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meep-eep, Moderator, Core Team
Star Control II fact #2 - Slylandro Probe spawning
[[ on: Nov 24th, 2002, 8:29am ]]
When we first got UQM doing something and we started messing around, I wasn't the only one who wondered why there were always Slylandro Probes coming after me immediately when I enter hyperspace. I figured it might have been specific to the 3DO version, but the code proved this was not the case.
When in Hyperspace, each game day there is a chance a probe will be spawned. As long as you haven't had the encounter with the Ilwrath after supplying the commander with radioactives, that chance will be 100% (which explained my situation), encouraging you to finish your business in the Sol system first.
Otherwise, the chance depends on how much time the probes have had to multiply. At the beginning of the game, the spawn chance is 2%, and every 182 game days it is raised by another 2%, to a maximum of 8%, until you get the destruct code. At that time a probe will be reprogrammed, of which they will report you the next time you visit them.
Every 23 days after you got the destruct code the chance will be lowered by 2% until it reaches 0%.
[[ Last Edit: Nov 24th, 2002, 9:08am by meep-eep ]]
Fred, TFB God
Re: Star Control II fact #2 - Slylandro Probe spawning
[[ Reply #5 on: Today at 11:55am ]]
on Nov 24th, 2002, 8:29am, meep-eep wrote:
that chance will be 100% (which explained my situation), encouraging
you to finish your business in the Sol system first.
This was one of our more heavy-handed attempts to direct the player. We felt that without getting at least some background for what it was you were doing, the game would make little sense. Also we didn't want to make every alien encounter have a branch based on whether or not you had talked to the starbase commander.
meep-eep, Moderator, Core Team
Re: Star Control II fact #2 - Slylandro Probe spawning
[[ Reply #7 on: Today at 12:38pm
Quote:
This was one of our more heavy-handed attempts to direct the player. We felt that without getting at least some background for what it was you were doing, the game would make little sense.
Were the Slylandro created specifically for this purpose?
Fred, TFB God
Re: Star Control II fact #2 - Slylandro Probe spawning
[[ Reply #8 on: Today at 1:03pm
on Today at 12:38pm, meep-eep wrote:
Were the Slylandro created specifically for this purpose?
No. But they seemed like a good, not too obvious mechanic to get you to do what we wanted you to do at the beginning of the game.
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meep-eep, Moderator, Core Team
Re: Orz Marines damage algorithm
[[ Reply #5 on: Nov 24th, 2002, 8:40am
Quote:
That's an average of 4 kills per marine, isn't it? Can some less probability-challenged person help out with this?
I've calculated it to be 5.88 marines on average.
I might post the calculation, along with some more orz-marines statistics as a 'Star Control II fact' sometime.
Chad, PNF Webmaster
Re: Orz Marines damage algorithm
[[ Reply #6 on: Nov 24th, 2002, 9:21am
You mean 5.88 kills per marine right? What you said, doesn't make much sense to me
meep-eep, Moderator, Core Team
Re: Orz Marines damage algorithm
[[ Reply #7 on: Nov 24th, 2002, 10:10am
Quote:
You mean 5.88 kills per marine right? What you said, doesn't make much sense to me
Oops, that's exactly what I meant.
Quote:
Please do post that as a fact, I'm interested!
I'd like to keep this 'Star Control II facts' going for a while, so I'm planning on posting one every week/two weeks (depending on how long the fact is and when I've got a little bit of time). I've just posted one on the Slylandro probes so you know when you can about expect the next one. I think I'll do a fact on some other subjects first though, as the Orz marines killing rate already had some discussion. It should be interesting nonetheless.
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meep-eep, Moderator, Core Team
Why the Melnorme's bridge turns purple (spoiler).
[[ on: Today at 9:01am
XFormPLUT (GetColorMapAddress (SetAbsColorMapIndex (CommData.AlienColorMap, 1)), ONE_SECOND / 2);
Now you know.
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PhracturedBlue, Moderator, Developer
Re: Voiceover / Subtitle synchronization tool
[[ Reply #9 on: Jan 17th, 2003, 12:28am ]] Quote Modify
In case anyone was wondering how much voice acting there is in UQM:
total voice-acting: 11:23:01
-------------------
arilou : 21:17
black-urquan : 14:10
chmmr : 16:29
commander: 1:00:00
druuge: 31:45
ilwrath: 38:02
melnorm: 72:07
mycon: 12:15
orz: 35:25
pkunk: 45:14
shofixt: 8:13
slyland: 24:20
spathi: 46:28
supox: 14.36
syreen: 27:47
talkking-pet: 22:42
thraddash: 40:18
umgah: 20:21
green-urquan: 24:17
utwig: 45:40
vux: 21.22
yehat: 22:26
zoq-fot: 20:35
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PhracturedBlue, Moderator, Developer
Re: Voiceover / Subtitle synchronization tool
[[ Reply #16 on: Jan 17th, 2003, 8:39pm
on Jan 17th, 2003, 6:59pm, Death_999 wrote:
I find it sad that the THRADDASH are ranked so high. They have a lot of amusing history to tell, though, so I guess they're worth it for the amusement value. on the other hand, the Arilou seem to have relatively little speaking time...
Remember that the Thraddash speak pretty slowly here's another piece of trivia: the zoq-fot-pik have nearly 300 voice files (4x most other races), but only 20 minutes of speaking.
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by NORG on why music doesn't sound the same as it is remembered
*chuckle* i don't think todd was looking for alternatives; he wanted to know why the mods he downloaded don't sound as wicked cool as he remembers them sounding in the original PC game.
todd, you're absolutely correct. they don't sound exactly like they did in the original game. there are several possible reasons, and elements from any one of them could be correct:
a) the playback engine this time around, mikmod, is close but not exactly correct as far as what the game originally sounded like but the most viable option for multi-playform conversion,
b) there may be some corruption in the samples of the mod files,
c) (believe it or not, this is true) the original PC game did not play the original mod files back properly. this has been stated by the guys who wrote the original music several times: the only way to hear exactly how a mod is supposed to sound is to play it back in the original composition software(in this case, some of those were amigas).
the fact of the matter is that one or two of those are possibly being played back as written, but don't sound quite right to our ears because it's not what we heard on repeat for ... days on end. (:
hope that sheds some light on what you're hearing.
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Stickey Me Please
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