Yes, this outcome is definitely for the best. The current state of things leaves me with a very uncomfortable question: Would I buy the next Star Control game that Stardock has in the pipe? I genuinely have no idea. As an old fan who's painfully aware of the details of the lawsuit, I feel like my answer should be "no". As a profoundly selfish person and as a gamer who just wants his entertainment, my answer should be "yes". Knowing that Brad Wardell tried to trick the core team into handing over rights to UQM, that should be a hard "no" again. Also knowing that every person I've ever met is screwed up in some fashion and being a big believer in forgiveness, there's more reason for "yes". The lawsuit's resolution seems perfectly tailored to make this choice difficult, at least for me. A question for later.

The source code for those two don't exist anymore, well, at least for SC1.
Brad says he still hasn't been able to find the source code for SC3 and it's looking like it also may have been lost.

Alas, the long-form of 'Daktaklakpak' may never be known.

The only point value change was for Ilwrath, which got bumped up from 10 to 12. Although I did re-tune the ship's weapon (slightly shorter range & the diagonal flame spouts drain 1 extra energy per shot instead of 2), it probably should have been at that value all along. Mod Ilwrath has always been noticeably stronger than its vanilla counterpart.

I don't think any changes in this update alter the match-up dynamics enough to necessitate other point value changes.

All this news circulating about Star Control got me messing with my old Super Melee mod again. Balance Mod was my attempt at fixing and improving UQM's combat for competitive PvP matches which began a little over 10 years ago from today. After some experimenting and tuning, I've updated it again. A theme of this update is reverting back to original game mechanics anywhere I can get away with it. Ur-Quan fighter craft no longer drain energy from the target they're shooting at - while there was a good reason for implementing that, it encroached on Chenjesu's design too much. Supox gets its old battery regen back, VUX limpets get their old duration back, Arilou's teleport burns 3 energy as before, and Shofixti's glory device can crack Chmmr satellites again. I restored Umgah's default, faster turn rate and instead impair the ship's turning while the ship's Antimatter Cone is active, which feels pretty good in-game.

I added something new as well: An 'aim-assist' for my favorite ship, the Melnorme Trader. This feature is optional and can be toggled on and off with the 'down' key, When toggled on, the ship sends out little holograms which trace the charge-up weapon's firing path. Being a specialized sharp-shooter, Melnorme has always been a difficult one to play. I hope this feature helps other players enjoy piloting the ship as much as I do. Cheers!

http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/User:Shiver/Balance_Mod

That can happen. I'm not disagreeing with you, but keeping multiple save files can prevent this type of problem. Lots of old games have to be played that way, unfortunately.

I did kill quite a few and ran from many more, but it doesn't matter. Autopilot was already on before the first encounter.

You can break out of auto-pilot by using manual flight controls in hyperspace. It won't save you if you're already dogpiled like that, but you can maneuver around to avoid the start of a pile-up with some thinking ahead. I'm sure I've had to do just that several times in each of my playthrus of the game.

SC:O was on Humble Bundle briefly for a few days. The screen cap was from someone who got the game during that window.

That's a little joke, by the way, I haven't actually done that myself. The screenshot is from elsewhere. I meant to say that CeltricMinstrel's idea was something you could do on Humble Bundle just a few days ago.

I do kind of want to try SCO but I really don't want to give Stardock my money, so I dunno. Probably the only way I'd actually buy it would be in a Humble Bundle type situation that allows me to specify that all the money goes to charity (or other developers) instead of to Stardock.

...like this?

A survival game in the ocean, with crafting? That seems like a pretty big stretch to compare this to SC2. It does look like a decent game, I'll grant you.

When you enter a system inhabited by an alien race in SCO, a variation on that race's theme music plays in the interplanetary screen instead of the normal interplanetary music. Volasaurus' new tracks were obviously inspired by that.

Or… like… any game since Mega Man?

Volasaurus is one of the Stardock SC fans, so yeah, SC:O probably was his inspiration.

Game of Thrones is pretty much an extended rant about how feudalism is the worst thing ever, so no, Zanthius is wrong and this most recent Timecube-esque essay deserves an F.

[Orz]

Heheheh.  Yeah, the combat is not so nice to new players. Lemme see what I can come up with to help you...


While you're poor on resources, the best thing to do is get your flagship outfitted with all the propulsion modules and stay away from fights as much as possible. These modules are pretty cheap relative to everything else.

Do spaceship engines effect hyperspace travel so I can outrun Ilwrath patrols when going to meet Pkunk?

YES. Thruster Modules and Turn Jets are super important.


If combat is really doing you in, you can save your game before every fight and keep taking tries at it.

Avoiding Ilwrath: You don't need to fight these. They stay in their corner of space and tend to be pretty avoidable throughout the game. They even move sluggishly when travelling through their own space. So you could just save your game before travelling through Ilwrath space and loading if you get caught. Or use a retreat sequence to run away from them, since they're fairly slow-moving during combat too.

Fighting ilwrath: You want a flagship with a Fusion Blaster (this is the first tech upgrade the Melnorme will sell you), three Dynamos, and a lot of crew. All you have to do is move towards them and unload when you think you're lined up with their ship. This loadout for the flagship is way stronger than an Avenger and can pummel them in a head-to-head shoot-out.

Fighting Probes: Again, the easy way to blow through these is with a Fusion Blaster. Or rather, two of them, one in front and one in the second-from-front slot. Slylandro Probes are dodgey and the three-directional attack that two Blasters gives you is great at catching them even if you can't line your shots up very well. Spathi ships are also good for this fight, though that takes some patience.

The ally species you're looking for is the Orz, whose ships can beat pretty much anything in adventure mode in a 1-on-1 fight. With this ship, you can pretty much win fights by flying away from your opponent and holding down both attack buttons to spam space marines. The marines will zoom over to the enemy ship, jump on board, and smash everything to pieces. The only catch is that your Orz ships often run out of crew, so you often want to retreat your Orz during a victory ditty by pressing Esc.

Fighting Ur-Quan: Spathi can beat these, believe it or not (the Spathi ship is actually quite badass in general). It takes some skill, but if you mostly focus on dodging and just keep dumping torpedoes from medium range, you can beat these guys. There's a second... type of Ur-Quan that's also beatable with Spathi. Orz are more fool-proof than Spathi, and the flagship can do the job too if you've upgraded it enough.

Is there a way to make combat easier?

Get all the Melnorme tech upgrades and turn your flagship into a doomsday machine. Hellbore Cannons, Tracking Modules, Shiva Furnaces = long range homing attacks that wipe out anything effortlessly.

[3]

None of your topics make any sense and I wish you'd stop churning them out. "Interdimensional fatigue" is a Star Control 3 reference as well so you've got that to be ashamed of, too.

I wonder which of these songs was meant to be a Chenjesu theme. The Arilou theme is pretty easy to identify (it's "Agendas"), but nothing stands out to me here.

Nitpick time. I strongly dislike these power-ups floating around that seem to grant bonuses to that ship's side for the duration of the fight. Visually, they clutter up the battle arena with silly looking LEDs and make outer space less beautiful. Thematically, they don't make sense. How did so many of these things get distributed all over the galaxy? Mechanically, they incentivize the player to race around the arena collecting as many of the things as possible before engaging the enemy ship. If SC:O is played PvP, the smart thing to do is open with a very fast ship and steal as many power-ups as possible to get the upper hand on the battle. It looks like the AI makes no effort whatsoever to gather power-ups which likely impairs its effectiveness and will make PvC matches very different from PvP.

The wormholes, nebulae and so on are great additions to melee, on the other hand.