3 for $10-$20.  There's also quite a few people selling stuff like "The Ur-Quan Masters: Star Control II 2 on PC NEW Remade" for around $8.  The screenshots are of UQM.  So, I visited ebay thinking that I would find out I could sell my SC3 at an expensive price, only to discover people are attempting to sell the remake.  :'(

I've played all three games of Star Control series. SC1 is a freeware and can be downloaded from this site: http://www.games4win.com/download/star-control
Torrent is where I got SC3 from, 2 years back and I remember  DOS-BOX was required to run it (or any other DOS emulator, I guess).
Try your luck on Torrent sites. I can also confirm that gameplay is somewhat lame :(  .

The site you linked to seems to be distributing the Sega Genesis versions of lots of old games, but most of their links lead to what Google says is an attack site. I suspect they're lying about the freeware status of the games they're providing.

Strange... I've downloaded  SC1 from that link and played it (nice game). The file I received was an executable which extracts game files to any folder you want
(just like any other windows instalation). I didn't chech those other games.

I am trading my ps2 repairing skills for a genesis and was wondering if I should get SC1

It runs pretty slow on Genesis.  You could try it on an emulator first, get an idea of whether or not you're going to be able to play it.  I played SC1 a lot on a old compy in dos, and now the Genesis version is way too slow to be bearable for me. :/

Hello:

I have a number of things I've been wondering about.

Is there a way to keep the Spathi from getting a red force shield after spying on the Earth's?

When I fool the Ilwrath, they head to destroy the Thraddash.  Should I get the Aqua Helix first, or should I let the Ilwrath destroy them?
I understand the Traddash will join me if I destroy enough of their ships & earn their respect.

Is there a way to keep the Pkunk from destroying themselves by trying to make friends with the Yehat?  Should I show the Yehat the Shofixti are still alive before I visit the Pkunk?

The star map numbers "homeworlds, items & other useful locations".  Is there a rhyme or reason to how they are numbered?
What's a good order of things to meet?

It's kind of difficult to start out with the Slylandros attacking me when I have a barebone operating starship and only a few escort ships, and running away is only so useful.  Is that the first place I should go to get rid of all those attacks?  The difficulty is having enough fuel to get up there and enter quasi-space on the ride home through the natural portal in Arilou space.

I've befriended the Orz without anything bad happening, but that may be because I haven't visited somewhere or do something where such a friendship may make a difference.  Is there any point to going to the Androsynth ruins?

I think the starbase commander gives me an idea of how long I should go from star to star collecting minerals.  How much time do I have before the time expires and the Khor-Ah kills everybody?  I didn't know there was a time limit and was surprised to find I lost the game.
I guess I should have taken notice that the Kzer-za were being nice to me, something was up.

Does the walkthrough describe how to take care of fhe Syreen and the Mycon?

I understand the Zoq Pik Fot are a good race to talk to about the Ur-Quan races.  Do I just try to avoid contact with Ur-Quan when I enter Zoq Pik Fot space?  Or is confrontation inevitable?  As a general rule, I lose battles, especially against either Ur-Quan race.

Thanks in advance to any advice anyone has to give!

BYE.

No.


No matter what your relationship status with the Thraddash is, once you take the Aqua Helix, they will hate you forever. Your chances are:



No. No matter what the state the Yehat is in, once the Pkunk reach Yehat space, they become absorbed by the Yehat.


I'm not sure what you're talking about here.


Practice fighting in SuperMelee. Luckily, the AI is rather stupid, so you can pretty easily defeat Slylandro Probes with enough practice. Good ships to use against the Probe are the flagship itself (once you have full thrusting/turning and sufficient weaponry), the Thraddash Torch (by using the afterburner), the Spathi Eluder (though I find using the Spathi Eluder to be tricky, others seem to find the Spathi to be great against Slylandro), and the Earthling Cruiser (by abusing the AI's tendancy to turn around when you fire a missile at them; only works if you spawn far away from the Probe). Personally, I prefer the Torch, with the flagship being my second choice.




It's around 2 or 3 years (I'm not sure exactly how much time you have).


I'm not sure what walkthrough you're talking about, but this is how you take care of it:



Nope, it's not inevitable.

Details on the Ultronomicon page on the Kohr-Ah Death March (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Death_March).

Damn you.

Hello,

Is there a more humane way to obtain the rosy sphere than trading 100 crew into virtual slavery?
Do I have time to visit every alien race so I have lots of friends to fight the Kohr-Ah?

I tried to go to the rainbow world on Epsilon Lipi.  I had so many Ur-Quan attack me, I died.  Is there a way to get there without their presencee?

I have the taalo crystal and it seems to help with the talking pet.  Then the pet tells the umgahs to gang up on me and I'm toast.  What should I do or say to obtain the talking pet without being fried to a crisp?
talking pet

When the pkunk are "absorbed" by the Yehat, are they joined in harmonious bliss, or do the Yehat just destroy them?  Will the Yehat ever help the Alliance?  Also, the Pkunk gave me four ships and I thought one time I played, I returned and they gave me even more ships.  Did this happen?  Is there a way to get this additional help?

What's the best thing to do with the Spathi?  Do the thing at Spathiwa and try to build some eluders before the Spathi encase themselves into a red shield?

Are the Syreen, Zoq Pik Fot, Chenjesu and Mycon necessary to win the game?

Thanks!

BYE.

Is there a more humane way to obtain the rosy sphere than trading 100 crew into virtual slavery?

Do I have time to visit every alien race so I have lots of friends to fight the Kohr-Ah?
I tried to go to the rainbow world on Epsilon Lipi.  I had so many Ur-Quan attack me, I died.  Is there a way to get there without their presencee?
I have the taalo crystal and it seems to help with the talking pet.  Then the pet tells the umgahs to gang up on me and I'm toast.  What should I do or say to obtain the talking pet without being fried to a crisp?

When the pkunk are "absorbed" by the Yehat, are they joined in harmonious bliss, or do the Yehat just destroy them?  Will the Yehat ever help the Alliance?  Also, the Pkunk gave me four ships and I thought one time I played, I returned and they gave me even more ships.  Did this happen?  Is there a way to get this additional help?
What's the best thing to do with the Spathi?  Do the thing at Spathiwa and try to build some eluders before the Spathi encase themselves into a red shield?
Are the Syreen, Zoq Pik Fot, Chenjesu and Mycon necessary to win the game?
Thanks!

BYE.

The Z-F-P are useful though.

Hello,

I'm almost to the end.  I go to Delta Crateris and defeat 3 Kzer-Za and 3 Kohr-Ah with about 6 or 7 Chmmrs.
Then I get some Pkunk and Yehat ships for unifying the bird race.  However, I have precious little luck destroying
the targets around the Sa-Matra.  The Pkunk are most ineffectual, the Chmmrs are easily destroyed by those
fire balls or whatever you call them, and the Yehats, though the most effective, need practice at best.

So, keeping all this in mind, I think I will stock 6 Chmmrs from the star base and fill the other 6 positions with a
race more suitable to fighting the Sa-Matra.  Unfortunately, the Spathi race is not available, since the cowards
have locked themselves up in a slave shield.

What species should I employ for this final battle against the Sa-Matra?
Hmm.  I'm thinking Earthlink, Orz or Utwig.  What do you think?  Thanks!

BYE.

Generally, the Pkunk is used as the best weapon against the Sa-Matra.
Basically, you choose Pkunk, then outrun the fireballs and green balls it shoots at you (the pkunk is the only one that can do this).
Then use your attack along each red point.
This video shows what you can do (ignore the Chmmr at the beginning. It's for really advanced players): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlbQ7DWK4As

Indeed, the Pkunk is your best bet. However, if you have enough Chmmr ships, you can simply brute force the platform; you should be able to take down 1-2 targets per Chmmr before the ship is destroyed.

Hello,

Thanks for answering.  The problem I have with the Pkunks is that I cannot build either Pkunk or Yehat from the Starbase Command center around Earth.

Is there a way to build Pkunks before I go to Delta Crateris?

If there is an odd number of vacancies after defeating the "Sa-Matra guards", Yehats take more (3 Yehats and 2 Pkunk, for example, instead of 2 Yehat and 3 Pkunk).  I watched the YouTube video (there were some other interesting things on there, but my computer gets screwy sometimes) and it seems awkward and takes a while.  I wouldn't care, but, unlike the video, I can't go that long without being blown sky-high.

I conquered this game many years ago and don't remember having such a hard time with the last few fights.  Is there anything else I can do or is it a matter of getting better and running and shooting?  Unlike the rest of the game, I cannot practice in Super Melee.

Someone mentioned using Chmmrs as "brute force".  Could you elaborate?

BYE.

What do you mean? The Pkunk is faster than Sa-Matra bullets; all you have to do is fly around the Sa-Matra in a circle and shoot the generators. You'll never get hit.

Hello,

I guess I'll just have to practice running around and around with my limited Pkunks.

BYE.

It's pretty much just what it sounds like. You charge in as fast as possible, avoiding the green projectiles that bounce you back as best as you can, and tear up the generators with your laser. Each Chmmr can generally take down 1 - 2 generators before it's destroyed. It may cost you your whole fleet and / or take a few tries, but it should work; this was how I finished the game the first time before I realized how effective Pkunk were.

If you just can't get the knack of using the Fury (I highly recommend you try), there are a few other vessels that can work:

The Utwig Jugger's shields are very a effective countermeasure against the comets and repulsors, but you will need to be very good with it to get any shots in.

The Arilou Skiff can avoid the comets quite nicely with its teleporter, but you can usually only get in a few zaps per run, so it takes forever. There is also an increased chance of teleporting inside a solid object (because the Sa-Matra's way bigger than a planet), which is instantly fatal.

The Thraddash Torch can destroy the comets with its nifty afterburner, and avoid the repulsors the same way, but you will need to use that stupid plinker gun on the generators, so it takes forever. I personally like to use it to clean up before sending in the Vindicator.

Some have reported sporadic success with the Umgah Drone, but I cannot confirm this. I would be suprised if you got more than one or two generators down with it.

Hello,

I am not friends with the Umgahs or the Thraddash.  The Utwig and the Arilou have the pluses and minuses you mentioned.
So I guess since I can't add more Pkunks, I will try the "brute force" with the remaining positions after doing away with the six
Ur-Quan "guards".

BYE.

you can get more phunk.

He got them, he needs to know how to get them earlier.
Before the Pkunk all die, you need to visit their homeworld and talk until they give you four ships (you can do this once a year)

Hello,

Yes I was aware that the Yehat talk to me after defeating the 6 Ur-Quan guards.  When I said more Pkunk, I meant more than the ships provided at that point.

I went to the Yehat space trying to get some ships, but I always run into the Royalist Yehat.  I will see if I have time to visit the Pkunk home world and get the four ships you mentioned.  That should help a lot.

BYE.

If you're having trouble finding a rebel fleet, go to rebel-only space. It's VERY small, so you'll have to zoom in on the starmap (+/- on numpad). But honestly, the Yehat ships aren't that useful against the Sa-Matra when you have Pkunk.

As for more Pkunk, you won't need them. It should only take one or two Pkunk Furies to finish off the generators. If you fail, try again. It's really not that difficult once you get the hang of it (heck, I don't have any memory at all of having trouble with the Sa-Matra, and I've only been playing for a few years).

Hello,

I was hoping that by going into Yehat space that I could find the Yehats who were friendly to me (i.e. not the Royalists, but the ones who love the Shofixti and the Pkunk).
Since I am informed that the new queen is a Pkunk, I thought maybe I could somehow recruit some Pkunks from Yehat space, where the Pkunks and Yehat have
rejoined in harmony.

I think the new Yehat-Pkunk reunion gives me 4 Pkunk and 4 Yehats, if I have room for them.

I will see if I can get some Furies from Gamma Krueger before I head on over to Delta Crateris.  I remember playing this game before and they were glad to supply
four (I think)  Pkunks as escort ships.

BYE.

The Pkunk don't emerge as leaders until the war ends, which will always be when you face the Sa-Matra. Until then, the Yehat just absorb the Pkunk into their culture.

Hello,

Before I faced the Sa-Matra, I saw the Pkunk disappear and thought they were destroyed.  Then (seeing they joined together) I thought that after they disappeared I could recruit some before facing the Sa-Matra.  I now know that the Pkunk kinda just do their thing until the confrontation.

I beat the game, though accidentally.  I changed my confrontation to computer controlled, I thought I had switched it on and then off again.  Apparently I just turned it on.

I guess I'll have to wait another ten years to forget how to play the game.  I printed up the map and hung it on my wall.  I like it on my wall, but then I'll never forget how to play, which would make playing it again not as fun.  I'd like to see a sequel, maybe a Star Control 4.

Thanks!

BYE.

The current likely sequel is fan built.  They have a demo out:

http://forum.uqm.stack.nl/index.php?topic=4863.0

http://code.google.com/p/project6014/wiki/Downloads?ts=1285884896&updated=Downloads