The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

The game has some quirks that I've always wanted to rant and rave about.  Now I've found a place to do that!
I'll start slow...

With either of the 2 powerful hyperwave casters you can talk thru the slave shield to the Chmmr.  Why can't you talk to the folks at any other slave shielded world?

And why do we have to send the Illrath to kill the Thraddash?  By the time you do that, in the game they should be our allies,  Even tho Culture 20 doesn't like YOU, Captain Bozo, the "little theif" who stole thier Aqua Helix, they are still EARTH ALLIES!  They still send ships captains and we can build their ships in our shipyard right up until the moment the Illrath get to their space.  Instead of killing off our allies, we should be able to pick who we send them to kill, the Vux or the Druuge or maybe finish off the Mycons...

And who the heck programmed the Earth long range homing missiles... that MISS half the time!?!  You've fired your missile at a Mycon ship that is moving STRAIGHT away from you.  It doesn't maneuver and your missile is heading right for it.  Then, at the last possible moment, the missile SWERVES AROUND the enemy ship!!!  AAARRRRGGGG!  And you only had to hit it one more time to kill it and now the Mycon batt is recharged and it gives itself more life and now I've got to keep fighting the %$#@ thing!  Our Air Force has better missiles than that NOW, and this is supposed to be in the future, when stuff is more advanced!?!

Thanks, I needed that!  Anyone else have anything to Rant about?

For that one, a bit of lore can explain the reasoning. The Chmmr retains the natural sensibility to hyberwave broadcast of the Chenjesu. By the virtue of this fact, they can detect what is coming through the slave shield while other enslaved planet will not be able to do so. I think that at some point, the game mention that no matter how good the hyperwave broadcast is, it doesn't match the capabilities of the Chenjesu. But, I am not sure about the last one.

For the other comments, well I will let somebody else on the plate.

 

As for the latter, well, everyone has really good ECM?

I would be inclined to agree with Death 999 about missiles. Earthling Cruiser missiles are canonically Cold War surplus ICBMs (http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/File:Star_control_i_earthling_cruiser_databank.png), and are operating under vastly different conditions than they were designed for. On top of that, the enemy ship can be reasonably expected to use ECM and the like to try and fool missiles.. it's really not at all surprising that the Cruiser missiles aren't spectacularly reliable :)

Really?!?  So 150 years from now we can do no better than plucking old ICBMs from their silos and stuffing them into launch tubes aboard our ships?  Obviously without upgrading thier targeting processes!  I guess no one ever heard of putting some ECCM into the missiles targeting sensors...

Most of those were MIRVs, with anywhere from 10 to 20 warheads.  So why can't we attack a whole fleet with one missile?

No one else with anything to rant about?

I don't like the 16-angle limitation, but there's no rant do do there.

Never heard about the Chenjesu hyperwave capabilities.  So no other planet has hyperwave machines on the surface?  If so, you know there are always those die-hard idiots who keep it turned on "just in case" or "for old times sake" or whatever the reason.

Yes, the 16 angle limitation is a pain if you are using a directional, non homing weapon.  Not really a factor with homing weapons, which the Precursor ship has once we have purchased the auto tracking device from Mel Torme.

There is, sure - even the Ur-Quan couldn't wipe it out altogether - but the Chenjesu are abnormally good, far better than needed for normal communication. And the slave shield is a very good blocker of these signals.

In the backstory humanity has been turned fairly pacifistic a few years or so from what is now the present day, by a 'small' thermonuclear war in the Middle East. Pretty much all nuclear weapons were disassembled and stored in underground vaults in case of dire future need. Given this situation I would not be at all surprised if weapons development seriously stagnated in the SC2 timeline. As to the MIRV thing, melee is always one-on-one combat ingame, for gameplay reasons. (TFB tried 2v2 melee, they didn't like it).

Now THAT would be cool! The 2v2.

Well, it wasn't cool enough for FF & PR3...

I remember getting Timewarp Light to run with multiple ships in the field, and it was a mess.

Death 999, because of the number of ship, the battle space was always zoomed out to the maximum? Did they have problem with friendly fire? How did they manage that?

2v2?  I wouldn't mind trying 1v 2 or even 1v3.  Depending upon the enemy, but after your Precursor ship is upgraded to the max, its pretty powerful.  I think I could take on 2 or 3 other ships.  I think the hardest would be the Kohr Ah, they're pretty tough.

What, no one else with anything to rant or complain about?  Well, I've got another...

Those $%^&* Rocks!  Those blasted asteroids.  Those stupid rocks are always popping up out of nowhere and blocking my path.  Against most ships my primary tactic with the Predursor ship is to retreat away from them, keeping them at optimum range and blasting the crap out of them.  Most ships are killed by the Hellbore Cannon with 1 or 2 shots, the  Kohr Ah take 3 or sometimes more.  And the rocks rarely seem to do anything to the enemy ship that is in my favor.

Its bad enough I've got to fight the enemy ship, why the %^&*() do I have to fight the darn GAME too?!?

This is partly because of how the AI fights; being stupid it will normally chase you endlessly. Although, if you fought the Melnorme (which you shouldn't be doing in adventure mode, although Melnorme is a well-used ship in netmelee) I daresay you would be impressed by how much of a problem asteroids give them. ;)

Not all ships chase you, the Mycon don't always and neither do the Spathi.

Now that you mention it, the few times a rock has done something good for me was when it bumped a Mycon that was running from me.