Title: 3 Quest ideas for SC2/UQM mod -mild spoilers-
Post by: locustkiller on March 30, 2014, 11:26:46 pm
To preface this post - i have near-zero skills as far as mod-ing the game or manipulating the code. i'm just an idea guy. i have been a fan of the Star Control series for a long time. Originally i played SC1 on my friend's Genesis, and later SC2 and SC3 on his computer in the mid 90's. To my delight, i discovered what this community has done for UQM and this forum, etc, a few years ago. i had been in email contact with one of the guys working on 6014, cedric? i think?, but stopped hearing from him some time ago. In any case i felt compelled to share some story ideas. i have always felt that Star Control 2 is an awesome game that could've been tweaked in a few small areas to the further enjoyment of the player, and if my reading of much of this forum is correct, many other fans share that thought. (i will not be touching on the super melee part of the game at all, just the story mode) Once you figure out where to go and what to do, a large part of this huge world to explore goes unused. Basically you mine the best spots to Pimp out the Flagship while simultaneously buying all the Melnorme tech. This sets you up to spend the rest of the game following story clues until you win. The point in the game in which exploration and resource gathering becomes meaningless happens very soon after youve become familiar with it and so just when you become efficient and capable of gathering the hard to get resources and exploring the dangerous places, there isnt a need to.
Additionally there are ships you get to play with in Super Melee mode that never make an appearance in the game, and though i understand the story reasons for this, it doesnt make sense to someone who picks up the game for the first time. The Short Version of my 3 quest ideas for a mod to SC2/UQM - A Quest that involves locating the Mother Ark and eventually being able to construct Mmrnmhrm X-forms - A Quest that involves rescuing a lone-surviving Chenjesu captain held captive by a small contingent of Androsynth allowing you limited interaction with that race and a single Broodhome to add to your fleet. - A Second Slylandro Quest that gets them more involved in current events. Two of these quests can potentially delay the actions of the primary antagonist as you approach the climax of the story. Additionally they would require more exploration and more specific resource gathering even if you have reached a point where you are very efficient at either. The following is a more detailed account of what i have fleshed out for these quests. 1. The Mmrnmhrm
-- Being my favorite ship in both SC1 and 2 Super Melee, i have always regretted not getting to utilize the *transformer in the story mode. i could be wrong, but i do not think they would unbalance the gameplay if limited by cost as i have planned here.--
-The Mother Ark can be located in Hyper Space at coordinates XX,XX somewhere between the arilou and umgah spheres of influence. It is not in or close to a star system. It will not show up on the Starmap but you will see it as a stationary ship-sized gravity well if you come across it on the main screen as you approach it's location.
- The Umgah will tell you about it's location as a second part of their "Big Secret" dialogue. Something along the lines of "found robot making ship of Mmrnhmrm at coordinates X/X. it abandoned. non-organic, so useless to Umgah. We saving it for later prank against Vux haw haw. "
-Upon entering the gravity well you see a dark gray, large ship at the center of a "system space" as you would a star with no planets orbiting. You enter orbit and scan. it shows up in the planetary screen with specs and "Mother Ark" as the system name. There are no Mineral or Biological readings, but there is one Energy Source. You send a lander down to a metallic gray surface, all sharp angles and metal plates. (For this post here i will be giving general descriptions for most art or dialogue that would be added, there are a lot of great computer graphics artists that visit this board and i'd love to leave interpretations open with general boundaries)
-Encountering the Energy source you discover a Mmrnmhrm AI disguised as an inert maintenance program. The landing team brings it aboard and it goes in the Devices window. When activated you get the on-board encounter screen (like the Dnyarri) The AI recognizes your human crew as allies and will have dialogue with the captain. It's designation is 1011011 *or some other appropriate Mmrnmhrm name* -heavy effects robotic voice-
-1011011 will tell you of the fate of the Mother Ark and about the defeat of the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm forces by the Ur-Quan fleet and a devastating weapon. That the Ark's systems were fused, its power sources and manufacturing facilities salvaged by the Ur-Quan. Irreparable damage, it will never function again. Left as a hulk to drift in space. It directs you to go to Procyon where the Chenjesu and Mmrnhrm have been slave shielded together.
- At Procyon you activate the AI and it signals the starbase. Along with the normal dialogue you'd receive about the starbase at Procyon the AI interacts with the systems there and receives instruction on what would be required to manufacture X-form ships. As you also learn that the Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm cannot directly aid you in your cause at this time.
-Returning to Earth Starbase with the AI after you have visited Procyon (DIalog with Hayes will direct you to Procyon again if you havent been) , the scientists will examine the AI and its information and determine that we have the facilities capable of manufacturing Mmrnmhrm ships. However the AI 1011011 is the only being capable of piloting the X-forms, and so any ships constructed must stay with the flagship and cannot be utilized in the general fight against the Ur-Quan.
-Additionally, in order to adjust the starbase manufacturing facilities to create the Mmrnmhrm Ships and their complex electronics, they will require a significant amount of specific minerals. At this point the game starts keeping track of which minerals and what amounts you return to the starbase, Hayes giving general dialog clues as to what you need more of and if its a lot or a little. My initial thoughts are 1000 base metals, and 400 each of Precious, Radioactive, and Corrosive. Adjustable after some testing, if this is too tedious. i want it to require a bit of exploring and landing on planets you would usually skip. if you know where several "Metal" worlds are you can probably wrap this part up quickly.
- Upon turning in enough appropriate minerals, Hayes will then inform you that although the X-form can be produced it is prohibitively expensive and requires many man-hours of work, and thus cost an exorbitant amount of RU. My initial thoughts are in the range of 15-20k RU's for one ship. This is meant to be a ship you make one of in the mid-game to act like Fwiffo does in the early game, basically a spoiler you can beat most ships with if you get good at it. Later stages of the game i always find myself with tons of RU's and nothing to spend them on- so grab a couple of these for fun.
-It is possible the X-form is too unbalancing or too good vs. the Sa-Matra. i have no way to test this at the moment, but i dont feel like it could be better than the pkunk so that doesnt seem like it would be an issue.
2. The Rescue of Captain Kzak Zzrk
i like the mystery sorrounding the Androsynth and the fact that this region of space's most powerful race, and our ally, the Chenjesu are not around to help you rebel against the Ur-Quan. It gives the game a nice ambiance along with many other aspects of the story. For this game, in this campaign, i would not want to take away from "What happened to ALL the androsynth or ALL the Chenjesu ?" but i do have a take on what might have happened to a few of them. Both of these races i think of as having vastly superior intellect to humanity, so i do not find it unreasonable that a small number could hide from Ur-Quan as the human colony on Vela did.
-After the Yehat Rebellion is started, you can approach the rebel ships and have friendly chat with them. Asking them about the Mycon will reveal a further dialog tree in which they tell you that something strange happened in the Sculptoris constellation. That Beta Sculptoris which once existed at coordinates XX,XX ( a point to the Southeast of the rest of the Sculptoris stars) simply vanished. Thought to have gone Nova, the starship clans had planned to entered Mycon space to investigate, but then the Ur-Quan commanded all battle thrall races to remain at their homestars and not to interfere while they worked out some sort of Doctrine. They do not believe the Mycon are capable of such destruction so it remains a mystery.
-Approaching these coordinates, you will find an x-shaped "tear" in hyperspace,showing a blue background beyond, with black stars and comets, sort of a negative image of hyperspace. It does not appear on the starmap. You enter into this tear just like a stationary quasi-space portal. You arrive in Demi-space. Yet another strange dimension. Time does not flow here at all. Though energy and motion seems completely unaffected. Strange. Your ship moves as normal, but your fuel is unexpended.
-The Starmap of Demi-space is mostly void. Blackness with small pockets of Blue here and there, faded and hazy, kind of like Quasi-space, but not. You find your ship in one of these small ovoid pockets, the boundaries of which, you cannot traverse. There is one bright gravity well in this small pocket of Demi space, you approach and fall inward. Here you find one Planet and one Moon at the center of what would normally be a star system. The Background visuals here are "a little off" or " kind of trippy".
-Orbiting the Planet triggers a Homeworld-type Encounter (minus the ships) with the Androsynth. Here we get a bit of Dialogue with Androsynth, we learn they are hiding from the Orz, that this contingent was on the furthest colony from their homeworld in Eta Vulpeculae, that they managed to escape unseen by the invading Orz. They advanced the kind of experiments in dimensional fatigue that signaled the orz, to turn Beta Sculptoris' star "inside out" as it were, and give them this portal into Demi-space in which to hide. The Androsynth remind the captain of the history of human enslavement they suffered and arrogantly point out the irony of our entire plight. They are stranded, and trapped here, more or less, they warn us not to approach their moon. They hate Humanity still and so will do nothing to help us, but they are too concerned with survival to worry about the rest of the galaxy's affairs at the moment.
Orbiting the planet AFTER youve already had the moon encounter only removes some of the dialog choices involving the moon.
Like the slave shielded planets, this "homeworld" will never be cleansed by the Kor-Ah and thus you cannot discover what lies on it's surface but if it has a database entry, then it would be similar to the conditions on the moon with one Energy source that happens to be the Androsynth colony.
-Orbiting the Moon you get a battle encounter with 3 Androsynth ships. You get some dialog from the Androsynth ships, but it is hostile and not very informative. They attack. Escaping this battle leaves you outside of orbit and you cannot discover whats on the surface until youve destroyed these 3 ships. Similar to the way the Druuge protect the Utwig Bomb.
- Scanning the Moon you find some very strange readings. There is very little atmosphere. The surface has very dark colored features. Like a rainbow world with differening shades of black. Creepy. The gravity is negligible and costs no fuel to dispatch a lander. There is a smattering of Exotic and Corrosive minerals. There is no Weather. Instead of tectonics there are Magnetic Fluctuations at level 4 which function like Earthquakes but have purple-hued concentric circles that can damage your lander. Instead of dangerous hot temperatures, there are Hyper-Cold temperatures, at -150 degrees below absolute zero. This is the state of matter at which elements start to do the opposite of vibrating, which you thought was being still, but were wrong about and well, its very hard to explain but it is mildly dangerous, functioning the same as the hot spots would at 150 degrees c. except of course you get light blue flames representing icey cold.
Your lander has no protection from either of these hazards, as the Melnorme do not offer them for sale and may have not even discovered their existence.
There are no Biological signals, but there is one Energy Source. Approaching it your lander discovers a nearly intact Chenjesu Broodhome. Reports from the surface --- The landing party has been contacted by a lone survivor aboard the Broodhome, which is called "The Delineator". Captain Kzak Zrrk is grateful to see us and says the ship was damaged in the great slave war during a battle with the Mycon and adrift for several years near the Sculptoris stars and was pulled into this dimension when the Androsynth inverted the star at Beta Sculptoris. The Delineator crashed on this moon and the crew has been killed slowly by both the environment here, and the Androsynth trying to reclaim the ship, down to its last remaining defender. The ship can be repaired if enough exotic minerals are available (a number just shy of what minerals lie on the surface - just in case you dont have any aboard the flagship).
-You repair the Delineator and it joins your fleet. Since there is only one surviving Chenjesu to captain the Broodhome, this will be a unique ship in your fleet. Captain Kzak Zrrk will be unable to join the rest of his species on Procyon before the Chmmr emerge. He understands this sacrifice and will vow to help you defeat the Ur-Quan in any way he can. There will be additional dialog options for you, if you have the Delineator in your fleet with : Hayes, Procyon, the Ur-Quan, the Kor-ah and the Yehat Rebels.
-if you defeat at least 10 Kor-ah Marauders in battle with the Delineator, new dialog with the Kor-ah is triggered in which they admit that the Chenjesu are a unique species and a significant threat. Their advanced technology and intellect will require reevaluation of cleansing tactics and a stronger resolve to win the doctrinal war and exterminate this region of space. Finishing this dialog tree will buy you one more year of time before the Kor-Ah death march begins. This is a representation of the fear the Kor-Ah have at an emergence of a race as wise and powerful as the Chenjesu who lead an alliance that gave the Kzer-Za resistance enough to reveal the sa-matra in battle. Something i suspect very rarely has happened, and although i don't know the canon well enough to say for sure, it would seem the Kzer-Za do everything they can to hide information about, and protect races that they have subjegated from the Kor-Ah, though it is likely the Kor-ah know at least a little bit about the war that was just ending upon their arrival here.
-Alrighty, i have a 3rd quest fairly hashed out involving the Slylandro but this post is long enough for now, i will share it in another post .
if there are any folks still needing work on story ideas or dialog involving project 6014 or other Star Control continuances feel free to contact me at locustkllr@sbcglobal.net
and thanks for reading if you got this far, comments welcome.
Title: Re: 3 Quest ideas for SC2/UQM mod -mild spoilers-
Post by: locustkiller on April 18, 2014, 01:20:36 am
3. The Slylandro Choose a Side.
After learning of the intentions of the Kor-ah to eliminate all non-Ur-quan sentient life thru any number of in game conversations, you can return to the Slylandro Homeworld and find further dialog options. This conversation tree is only available after you have received the self destruct code for the probes. You tell the slylandro of the impending fate of this part of the galaxy. They are apprehensive but reluctant to take any aggressive stance toward another species, being a meek and humble race. Besides, they explain, they have no means to produce ships or weapons or even to leave Source.
3 months after saving the Zoq Fot Pik Homeworld from the invading Marauder, you can return to Alpha Tucanae and ask if their scouts have anything to report. They will tell you of an indecipherable signal emanating from Alpha Lipi that is unlike any in known space. The scout found Kor-ah ships patrolling the area and did not remain to investigate.
You travel to Alpha Lipi and on the First moon of the Second Planet you scan and find not only a cache of radioactive minerals but also an energy signature.
Landing Team Reports - - Sir! The team has discovered a metal ovoid object about the size of one of our landers. A passive signal is radiating outward from it. Our team will need more time to study it but our initial findings are that this is most likely a first-contact probe of some kind. The landing impact zone and the state of the hull of the object indicates that it did not travel far and was launched recently, perhaps within the last year. The structure is designed to withstand a maximum amount of pressure with a minimal amount of materials used. .... Our conclusion is that this probe came from the Gas Giant this moon is orbiting. We can secure it to the Lander with our docking clamps and bring it aboard, but the trip up to the ship will take twice as long and consume considerably more fuel, Captain. - -
The lander returns and the IGGD probe appears as a device in your manifest. Interacting with it while it is on board makes an interesting noise but nothing else. Naturally you head into orbit with the Gas Giant - Alpha Lipi II - . The order in which you visit these two worlds does not change the encounters, however further dialog with the Slylandro cannot be triggered until youve had the encounter of the Gas Giant.
- Alpha Lipi II - Attempting to orbit the Gas Giant you get the battle chime and enter a dialog screen with the menacing Kor-Ah. Here you get some of the same dialog explaining their plight and your filthiness. You cannot cut this conversations short, by inticing them to attack you, until you have learned what they are doing here. They explain they intercepted the signal sent by a sentient civilization inhabiting this planet and were just beginning the cleanse when you came along, and now you must die horribly. Your warp device will not work so close to a gravity well of this size.
Enter the battle encounter screen and there are 2 Kor-Ah marauders facing your fleet. You must be victorious or the IGGD will surely face annihilation.
You have valiantly eliminated the marauders but your scans still cannot penetrate into the Gas Giant, and your landers have nowhere to land. What is the fate of this race who launched the probe? Maybe Hayes and his people can help.
Back at Starbase Sol, Hayes' science team can further study the probe and partially decipher it's message. The signal is created by micro-magnetic fluctuations, they guess that these beings communicate in this manner. These Inner Gas Giant Dwellers survive in an environment that is almost unimaginably harsh and chaotic to our senses. They dwell in the shallow parts of the metallic hydrogen sea that separates a dense rocky core from a layer of non conductive liquid hydrogen. They have no sight or hearing as we could understand it, but have felt the pull of gravity from the moons of their home and reasoned that there might be other life to contact. Furthermore, it might be possible to modify the probe to send a message or a delegation back into the depths of the Gas Giant to determine the fate of the IGGD. This would be a long term mission however, and best suited to a race that could set up a colony nearby and monitor their progress. The modifications would require that we learn a great deal more about Gas Giants and their atmospheres. Captain if you could orbit and study enough Gas Giants and bring back enough samples of Noble Gases for experimentation we may be able to contact a previously unknown sentient species, but considering our current predicament, i'm not sure how that could help us defeat the Ur-Quan.
At this point the game starts keeping (hidden) track of how many Gas Giants you orbit and scan (you need 20 total) , previous scans do not count. Additionally how much Noble Gas you bring back to the starbase. (You need 500 total and the sources dont matter) Hayes will give you varying clues as to how much more you need. Once the tally is met the scientists will modify the IGGD probe into a small passenger vessel capable of delivering a smallish community of Slylandro into the atmosphere and then much deeper into the center of a Gas Giant.
The Druuge will trade you 1 mauler starship or the Trident of Wembley for the unmodified IGGD probe. (you cannot finish this quest without it, it's just an option)
You return to the Slylandro Home world. More dialog becomes available.
You tell the Slylandro about the discovery of a new Gas Giant-inhabiting species, and about their possible annihilation at the hands of the Kor-Ah. The fate of the IGGD remains unknown but you are working on a plan to send a delegation and search for survivors. This is possibly the only thing that could anger the Slylandro against another species enough to go to war. Their culture is obviously obsessed with the possibility that there could be other life who, like themselves, evolved intelligence on a Gas Giant world. They beg you to be the delegation to make contact.
You tell them how difficult the modifications will be, how much of your own resources you would have to put into such a mission. Resources that are already stretched thin with the war effort and time is growing short.
The Slylandro see the pressures placed upon you and agree to contribute to the war effort while also creating a diversion for the Kor-Ah fleets in exchange for transport to Alpha Lipi II.
They will reprogram the Slylandro explorer probes to attack only Kor-Ah vessels and use their component parts to replicate. Meanwhile you can slip thru the enemy lines and drop the Slylandro delegation into the atmosphere of the alien planet.
The dialogs between Sol and Beta Corvi will be set such that once you know what to do , you will not have to go back and forth multiple times, but if you will need to have the modified IGGD probe in your possession in order for the Slylandro to agree to attack the Kor-Ah.
At the successful conclusion of the Slylandro dialog, you will see a small sized Sphere of Influence for the slylandro appear at Beta Corvi and move in a straight line toward the Delphini Stars slipping between the Thraddash and Umgah spheres (if they still exist) and growing into a medium sized sphere before stopping. This will take about a month. The Kor-Ah and Ur-Quan fleets will crush the Slylandro probes in short order, and the Sphere of Influence will collapse into itself.
This will take a reasonable toll on the Kor-ah fleets though, and if the Thraddash are also sent to attack the Kor-ah, the combined distraction will buy you one more year of game time before the Kor-ah win the doctrinal war.
Anytime after this dialog you can take the modified IGGD probe to Alpha Lipi II, orbit the Gas Giant and activate it from the Manifest. This will cause it to disappear from your ship. Afterwards, any time you reenter the orbit of this world, you will get a Slylandro encounter just like at Beta Corvi. They will tell you that the new colony is thriving, that progress is being made toward reaching the core but that it may take a dranasa or two before we know the fate of the iron-based flatworm race.
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