The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

i'll cut straight to the chase. i got 3 mods. the 3do fmv, the "slower time pass" mod and the "100 year death march delay" mod. good so far. the ginormous problem is that i have no idea whats so ever on how to install them(not even the slightest bit of clue). so your help will be enormously appreciated(oh and how would i know that the mods actually work?).

on my second problem now, i find the game fairly difficult shortly after the start(that avenger is not messing around) and also i kinda dont like the fact that the crew's price rise more and more the more you buy and for me thats a really big problem because some time ago when i managed to push deeper into the game world i was unable to keep my crew alive. every time i returned to base i had less than 10 crew left. so a way to both stop the crew's price going up and decrease its price a bit, would be most welcome(even if it includes altering values in a config file or something)

thank you

I don't know about the mod but to destroy the avenger at the start use a cruiser and shoot it twice (practice in super melee)
also, use melnorme for info on things to help you get cheaper crew. Get as many allies as possible.

You take the mods, you unzip them right in the directory you installed UQM, then you double-click on the exe you just unzipped.
If you're on OS X it's even easier.

If you have any more problems go ahead and send me an e-mail or PM me.

does this mean that i can only use one mod at a time? it sure looks like that.

I recommend playing the game through before you get mods. To get the full experience.

i dont think you understand what my problem is. i am constantly loosing more than i gain. i might find a nice load of minerals but most (if not all) get wasted to replenish the 90 percent of the crew i managed to loose, and don't get me started on the fuel. in the end i lack the money to resupply my ship therefor there is no way to finish the game. its hard and i need the game to me more fair(atleast with me). now imagine the death march starting and i still got a ship with only basic modules i started and no allies.

i had a serious reason to make this topic. if i could manage the game myself we wouldn't be here discussing it. trust me, mine is a very noobish case.

None of those mods will help you with the crew problem. I recomend mining It will set you up for a bit.
Also, don't go into Enemy space as much as possible.
Which races have you discovered?

Well considering the fact that the only things that are easily modifiable (aren't hardcoded) are the graphics, music, text.
Yeah, you can only use them one at a time. Although if you look on my sourceforge page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/uqm-mods) you'll find a combined Time/Death March mod I made for somebody a couple of days ago.

Although there are ways you can cheat, there is a save editor floating around somewhere.

EDIT:

There are also the debug builds, when setup properly allow you to cheat in an unimaginable way.
When you download any of my mods they include a debug build.

This guy describes all it does. (http://starcontroller.com/?p=1474)

The steps he showed seem to not work for me so all you'd need to do is open up "keys.cfg" and add in "Debug: key F4" anywhere after the line "version 4".

The directory in which the data is stored for Vista and 7:
C:\Users\(Your Username)\AppData\Roaming\uqm

Couple more things to concider for the crew - don't try to fight using your main Precursor ship, use your convoy vessels. If you haven't get far into the game, you might want to start a new game, so now with better fighting skills you'll loose less crew. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you can set the enemies AI to lower setting for easier fights. One more thing, if you take long time, you probably are fighting mostly the Slylandro probes in big masses. The sooner you find the "cure" to the situation the easier it'll get too.

Good luck!

•••• SERIOUS CONCRETE TIPS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR GAME ••••

1) Be picky with what you pick up.  Don't mess around with anything worse than base metals unless you're already coming home with space to spare; and base metals aren't normally worth an expedition on their own. Radioactives are not too uncommon and worth a lot.

2) Be picky with the planets themselves. If a planet looks dangerous, don't go down. Do you see the weather and earthquake danger indicators? The temperature gauge? With good experience, you can handle a substantially higher level of tectonic activity than you can weather (my cutoff for tectonics is 5; 3 weather is borderline). Another thing to keep an eye out for is the fuel cost to launch (go through the launch sequence until you're picking where to set it down, and stop - near the menu is the cost to launch). Too high and you're cutting into your expedition length.

3) If a planet has medium danger and a low fuel cost to launch, send the lander down briefly, pick up some stuff, and retreat.

tl;dr: Just because it's there doesn't mean you need to pick it up. Be picky.

Can everyone stop saying "loose" (which is an adjective) when they mean "lose" (which is a verb)? ::)

No, because I took the crew and beat them until they were literally loose.

Does that make sense?

@Death 999

I'm pickier than that, I won't even travel to a planet if it isn't a certain color.
I always pick up life forms when it's safe, the Melnorme are an easier alternative
than refueling at the station plus once you have a 'caster you can call them up anywhere in hyperspace

Here is trick that most of the seasoned players know about.
Assuming you have a Hyperwave Broadcaster or Umgah 'Caster.

• When you are capable of doing so hit every rainbow world
  
• After you have done that load your ship with nothing but fuel cells, leave em empty.
  
• Leave Sol and call up the Melnorme for trade
  
• Trade your info for fuel
  
• Sell fuel at station and repeat previous two steps until out of credits
  
• Never worry about scouring planets for resources again...
  

Although you may want to purchase all the upgrades from them first and use the Hi-Efficiency fuel tanks for trading fuel.

yehat ! yeah !! viva la revolution !!! viva starship clans !!!