The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

When you pick up more than you can carry in the planet lander, it fills your tanks and vaporizes the rest.  It SHOULD leave whatever you cant carry on the ground right where you found it.

I remember thinking about this way back when I first bought SC2 for my 386 in '93. Since the lander now has only 50 mineral capacity instead of 64, its even more important.

Yah I fully agree on that. It's bad to see it all go to waste.

Actually, I have no objection to the current (and previous) scheme of leaving everything to waste.

Keeping an eye on you lander's available space, and making judgements (guesstimates) of what you can get away with, as well as factoring what the fuel cost for landing another time, all the while trying to avoid earthquakes, firestorms, lightning and monsters, adds another "by the seat of your pants" level of micromanagement to the game.

Trying to scrounge that extra 15 RU out of every planetary system (OK, I'm under-exxagerating here) is part of the fun (and the frustration).

Lately, I've been seeing a lot of "why don't you add this feature" and "wouldn't it be better if..." type posts here. It's not that I disagree with these posts neccessarily, or think the suggestions are stupid (they're not).

However, we've got to consider what the goal of this project (UQM) is. The goal of this project is to recreate the SC2 experience for users of modern PCs and OSes. It's not to modify or enhance said game, but to present the original content as faithfully as possible.

The authors have stated that this is their primary goal. However, they have also said that once the project is complete (1.0) then and only then might they become amenable to suggestions.

Until then, I don' think UQM is the best place to go looking for changes to the base gameplay. Something like Timewarp might be more appropriate...

Peace,
Vol.

Yeah, but timewarp doesn't have anything but a combat engine right now. A really, really good combat engine. Untill some master programmer decides to make something more than a really, really good combat engine and append it to timewarp, this is our greatest hope for improvements to the sc2 gameplay.

But not until version 1.0 has bee nout for a while, and wer're only at 0.2 to now, so all your wishes are just a wee bit premature : ) After that, who knows? Just don't be dissapointed when 0.3 doesn't include a point'n'click starmap, a resource judger, an advanced star search engine and whatnot. It'll be quite a while before we get there. As Voldenuit says, the goal here is to recreate the original game. And that had none of those features.

Also, all these requested 'improvements' have one current theme. "Make the Game easier for us". But it's not supposed to be easy. It's suppsoed to be challenging, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately worth it. I don't think you can appreciate something the same way if you havent't bee namde to wark for it.

Of course, I could be wrong

Don't think you're wrong, LP!

Why don't you just program the game to play on it's own?
Wouldn't that make it sooo much easier?
It would spoil the fun? You wouldn't have to PLAY anymore?
Oh, come on!!!

If it's too easy to play, the whole fun is gone - especially if you've played it a couple of times.

Very true. I used to avegame editor for the first time today, seeing as all my savegames from 0.1 disappeared when i reformatted my harddrive a few days back. and I feel so dirty... its just not the same

Now, I think it's not so easy as you might think. After all, as it stands each dot has only to record whether it's still there in a saved-game file. With this, though, it would have to record how much remained, and that's a LOT more data. Could be done, easily - but the saved game files would expand a LOT.

Well, if you want to write it off as "part of the challenge" you get to.  I dont think its challenging.  I dont want a crutch.  I just think its kinda stupid that the leftovers just *poof* dissapear.

I have also thought about how it would change the save files.  That would only mean extra data IF you didnt go back and pick up the rest. And since we live in the age of 250gb hard drives, AND considering the fact that the UQM install itself takes up over 100mb, a couple extra kb arent going to matter all that much imho.  

Its just extra work for the programmers who are busy already.  Not really important, but somthing I would like to see eventually.

what i want is a extra feature called auto collect. it does the scaning stunning and grabing all for you so you dont have too.  ;)
then why stop there why not have a AI that tells you what to do next. like sc3 had!
then i would say add a ai for battle but they already have that.

you are funny it is only JOKE!!

in the next game i would like to see is multiship melee where you can have epic battles of 16 vs 16 or 256 vs 16. 8)
i was very impressed by the multiship caplability of starcontrol online.
only thing that needs to change is to have the ability to pick out the spots of where each ship hypers in. then can poause to give orders to you wingman then PARTY ON DUDE!!!

For a technical explanation to your problem: your planet lander is equipped with a "Super-Heated Magnetic Liquification System"^TM which brakes the current "blob" of minerals into freely flowing plasma, which is kept in a magnetic containment field, and thus transported into the landers "Magnetic Containment Container"^TM. However, when the container is full, the rest of the plasma must be allowed to flow back to the outside, where it, due to its extreme temperature, eats itself quite far into the ground, and thus you are unable to reach it the next time you return, since you cannot mine. Why do you melt the whole thing at once you ask? Well, simply because your "Super-Heated Magnetic Liquification System"^TM works through the simple process of aiming it at the minerals and firing it. you can't adjust it very well, and trying to might destroy the magnetic field losing in a loss of all minerals.

On superheated planets, you simply just use the magnetic containment system to collect what you can before the rest sinks back into the ground.

well, you didn't really think they went out and shoveled it all up did you?

Hope this works for you, it's easier than re-coding the game.

I don't see a need for it... I mean how many times have you filled up your tanks to max capacity and then accidentally picked up only 1 out of 25 Tzo Crystals?   ;D  Although it sucks when it happens, it just one of those "classic" consequences in SC2.  I think it actually puts a little more "thought" into resource gathering.  Also teaches you valuable lessons like "plan ahead" and "assess the situation before you do"  8)

I do not think that the quality of the game would be damaged if this alteration were made. Really. Much like the quality of SC3 would not have been damaged if the Harika Bolo missiles had not latched onto your nose if you were flying fast enough backwards.

Hey LP, have you taken a peek in the highly sophisticated, top-secret lander-modification plans in my desk's drawer?

I really like that explanation, man! Good work - although this knowledge was supposedly secret and not for the public. I paid a lot of credits to buy it from the Melnorme, you know?  >:(

Nah, just kidding - but you probably know that  ;)

I paid a lot as weell, but seeing as I have quite a lot of shares in the Melnorme Trading Guild, I figured I could spend it. Stay tuned for more exciting techniobabble, next week I'll explain the principle of Quasispace in a restricted solidified medium.

I think the saying is "Look before you leap!"

Star Control 2, you see, is not just a game meant for entertainment... it is a learning process!  It provides real life experience:  Never pick up more than you can carry.  If you do, you'll be over your head in paperwork from the IRS.  The guys were just doing their part to keep us out of trouble.

Such nice guys.

What does the... encounter with Talana teach us, then?

::)

What the hidden functionality of that costume is... knife included.

Yeah! ...like this... ...and this... ...and this...  :-*

Maybe not to be shy should we ever happen to encounter actual women :)

Nothing against Paul or Fred, but perhaps they're not the best guys to be teaching us about such subjects...

Then again, it's not like we'd ever use the information one day...    :-[

Speak for yourself, O'-Sama  :D

Could be better lately, but it could also be a lot worse...

It can always be better, excpet during very rare circumstances. then again, it can almost always be worse. Maybe we're just nerver happy as a species. that's probably the drive behind our civilization and our (eventual) space exploration. We always imagine that we'll be happier once we achieve the next stage, or that we'll be happier when we get to the next place. And yet, it never seems to happen. Such a strange species.

At least we don't get all depressed and whiny like the Utwig - or do we?

I'm not complaining - I'm just not celebrating either.
What I really would like though is a Syreen looking like Salma Hayek. She must look great with that blue skin, hehehe  :o

But of course we all know that colour doesn't matter.

dunno, maybe the Utwig have a point though. without an Ultron, we're completely lost as a species... GM, you being a mad scientist and all ,would you care to build an Ultron for me? otherwise I fear I shall have to take the Umgah way out and start playing tricks on people.

Well of course we know that color doesn't matter - all I'm saying that I'd prefer a blue chick of Syreen origin.

Including the knife!

(Wouldn't that be your kinda game, knife and all, huh LP?)

Well, I think I'd pass the knife anyway. It might be nice in the beginning, but just wait until things settle down. the first time you forget an anniversary or a birthday, it's gutwounds galore for you.

"Honey, did you pick up my macara?"
"Umm, sorry darling I forgot..."
"WHAT!!"
<SLASH>

You'd just have to replace it with a rubber-knife! That face I wanna see - and then you make it up to her  ;)

By the way, didn't you mean "mascara"

And I thought that - according to your stereotypical description - you liked knife fights?

Yup, mascara's what I meant. Silly me. and I do like knifefights, but I dislike being cut.

And that would make you what? Passively aggressive?

Hey, are you doubting my ability to talk with women without having to give them my credit card number?  Don't worry, I do the same thing every day...  :-[

I think the game teaches us that slimy green bad guys are evil and that scantily-clad, blue babes are fun for everyone.  Isn't that what the game really teaches us?

Well, I thought the Ur-Quan weren't slimy. Anyway, they green ones are not nearly as evil as the BLACK ones...

How about this:
The best way to deal with a religious fanatic is to impersonate eir deity.
Psychic powers WORK!
If you become a slave trader, people will still work for you, but only for more money.
Mining to exhaustion and hunting to extinction are not merely acceptable, but the only way to go.
One life is worth a kiloton of iron.
Mushrooms eat planets.

you know what it realy teaches us?

you do?

....


its a secret.

Omni-Sama, that truely is what I would like to believe the game teaches us :D

Death_999, that are some slight sideeffects when doing aggressive mining and hunting, although you don't really have to exhaust all the resources to win  ;)

This reminds me of discussions we had in English class: "This game is actually a social comment on the human condition."

Yeah, right.

Then again, it does portray humans as imperfect and downplays their importance in the galaxy, a lesson some people should learn in our modern world...  it's time to realise that we are not the centre of the universe, and that not everything revolves around us...  ;D  It's the perfect social comment, metaphorically speaking.

Agreed!

I'm almost convinced that if you combined all the different stereotypes of all races you'd get your typical human with all his advantages and flaws. Good & evil, inventive & destructive, friendly & paranoid, foreseeing & ignorant - the list is endless...

Well, everything we do or create reflects back on the real world somehow. Although I doubt most things are designed to be social comments, they tend to be anyway, one way or another.

No.
In fact, the game goes to great lengths to show us that The Ur-Quan arent fueled by evil.

Is that true?
I think that they maybe have once been nice and good and trusting, but that has changed and their deeds became evil, hence: they became evil. Paying back the universe the way they do is not justifiable in any way. Understandable maybe (given the human nature, almost natural) but still not good.
Call them misguided or revengeful, but I'd call those slimy green bad guys evil!

Indeed. Evil is as evil does. The circumstances do not mitigate the actions. the quan, though they have had troubled times, are evil per se the definition that they do evil - in our opinion. In their own, it's a whole other story. Evil is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. Still, it's the same as blaming a murder on a traumatic childhood. If someone isn't actually absolutely insane, (which the Quan aint, they work much too rationally for that), you pay the price.

When you enslave the human race under a bright red shield and destroy much of our history (not to mention Buenos Aires), it certainly doesn't mean the race is looking out for our well-being.  The Ur-Quan are very determined that what they are doing is essential, and that them enslaving or controlling races in the galaxy is saving them from their own demise.   However, that's a bit of an oxy moron.  Their intentions may not be evil, but their actions sure as heck are.