Excellent reply, Azzizi, but i think you forgot the most important factor that keeps all of us playing UQM: Fwiffo.

--
Hazul

Of course, but I think that ties into the 'favorite character' category, don't you? ;>

Tell me, in your opinion, what's the best compiler for making a game in (Windows, 3-d?).

I would go with MSVC 6.0. Two reasons:

First, windows. MS, given that they sort of own Windows, makes a very good IDE/Compiler for Windows apps. (I mean, who wouldn't expect that?) In my experience, you tend to get a bit better performance and stability out of MSVC apps under windows, because it was specifically designed to build them.

Second, because if you plan to do a game, given the sorts of hardware on the market(especially for 3D work), it's best to give the user as many options for taking advantage of their hardware as possible. Which, to cut to the chase, means that ideally, you really want to offer the choice of OpenGL, Direct 3D, and pure software rendering if possible. Some cards just work better under OpenGL or DirectX, and some heavy-processor systems will get best results out of software rendering, though that's probably the least necessary (and hardest) of the three to implement. So, MSVC is a good choice at that point because the DirectX API was designed to work with it, and OpenGL isn't really any worse off than anything else.

Finally, MS or no, it's just a very nice IDE. Say what you will about Microsoft, but there are a few places where the company turns out very, very nice products, and their developer tools are generally one of them.

I will admit to a slight touch of pseudo-hypocrisy here, because I do all my code in DirectX but not OpenGL. This has more to do with the fact that getting good at using two different APIs at the same time is confusing and vaguely foolhardy, though.

I'm going to draw a parallel here, so stick with me.

From what I can tell, the fact is that UQM has the same appeal one finds in, to cite an example everyone is familiar with, Star Wars.

Not a bad thing to be compared to, for a video game not all that many people have really heard of, eh?

Well, let's look at what, really, has made SW so enduring and prolific.

A. A massive universe. Not so much in terms of what Lucas actually laid down when it was conceived of and released, but more in terms of the *feel* of the setting. While you only actually saw and heard about a small selection of the galaxy, you had the feeling that it was immense. You coul tell that there were countless locations outside of the ones you were actually getting to see. Likewise, SC2 gives the feel that there's a LOT more out there to see. Which is always a compelling sort of thing.

B. Interesting characters. Everybody has a favorite SW character, and most of the time, they care about what happens. Everyone's got their least favorites, too, and so on. Thus it is with SC2, as well.

C. Hooks. One of the things that has left SW as such an enduring phenomenon is that there have always been a wide range of things to hooks stories, ideas, speculative discussions, and what all else into. In Star Wars, there are people used as extras in scenes, locations alluded to, technologies, events mentioned in passing, and all manner of such things to catch people's attention, and thus it is with SC2/UQM as well. And that ties in directly with the last point...

D. Limited disclosure. Which is to say, we're not told everything. There are unanswered questions. In fact, both SW and UQM raise more questions about story and setting than they answer. Actually, I rescind that. Most of the story questions are answered. It's the supporting, surrounding setting and history where the questions spring up. Thus, the story remains satisfying, but there is much room for growth.

In SW, this comes in the form of unnamed, random aliens populating the landscape, things like Ep. 4's offhand reference by Liea to the Clone Wars, or Han's mention of the Kessel Run, glossing over the details of how things like lightsabers work and so forth. In UQM, we have vague references to the Precursors and Taalo scattered around, the mystery surrounding the Androsynth, elements of the past such as the Quan slave revolts against the Dynarri, the mentions of the MarkII, compelling races like the Orz and Arilou we know very little about.

Characters and races, brief references to past or secondary events, technology on display, but not explained. there's a lot there to discuss, and a lot of compelling material left to play with. I think it's these unanswered, secondary questions more than anything that cause us to subscribe to the level of obsession we do. Because it gives us a lot to have fun discussing, and there's enough detail in the game to work from.

I'm not sure exactly what my point was here, but I wanted to make the observation. All of this has been said so far. I think, so maybe this is a bit superfluous, but maybe people can get something out of it anyway.

Some very good points. I think it's reasonable to assume that the natural-rhythm birthrate would be quite lower, but the problem with a xenobiology question like this is that we really only have terrestrial data to extrapolate from. The only sentient life we're familiar with is human, and the only non-human life we're familiar with are terrestrial animals, which means that they've developed in similar environments to our own, moreso than we can realistically expect in the case of the Shofixti. (I realize, of course, that the context they were placed in is a game designed with a decidedly, and unavoidably homo-centric view, but we seem to be speculating along realistic lines for the sake of discussion). the point of saying this is to point out that human history only applies as a reference to a point. We fail miserably at population control. However, and alien culture developing in an alien environment may not have trouble at all. Sure, we can say things like "the tendency is for sentient races to act like so:" in support of the Shofixti eventually becoming a problem, but all of our ideas about how intelligent life behaves is based on our experiences. Which is to say, us, and to a lesser extent, other terrestrial lifeforms with a high degree of intelligence, like dolphins and so on.

All of which means that we can't really say that realistically speaking, the Shofixti would behave as you're saying they would, given a lack of limiting factors. However, I'd have to admit, that if taken in the context that they were created by a human mind from a human-derived societal and species archetype, you're likely right.

In which case, I'd have to say that I don't think there'd be a lack of limiting factors necessarily. Historically, the Yehat uplifted the Shofixti, and afterwards lent a guiding hand to their development, that I doubt they'd be likely to abandon, and would very likely result in the placement of externally-imposed limiting factors, put in place by the Yehat. The only real question to my mind there, is whether after the civil war and integration of Pkunk with Yehat, the resulting society would still be inclined to shepherd the younger race along. My inclination, based on my impressions of the Pkunk and Yehat in the game, would be that yes, it could continue to take a guiding hand. And if that's the case, I feel that the population growth issue would be noticed and addressed, resulting in eventual equilibrium.

Of course, that's not exactly a definitive answer, so let's look at the other side of the coin. One thing I've heard a lot of is that eventually, you run out of room for anyone to expand. Well, maybe you run out of room on the *starmap*, but that's not the boundary of the universe, either. There's a lot of space to work with and expand into, and I'm sure more than one race in the game will eventually make more room for the others. Either by dying out, or by doing like the precursors, and moving off into another region of the galaxy, or even on past to other galaxies entirely. Then there's even more options than that, as well. What's to keep, say, the Chmmr or humans or someone from taking the Arilou or Orz approach, and trancend up through the dimensional barriers? Space, especially with the added layers of hyper/quasi/etc-space parallel realities, is impossibly huge, so as to make the notion of 'running out of room' unlikely at its most plausible.

And that's not taking into account other realistic limiting factors to a culture's size. Eventually, the spread through space gets to the point where society can't support its own weight, fragments up into smaller chunks, which very well might fight among themselves. Perhaps a better point to make, though, is that with a birthrate like the Shofixti have, *evolution* is greatly sped up as well. Usually, that's not even a concern, but we're talking a long period of time, here. Long enough that evolutionary progress gets a say. One of the things about evolution, is that elements no longer necessary to survival have a way of disappearing. Humans don't need a tail. At some point, we lost having them. (assuming that bit at the end of the spinal column is, indeed, a vestigal tail as believed) Likewise, with a high birthrate no longer necessary to survival of the species, it's reasonable to assume it will gradually settle down into something more sustainable, or at least, much less worrisome.

I don't know, at this point, if I've addressed everything I originally intended to. But I'm done for now anyway.

Added: On a side note, I think it's very likely to think humans will eventually follow the Arilou's path, since the Arilou seem to have a marked interest in encouraging humans along that path, for whatever reason, and to a lesser extent, the Orz seem to rather like mankind as well, and think it'd be *happy time* if we could come hang out in the *playground*, or whatever.

All I have to say is, my girlfriend is not only a gamer chick, but she's almost a bigger gaming geek than I am. we're putting in DSL next week, and she squealed with joy when the hardware showed up today.

Also, she keeps saying how nice it'll be to have a connection worth playing online games with. Jedi Knight 2, modified, in particular.

And, unlike most girls I've known, her only question when I told her I had preordered a dreamcast was "When can i play it?", and it's *her* fault I spent money I shouldn't have on a Gamecube.

Gamer chicks are the absolute BEST. Cherish them. Nuture them. And if some non-gamer chick wants to try out some game you've been playing, by all means, patiently teach her. You might be able to convert her.

I know we've just got a couple people making noises of disbelief that a girl'd be at all interested in games, and SC2 in particular, but I have to put in my 2 cents on the topic of girls and their ability to be sexily geeky on principle. I'm a man with a mission to promote equality of the sexes in the gaming world.

Cause let's face it, when girls play games with us, we all win.

Anyway, getting abck to the original topic, that's one of my favorite SC2 amusements-- Ship-throwing. i don't really do it to win, though. Just out of amusement. Another fun trick is to practice aiming with a Chmmr Whiplash, so you can throw small ships at planets.

the trick, of course, comes if your opponent is smart, and wipes out your zapsats in one of a few ways. The tactic fails *miserably* against a Thraddash Torch if the Chmmr is moving, for instance, and an Umgah Drone's primary will do a lot of damage if they're good, too. Plus the secondary, if I recall correctly, will stop a tractor whip cold.

I'm no expert, but given the 3DO version was out during a period in the gaming industry where proprietary formats were the *norm*, for various reasons (for instance, modding was a pretty foriegn concept to most companies, and then there's some performance issues that were more important then than now, etc), I wouldn't be surprised if the format's some nearly lost information at this point. There might be something in the source code, possibly, but if it's a 3DO proprietary format, and not a SC2 format, I wouldn't count on much useful.

But whatever the case is, either the developers will need to write their own player code, use existing code as yet undiscovered, or modify the files to a standard format. In the foremost and latter cases, they'd have to decode the file format *anyway*, and at that point, most of the work in getting new player code written is done, so you might as well use the original format to avoid further quality problems. In the second case, it's all a moot point, anyway.

Another, more insane option, is to get someone real good with 3DS Max or something like that(whatever's appropriate-- i haven't seen the 3DO's opening myself) to re-build the sequences from scratch. I'd have to say, that I sure wouldn't volunteer for a job like that, though. Ug-ly.

As far as i know, the conditions for the Pkunk/Yehat coming to your aid at the end of the game are

1. Start the civil war in Yehat space.
2. Get the rebel faction to agree to ally with the Alliance.
3. Pkunk assimilation.
4. Open fleet slots.

I could be wrong-- this is the first time I've played in years, but I've got a fairly good memory for the game.

Personally, I was glad to see the integration of Pkunk and Yehat. I've always had a soft spot for the Pkunk, because they're just really neat characters, and ressurecting ships is downright awesome. But I also really like the Yehat. Their cultural mores are really kind of neat, and I generally like thier attitudes and so forth. Plus they're one of the Older Races of Badasstitude<tm> in the game, and the Terminator's one sweet ship. Add to that the overall neatness (in my opinion) of long-lost sister races that just happen to be some of my favorites re-discovering their anceint ties and going back to the times when they were more or less one race, is just terribly cool. I find myself happy for the both, rather than sad to 'see the Pkunk go'. Anyway, could you imagine a Terminator with the resurrection ability? Aiee. Me wants.  

Well, and then there's playing the game after you've beaten it a few times just to enjoy the story it tells. Nice to be able to do so without spending hours collecting RUs and such.

I'd also argue that there's some legitimacy to cheating when you are truely and completely stuck. It's terribly frustrating to find a game you love but can't beat to see how it ends. In that sort of situation, I say go for it. But in single-player games, I don't think there's anything wrong with an individual dicision to cheat, really. If that's what makes the game fun for you, have a blast. Because that's the point of these things. To have some fun, whether that comes from a sense of accomplishment in beating a challenging game, or blowing the stuffing out of all comers like some kind of space juggernaut, or just seeing the story unfold without the hassle of gameplay you find difficult, or perhaps even boring. Whatever flicks your bic. Yeah, there's a case for games played 'honestly' being more fun, and I tend to agree with that view myself. But do what works for you in getting entertainment out of it. I know there was a point to all this, but i've forgotten now.

Oh yeah! Cheating can be legitimate for lots of reasons.About the only time I'd chew someone out for it is if they'd never even tried having fun playing the game unaltered. As long as they have, and maybe hate some part of it they want to cheat around or whatever, it's all good.  

On a serious note regarding the discussion, I just want to point out two things that I didn't see raised-- apologies if I missed seeing them raised.

Now, it's already been pointed out that the Shofixti are sentient beings, not animals. Which means they have the ability to control their birth rate by methods not important, but nonetheless effective. The other piece that needs to be underlined, is the setting in which the game places the facts regarding Shofixti reproduction.

The Melnorme is no doubt accurate in his statements regarding the speed at which the species can re-populate. No argument there. Of course, he said that in the context of the game's current events: We have an outnumbered force going up against a much larger, better-armed, and more established  force. there's a reason it's referred to as the Ur-Quan Armada. So we have the Alliance, trying to build a fleet so they can take on not one, but *two* Ur-Quan armadas, which fly some of the best ships in space, plus all those battle thralls. And while the Kzer-ka and the Kor-ah are fighting it out, either one will gladly ignore the other to smack down an uppity race.

Thus, the Alliance, while gaining strength, is in one of the worst tactical positions imaginable. They're desperate, and one of their biggest needs is *manpower*. With more people, they can solve the lack of resources, ships, crew, etc. manpower is the key. But sources are limited. Under that circumstance, which I'm sure the Shofixti are fully aware of, they're going to breed as fast as their feet can carry them from bedroom to bedroom. We're not dealing with the species' natural reproductive rhythm. We're dealing with a maximium reproductive ability born out of extreme desparation. I think it's reasonable to assume that, back when they lived on their homeworld, with no greater need facing them as it does in the game, the population remains manageable.

As to the sphere of influence being as large as it is, the sphere doesn't represent the area of space in which the race in question lives-- it represents that area in which they exert influence. Which is partially controlled by the presence of colonies or whathaveyou, but more dependant on where you can expect to see their ships flying around. They don't have to live anywhere but the homeworld to have a sphere that size. They just have to be patrolling five systems out or whatever to exert that influence.I think it's reasonable to assume that however much planetary real estate the Shofixti commanded before they were all but annihilated, they maintained a defensive patrol line a fair ways outward from their physical territory. It's the smart thing to do, and that's what, realistically speaking, the spheres of influence represent. Not as important to the discussion as the first point, but a point I thought worth raising in reference to the statements made about their sphere being as large as it is.

There are also cultural and xenopsychological considerations and arguments one can make for the Shofixti not having population problems, but they've been pretty well covered already, and, I think, probably less of a determining factor than the first of my points. the second point, in a nutshell, is intended to lend weight to the idea that historically, the population of Delta Gorno wasn't a problem, so there's no reason there should be any in the future.

Kudos to Lukipela, by the way, for a nice observation that's spawned such an interesting and let's face it, largely thought-provoking discussion. It isn't easy.

A couple of notes, on the Gamepad issue, that might help people out. Be advised, however, that I have not personally gotten my gamepad to work properly, but it's a very odd one.

It would appear that UQM is at *least* capable of detecting USB gamepads. The reason I say this is that my pad is a Playstation USB converter, and as I'll explain in a minute, I can verify that it's recognized as at least *existing* by the game.

At an informed guest (I'm not sure if it's the case, since I haven't even downloaded, let alone looked at the source code) that any pad DirectInput and Windows can recognize and has an installed driver for can be at least detected by the game, but i won't swear to it.

What's probably of most use to most of us is this tidbit-- That console window full of text messages that the game puts up when it starts is really terribly useful. If you scroll up to the top of the window's output when a joystick/gamepad is plugged in, some lines sort of like this near the beginning:

-----*snip*
Sound decoders initialized.
1 joysticks were found.
The names of the joysticks are:
     Microsoft PC-joystick driver
     4 axes, 12 buttons
           'starcon.key' -- 2000 bytes
           'lbm/scclrtab.ct' -- 8658 bytes
We've loaded the Kernel
-----
And so on. Obviously, the joystick section is the important part. Near as i can tell, it's found my USB pad through the Windows game controller driver stuff, and knows that it's a 4-axis, 12 button joystick (which is correct, as the adapter supports anything up to a Dual Shock 2, which has multiple analog sticks, and a whole host of buttons on it.

So in theory, A) USB controllers should work fine, and B) the information the game prints out at startup may help you figure out what you need to do to make use of the pad, or at least see if the game thinks it's there or not. But again, i'm not one of the coders working on it, and I haven't even gotten a chance to peruse the code, so take all this with a grain of salt.

Hope that helps, in some way or other. On a side note, that console window spews out all sorts of good infor about what the game's doing. I leave mine easily visible behind the game window, especially when I'm hitting anything that errors the game out.

Ohyes. One final note. I'm running WinXP Pro SP1. Since there are wide differences between XP Pro and just about every other windows version, and especially between the XP and 98 or ME Kernels, there's a good chance you may see something very different than I see in terms of USB looking supported if you're running something else.