The Melnorme Trader. After a zillion bouts of net melee, it feels like the ship with the most depth. Fights when playing as (or against) Melnorme are almost always varied and interesting.

AI Trader ships aren't very much fun to fight, on the other hand. The bot has crackerjack aim but it's easy to fake out, and it maneuvers foolishly. Consequently, most people reading this won't be able to relate to my appreciation of this ship.

Agreed. It's ship that's fun to fly and has a chance to win in any fight.

Apone of the Sulaco.

Another article on the Stardock title:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/01/stardock-ceo-reveals-details-about-new-star-control-title-in-development/

Great job everyone!

Very nice artwork! Keep up the good work.

I almost replied to this: "What level is the AI when you use the auto-resolve button", but then I realized that there isn't and never was auto-resolve in star control.

The Cyborg++ setting is more or less an auto-resolve setting. 

Interesting. Any new, creative game that comes from Paul and Fred is good news. Keep us posted.

2: Bin Laden

Really?  Why?

Gekko, I may be there as well. I am in France.

Agreed about the Oblivion difficulty mechanism. I didn't like how I could basically win the game as a level 1 character.

As for UQM, I do like the idea of  programming the AI to adapt to the player's tactics. For example, let's say the player defeats 10 Dreadnoughts with an Eluder. Is it not conceivable that an  intelligent species like the Ur-Quan would change their tactics? So when the 11th Dreadnought warps in, it pillboxes instead of chasing the Eluder, as OrzBrain mentioned.  If the player defeats the pillboxing Dreadnoughts x number of times, maybe the Ur-Quan try gravity whips/orbiting tactics. If this proves ineffective, the AI could cycle between chasing, pillboxing, and planet shenanigans just to mix things up.

This doesn't really give the AI a decided tactical advantage (as with the racing game example), but it does keep the player guessing as to which AI 'personality' they may be facing in battle.

Uncyclopedia rocks, I had such a good laugh with the MoO2 article,  being a megafan for that game and all

LoL at the MoO2 article. I had a good laugh over lunch reading this.

How about something that makes the Dreadnought accelerate faster (and attain higher velocities) than it does currently when using a gravity whip? It would be difficult to control at first, but more powerful in the right hands.

Nice job! Any chance of creating a view of the underbelly with the laser turret?

Cool find!