Hey, I know I'm about 4 months late but it's been years since I've been on here. It's great to know that UQM is still being updated and supported.

I remember that I wanted to add in the 3DO font for the game, though the current version of UQM made it hard to look at. I'm hoping that the new update can implement this.

I still have the files with me, I'll hand them out if you want them.

I'll try out the beta and give my feedback.

Oh, I didn't realize it was released. My bad.

So I downloaded and poked around the main game...   Impressive work so far.    Is the "plot" installed yet or at least some version of it?   If so where do I go to get the ball rolling so to speak...

The plot is still a bit scattered but it's coming together very slowly. There is a project set up at Code Google which contains the story, a place to share ideas and so much more. Just a warning, those places contain spoilers to 6014 so don't go there if you want to keep the game a surprise once its completed.

Also, there is something I can tell you which will give you a lot of money in the first part of the game and save you a lot of time. In Alpha Centauri, there are two Ruby Worlds (VIII and III), and due to the temperature, you'll get a huge amount of Exotic minerals. Just make frequent trips to prevent your lander from being incinerated.

Races: Depending on the dialogue that is being spoken, the races will emote in all sorts of different ways. Meaning there will be extra animations so the aliens can express themselves both humorously and dramatically, as well as having better lip-sync if you have the voices on. This can be used to clear some minor issues (the Shofixti Scout sensors malfunctioning, the Umgah horn, the Dnyarri's mental compulsion) and make the story even more engaging.

Map: If you entered a solar system and scanned a planet, the map will keep track of how many planets are there, what the planet types are (as well as their stats) and if there are minerals, life-forms or energy signatures left. This is also useful if you want to go back to mine smoothly if the planets have an overwhelming atmosphere. It can also track where the homeworlds are (if a race gave you the coordinates or you found it) and what did you did recently.

Animations: In the PC version, the lifeforms and the energy signatures move faster than the 3DO/UQM, although the droids don't explode if you hit them in all the versions (this is fixed in the Extended Edition). Speaking of EE...

Import the EE features into the game: Might as well, since it's really useful and convincing for new players. Although at the moment, the HD version has some improvements of its own and it's also good for newcomers of UQM.

Me again, and it's been while.

I was working on the themes for the Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm a while ago, though they aren't finished and MPT isn't working properly. Prior to one of suggestions on the P6014 wiki, the Mmrnmhrm theme will have C64 samples. I'll post them when I get the chance.

I wanted to submit story suggestions to the game, but I'm not comfortable with posting my ideas on the wiki since I had a lot of bad experiences with Google forums in general. It's mostly stories about the races since I felt some ideas seemed to out of place, as well as being unfinished or lacked connection from SC2. I mostly wanted to submit ideas about the Orz, the Taalo or some fixes in general, if you guys won't mind.

It's been a long time, huh? I was planning to post earlier, but I had a lot of stuff to do IRL and most of the UQM related sites went down before I could post...

Here's some more images to show what it would also affect:

(Keep in mind that the 3DO port also affected these areas, even the picture above, so nothing major needs to be changed in the code to fix certain issues. All except for one bit below.)



You should notice that on the second image had a small error, since the text is slightly biggen than the PC font, the "Marypup" overlaps the Crew and Fuel units a bit. If you compare that to the 3DO port, you would get something like this:



Yes, they shifted the Crew and Fuel icons slightly so the text can fit in. Maybe there could be an alternative for UQM to fix that issue?

Here's the fonts if you guys want to try them. Sadly, I don't know how to make the add-on package work, so I will give you the raw materials instead.

http://www.mediafire.com/?v6bdtpki4pcudqn

Meep-Eep: Thanks for clearing that up!

Opon4: Well, I edited the graphics for the Player font in UQM prior to your request and got this:



So, what do you think? If you're wondering how I did it, again, I edited the graphics. When you are looking in the player.fon folder, notice that one of the images is completely black? Just open the file in any picture editor and change the size from 4x9 to 2x9. With the tiny folder for the 3DO graphics I changed the spacing graphic to 1x9.
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In other news, here's some other images that the font is affecting, looks good, doesn't it (aside from some glitches)?



As you can see from the images, I noticed that you can just keep the Gradients option due to the replaced .fon files. I actually made the 3DO font available anyway. Is it possible that the newest version of UQM can let users choose what fonts they want to display insted of going to the Flat option? That would be neat!

I will upload the graphics of what I got so far when I finished editing and ripping the contents. Unless, no, I can't submit fan things to UQM since half of the fonts are edited by me... If you really want to me to, let me know.

OK, I'll continue where I left off.

The *Itch* - Some of the story bits that I saw in the wiki is kinda mixed; some ideas I liked, but some of them rubbed me the wrong way in terms of continuity and the new ideas. I could discuss it, but it's going to be spoilers to those who want to keep it a surprise. Then again, I got a note that I could make suggestions to the storyline, so no big deal. However, I liked the story bits that the demo is providing so far, but I think the execution as the plot goes along kinda violated continuity, but I won’t get into that.

- The overworld doesn't seem to give you that much room to explore. So far in the demo, all the aliens SoI are set up, they give you hints on what they found, and from the wiki, events are supposed to happen overtime. I kinda don’t like the way this is set up, and this is the same problem that SC3 had. The game gives you hints on what to do (if you refer to HAL-, I mean, ICOM) and things happen overtime though you never initiated anything. As a result, you have to wait for things to happen or make sure you do everything the game wants for progressing, and it kills all the fun you could of have with the game. Needless to say for SC3, there is virtually no point in exploring, a lot of thing happen so frequently you don’t have time to do whatever you want to do. Besides, there is nothing inserting to find anyway, aside from artifacts and alien colonies.

However, most games have areas and events you can't have access to until a certain time, but there it's done right because you need to get a weapon, item or get to a certain part of game in order for that to happen. SC2 did have events that goes on a timer (the events and the deadline), but it only starts when you meet the alien race or did something, like giving the Maidens to the Shofixti. With events like this, it's optional and you mostly have to deal what is needed in order to solve the game, and that is good game deisgn. Remember, the most appealing thing about SC2 is the smooth exploration, and P6014 kinda hinders with the set-up so far. Now, don't think this flaw is game-breaking, it isn't, but it kinda creates a dis-heartening experience for some people due to too much creativity. I should talk about that some other time, it's a really interesting thing to note, and I'll give examples on what games had this.

The spacing is also more favorable in the 3DO version. *wink wink*

What do you mean by "spacing"? (No disrespect.)

For those who saw a couple of glimpses of (or own) the 3DO version of Star Control 2 since a lot of us are using UQM, you'll note that the most interesting thing about it is that the game uses the "thicker" version of font from the PC version. For whatever reason, this font is not available in UQM nor in the source code, which is a shame because it fits with the "Flat" option in UQM, yet this font in particular is left out. There is a good reason for that, as I'll get into later.

I'm not 100% sure why this wasn't imported to UQM. Is that font copyrighted? The reason for me asking this is because no one or any other source mentioned this. I know the FMV option isn't distributed with UQM because Crystal Dynamics still owns the rights to it, but why this one bit left out?

If you're left in limbo and have no clue what I'm talking about, here's the images so you can compare the differences for yourself:

PC:


3DO:


UQM:


I was making the fonts work in UQM as I ripped the graphics through screen-caps. I also tweaked the symbols that weren't edited from the 3DO version, so you can say this is *almost* all the fonts from that port. However, there IS a reason why those symbols aren't edited, as I realized it caused a graphical error at the last frame.

As a misc note, Commander Hayes uses the same font as the player. He was supposed to use the thin font like in the PC version but since the commander.fon folder was removed in UQM 0.7.0, the comm screen uses the player.fon folder instead. I know why that happened, it's meant to reduce space as the code was redesigned to make is user-friendly (and that's one heck of a commitment!)

OK, the problems with the absence of this font. UQM as we all know has a lot of options for users to edit the game for their own pleasure, and one of them is the ability to change the text style from PC to 3DO. With the PC options, you get a thin fonts well as gradients to the ship screen, it's appropriate as it looks nice for PC users. The 3DO one uses a 'Flat' scheme, and while it's unappealing compared to the original, it makes the text easier to read as it uses a maroon colour and a thicker font style for the ship screen, and that is where the problem comes in. The thick font that the ship screen uses doesn't apply to the text around it! With the thick fonts absent, the PC font is kinda difficult to read for some people even if they choose the 3DO option, and this is kinda bad for when mods are made to port the game to consoles. The fact that UQM's goal is recreate the two versions as much as it can and this is not included is kinda strange if you think about it.

Sorry for coming off as harsh, I'm not trying to force this change, but I'm confused why this wasn't available since the initial release. Can anyone explain to me why it's absent? I'd really appreciate it.

-GBAura

Edit: If you're wondering about the line change in UQM, I did that. I modified the game to fix various bits of music, graphics, and the dialogue since some parts kinda bothered me. This is merely a personal edit.

[The *Squishy*]

Might as well bump this thread a bit. I really like this project and look forward to the full release, but I would like to give some criticism, though I'll try not to be harsh. To compound this, I'll state what I like first off, then some minor complaints. I would like to get to the negative aspects and suggestion, but I think it's too much for now.

The *Squishy*

It's a shot at a SC sequel, what do you expect? Though it is fanfiction, it will try to be as good as the original.

The *Itch*

Some of the dialogue for the alien communications and whatnot seemed to be out of place or grammatically incorrect. This doesn't apply to all of them, but the biggest problem to me in this regard is the Orz. While the poor grammar and the overall mood is on par, the new best-fits kinda... fell in an awkward position. Allow me to explain.

In SC2, the Orz have best-fits that seem to match with what they're saying, and it worked in context. In the sequel however, they were written out of context so it's hard to understand what they're saying. With the original game, you can kinda interpret on what each best-fit means hence the word usage around it, but with the sequel, I can't fully tell the meaning of each one because the writing is out of place. One other thing I noticed is that the dialogue is catchy, which I think it will work but due to the mis-use of the best-fits, it didn't mesh well.

As for the dialogue, I'll compare so you can get what I'm saying and what the problem is. (These might be spoilers to their character and plot, even though these are mentioned earlier when you meet them. New fans of SC2/UQM beware!)

SC2:
6014:
I'm not saying this is a bad attempt at the dialogue, the new best-fits are really clever (I actually understand what they are getting at by themselves) and I like the overall responses (though it bugs me the Orz didn't respond to your questions at times), it's just the dialogue needs some polish as well as the best-fits around it. It still trumps over SC3's dialogue, that's for sure.

I understand that the Orz dialogue is really hard to write, but maybe I could be in charge of that since I can speak *Orzish*, but I'm not sure who took the role already. I could also do Hiroku's dialogue and do some general tweaks and extend some bits on what the demo provided so far, if you guys won't mind. It's not like I want to rewrite everything! Actually, I don't think I'll suffice because I'm new to the forum and all...

I'll go over on what I disliked and the suggestions some other time, I don't want to make the page any bigger.