The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Hi
I've ported Ur-Quan Masters to Android platform, and published it to Android Market.
Homesite & sources (http://www.anddev.org/sdl_port_for_android_sdk-ndk_16-t9218.html)

I love you! :) what's the name of it? I'm not seeing it. Have a QR code for it?

Nevermind found it by using search for: urquan

Do you think you could make the overlay buttons look nicer? possibly something that looks like the psx4droid, super nintendo emulators and such with  transparent control for the button overlay? The Tyrian could use that change too.

Also when selecting the menu via the star at the top right it goes to the menu as normal but once you use up or down arrow it acts as though it's being pressed twice. So it skips options in the menu. lol frustrating.

Can I use my audio files from the 3DO version in this like you can with the PC version of The Ur-quan Masters?

I don't have an Android device myself, but it's good to see that people can enjoy UQM on their Android phones know.

It would be useful to have a page somewhere where all the information is gathered on how to install the game, how to build it, where to get the modified sources, etc.
Perhaps a page on the Ultronomicon (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/) such as the one for the Windows CE (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Windows_CE_port) port?

Hey, I'm not a designer or artist, give me some images and I'll make you any buttons you want.
I've posted a request to my libSDL page on anddev.org, got no replies yet.

Here you go: http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Android_port

BTW stupid question: how to name a ,zip file and what to put there so UQM will load it as game data? Putting "uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm" and UQM binary in the same dir does not work. Currently the game data is unzipped after downloading, it occupies 60 Mb of disk space because of fragmentation instead of 12 Mb zipfile.
I'll add 3DO music and voice files as optional downloads. Also I want to add Precursors remixes as optional download - if I'll just unzip them to current dir will they be used instead of data in zipfiles>

I was just wondering if I could use them, since I already have them. I don't want to re-download. I'd rather just copy the files in the correct folder if that will work. So that's my question, can I put the 3d0 files and remixes in there somewhere and be able to get support for them? I'll see what I can come up with as far as control layer image. Any specific image size needed? ie screen size? or individual button sizes?

I'll add 3DO music and other files as optional download, when I'll get familiar with UQM package system.
I just took the content from project SVN and zipped it as-is - it unzips to the directory "/scdard/app-data/com.sourceforge.sc2/" on your phone (if you've selected "Install to SDcard" option), you can try to unzip 3DO music package there and maybe the game will load it.

You may create buttons of any size you want - there is option for several on-screen keyboard sizes, I'll draw your images resized to the same position where currently my poorly drawn arrows and stars are (or propose me a better button layout, I think I'll add layout editor to my config dialog so users will stop whining about bad controls)

You should give me 2 versions of images - normal and pressed state. If you'll draw just one image I'll be changing transparency value for it to show that it's pressed (this is also needed if you're using accelerometer, to show when you can stop tilting your phone).

Total amount of buttons my on-screen keyboard supports is 7, so I would be glad if you'd draw all 7 images (not necessarily stars and asterisks, just some pictograms so user will understand where to click). UQM uses just 2 buttons, OpenTyrian uses 4, but I might port someday a game that will require all 7 or even more.

Also, the main button (the asterisk symbol) supports auto-fire, so it's actually 3-state button. That feature is of use mainly to OpenTyrian, however I think it won't hurt for UQM too. To make it easier for users to find that auto-fire is actually present I've added small animation to the main button, maybe you can come up with better animation, like some parts of button shrinking or extending, or I can just remove the animation and rely on my help message in config popup.

I'll see what I can come up with. I read the the natural resolution for the Droid X is 854 x 480, but I realize that it's android specific and not droid x specific. Would be cool if it could use vertex images for scaling to different resolutions. Oh well. What I was thinking is that the alpha of the button could be configured by the user in options or something.. so a user can specify how transparent the button images are... ...think that would be do-able?

Yup, I can add yet another popup dialog asking for transparency level to the 7 that already exist there (don't you want to throw your phone to the wall when click through all of them just to play the game? Try selecting Trackball and then On-screen keyboard + Accelerometer to get them all shown).
You can see the example of vertex images in the current release :P I even have  an editor for my on-screen keyboard font  (http://github.com/pelya/commandergenius/tree/sdl_android/project/sdl/fonteditor/)
BTW let's keep discussion on anddev.org, I don'want to answer on the both forums.

Thank you.

The name of the .zip file doesn't matter, but the location does, though that can be set with a command line switch. The 'version' file is important though; it is used to detect the location of the content.
Inside the content .zip/.uqm file, you should just put the zipped tree of the content, so the root of the .zip file is the dir with the content in it.
You should tell your zip program to store .ogg files, as they compress terribly and it just takes time to decompress them again.

For more details, see here (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Content_Management).

Hey pelya... I just updated both my working opentyrian and uquan masters on my droid x running froyo... and suddenly the urquan masters crashes on load. Worked fine before. I believe the version number said 1.0.03. Anyways.. wanted to give you a heads up. Opentyrian loads fine and tested with my artwork for the controls, works great and looks good!

Can you please give me ADB logcat output? Install aLogcat application from Market, crash UQM, launch aLogcat, press Menu->Send, you know my mail :)

Eh, found the bug, plz update.


Hey, I've made it work (now it doesn't fill the phone's media gallery with Pkunk photos if installed on sdcard).
However I still have a problem - the voice package on SF.net Downloads page and the voice package in SVN are different - the one from SF.net does not work with UQM from SVN. I've put all other packages on my Google Sites account, but I can't upload there 100 Mb file.

So could you please zip dir <SVN>/trunk/sc2/content/addons/3dovoice (maybe rename to .uqm) and put somewhere on SF.net downloads page?

Edit: ppl are asking for 3DO movies, does such thing exist as an UQM package?

Would the content updates from the SVN snapshots (http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots/) help?

We don't have permission to redistribute those, unfortunately.

Yes, I think that file will be okay, will check in Monday (however it has content + 3DO music + voice, it would be better to have separate package).

I was thinking of making a newspost on this, but I'm confused. is this now a fully working Android port or one that is still being developed?

Well, dunno what to say  ::) it still has many bugs, but you can play through the whole game with it (savegames are reported to work, that's good news ;) however you can't use the same savegame slot twice, I'll fix that). Also addons do not work, however if you've already downloaded an addon it won't be downloaded twice, and maybe it will work in the next update.
If you just want to play Melee it works good enough. (the network games should work, however I've never tried them, and they are kinda non-confortable - you'll have to manually enter another player IP address, you can check it out from your Settings->Wireleless networks->Wifi settings->press Menu and select Advanced).

You can use the old packages, if you put a .rmp file in the same directory which points UQM to the correct files.
For the voices you also need a separate package with the time stamps, which are neither in the base content, nor in the 0.6.0 voice package.
You can copy them from here (http://sc2.sourceforge.net/compat-0.6.0/).
Note that I just created those files (except for the ones for the remixes). They have not been tested properly.
I'll put them into SVN as well.

Thanks for info. Don't bother with SVN - I've already created my own SF.net dummy project (http://sourceforge.net/p/libsdl-android/home/) to put there content files.

I've added voice pack, but have problems with UQM music remix packs - they do not work  ;D they require .rmp files as I understand.
Can someone please update them so they'll work with UQM compiled from SVN?

Just loaded the port up on my HTC Desire  (http://www.htc.com/www/product/desire/specification.htm (http://www.htc.com/www/product/desire/specification.htm)l)

The game runs just like it was on a pc, I have to get my touchpad settings tweaked a bit to get the controls working properly but otherwise, graphics,videos,sound and music are spot on and I haven't noticed any lag. So all in all a great working port. running Android 2.1. I'm not using the remix packs fyi.

Thanks pelya!

They can be found in the same location I mentioned above. See http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Content_Management_in_0.7.0#Hey.2C_my_remixes_don.27t_work.21 (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Content_Management_in_0.7.0#Hey.2C_my_remixes_don.27t_work.21).

Tested it with SDcard installation, voice works fine. Can you please try to delete folder app-data/com.sourceforge.sc2 on SDcard and try to re-download data again?

BTW never mind about UQM music remix pack - I've already done that - https://sourceforge.net/projects/libsdl-android/files/Ur-Quan%20Masters/remix.zip/download

Market rating of UQM raised to 4 start from 3.5 during weekends: http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.sourceforge.sc2/Ur-Quan-Masters
It is essential for an app to have at least 4 stars to be successful (and 4.5 stars = grand success), I've published Alien Blaster game like 3 months ago and it have only 3400 downloads with 3.5 stars rating - UQM currently has 3700 downloads, and it was on market for just one month. Also when app goes above 10000 downloads it seems to get more advertisement from Market, because OpenTyrian jumped from 10000 to 14000 downloads in just 2 weeks. I'm not proposing to mark all 1-star comments on Market as spam, no ;D just telling some statistics.

excellent job on getting remix's working :)
What are your future plans for Ur-Quan Masters? Think save games will work properly soon, as to be able to write over same saves?

Game reached 5000 downloads on Market.

This was the first game I downloaded on my new HTC Desire. :D The trackball controls and on-screen joypad are both a bit awkward for actually piloting anything, but I suppose I could get used to them; a little practise probably wouldn't hurt.

I also managed to get a rather amusing message about power consumption exceeding the capacity of the charging configuration (apparently, the power from the USB port was not enough).

The game developed for keyboard only is indeed awful on touchscreen device. There is one possibility for improvement - add mouse support in UQM melee, so your ship will rotate in the direction you're pointing the mouse (or touching screen). This however raises several questions:
1. Old-skool feeling - it will be lost! Also noone will want to play net games with you since you're having an advantage. 2. The actual aiming algorithm. The obvious solution is to make ship rotate to point at your finger, and accelerate if you slide finger far enough from it. However the ship is often located near screen edge, so navigating to the nearest screen edge would be difficult. Another possibility is to make on-screen d-pad to act as a joystick, and use the virtual joystick tilt azimuth and force to steer the ship in absolute coordinates - I guess that will be better, and it's not that hard to add.

Absolutely fantastic job with the port!  Thank you so much for doing this; it's great to be able relive SC2/UQM on a phone, of all places.

I think this may have been brought up on that SDL port thread you linked to, but I was wondering if it'd be possible to tweak it so that the "windowed" option in the settings (or a new option) fixes the aspect ratio of the game.  It looks great using up the full screen -- and maybe I'm just being OCD -- but the stretch does bother me quite a bit.

Downloaded this onto the wife's Android yesterday, and I must say I'm impressed you got it to work. The virtual keypad makes playing it rather awkward, though, especially since I have to obscure part of the screen with my thumbs. I wonder if I can get it to work with the texting keypad, that might improve things a bit.

Added that in my buglist, expect the fix in a few weeks.


You can disable on-screen keypad totally, just re-run "Change phone configuration" startup dialog, then re-map keys to what you like from UQM config.

The Desire barely has enough keys to pull this off with a little creative remapping (e.g. Volume +/- to left/right, menu, search and tap screen to thrust and fire buttons). It would help if the Search key and clicking the optical "trackball" didn't both come out as "RightShift" and if the Back and Home keys could be remapped (Back is mapped to F10, apparently, so quit on F10 could be disabled by editing the key definition files; however, this makes it hard to quit UQM). That said, the controls are almost workable in combat this way.

I tried using the accelerometers for control, but the balancing act got really tricky. I don't see how the Arilou do it.

I'm planning to add generic key config for phone-to-SDL keymapping, but it may take long time. So for now I'll split the trackball and Search, and also map Back to Escape and hack the game so it will act both as exit key and as Escape Device. And you cannot remap Home key on Android, it's used by OS.

I just got an android phone and have loved playing Urquan masters on it. Now if you can only port 6014 for us ;)

Just wanted to say I love it so far.
I wish phones had better game controls. 

If project6014 is based upon recent UQM version there's no big deal in porting it to Android. I've created diff file (https://sites.google.com/site/xpelyax/Home/sc2-android.diff?attredirects=0&d=1) between my UQM working copy and sources from SVN, and there is quite little difference between the two. Just tell me when the project 6014 will be ready for release.

Heh:

Gameboy Advance emulator available for Android phones:  Check
ScummVM available for Android phones: Check
eBook readers available for Android phones:  Check
MUD software available for Android phones: Check
UQM available on Android phones: Check!
HTC Desire Z available from Vodafone yet, and my contract close enough to expiring for me to be able to upgrade:  Doh!

You have made my day :)

Been playing around with this a bit more. I've tried a few different control configs, but nothing is really clicking; I'm guessing the original Droid was not really designed with gaming in mind. I've also noticed a lengthy audio delay, there's at least a half-second between when an action happens onscreen and when the sound effect for it plays. Is this a common problem, or specific to this phone?

Bummer, but I can confirm that it works great on Droid X.

Hey. More help required from the community: I want to add translations (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Translations) as an optional downloads, but all translation packages are for UQM 0.6.0, they do not work with SVN version - they lack .RMP files, plus lot of directories were renamed since 0.6.0 ('blackur' -> 'kohrah' for example).
So, I need someone to create .RMP files as described here (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Content_Management_in_0.7.0), or if that's too complicated at least to rename the directories in translations to match what it looks in SVN (http://sc2.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/sc2/trunk/sc2/content/base/), so I can install translation pack without .RMP file just by overwriting some files.
You may use  SVN snapshots  (http://uqm.stack.nl/files/snapshots/) to test your work on PC.
I've assembled all translations I could find here (https://sites.google.com/site/xpelyax/Home/translations.zip?attredirects=0&d=1) - it's a shame that I could not find Finnish translation - the site is down, please post it somewhere if you have it.

Hey. I've implemented another control scheme for UQM, the one I've described above - the ship follows absolute joystick orientation, please update and tell me if you like it.
Also if you wish my changes to be submitted into UQM SVN please add me to the developers list - username "pelya" on SF.net (then I'll also add configurable option for such control method).

My Samsung Galaxy phone has a slide out keyboard. Is it possible to disable the touch screen controls or perhaps to be able to adjust the opacity of it?

Click "Change phone config" button at startup, when SDL logo is shown. Then DO NOT select "On-screen keyboard" option, and from the game click "Setup->Controls" and re-configure game controls to hardware buttons.
BTW I've almost finished converting translations to 0.6.9 format, also I've recovered Finnish translation from Pandora port (only in-game dialogs will be translated, game menu and buttons will stay in English 'cause I'm too lazy). So expect an update this week.

Hey, did someone try new steering method with on-screen joystick in Melee? Any comments? Anyone?

I don't know about the rest, but I barely noticed the update a few days ago, and I've had very little time to spare the last week. It also takes a while to get used to new controls, and I'd prefer not to comment until I have something more tangible than first impressions.

No problem, sorry for my rantings and impatience.

Not everyone has a fancy phone, sorry. If you want to reach more people, you could always try the Mods, clones & Fan content (http://www.star-control.com/community/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=4869931ea6e63d058d5a5b9170ae2568) forum over at SCDB as well.

After half an hour, I'd say that absolute directions for Melee might work out on accelerometer, but I really can't say how well. I certainly wouldn't want to use them on the on-screen keypad; that just makes things difficult to me.

Okay, thanks, I'll make that configurable.

Sorry I haven't been back to post feedback, but from my perspective (I have a Droid II and therefore a hardware keyboard, which works great), you almost did too good a job with this.  Aside from my aspect ratio comment (which is probably the only thing standing in the way of me playing this very regularly), I really can't think of anything else missing.

I can try to test out some of the controls you're evaluating but I have an incredibly busy schedule.  But as always, thank you for all this work!