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Author Topic: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk  (Read 3643 times)
Shiver
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Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« on: October 13, 2008, 05:10:03 am »

Minor details of super melee normally aren't of interest to the Star Control community at large, but I got curious about something and ended up e-mailing Paul Reiche III over it. It would be wrong for me not to share his response with everyone.


Quote from: Shiver
Hi Paul, I have a question for you regarding Star Control.

During a session of net melee I somehow managed to coat someone else's
Mmrnmhrm Transformer with limpets. When the other player switched from
Y-Wing to X-Wing they had regained full mobility of their ship while in
that other form. I thought this might be a bug specific to The Ur-Quan
Masters, but I tried replicating this in Star Control 1 and everything
worked out the same way. Was this a deliberate design decision, and if
so how exactly does a Transformer negate VUX limpet cocoons attached to
it while using an alternate form?

- A huge fan



Quote from: PR3
Hey Tristan,

I should probably come up with some good rationale, but game-design-wise
I think we were looking for ways to encourage the player to shift forms.
When play-testing the Mmrnmhrm we noticed that more advanced players
would engage in a very slow and (to some) boring strategy of remaining
at long distance, constantly shooting missiles.  By allowing the limpets
to be negated in the alternate form, the player would be more likely to
shift in order to avoid the limpet slowdown.

So for a rationale, hmm... Perhaps the Mmrnmhrm ship has total
redundancy between key functional systems for its 2 forms, including
hull plates.  That way damage, besides loss of crew, would not affect
the functionality of the alternate form. 

Either that or it's a Wizard.

Keep up the invasion!

- Paul


My devious plan of convincing the core team to fix this quirk is in ruins, but I'm not complaining. Cool
« Last Edit: October 13, 2008, 05:13:24 am by Shiver » Logged
Anthony
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Re: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2008, 07:59:02 am »

Hmm... That's a pretty fascinating discovery.  I never knew that about the X-Form.  And yes, people here do care about minor details about Star Control Cheesy.

I'd love to see the inner workings on an X-Form...
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Alvarin
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Re: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2008, 11:01:56 am »

Somehow I feel this explanation (redundancy) is ... misleading ?
Being mechanized race , the Mmrnmhrm should have efficiency high on the priority list ,
so having entirely redundant systems seems unlikely .
An explanation I can offer is shifting form dislodges the limpets , but to make this claim I need
to know , whether the slowdown occurs on switching back .
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Valaggar Redux
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Re: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2008, 01:56:06 pm »

Quote
to make this claim I need
to know , whether the slowdown occurs on switching back .

Basically, there are two separate "limpet counts" as far as calculating slowdown is concerned -- one for the X-Form, the other for the Y-Form. So if the X-Form has 10 limpets and the Y-Form has 50 limpets, the X-Form will not be so slowed down, while the Y-Form will be more slowed down, and changing forms won't reset the counts.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2008, 02:57:42 pm by Jubal-lun-Sul » Logged
Shiver
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Re: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2008, 06:17:01 pm »

It was an odd design choice but I don't see how he's being misleading with his answer.
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Alvarin
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Re: Interesting Mmrnmhrm quirk
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2008, 08:11:10 pm »

By "misleading" I was referring to the total redundancy of ship functions .
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PakoPako
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Nawm the Mmrnmhrm are just that good
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2008, 06:27:49 pm »

My memory isn't the best in the world, but I think I remember when changing from a limpet-covered X-to-Y, the Y-Form was slowed down a little. (the email said from Y-to-X)

-=PakoPako=-
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Shiver
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Re: Nawm the Mmrnmhrm are just that good
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2008, 07:19:11 pm »

My memory isn't the best in the world,

Indeed.
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