The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

So I have projected this game onto my gf, as I have to my brother and sister before her.

She has gotten real far in the game without figuring out the Shofixti- more specifically, the whereabouts of the beast. As I understand it its one of the first quests.
Apparently the thradash tell you where the beast is but she has sent them to the war and after that she became their master and still nothing about a beast (or the aqua helix).
As a new player not using the wiki, how would one find the beast and for the matter the helix?

There is a rather massive list of interactions and stuff that I have found that could be addressed when it comes for making better newcomer experience but this one is a particularly perplexing one.

Thanks for the replies in advance! :)

Buy it from the Melnorme...

The Shofixti are optional anyway, and th eHelix can be done nearly anytime, just like all other quests.

Also say welcome to her!

But the Thraddash don't tell you about the Helix, the Pkunk likely told her in which region to search...

She says thanks! :)
I dont think she got that diologe from the pkunk yet (at this point they are moving to the yehat).

As for the beast, I saw this on the wiki (https://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/VUX_Beast)

I did not want to give away direct hints.
And for then Pkunk hints you do need to visit them several times, which is otherwise a time-waster.


Does she know about Katana/Tanaka, and how to handle them when she visits them?

For the beast, ZEX gives you the hint that the constellation is something like "a snake that has swallowed the beast." And that the name is close to "Linch-nas-ploh." This is easier to follow if you have a starmap which shows the constellation shapes and connections, which was included on paper the original game.
http://www.star-control.com/files/Starmaps/03.png

She just let her ship die at first. I sort of nudged her at the ESC key. On that note, she didnt even know that she could escape battles.


The riddle was all but impossible for her I am afraid.  She simply had no way of knowing or finding out about the beast.
I didnt want to give that map since it has spoilers. Tho it would not of have helped much. She went to constellations like "hyades" and the ones near the Yehat since IRL those are snakes.


And she died to the death march- Really enjoyed the game and will try again so fingers crossed she can beat it this time! ^^

you can also toggle the starmap between 3 modes, one of which shows constellations. F7, I think it is?

Only in HD-mod and mods based off HD I believe.

It's the worst puzzle in the game IMHO. Hard to figure out.
Actually no the Mycon's one might be the worst.



SC2 is one of those games where it's pretty much inevitable that you'll fail the first playthrough. Kind of gives it some urgency.

Which part of it? It was pretty much fine in the original because you were told where Syra and their homeworld were..

For some reason, they didn't consider that worth including in the 3DO versions.

I'm talking about where to find the various egg shells - if you don't get it out of the melnorme. And the sun device.
Maybe I'm misremembering and thinking about the difficulty of the mycon puzzles in sc3.

Hello! I am said girlfriend; I've just completed my second playthrough and managed to beat the game! ... with a couple of gentle hints along the way. It's definitely one of my favourite games. :)

I was never told where exactly the star with the beast was, all I had was Zex's riddle. I did try to type Lynch-Nas-Ploh into the starmap and lyncis came up, but I just chalked that up to being the most similar word, and couldn't see the constellation drawn out so I brushed it aside. My thinking was that it had to be something to do with a snake so I tried sepentis, draconis and hyades instead. Eventually I was shown a map of the constellations and heavily prompted into finding it. The Shofixti definitely wasn't optional for me, I managed to lose over 1000 crew in my first run and at the time thought there would be a hard cap of 2000.

From a Pkunk's very fun dream I was told that the aqua helix was in Draconis, so I just explored all those stars until I found it.

As for the Mycon, I almost missed the sun device. I hadn't been told of any Mycon homeworld, so when the Syreen asked me to tell the Mycon to go to Organon, I went to Beta Brahe and because I got a dialogue option about Organon I assumed that I'd done what I needed to. My bf heavily hinted at the fact that they weren't moving and that I should try to find their homeworld. He urged me to go to Scorpii because it's a cool word and thankfully I decided to, I'm pretty sure I was close to the death march again.

Overall, I really enjoyed Ur-Quan and am desperate to find out more about the Mark II and the precursors. :)

Congrats, and welcome to the fanbase!

Also, nobody here understands why the dialogue option with the Source of Juffo-Wup has been taken out of the game for the 3DO version (on which UQM is based, as the source-code for the DOS version got lost). Best guess is they forgot to record the voce for that, and simply cut it out instead of rehiring the voce actor and recording studio,...


I remember having been tlold where to find the beast, and yes, there are two exact hints in the game, and I was allied with the Thraddash whi told me exactly.

edit: I was wrong then, as this information cannot be bought from the Melnorme.

Thanks! and I'm not surprised I missed those clues. I couldn't resist making my Thraddash rhyme and study Monty Python, and I instantly loved Fwiffo so I would never threaten him.

I fully agree.
Fwiffo is a gift by the makers of the game.^* The first time it took me ages to read everything, so Iwouldn't miss a single clue for later.

I love his best memory of his childhood, that his mother was ableto call him by his name.

And I immedialely understood I could get a "free" ship by listening to him.
And it set my tone for the rest of the game: diplomacy gets you further than aggression...

Regarding the Mycon homeworld: I remember I went everywhere in Mycon space anyway, to search for further Egg shell fragments.
Sooner or later you'd find their homeworld this way.
And their ships make easy RU once you got a good counter to their ship (the Human Cruiser is pretty apt at getting at them).


But searching plenty of stars for the Vux beast is annoying.
And I also never got the "accurate description" from ZEX.


Regarding the crew limit of the station: I also found it weird that a space station which has limited crew was able to transfer so many of its crew to my ships, the station must've been at a point close to being unable to continuously work correctly. Yet they still supplied me with crew.
I love the way the Ultronomicon explains this phenomenon:
So, our mission works with unmotivated, unskilled amateurs.
Well, they're mostly Redshirts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(novel)) anyway.


So any replay plans to find out about the rest of the game?


^*: I dread what would happen if this was a Disney game, merchandise-wise....

Fwiffo definitely picked up my interest in the game. I'd started it a couple of times and always got up to the point where I had access to the starbase and then didn't play again, but once I fully explored Sol and found Fwiffo I was hooked. When I first saw his ship on Pluto, I was expecting some text like the moon base so when I got attacked I was really startled, but quickly grinning. :)

I got pretty good at blasting apart Mycons with my Hellbore cannons, but I mainly enjoyed beating up the Vux as I went through all their apology dialogue.

I loved that line from the Ultronomicon. cx
 
I don't think I'm going to replay it any time soon. I did really enjoy it, but I was pretty in-depth with my second playthrough and after looking on the wiki, had hit pretty much all the main events and characters so I proceeded to devour all the lore I could. I was expecting there to be something more with the Orz or Androsynth but I couldn't find anything else on the wiki.

As for merchandise, I wouldn't mind a Melnorme plushie, they look so cuddleable. :3

I fully agree. A Mael-Num cuddle would be awesome.

Yes, the lore was extensive for such a game, but also purposefully cut short at certain limits, to allow the player's imagination to fill in.
Hence my fear that no follow-up game could ever get to fulfil expectations.

Lorewise, SC3 (by a different maker) did well, but closed too many storylines, and left not enough open to interpretation.
Some elements of SC3 I really liked, (just like I disliked many)  but that's a different topic.

I don't think Fred COULD fire Paul, who, IIRC, was the Mycon voice.

If so, it was just studio access.