Oh, on the subject of X-COM, I reccommend UFO2000 as worth checking out. Ever wanted to go head-to-head with another player? Now you can! Note that there's no "campaign" mode - battles are strictly skirmishes unless you want to keep track of it another way.

I just checked and the top 10 is there. UQM is not in any of them.

That said, Deus Ex came in at a well-deserved 11.

Also, hilarious rage at lack of UQM/SC2. Yes it's an awesome game, but the problem is the fanbase is somewhat small. The initial learning curve is more of a steep cliff, and it's one of those games where you're screwed unless you're really inquisitive and lucky, or you know what to do. Or maybe both.

Something I agree with. The way Orz refers to itself and talks about *fingers* rather than *many bubbles* leads one to believe it's a single entity with many projections. Imagine an artificial intelligence on a mainframe; that's Them/Orz-Brain down *Below*, where it can't physically interact with anything. The *fingers* are the security cameras, automated turrets and maintenance robots, if you will.

If you assuem that many bubbles are conciousness yes. But what if bubbles are atoms? Then the Orz isn't a silly light projection like us, but something very different. Something that shouldn't exist here.

And yet does.

*dramatic chord*

Though one would think that if something tried to pass into our dimension, which had massively different rules from it's home dimension, that the thing in question would just be unable to. Like a human trying to survive underwater with no oxygen tank or method of getting air from the water, and no shelter, but far more drastic, or something.

And here I was hoping it'd be ZFP-only teams.

4) Orz I believe is a single overmind which uses *fingers* which is in a sense uses the host Androsynth bodies from which it communicates and fights.

That's what I think

Something I agree with. The way Orz refers to itself and talks about *fingers* rather than *many bubbles* leads one to believe it's a single entity with many projections. Imagine an artificial intelligence on a mainframe; that's Them/Orz-Brain down *Below*, where it can't physically interact with anything. The *fingers* are the security cameras, automated turrets and maintenance robots, if you will.

Off topic:
At this point I'd like to add, as a speaker of ONE language, how amazed and impressed I am at those of you who have mastered english as your second. I know its a reasonably hard language to avoid in this day and age, but still the grammer and spelling of you guys is perfect - better than most of my mono-lingual friends. NIce!

There's a reason this has been QOTW for another forum for the last year or two;

Moses2k: If you vote for me, I'll suspend each user's account until he or she is able to pass a timed college-level English exam. One chance.
Pestcontrol: You'd end up with a forum full of foreighners.
-- Members discussing new moderators

I have to agree with the masses. Alright, yes, we know that you think the Utwig voice is annoying/whathaveyou. We get it. It's not that bad, hell, it's not bad per se, it's just that the depressedness is overdone. Slow down and be reasonable about this protest.

Hell, record your own damn voices for them.

[EDIT:]

Also investigating this one. It looks like it could be kinda fun. Neat backstory too.

EDIT: It's no UQM SuperMelee, but it's good nonetheless. Very complex gameplay. Easy to learn, but difficult to master! Shiny, runs smoothly, and lots of tactical elements - it's not as simple and perhaps brutal as some SuperMelee matches, but there are plenty of interesting weapons to play around with. Chenjesu fans will enjoy the scatter bomb I'm sure.

There are six classes of weapon, and each contains three sub-weapons;

There's your basic assault weapons - Blasters, Rockets and Scatterbombs.

Blasters fly in a fixed path, though it can be curved. They're small blue bolts of energy - not very powerful but a bread and butter weapon. I'm not sure how Blasters upgrade - I wasn't really paying attention. I expect they get more powerful.

Rockets fly forward fairly slowly, but they can be aimed around obstacles using the curve function, much like blasters. Rockets won't damage anything unless activated - just hit your spacebar and off they go, thrusters ignited. They'll keep going until they hit something and explode. The Rocket upgrades to the Scatterpack, which launches out and fires half a dozen rockets automatically.

Scatterbombs are very similar to the Chenjesu Broodhome's weapon. A scatterbomb flies forward, inert, until activated - at which point it releases 8 shots in a loose circle. When upgraded, the scatterbomb turns into a scatterwedge, which sprays a wedge of projectiles when detonated in a tight formation, like a shotgun.

Haven't really toyed with the others much yet.

It also has the benefit of being a mere $19.95 (I admit, my perception of these numbers is somewhat biased due to exchange rates) so it may well be worth that sum.

And don't derail the damn thread. You can't definitely say people like or don't like music.

Ten of my favourites, with soundtracks where appropriate;

Frank Klepacki (Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn through to Red Alert 2)
Jeremy Soule (TA, WHM40k: DoW/WA/DC, SupCom, etc.)
Machinae Supremacy
Jon Hallur (EvE Online)
Bill Brown (Generals / Zero Hour)
Steve Jablonsky/Trevor Morris (Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars)
Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear Solid 2)
Toshikazu Tanaka (Metal Slug 3/4/5)
David Bergeaud (Ratchet & Clank series)
Holst (Planets Suite)

You know after hearing most of the sounds on here I suggest we band the best together to make an unofficial sound pack for UQM net melee, because personally I think most of the sounds can be changed to sound better, anyone agree?

Looks like extensive work has already been done in that regard.
http://www.medievalfuture.com/precursors/

That's purely music, not the actual firing sound effects and whatnot. The remixed victory ditties are in the first pack, however.

Probably just a minor shading issue. I expect if you look that closely at all other blue planets the same effect will be visible.

Naturally people are going to ask questions about the Orz, like we have, and kick up a load of conspiracy theories. If the Orz really are part of the same entity that snagged the Androsynth, then the matter is settled. I mean it's fairly obvious that they're heavily involved, being in Androsynth space, and with the logs from the Androsynth computers and so on. Obviously it may just be a smokescreen to hide what the Orz really is, but then maybe that's what Paul would -want- us to think, in which case we're doing all the work for him.

A cunning plan.

I like the Orz voice, myself. In the kind of crazy disembodied telephone operator voices, it suits them because they're obviously not from this universe. Their terms and such only help to confuse.

The Utwig voice, however, does make me quite *frumple*. I have tried *squeezing* the *juice*, but it does not even helping.

EDIT: really, for the Utwig I just turn the volume down. I do agree the whininess was overdone.

About TimeWarp, I've got only one thing to say: More than 16 facings is bad. OK, maybe more than one thing - some of the ships aren't bad, indeed (for example the Sefy Nautilus and that ship with two bending lasers), but the colorless graphics and the "advanced" melee system are horrible.

I like the fact there's multiple facings myself, but I have to agree that some of the ships could be a lot better, and some are just purely unbalanced. The "Tau Missile Cruiser", for example, is practically invincible to light craft - very few vessels stand a chance of taking down this behemoth - namely the Alary Battlecruiser (it's MIRV warhead can overload and penetrate the MC's shielding and it's own shielding, armour and crew count can withstand multiple hits from the MC's nuke missile if the turrets can't manage to shoot the missiles down) and another Missile Cruiser. Also, the missiles are far too dark and it's very hard to aim the rocket turret properly. Finally, the missile is ridiculously overpowered to the point where it can destroy most ships in two shots, some of the smaller ships in one.

The Kzer-Za just need to work on their marketing skills ("boon of slavery" doesn't sell it very well...) - their demands are pretty simple and generally quite attractive as a general idea.

I'd recommend the Space Empires series for it's strategy aspects. I'm not so keen on #5 due to the UI, but I love #4 and it's probably one of my oldest games that I still play.