The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

ok, this is crunch time. Your best ships vs my best ships. Keep in mind this is the only game i play for hours and hours a day. What would you play against my best-in order of my skill, 1 the best 10 the worst

1.Androsynth Blazer
2.Orz Nemesis
3.Chmmr Avatar
4.Arilou Skiff
5.Ur-Quan Dreadnought
6.Yehat Terminator
7.Druuge Molar
8.Utwig Jugger
9.Supox Blade
10.Kohr-Ah Marauder

Keep in mind, if you try any chmmr BS it will not work.
-Dagger-
Winner of the South Ohio Regional SC melee contest>yea, there is one.

I see some Chmmr bs on your list.

Anyhow, in the following order to defeat your team.

1. Marauder
2. Marauder (the same as #1)
3. Chenjesu Broodhome or a combo of the Broodhome with what's left of the Marauder
4. Avatar or Fury
5. Avatar, Terminator, Broodhome, Marauder, Jugger
6. Ilwrath Avenger
7. Supox Blade, Fury, Skiff, or whatever the hell the Umgah call their ship
8. Another Jugger, Fury, Avenger
9. Fury or Earthling Cruiser
10. Anything but Avatar

1. Shofixti and finish you off with something else,  Dreadnought, maybe Ilwrath
2. Androsynth
3. Androsynth
4. Pkunk, shofixti, cruiser, or Chmmr (if you used one I can too)
5. Jugger, Terminator, or Spathi
6. Vux or Melnorme
7. Cruiser, Fury, Skiff, or ZFP
8. Vux, Androsynth, Chenjesu, or Orz
9. Arilou or Pkunk
10. Chenjesu, Ur-quan, or Spathi

I think he's saying he can kick Chmmr ass...maybe...or is it another word besides kick? lol

1. Make like the French and surrender.
2. PKUNK!
3-10. N/A, as I have surrendered.

is this really so great an advantage? An androsynth can comet in and latch onto the middle of the Marauder which is like a big bowl... the marauder is toast if the androsynth gets there on half a battery.

easy
1.Slylandro-smal chance you can catch up to me.
2.Chmmr, no gettin past my zaps
3.Easy-druuge
4.Orz
5.uhh,, probably supox or arilou or slylandro
6.Easy, Dreadnought
7.Arilou
8.Kohr-Ah
9.Supox
10.Dreadnought

Rock, you make some strange choices
2: you would put an AVATAR against an Orz? The orz can stay out of range and pelt the nemesis to death -- the howitzer shells are tough enough to take a zap or two.

8: you would send a Kohr-Ah against a Jugger? I am curious as to your choice of tactics in this battle.

9: supox is the best thing against supox?

Ok main reasons for Avatar
1)Yes, but have you heard of the weave method, as my friend calls it? Orz may be able to pelt you from a distance, if you play it the wrong way. This seems to work for me.

a.first, find the nearest asteroid and follow it for a while, be sure to have the Orz in the gravity lock.

b.then, once you have the asteroids path for a while, reverse direction and try as hard as you can to keep the dumb ship in a straight line.

c. If the timing is right, you have to be goin at the right angle, speed, all that, the asteroid will hit you hard, must be a bug or something, but you GO FLYING.

d.If you had the Orz on the gravity lock the whole time it should be pretty close to direstly behind you. When you bounce back, turn the laser on, and fire away. It should be able to knock out the Orz in one try, but if it doesnt fully kill him, try again.

THIS WAY TOOK ME FOREVER TO LEARN- sometimes if the Orz is about to spin out of control, you have to ease up on the gravity lock, then put it back on.

Sorry, I meant Ur-Quan Dreadnought, for obvious reasons.

As for the Supox, i've been training on Shiver's Supox method or whtever, and i've gotten pretty good. If this guy as as good as he says with a Supox, then he will surely pull a ton of Supox BS.Unless you want to chase around a Supox with a Dreadnought, Marauder or....(shudder) an Avatar, I would suggest using a Supox or another fast ship. Supox are pretty Damn fast once they get moving.

I'd still rather send in a Chenjesu against the Utwig. Barring unfortunate warp-in situations, this is one-sided.

So, pretty much, what you're saying is that the Supox is the best ship in the game?

I'm flattered that someone would think of me as the first person to master this vessel, but I've heard a few mention before how great the Blade can be months before I ever tried it.

Anyway, Rock is saying that there's no hard counter to the Supox vessel which isn't much of a stretch due to how it performs reasonably well against everything. But I can name one ship off the top of my head that completely rapes Supox: the Androsynth Guardian.

I just remembered another Supox killer: the Slylandro Probe.

Pkunk Fury and Arilou Skiff both do good too, and also the Shofixti (which can kill or badly damage almost anything when well-flown).

nah, i'm not sayin its the best in the game. Far from, I guess I just like a challenge against a fellow Supox? I mean, if he's crazy good, i suppose i would use something different. But I guess i'm pretty good with my Supox, it would be a fn fight.

BTW, Shiver, once you get the Slylandro going and learn some of its tricks, I'd say at least top 3 ships in the game.
It is soo awesome once you master its tricky controls and weapon system.

I suck with the Supox. I have never gotten good with it and probably never will. In fact, I'd rather have a Shofixti on my team than a Supox any day. I'm sure some people can fly the Blade really effectively, but I can't.

Slylandro I don't like that much either, although I'm not as bad at flying it as the Supox.

Lots of people say the Vux sucks, but I think it's underrated. It's not an awesome killer, but it's really not that bad. And it's fun to fly.

You know what I find interesting? In all the best/worst ship polls, the Syreen is the only one that is never mentioned.

I HATE the Penetrator, man, it's unmanuverable, not quite fast enough, has the attacking power of a Shofixti Scout minus the Glory Device, and has a super lame 2nd attack.
I dont like the whole recruting idea.

I would argue otherwise.  This ship is exactly the opposite of what you are claiming, in my mind...

The Penetrator has great acceleration a start-up speed ("0 to 60" if you will) that is bested only by the Skiff.  The front nose of the ship can spin like nothing else, easily allowing the ship to dodge incoming fire.  The primary device is only meant to finish off enemy ships.

The power of this ship is the super wicked 2nd attack.  A good Syreen pilot will finish the battle with more crew than she had to begin.  It is one of the most original ships.  I think it takes away the whole "armor-plated, perfectly armed" ship type which is all about firepower.  It's a perfect fit for the gypsy Syreen and their secondary attack is one of my favourite in the game.  Using both abilities in unison makes this ship one of the most enjoyable to pilot and battle in the entire game.

well, actually, I take that back, they are pretty fast off the mark, but as far as manuverability, are u sure? I may be a bit rusty, but I dont remember a super good manuvering system.

Now, as for the 2nd attack, I still dispise it.

sorry if this posted twice, i tried to delete my old one.

1.Slylandro probe-I agree with Rock
2.hmm, probably dreadnought
3.orz or maurader
4.chmmr
5.chmmr
6.dreadnought
7.arilou
8.dreadnought or orz
9.umm, probably marauder.
10.dreadnought.

I used to hate the Penetrator too, but I really started to appreciate it after playing SC1. It could crush all of the Hierarchy ships except for the Ur-Quan themselves, and you can take them down as well if you happened to pick up the full 42 crew. In the "Beginner's Luck" mission, you get a single Syreen Penetrator against two Androsynth, a starbase and a colony. They build another ship if you don't move fast, but the mission is actually quite simple.

The only ship I liked better was the Yehat Terminator, because that thing just plain ruled against every ship in the game. The Chenjesu Broodhome doesn't seem so impressive after you get ripped apart by a single VUX, but it's the best thing to use against a Dreadnought.

The crappiest ship, in my opinion, is that stupid Mmrnmmhrm thingy. The only damaging tactic with it is to fly straight at the enemy in Y form to get momentum then switch to X and fire away. That's assuming they don't dodge you and you end up sailing past them harmlessly, which usually happens.

One thing I haven't been able to find anywhere are some general strategies for melee. See, I suck at the combat part of SC2. Suck suck suck suck suck.

I'm HORRID at it. I can take on the Thraddash with a Chmmr and come away 1/3 damaged and missing a zapsat. I get worked over by the Mycon and VUX. I can't take down Dreadnoughts and Marauders without at least a 1:1 loss ratio. Put bluntly, I'm terrible. :-/

I know you can use the Precursor ship with a goodly number of Shiva Reactors and the Hellbore Cannon to take down most things, and I do use it (usually losing up to 20 crew per battle, however!), but you can't use that in melee and it seems cheap to use the battleship in the first place. I want to learn to actually USE the various ships in the game, and use them well.

I've picked up on various individual strategies, though I can't seem to actually DO most of them, but I'd like to know what your general melee piloting tricks and tips are. Nothing inherently specific to one ship (though I won't complain about it ;D ), just in general. How can I avoid people and still close in to attack? How can I strafe with ships that can strafe? When is the best time and orientation to deploy fighters, marines, use the Penetrator syreen song, employ the Chmmr tractor beam, launch VUX limpets, etc.? About the only specific tactic I've gotten to do consistently so far is to ram with the red Melnorme torpedo after firing off a confusion thing. It works, but I still suck.

To summarize: How do you get good? I can't even keep myself from hitting the planet, let alone beat a Marauder with the Supox.  :P

One general rule of thumb I follow in SC1 and SC2 melee is to always make the enemy follow you.  The velocity of your shots is not relative to your velocity, so if you're chasing someone, they have greater "range" than you do.  Often, there are ships that you can just leisurely sail backwards while the computer follows you, getting hit by multiple missiles, shells, or photon bursts.

Nakar: There's some melee trainer matches I posted in another thread - if you can find them it would give you a great start in getting some practice at getting good.  Basically you set up all one kind against all of another kind and practice until you can win one sided like.

If it helps, here's the first 3 I can think of I'd suggest.  In that trainer post, I posted some VERY hard skill matches, but these 3 should start you off to getting good.  Basically the idea with these matches is that they get very easy if you get good with your piloting skills and control.

1) Arilou (you) vs. Mycon.
2) Zot-Foq-Pik (you) vs. Mycon.
3) Zot-Foq-Pik (you) vs. Kohr-Ah.

Basically too it helps to push yourself on terms of skill before it becomes a challenge.  

Right now when I play melee I use a mixture of either SC1 or SC2 ships.  I play against two groups I made up called "Best of the Best" and "Very Best Of All" and usually end up fighting at a 80-150 pt deficit and winning about 80% of the time.  But then again I've played this game non-stop since the beginning.  Sometimes for grins though I play another group I set up called "Best of the Rest", which is basically all the ships that aren't in the "Best of the Best" group.  What are these things?

Best of the Best - Basically all the ships in point order from very best down until I couldn't fill up the team with any more.  Chmmr, Kohr-Ah, Ur-Quan, Chenjesu, Yehat, Utwig, Mycon, Orz, Pkunk, Mmrnmhrm, Spathi, Slylandro, Melnorme, Druuge. (316-227)

Very Best of the Best - First 7 of the following list repeated twice. (usually 368-227)

Best of the Rest - All the ships that didn't show up in the first group - Earthling, Arilou, and Androsynth repeated twice to fill up the team.

As far as the precursor ship goes, you can build it up very easy to kick around all the races (Yehat & Utwig excluded) with very little skill or effort...

Hope this helps, and try those first three matchups until you win consistently...you'll get good.

An additional thing on the Arilou Mycon training match I mentioned....get so you can beat the Mycon both ways - without firing a shot and firing...

ZoqFotPik vs. Kohr-Ah? Are you nuts? Wait a sec, let me try that...

Update: Yeah, it's possible to win ZoqFotPik vs Kohr-Ah. I just did, but it took me more tries than I care to remember. Do NOT attempt this match if you're bad at melee.

Yeah it is hard...it's a match to get good at, shouldn't do anything in a real melee match unless you're good...basically it involves dodging the blades and then whipping back around in between shots and popping him with the tongue and letting the momentum carry you backwards away and then you continue dodging the blades until Kohr-Ah gets moving forward again....repeat 4 times Kohr-Ah dies....

Takes a lot of timing to pull off, even against the computer.  Sometimes I get very frustrated hearing that "Blah" sound when I whip around...sometimes it's very hard for me, but other days it just happens so easy....

Like I said it's a trainer match - something to get you better....

Actually I'm up to winning about 80% now on this match....

The one I'm like you now on Shiver is VUX (me) versus Kohr-Ah.  I'm figuring out how to win that one some of the time now...wonder how long it'll take for me to get good enough on it...the first time I did it it was like "Woah!"...

Moral of the story is to never give up on any battle, you might find a way to win that you can practice and get - I always try with any ship I end up with (except maybe Umgah or Spathi vs. Spathi or some other battle that's boring to win).

Side Q: What the heck do I change in keys.cfg to get the keys configured the way I want them? I want "z" to be the primary and "x" to be the secondary attack, perhaps also using "z" to confirm, "x" to cancel, etc. But I can't seem to figure it out from the keys.cfg file; when I change things around "z" only confirms menu selections and thrusts in melee(?), and I still have to hit space to primary-fire ("x" works, though I can't cancel with it).

I think this will improve my success rate a lot. The default controls are sort of tricky.

http://www.geocities.com/jdaggar/starcon/
Enjoy the Sauce - Teaches you how to *dance* with the best of 'em.

http://www.classicgaming.com/starcontrol/shptoshp/
SHP to SHP - Huge database of every ship vs. ship combo you could ever thing of.

Am I missing something?

As the post said, it's SC1. If you want to play it, you can via Genesis ROM. But you aren't missing a whole lot. Not to say that SC1 isn't fun, it's just that the melee doesn't run so well on the Genesis and SC2 is better.

If you were refering to beating two Androsynth without much effort, then you should try flying a Syreen vs. Androsynth in melee. Just remember that singing does all the damage; the front gun is only to finish him off. If he charges at you, your best bet is to point right at him and hold down both weapons at once.

Update: If you still have doubts after the match about the Syreen Penetrator, try playing as an Androsynth against one. She's very good at dodging the blaze attack.

I doubt I would take up the challenge; I'm not the sort of individual to learn various ship types, but instead pick one specific one and excel/specialize at using said ship.

Meaning, I'd pick the Marauder constantly, and probably be wiped out rather early by a ship that would work particularly well against it.

It's just how I am. I prefer specialization over generalization. Even if it means specializing in one thing at the cost of being very good at several or decent at many.