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Topic: The speed record (Read 6976 times)
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Captain Smith
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What is everyone's personal best in terms of beating the game the quickest, in terms of game time (NO CHEATING)? Right now, mine is somewhere on the shy side of 2 years (2-3 months before 2157 comes). Contemplating on seeing if I can use some quasispace jumps to cut the time down, since in some cases, I travel in hyperspace an awful lot.
I know there's a lot of walkthroughs out there (some I've found to have some very incorrect things), you think there'd be any interest to coming up with doing a fast solution to the game?
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fossil
Core Team
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My personal best was Jan, 2157, I think.
But then again I never really concentrated on doing it quickly  . A weird idea of making an SCII competition (quickest complete) came to me a few days ago, but unfortunately it will never be interesting for many reasons, for example, one could memorize the locations of all the rainbow worlds, devices, homeworlds, etc.
Anyway, I guess that all depends on what you think is cheating and what is not. Does "remembering" (please allow me this laugh: Har-Har-Har!) all the necessary locations and knowing precisely what to do constitute cheating?
If it does not, then the game can be beaten fairly quickly. You can get the Portal Spawner very early in the game, and you can ignore half the races in the game.
You can pretty much ignore the Pkunk/Shofixti/Yehat quest completely, just make sure you save a couple of those Pkunk ships through to the end, seeing as how they are the best at killing Sa-Matra generators, and consequently, ignore Vux. Ignore Spathi, and consequently, ignore Ilwrath and maybe even ignore *both* Hyperwave Casters and Druuge.
If I remember correctly, you only use a Caster to: talk to Ilwrath, summon a Melnorme and talk to the future Chmmr. The former two are purely optional, but I am not sure If you *have* to talk to Chmmr before Sun-devicing them.
I did some quick math, and it looks very promising: you get 4500 creds from 9 rainbow worlds, all the tech will cost you 13*150=1950, which leaves 2550 for fuel at 20 each = 51000. The most woop-ass (IMHO) config of the flagship is 60350, which includes: 200 crew, 310 fuel space, all engines/jets, 2 HB cannons, 3 shivas, 2 guidance, point defense, etc.
The remaining 9350 and then some you can easily get from mining the rainbow worlds, just skip the first 2 or so, get the lander tech, and mine the rest of them. The Pkunk and Arilou ships will finance the fuel and crew. When chasing devices, mine some planets in the system the device is in, since you are there anyway, and definetely mine the planet the device is on before you grab the device (save fuel).
Always have a nice reserve of fuel, so you do not have to come back to Earth or take trips to a red super-giant (if you don't have a Caster). Actually, without a Caster, I have found it useful to simply run out of fuel in Hyperspace and wait for a Melnorme to show up. Which brings up another point -- you can sort of cheat the Melnorme periodically.
When you run out of fuel in Hyperspace, they will come and sell you some. If you have no credits, they will take 1 thruster and 1 turning jet. Coincide that with a regular run to Utwig (you may need to remove some modules too, not sure which ones though), and you get ~100 fuel for a 1000 RUs -- half the normal price  , while you only need 15 to get to Earth via Quasispace. You could remove the thrusters/jets too, then you get fuel for "free", but the trip takes over a month and leaves you super-vulnerable.
You could probably ignore the Slylandro quest too, do not know how that would effect the overall outcome, but.. creaming probes with 2 guided HB cannons is no challenge at all, takes no time and earns good $$$.
So I suppose it is all about what one is looking for in the game, whether you enjoy the adventure or just want to turn it into a sport for yourself or others .
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Captain Smith
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I consider cheating using things like the "Lander Cheat" or any of the force cracks to get RU or things or whatever, basically working hard and earning everything you get.
Of course learning and beating the game is going to take longer than one who knows what to do from beating the game enough. It's a 10 year old game I've played off and on non-stop. I have all the places and things to do pretty much memorized, except for the quasispace portals (that's why I said I do hyperspace so much).
My time I posted is from doing everything in the game too. I might try paring out all the non-essential tasks just to see what my time is there. Part of the idea is just finding another challenge out of the game.
As far as the RU train goes (besides the 500 credits for rainbow world #10), the Umgah will give you 500 biological units if you go back there after you get the talking pet, and then if you go to the Druuge with a bunch of fuel tanks, they'll take the Burvix Caster to fill all those tanks.
Technology and all the mid-air refueling and 3 rounds of buying fuel and giving it to the base for RU is usually what I end up doing with the Melnorme.
More or less this is just a post out of curiousity, nothing more. Personally, I'm thinking of the fast solution part just to try and find a new challenge out of the game.
To clear up the other statements, yes you do need to talk to the Ilwrath, in my experience if you don't they'll put unlimited ships at Procyon saying they observed your travels with great interest or something like that. You need to deal with the Druuge to get the Rosy Sphere to fix the Ultron for the Utwig so they'll give you the bomb. Other than that, the Spathi are pretty useless overall as well as the Yehat/Shofixti/VUX thing.
If the original developers are reading, I want to thank them for a great game that has given me so much entertainment value over the years. A definite rarity and worth every penny. Even better that it will be ported soon. Thanks again.
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Kohr-Ah_Primat
*Smell* controller
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Lady Marauder
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I consider cheating using things like the "Lander Cheat" or any of the force cracks to get RU or things or whatever, basically working hard and earning everything you get.
Of course learning and beating the game is going to take longer than one who knows what to do from beating the game enough. It's a 10 year old game I've played off and on non-stop. I have all the places and things to do pretty much memorized, except for the quasispace portals (that's why I said I do hyperspace so much).
I honestly don't think that 'memorization' should be considered a cheat; after all, I am positive most of us have run into the Kohr-Ah time limit on our first attempt at winning the game, and usually used 'memorized' information to help us win the game on subsequent trials. There are far too many worlds to individually explore within 5 years.
This is also why I asked about the Talana/Mycon quest; I'd rather not spend hundreds of credits on this information when I can just get it from another source for free. On the plus side, time passes very slowly in-system, and freezes (or passes incredibly slowly) while mining, and combat seems to take very little time in hyperspace (other than the amount of time it takes to be sucked out of hyperspace and thrown back into it afterwards) and almost none at all in systems (except for the 5 second delay in which after a battle you cannot immediately confront another ship).
I figure if you have a very concise information sheet on hand, you could conceivably win the game within a year; I know for sure that you can obtain the quasi space spawner within two months of starting, which is (obviously) crucial to a quick game.
Technically I believe the bare minimums required to beat the game would be the sun device, the talking pet, and the utwig bomb. It's just that each of these are wrapped up in an annoying side quest. Excluding the need to converse with the local aliens which can be done in-system, the second can be done by only landing on two planets in proper succession, and the third only requires a brief landing on four. Both of which only require one or two combat confrontations I believe. The first is somewhat frustrating with the need to having to 'build a case' however.
Enough RU is a concern, but destroying enemy ships with Fwiffo can alleviate this I am sure.
Finding rainbow worlds to trade with takes valuable time, and I imagine that finding only one (or even none) for the purposes of fuel alone would be the quickest way to go about it.
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We are the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah.
Our nature, the fulfillment of our fate requires your destruction.
You are filth. It is now your time to be cleansed.
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Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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step 1: (buff up flagship with max thrust. No combat modules, for economy.)
step 2: get the Taalo Shield
step 3: stop by spathi homeworld, get spathi. This will start the timer for the umgah caster.
step 4: get the Talking Pet. This will yield a lot of bio credit.
step 5: get portal spawner since you're close.
step 6: get that mycon plot started so that while the mycon are going down to take care of things you can deal with other plot points.
don't forget to stop by Earth so you can buy Spathi before they disappear.
After this, order ceases to matter. You have 1k bio credit and the portal spawner.
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John Doe
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I always thought the quickest time would be a great competition I've never tried it myself. I also thought I making an exact walkthrough of how I went through the game. Of course I'm pretty lazy and it does seem like a nearly complete waste of time, but I'll probably do it someday.
BTW, by my last finished (well, just before the attack on the Sa-Matra), the date was Sept 27, 2156. I know that date can be easily beaten as all the quests (even the unnessary ones) have been accomplished.
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Nic.
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What took you so long? 
I couldn't have done it without a little help from The Gimp.
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« Last Edit: April 08, 2003, 08:19:26 pm by Nic. »
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seankreynolds
Zebranky food
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Lovin' the game
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I don't remember what my fastest game time was, but I remember that at the peak of my skill on my 3DO I could play SC2 from start to finish in about 7.5 hours of real time.
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John Doe
Guest
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Well, the post did say beat the game. I'd like to see the person who can beat the Sa-Matra with just an Earthling cruiser and a flag ship that has:
-2 turning jets
-2 thrusters
-1 ion cannon
-50 crew
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Nakar
Zebranky food
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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That picture's real. I think I still have the savegame too (I'd have th check). Bet you could go faster.
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