The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I'm a SC2 melee addict and there's one thing that would REALLY rock my world (and end my life, as I would be trapped in front of my computer for weeks thus dying of starvation):

Customization of environment and ships in melee. Specifically these elements:

1) Planets and asteroids optional! (Then it would be 100% skill, no random element deciding battles)

2) Options for changing ship statistics - like firing range, crew and fuel capabilities, speed, turning rate etc etc. (sort of like the precursor improvements/disadvantages in SC1 and SC3).

At least 1) is highly wanted - and shouldn't be too hard to implement (?).

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Chris

No planet is a bad idea. There are so many ships rely on gravity whipping, such as the earthling cruiser, the yehat, mycon, even shofixiti, and several others. Taking away the planet would destroy many tactics for those ships and it would actually take away skill. The planet increases the tactical options available.

(gravity whipping is flying by the planet and then letting go of the thrusters, which allows you to sail through space at high speeds)

No asteroids might be okay, but then how would the slylandro get fuel? I don't think asteroids make enough of a difference to be worth taking out anyway.

That is the raison d'etre for Star Control: Timewarp (http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/timewarp/).  Go download a copy and support this fine project.

It's very easy to implement, by that I mean both (1) and (2) of the options you presented.

Option (2) would take a bit more time as each ship has different primary and secondary weapons.

JWJ: Bad idea? How can OPTIONAL customization be a bad idea? When it's player VS cyborg, I want to play in the environment of my choosing. If I lose options, too bad for me? The AI rarely uses planets in its tactics (exceptions are Ilwrath and the Orz fighters).

And I never play Slylandro ;o)

Obviously, my motivation is tainted by the fact that I play Druuge 99% of the time and operate at speeds which make the planet nothing more than a deadly hindrance. Especially the Druuge vs Earthling battle is skewed (less skill, more ranom elements) by asteroids/planet. :o)

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Chris

The fact that you describe the planet as "random" pretty much sums up my major problem with the uqm melee: the zoom makes it impossible to see where the planet is!  I think my #1 feature request (after some of the stuff implemented in the 0.1 -> 0.2 series) is a "planet locator" like they have in Timewarp -- losing battles because I didn't know where the planet was (and crashed into it/couldn't find it to whip around it) is a bit silly.

Daniel

I will admit, I'm in the same boat with regards to both planets and asteroids...the asteroids are no more than a nuisance and the planet locator wouldn't be a bad idea...

I've lost countless more ships to the planet and asteroids than I ever did to my melee opponent's ships...

Ive lost COUNTLESS Pkunk to PLASMA DEATH then i ever did to papercuts.....um..........

LOOK THEIRS A PENGUIN ON MY DISPLAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think a planet indicator would be a great idea!

Being the disagreeing voice here, I prefer the Melee without a planet indicator. to me, part of the fun is the surpirse of where you are, and how occasionally any battle can end with a head first dive into the planet. I do understand that they are needed in TW, where you can have a multitude of shpis on screen at once and need to locate them, although I think it could be fun to play that without them as well. Life is uncertain. Nothing says that like a planet in your face.

And the runaway tactics of the Spathi due become a lot more intersting when you randmomly collide with asteroids and involuntarily close to firing range for the other ship.

Be that as it may, it makes no sense that you can't see two inches in front of your own face.

Does it make any sense that you can crash into a planet and not become incinerated? Or that your ship is actually almost as large as an entire planet? Or that Orz marines look like ten of them could settle the whole planet? Noone said it had to make sense. It jsut has to be exciting and varying. And the chance elemtn of the planet does that, at least for me.

Having said that, I do understand if others don't find this as amusing as I do, every1 has their own style of play.

A spaceship crashing into a planet could be, umm... aerobraking, Yeah, that's it. And they have to throw some crewmen out the hatch to get the momentum to balance...

I just noticed (or remembered), after finishing the 0.2 alpha (worked without any major problems. props!) that the sa-matra battle is without both planet and asteroids. There are other annoying things there though, but it's not like it's hard (1 pkunk is all it takes. if you screw up, you might get lucky and be 'reborn'). My point, however, is that it does indeed look like CUSTOMIZABLE environment would be easy to implement.

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Chris

If you want melee to be completely devoid of randomness, you also have to disable the Orz's trooper special-ability, because the amount of your opponent's crew that they kill before they die is random.  You also have to disable the Androsynth's bubble weapon, since the bubbles move about randomly.  Obviously you'll need to leave out the Pkunk ships.  Oh, I guess the Slylandro lasers move in random directions too, so you have to disable those.  There may be more weapons that function randomly that I don't remember.

But I love using Slylandro ships!  So I'd like asteroids to be in the game.  :)

You'll also have to have a set distance away that ships warp in, Arilou always teleport to a predetermined location, and Zoq-Fot-Pik spray gun acts like the weapon used by the "Lk" in, umm... some crappy game the name of which slips my mind.

Chenjesu DOGIs would need to be taken out. They randomly jitter whenever an enemy ship points toward them. And of course we'd have to get rid of the question mark option. Syreen's special would have to drain a fixed amount of crew.

The Pkunk would always be ressurected when killed.  Boy, wouldn't that be fun?

 Well, they could always get one ressurrection. Or two, or... :>

And I thought that the Syreen attack's effectiveness was deterministic, a function of crew remaining (and distance??).

in real life if you came in on a shallow angle you would bounce off.

the reason you bounce in the game is because the ships are armed with VERY powerfull reaction thrusters that damage a ship when activated.

No I didn't. My Kohr-Ah Marauder came in headfirst and rammed the thing.  Very powerful reaction thrusters? I prefer the Aerobraking theory. Why would the skiff need these thrusters anyway, it has no inertia, so it should be able to just fly into the atomosphere and hide. (or did I badly botxch my physics again?)

Physics that relies on things not hving inertia are, well... sketchy?

I prefer to think the ships are made of rubber and thereby bounce off planets and asteroids.

The Rubber Dreadnought of doom attacks!!!

The threat of a rubber Dreadnought is almost as threatening as if the Ur-Quan painted their ship pink...!  Imagine that.

Just to comment on the randomness of the battles in SC2...  that's what makes the game fun.  Each melee conflict is different from the last, which is why I often turn on UQM just to butt heads a bit in the Super Melee game.  I love using the planet and the environment to my advantage, or even to my disadvantage.  That's what's made the game fun for me, and will continue to keep me coming back.   ;D

Yes ! What we need is player vs. player melee at the Sa-Matra!

(I get Utwig...)

I did not say REMOVE teh shit, I said make it OPTIONAL for us morons who like to CUSTOMIZE things ;o)

In some matchups, the asteroids/planets are irrelevant. In some, they are a huge hindrance and cause a lot of grief. Try piloting a team of 6 Druuges against 12 awesome Earthlings and count:

1) How much crew you lose to the planet directly
2) How much crew you lose to the planet indirectly by slowing down  (and thus eating missiles)
3) How much crew you lose by slowing down due to asteroids (and thus eating missiles)
4) How many crew the Earthling saves by being knocked out of the line of fire by a fast-moving asteroid.

If you claim this is not a significant amount, you are either lying or got thrashed by the Earthling team completely and these things never mattered. :o)

This is one of my favorite matchups, and it is tainted so completely by the friggin random elements. BLARGH (or should I say *frown*). A quick cross in a couple of boxes in the super melee screen:

• No planet and
• No asteroids -> Voila! More fun for me. :o)
  
  About the other randomness: A Orz fighter SHOULD do various damage each time. That's just like a melee between 2 AI ships - the result will vary (due to different starting positions etc). I will admit that I'm a bit bored by the AI always managing to kill all of my crew with 1 dude and 5 of my dudes get killed instantly, though.
  
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  Chris

Death to smileys! (forgot to check that thingy... *sigh*)

-> :o) <- It was supposed to be like this.

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Chris

Oh I find it incredibly amusing, actually!
My favorite is still when I've defeated someone and am laughing mockingly at them--- and then during the close-up victory ditty, smash into a planet.

Well, I'm not especially fond of the idea of no planets or asteroids (one of my personal favorites, arilou vs. kzer-za, requires rather serious use of asteroids for the arilou side, to take out those fighters).

But, I mean, can it really hurt to have an on/off switch?

And...er, you know what I'd really like?  A random team generator.  Shouldn't be that hard to do, set a point value, and the computer makes a random team very close to it.

I agree about the randomness.  Some battles it's OK, but others it gets annoying...like a asteroid coming along and bouncing you right into incoming fire (or away).

One thing I'm really noticing the asteroids and the planet on is the current battle I'm working to master: VUX (me) vs. Kohr-Ah.  Probably the worst two things randomly are the asteroids (blink into my ship, fly right into a cloud of blade mines - DEAD ship), and the warp-in locations (remember VUX has the close warp dealy about them - if I warp right in front of a Kohr-Ah, I'm dead without a chance).

If you're wondering, I'm getting close to .500 now (I play against 5 Kohr-Ah ships and a full list of VUX ships - the point totals are very similar).  Usually one VUX dies for every Kohr-Ah.  The factor where the asteroids usually hurt is where I'm stalking and waiting for my battery to go up so I can slice the Kohr-Ah apart...  And if you're wondering, usually my ships die when I try to get behind them while limpeting - the VUX seems to not be able to dodge the blades at full speed...probably will figure out a way eventually...  I'm up to about .200 now on taking a Kohr-Ah out from full strength using a single VUX ship....  It's fun for me right now.  ;D

You might be better served by asking for a camera option to have the view locked to your ship, instead of relative to the positions of you and your enemies.  The problem is less the asteroids themselves, more that you can't tell they're there, while the CPU can.