The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I've got a great idea!
What about comets that will bypass the galaxies.
It can be very useful for resourses. Don't you think so?

Hm... there's an interesting idea. But comets move really fast.

Perhaps asteriods would be a simpler way of doing it? We know the probe can use them, and asteroid fields are "kinda" stationary.

But since asteroids are boring, I'd say they can only give commons, corrosives, and base metals.

Boring? How can asteroids be boring? Huge majestic lumps of god knows what floating through infinite space the same way blue whales float through the seas on earth! Unknown territory, an ideal place for precursors to hide their much sought after technology. Final resting place of the Sa-Matra, heirs to may stories and witnesses of many wonders. They floated through infinity, long before you were evn thought of, long before your race ever came to be. So boring does not do them justice.   ;D

anyway, on a scientific view, anyone here who knows any reasons why there couldn't be other materials in asteriods, except for boring ones? I can' think of any, but then again, I'm no astronomer.

asteroids are made of the same stuff as Earth - Iron, silicon, carbon, uranium, oxygen, nitrogen... You name it. The problem is, most of them are only a few kilotons, and they're VERY widely spaced. Do YOU want to go mining out an asteroid field and realize that after a week you've picked up 9 RU's worth of base metals?

I'm assuming it'd be possible to at least partially scan the asteroids, and then go for the ones you want. The same way you use landers on planets, perhaps you'd be able to use some sort of smaller craft to mine the asteroid field? Something based on the Quan's autonomos (however that is spelled) fighter, but equipped for mining? A small agile ship like that could be ideal for traversing the asteroidfields, and picking the goodies out.

If astriods are any simular to the moon then they would be comprised of alot of stuff thats not common on the earth like titanium and other heavy to light matterails mixed together but mostly iron. (im not a expert so i could be wrong just wrote this from memory, that could be flawed too.)

In answer to an earlier point, I also think it'd be a bit quicker to go through meteorfields than to actually have to preform a landing on every known planet on the universe, sometimes more than once. I mean, that take just a wee bit of time as well doesn't it?

also the planet landing takes 1 unit fuel. I remeber not landing on planets because it was not worth that one unit.

That depends on the planet doesn't it? Some demand more and some less... Although the meteor field would probably not take that much anyway, unless your resource collectors need a lot of fuel...

I am pretty sure the cost of landing was static. the fuel was used for reentry and takoff.

But the amount of fuel depends on the gravity of the planet. The larger the planet, the more gravity, the more fuel needed for takeoff and landing. Like, it's easier to take off from the moon than from Mars, due to different gravity. I just reinstalled my entire system so I can't verify this immideatly (besides, it's almost time to go to sleepyland), but would anyone care to start up and check?  Or maybe this differs between the PC and 3dO version?

EDIT: We're good at disagreeing, aren't we?

I guess its not static :-[ i tested this with 1.4 and landed on the moon cost one and venus cost 2 my mistake

Edit: Yes We ARE ;)

 8)

GOOD REPLEY ;)

Lukipela - Bioslayer - Lukipela - Bioslayer - Lukipela - Bioslayer - Lukipela - Bioslayer..

you two are quite a pair ;)

We make a deadly sparring team. Hey, you could have joined the discussion, but you weren't around  ;) This goes a way towards explaining why I suddenly have such a huge number of posts.

and why i have become a regualr instead of a noob

Most asteroids are carbonaceous. These have only simple elements like nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, etc. 1/6 of asteroids are silicaeous, and are mostly nickel, iron, and silicon. The small fraction that are left are solid nickel-iron, but also containing plenty of other valuable metals like gold, platinum, titanium, possibly radioactives too.

About 10 years ago I heard that an "average" asteroid would contain enough mineral wealth to pay off the U.S. national debt. (at the time a little over a trillion dollars, I think) I would assume they were referring to one of the metal-rich rocks.

The main advantage to asteroids, IMO, is that (in the case of our main belt and the Kuiper belt) they are packed relatively close together.  ;D

You've done a major in astronomy? :P

Well, first I have to stick with LP here - asteroids are so cool!

What did my good ol' friend Darth have to say about this?

"Asteriods do not concern me, Admiral. I want that ship, not excuses."
http://www.swstrike.de/SW%20MP3s-TESB/excuses.mp3

In SC2 that would be:
"Asteroids do not concern me, Captain. I want those RUs, not excuses."

I wouldn't even think about  l a n d i n g  on asteroids - just take them into a great funnel, break'em down, take your RUs and all you've got left is a lot of stardust you can spread in the galaxy!

How 'bout it? You're Precursor vessel CAN be modified that way!

Cesnsored: Nah... I work at NASA so I pick up a lot of space-related mumbo-jumbo.  ;D

Speaking of which, we need a space elevator. Any Arthur C. Clarke fans out there? Or Kim Stanley Robinson?

A space Elevator in Starcon? given that you mostly travel between planets, i dunno If tht'deffect the game very much...

I LOVE space elevators, but I don't see how one would be useful in starcon unless you're doing some serious colony building... unless...


YEAH! When you land on a planet, you use a space elevator. You drop down the lander, and to get back to the ship the lander has to go to the drop point again. not as safe, but MUCH more fuel efficient.

That is a good idea actually. You could be given a choice of doing a regular planet landing (Much more fuel expensive, but you can evacuate at any time), or do the space elevator thing where you don't spend much fuel, but there is only one exit point. SO on hot planets and such you'd have a hard time using the elvator even though it is cheaper, seeing as you might need to evac early.

Reminds me of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.  It can go up, down, sideways... wherever!

Maybe we should just stick to the whole lander thing... I mean, it works for Star Trek and Star Wars... shouldn't it work for us?  Maybe my standards are just too low.

What happend to the good ol' transporters?

Energize!
:P

Yeah, and instead of sending your crewmen down into the dangers of a planet in the relative safety of a lander you'd just hand'em a couple of red shirts and beam'em down to put markers on the radioactives?

I think I have seen that happen before!

Good point. Imagine the crews surprise when they're suddenly standing somewhere where metal is actually  molten... Ouch! Picking out small canisters and letting the molten iron flow into them... Or even better, get eaten by one of the apes.

Ouch! What a nasty idea your mind just developed there.

I definitely prefer being the captain of a ship and just sending them red-shirts down onto the planet - without transporters!

Filling molten stuff into steel canisters with a much lower melting point is another sad sad sideeffect. I just hope that the guys are wearing some gloves?

P.S.: While writing this I'm watching the Sunday night's re-run of the original Star Trek; the episode with the Medusan embassador - and Dr. 'Bones' McCoy just spoke the 'magic words' - "He's dead, Jim!"

Of corse they are wearing gloves! nice warm fur gloves to keep them cozy! On a side note, if we could beam ppl up and down to the planety, couldn't we just beam the damn minerals up and not visit the place at all? It'd speed up the reosurce collection process considerably. Also, it'd open up a new sub game for all those mouse-lovers among us. After you've scanned the planet, you see the animals move realtime, and the minerals stay put (of course, otherwise we'd be worried!). Then you simply click them with the mouse to beam them up! Perfect solution, everyone is happy.

That would be like a version of Tetris in which blocks slipped and fell, thus completing lines - or a version of Minesweeper in which it asks, "Are you SURE?" whenever you click on a mine - or a version of Enduro in which the backs of all the other cars had these wedges which pushed you gently to the side.

And I bet that all the goodies and expensive minerals will somehow screw up your transporter scanner so they would have to be marked by hand... No point and click mining. If you did that, why don't you just program a thousand probes to go to all the systems and rid them of anything of interest?

THAT would be efficient. You just hang back at the starbase, chat with Commander Hayes and let some Syreen diplomats visit you ever once in a while  :D

Efficent as heck, as long asyou dont mind having a fleet of Kohr-Ah and Kzer-Za descend on you after the first probes tried to brake the asteroids around the Sa-Matra into component compounds :)

Stick with comets, they are safer... Unless you accidentally try to mine a Guardian in Blazer form.... Oh well, asteroids it is then... But no probes! They take jobs away from our hard working personnel!

They also try to break our hardworking personnel down to their component materials.

As Fighter said, "Our Flesh? But that's where I keep my delicious nutrients!"

(Proceeds to show off ignorance): Who is Fighter?

I wouldn't know who that Fighter-guy is but I liked what he had to say  :D

8-bit theater, which can be found at
http://www.nuklearpower.com/
The best sprite-based webcomic out there (based on the FF1 sprites).
The first few aren't so funny, but it gets much better very quickly.
This quote came from episode 227, if you want to jump to that particular one.

Hehe, I love 8-Bit Theater!  Black Mage is the evil-est mothah' there ever was... heh.  It's so easy to make fun of those constant, reappearing RPG clichés.

Of course, Star Control II seems to break a lot of the familar clichés rhar these sorts of games carry.

Thanks Death_999. That was a truly amazing comic.