The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I've been messing around in the melee again, this time with the good ol' green goliath. There were two matches in particular that were extremely challenging and entertaining in particular that I thought I would mention here.

The first one is a simple 1 on 1: Kzer-za vs. Pkunk. While it is luck-based to some extent, it is possible to consistently bring him down if he revives two times or less. Any more and you're probably doomed. This little purple monster is seemingly impossible to hit; always flying between your firing arcs. First off, you'll want to take a look at how the computer fights this because it's a crackshot with the fusion blaster. I usually mimick the computer by attacking with both fighters and blaster in tandem. The fighters rarely do damage, but for some reason the Fury is much easier to hit when he's distracted. Make sure to pick up your fighters when they're spent. Lastly, stay away from the planet. Gravity whipping only makes this match harder for some reason.

Kzer-za vs. Hierarchy of Battle Thralls (only the ones that were present in the great war). A group of battle thralls has turned against their masters so you must make an example of the fools and put the rest of their respective species back in line. The VUX will ruin any chance of winning if you get them as your first opponent, but they won't mean a thing otherwise if you remember to hold the thrust down after every match. Besides that, the Androsynth and Spathi will prove to be very tough nuts to crack. With the 'Synths, fly far away and launch a pair of fighters to piss them off while plummeting forward in a gravity whip (even this can go wrong). With a little luck, they'll blow all their fuel cometing without touching you and you'll be close by for the immenent slaughter. There's no real trick to fighting the Spathi except that you should never, ever, chase them. Update: To clarify, you only get one ship here.

If anyone wants to add anything, by all means please do. As long as it's about playing as or against Ur-Quan Dreadnoughts.

Actually the Ur-Quan is one of the ships I use that I can take out every other ship in the game pretty well (except the Chmmr, and that's a sometime thing b/c it's hard to get enough shots in sometimes before you go down - then of course sometimes the shots hit the zapsats).

The other two ships I have a problem with that I manage about 90% of the time with and don't knock them out always is the Androsynth and the Chenjesu.  The andy because it's hard to keep the main gun lined up on him as he's ramming you, and the chenjesu because of the DOGIs and because he's hard to catch...getting better on both of those though...

But basically everything dies 99.99% of the time when I'm a Ur-Quan at full strength.

If you want tips, just ask  ;D

Chenjesu isn't that bad. I win that one by launching fighters all over the place and staring down DOGI's with my front. The Pkunk I've gotten better at while playing, but he still beats me if he gets really, really lucky.

What I'm having trouble with is beating the combined old Alliance of Free Stars. The Yehat alone is pretty fierce, but with all those things at once it becomes impossible.

One of my personal favorite matchups is taking on the kzer-za with arilou.  The skiff is fast and very manueverable, meaning it can get behind the big ship and unload it's blasters without too much danger.  The main threat is the fighters, and that's the fun part - take a page out of Han Solo's playbook circa battle of Hoth, and fly very close to nearby asteroids to get the fighters to crash into them.

Taking on a dreadnaught with a probe is similiar, but a bit more difficult due to the probe's more challenging handling, and it's lack of a teleporter.

I sure as heck wouldn't want to take on an utwig in a dreadnought.

Rightful Rulers of Half the Galaxy vs. Weeping Sissies. Here's what you do: fly away and launch a pair of fighters into him. Just one. They don't shoot fast enough to keep his energy shield up forever, so it runs out. The AI isn't too smart about shooting your fighters down, so this isn't very difficult

Usually I got out of the habit of sending fighters because they'd always die...I'd end up losing all of them and not even have the Chenjesu down half strength before I was in a position that I could get hurt easily...usually what I do is set up shots off of gravity whips - worked better for me...might try different ways of setting my fighters up...

Playing against Ur-Quan...actually that's very easy with the dumb AI - it'll launch off all the fighters at you almost...basically if you have anything that'll outrun the fighters, all it takes is a lot of patience at shooting debris and keeping away from the main ship then going after the main ship ;D  Off the top of my head, Zot-Foq-Pik, Shofixti, Supox (note on this one), Yehat, and Pkunk can work on that one.  Kohr-Ah works that way too and you get the extra bonus of the blade maybe going into the main ship.

Supox: actually better than shooting down the debris is using the drive system to situate the fighters behind the main ship and get the main ship to chase you...it'd keep launching fighters behind it that chase you the same way as the ship does....so you just keep going backwards and shooting to keep away from threats and he dies...

Slylandro has kind of been my recent success with the Ur-Quan....basically stay away from the fighter mass, then get behind the main ship and fire away (of course you take some hits as he launches his fighters)....then bug out when you need to find an asteroid....I'm up to about 70-80% on this one...

Utwig - time shield, allow ur-quan to discharge batteries, shoot while discharged, shield, rinse and repeat.

Earth Cruiser - keep turning away and wrap around the side and fire...Ur-Quan goes down...

Of course there's always Spathi-Fu, and a bunch of other ships I'm probably not thinking about....

That's the funny thing, one argument for getting the AI smartened is that I have a whole laundry list of ships that will take out the Ur-Quan just like I can take out a whole laundry list of ships that die IMO rather easily by the Ur-Quan...

One generic tip: Use your fighters and your ship as a team...don't just launch your fighters (unless that works), use the main ship along with them.

Old Alliance of Free Stars:
Earthling cruiser - very hard to fight as eluded to above...usually what I like to do is launch a few fighters (2-4) and then give chase...the 2-4 are sacrificed to the point defense, but it's 4-8 people that aren't killed on my main ship....usually it ends up as the cruiser trying to outrun me and then I blast him apart with the fusion cannon...but launching the fighters gives me time to get to the cruiser w/o getting blasted 2-3 times with nukes.

Arilou - I do the side drift thing - I get moving in one direction, point the gun and just start firing...if you launch fighters it just keeps teleporting...

Shofixti - same thing as Arilou - try to keep distance from it though.

Mmrnmhrm - it never is hardly in the X form near me, so I try to blast it in the Y-form as it passes.  Fighters never seem to last long enough to catch it in the X-form to blow it apart - although I reckon you could try to set up a swarm (worth trying next time I play melee) and see what happens.

Spathi & Syreen - usually I launch a couple of fighters and these ships get moving more linearly so I just blast them when they come close...remember the fusion cannon has hella-range, so use it in all cases.

Yehat - I launch a bunch of fighters and time it so he can't get away from them (smarter AI anyone?  the AI just launches fighters, there's strategic *times* to launch them)...the Yehat doesn't have the speed to get away from them if they're already there so it shields and gets picked apart...

That's what I do anyway....

Here's how you do that one at least playing against the AI....just launch a pair of ships (remember timing again, Utwig doesn't need a chance to shoot them down)...it shields as it tries to run away to turn and kill them and will drain the shield (one fighter shot blocked versus 2 units used if the fighters DO manage to get shots off) ...meanwhile when it runs you chase and the moment the shield's drained let loose hell  ;D

FWIW, and not trying to brag, just trying to provide a little prespective on what I said earlier...from playing melee just now against 1 of each of the ships mentioned.

Ur-Quans versus Old Alliance of Free Stars (Arilou, Chenjesu, Earthling, Mmrnmhrm, Shofixti, Syreen, Yehat): 2 ships used 1 casualty on 2nd ship.  Major contributor for demise of 1st ship - Chenjesu.  2nd major contributor for demise of 1st ship - Earthling.  Demise of first ship came against Yehat with 3 Ur-Quan on ship.

Ur-Quan versus Hierarchy (Androsynth, Ilwrath, Mycon, Spathi, Umgah, Ur-Quan, VUX): 1 ship used, 7 Ur-Quan remain on ship.  Major contributor for deaths on ship: Androsynth.

Just a little "backup" I guess to what I posted earlier.  Let's just say I like piloting the Ur-Quan...

Look up. Notice that I just posted something to the same effect.

You don't really need to put an Ur-Quan into the Hierarchy group for that fight because it kills the "plot" of it (why would an Ur-Quan revolt?) while not really contributing anything seeing as how Dread vs. Dread is something anyone can win virtually without a casualty if they know what to do.

Just now my personal flavor of the month ship is the mycon podship.  If I manage to come up with some workable anti-dreadnought tactics, I'll be sure to share em.

I responded to everything I saw in the thread w/o refreshing it.  You wrote your message while I wrote the tips message.

I put the Ur-Quan there to get parity between it and the alliance match (7 ships, 7 ships).

The most cost-effective Dreadnought-killer?  Some may argue the Earthling Cruiser or even the Ilwrath Avenger...  I'd argue its the Yehat Terminator, mainly because I can take out approxamitely two Dreadnoughts per Terminator.  If I was just fighting one-on-one ships, I may take the Cruiser...  not that the battle is a guaranteed win, even if I am an expert Cruiser pilot.  :P

What, are you kidding? The Spathi, Utwig, and Supox (if you can fly that one right) can kill an infinite number of Dreadnoughts. Or at least they could if it weren't for planets, which don't belong in hyperspace anyway.

Utwig...? Don't they have trouble with fighters?
Spathi... don't they also have trouble being boxed in by fighters from opposite directions?

If we're talking vs CPU....no, the fighters are no trouble for an utwig.  The computer either launches so many they can't punch through the shield, or none at all.

Vs a human...well, I still would expect the utwig to nuke a dreadnaught pretty well.  The fighters will just get picked off too easily.  Fast turning speed, wide shot, infinite ammo for it's main gun....juggers are just bad news.

But once the fighters get in range, they are able to stay to the side and will not shake off. It's a bad scene. You have to slingshot to get ahead of them.

Agreed about the Spathi.  I always keep 2 Eluders for going to the Sa-Matra, and use them to pick apart the 3-dreadnought / 3-marauder guardian force.  One is usually enough - 2, tops (in case one of them goes down, it's almost always to the Kohr-Ah).

And even if you slingshot to avoid the fighters, who's to say you'll even tag all or even most of them..

Well, first the fighters have to get in range.  Not an easy task, since the jugger has infinite guns, and a fairly wide shot.  If the quan only sends in 2, picking them off with front side guns is no difficult task.  If it sends in enought that taking them all out before they get there is a problem, then they'll recharge the shields enough to keep them up forever.  Eventually the fighters will run out of fuel and have to return to the dreadnaught, assuming they don't have any unfortunate asteroid related accidents in the meantime - and if you're trying to get those fighters off, you'll go out of your way to ensure it has those unfortunate asteroid related accidents.

Not to mention, you can always charge the dreadnaught, fighters or not, and give it the choice between using fusion bolts and possibly recharging the shield, or seeing if it can withstand jugger blasts until the fighters finish the job.