The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Hello
I've just had half an hour battle: Mycon vs Spatchi. The AI was set at the most difficult level (awesome cyborg), and I could not beat Spatchi. (actually, I havent had enough patience to finish the battle)
Have you ever tried to win this battle? Have you got any tips?

The AI is stupid. In this case, you can usually hit them by simply firing while you're mostly facing away from them.

It's "Spathi", BTW, not "Spatchi".

The AI is stupid because he constantly chases you, but he does a very good job when it comes to defense from Mycon at medium distance. (well, he is not so good, but he is not bad either)
Thanks for advice. It works.
But, when I go at high speed towards spathi and fire a homing plasmoid, it hits me immediately when I fire it. Is that a bug or it is intended to be so?

Intended. You're  moving faster than the plasmoid, so you run into it. The solution is to not fire in the same direction as the one you're moving in. ;)

IF you're going faster than you can normally go under direct thrust.

The gravity whip is your friend. Eventually you will be flying right in front of those Spathi, and that is around the time to release a plasmoid. At a 90 degree angle to the target and your direction.

Winning this is tedious but not impossible

This is really good advise with Mycon (and Earthling) in general. No matter what you're fighting, even if a human's flying it, you can't do too bad with a gravwhip.

Note for the thread-starter: you can edit thread titles. Just edit the first post and look in that top field.

Well, arguably it's a kind of bug. In space, you can't throw an object away from you and hit it, without accelerating, because there's (virtually) no friction.

Obviously we could ad hoc some reason within the SCII universe why this collision happens. But really it's a bug.
I suspect it was probably left in because it makes the game more entertaining, like the space invaders getting faster bug.

It's probably intended behavior - TFB were undoubtedly aware that their melee physics weren't realistic (in fact two ships, Pkunk and Ilwrath, have fully relative projectiles, because they work much better that way). There's uncountable examples of realism being thrown to the winds in SC to make it more fun, melee physics is just the tip of the iceberg. :)

Well, I have some experience with that.
A while ago I tried to make a starcon style melee game with realistic physics in full 3D. The results were as you'd expect. You spent 99% of the time drifting about, battling your own momentum to try to get near your opponent.

Also, I should add to what I said before:

The mycon's spore thing is a homing weapon. So it makes sense that if you fire it in the opposite direction to the enemy, the spore can hit you.
I was just talking about the case that qwxy was describing; moving and firing towards the enemy, and hitting your own spore.

Haven't played for a while, but if my memory serves me well, it goes around you: and that makes sense. It can't fly in the opposite direction you launch it. At least not immediately -- since it's supposed to have some mass.

If you're going slow enough, it will try to go around. If you're speeding across the arena after a gravwhip, it won't have time.