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Topic: SC2 play challenges (Read 28283 times)
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Shiver
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I made a post about this at the GameFAQs forum before I knew this place existed, but it was a pretty good post so I guess there's no reason not to bring it up here.
MASSIVE SPOILERS, DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T BEATEN THE GAME. YOU WON'T KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT ANYWAY!
So you've beaten Star Control II. Now what? Have you tried playing the whole game through doing any of the following for kicks? I highly recommend you limiting yourself somehow if you have already beaten the game if you want any challenge at all. The tasks with the asterisks by them have been fully tested out by me.
VARIATIONS
*1) Play the game without using any support vessels whatsoever. Flagship only. Sell whatever ships are given to you at your leisure. Use whatever you damn well please at the Sa-Matra because that part is frigging hard alone.
1.1) If you want the battles to be more difficult, only use the side slot for your guns. You may use a point defense laser. Consider carrying a very large number of crew. As above, the Ilwrath at the start and Sa-Matra battle are exceptions to flying solo.
1.2) Apparently the Sa-Matra can be beaten alone. This in itself is monstrously hard, so be warned.
*2) Don't use the flagship at all for combat. This will actually prove to be a great advantage as you will have more room and RUs for fuel tanks and such, but will still add a twist to the game. You can still pull out the precursor ship to retreat and finish off the Sa-Matra at the end.
*2.1) "U.N. mode" - Same as above, but now you must play with only one of every ship that is allied with you in your fleet at all times. If one dies, you must immediately turn back to Earth and go get another. You are not allowed to use more than one ship of any given race, and if it's possible to get a ship that is available, you have to forgo new modules to get it. Finally, you must name your alliance "The United Federation of Worlds".
Always carry one of the following around once available:
- Earthling Cruiser
- Spathi Eluder (becomes an exception after the Spathi poof)
- Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger (allowing this species to be exterminated is not acceptable, so don't even think about letting them die off so you can carry around something else)
- Utwig Jugger
- Supox Blade
- Syreen Penetrator
- Orz Nemesis
- Shofixti Scout (consider the Shofixti quest a requirement)
- Chmmr Avatar
- Yehat Terminator (can be replaced infinitely, so you must have one at all times once possible)
The remaining two (three if you lose your Eluder after the Spathi are gone) slots are optional and can be filled with the following, as long as you only use one of each. They do not have to be replaced if they die. They are:
- Arilou Skiff
- Pkunk Fury
- Umgah Drone
- Thraddash Torch
- Druuge Mauler
*3) Play the game like an evil bastard. After you get what you need from a particular race, turn on them in any way you can if possible. Here's a very long list of suggestions of things to do while being a jerk: call the new alliance "my empire", enrage the Orz, let the Zoq-Fot-Pik be exterminated, sell crew to the Druuge for anything you want, make that one remark to the Supox about eating brocolli and cheese, talk dirty to Talana as much as possible, kill the shofixti and let the pkunk be devoured by their brothers, etc. One thing you should probably skip out on is allowing the Kohr-Ah to kill off species, but you can do that if you really want to. Just make sure you don't do more than you can get away with.
*4) Let the Kohr-Ah run their course, just to see what happens. Do whatever you want in the meantime.
*5) Piracy (killing other ships for RUs) instead of mining. One exception is the radioactives at the start. This presents a problem at the beginning, but becomes easier as you go. You might want to convert bio data into RUs by selling fuel so that you don't have to spend hours upon hours of fighting.
*5.1) Take 5 a step further by not hunting critters and relying on rainbow worlds for your credits instead. It's okay, there's more than enough.
6) No Melnorme assistance. No technology, no fuel, nothing.
7) Use only half of the maximum thrust and turn modules the whole way through. The time limit won't seem so large anymore.
8) You are not allowed to mine or hunt critters anywhere except for Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah space. You are allowed to strip-mine all of Sol, though, so take advantage of that before you set out on your first run. This is fun when you've already memorized where all the good resources are, because now you're exploring for new things again. None of that piracy crap, either. Not even against the Ur-Quan themselves, seeing as how Fwiffo could net you all the RU's you'd ever need if you're good at combat.
9) Do not fix the starbase at the beginning, just grab Fwiffo and leave the system. You'll need to get bio credits in a hurry to support your fuel needs and you'll never get ship upgrades, crew replacements, or any ships that weren't handed to you. Once you free the Chmmr, obtain the Utwig bomb and the Dnyarri, you get hauled back to the base as though you had been using it all along. This is the ultimate challenge and is probably impossible, but worth a try if you're up for it.
Update: I still don't believe it myself, but a few have succeeded in this.
10) Only use the Shofixti Scout in battles. This becomes very expensive. You'll be doing quite a bit of mining. Your first priority is to obtain the VUX Beast and Shofixti Maidens. If you get caught in a battle before you have any Shofixti, you must run.
11) Only use the Zoq Fot Pik Stinger in combat at all times. Flee if any enemy approaches you before then.
12) You are never allowed to obtain crew from the starbase. Ship 'gifts' are alright. The Syreen Penetrator can solve the problem, but you won't be seeing that for a long time. Make use of the cheesiest possible combat methods (SPATHI-FU!) to conserve your crew members and be extremely careful planeteering.
13) Only use one finger/button at any time while in ship melee. This will make ships like the Orz Nemesis virtually useless. I have absolutely no idea what this is like, but I assume it's not that difficult once you get used to it.
14) Only use Melnorme for refueling. You are not allowed to purchase any fuel from the Starbase nor from the Druuge. You'll have to sell parts to the Melnorme to get them to fuel you up at the start, but I heard that they give you free fuel if you have no valuable parts other than fuel pods and movement thingys.
MINOR HANDICAPS
15) "Take it like a man!"; no using the save or load functions at all except for when you wish to stop playing for a moment. That means if you screw up and die, game over.
*16) No rainbow worlds.
*17) No calling for the Melnorme with your caster; go find a supergiant.
*18) No using the portal spawner. You can still get it if you feel like it, though.
*19) Do not trigger the Slylandro self destruct code.
*20) Avoid deploying cheesy ships that can win against most enemies without taking hits. Here's a list of them:
- Spathi Eluder
- Thraddash Torch
- Utwig Jugger
*21) Fight the Sa-Matra (guards don't count here) using only one kind of ship. If it's possible, without losing a single ship. The ones that are confirmed as possible are listed below:
Pkunk Fury - Easiest of all.
Arilou Skiff - Not all that difficult, but quite time consuming. This would be easy if the laser locked on.
Chmmr Avatar - Impossible with one, a challenge with many.
Utwig Jugger - Moderately challenging with only one, a walk in the park with several.
Yehat Terminator - Difficult with one, pretty simple with many.
Thraddash Torch - You can outrun all the defenses, but your pea shooter does so little damage that this is a pain in the ass.
*22) All combat must be done with the Cyborg on. This puts melee experts at a disadvantage. Know when to retreat your ships.
*23) Do not pull the fuel trick on the Druuge, as that gives you more RUs than you'll probably ever need. On the other hand, if you aren't familiar with this trick, you should try it at least once. To do it, sell the Burvix Caster to the Druuge while all 16 of your flagship slots are loaded up with empty high-efficiency fuel tanks. Then, sell the 1500+ fuel for immense wealth at the starbase.
*24) Do not abuse the lander bug if you normally do.
25) Play the game nude. It wasn't my idea, but somehow this list wouldn't be complete without it.
Feel free to suggest other variations on playing the game.
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« Last Edit: February 12, 2004, 06:43:07 am by Shiver »
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Captain Smith
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See my post on here somewhere on here about pissing things off in the game (i.e. having them go to war, getting them to want to attack you, getting them so they won't deal with you, etc). It's a major spoiler sometimes to describe how to do it like I did, but it's fun to do just to see different parts of the game.
Wondering about two things, just remembered I didn't ever try to piss off the Syreen. And then, I think I've only seen the Kohr-Ah once on their rampage. I wonder what the game acts like if I follow around the Kohr-Ah a while and see what they say and the other races say.
Still thinking about/working on a fast solve for SC2. Kind of a "you know how the game goes normally so now let's solve it as quickly as possible doing all the quests. My current best time is sometime in the beginning of 2157 with doing all the quests.
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Shiver
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The Syreen don't get mad at you at all. She says stuff like "That's sort of cute, but cut it out."
You just reminded me of alternate game method 4!
4) Let the Kohr-Ah run their course, just to see what happens. Do whatever you want in the meantime.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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You could take the challenge of not gathering minerals for RUs and building your whole fleet out of the salvaged parts of your enemies' vessels. Maybe impossible... but I suppose you could get started with minerals and shift over to piracy ASAP...
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Rob
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Shiver, #3 is how I ALWAYS played the game  Once, just for kicks I annihilated every free-floating ship in the Orz cluster. Then I went into the individual solar systems and wiped out *those* ships. Finally I headed to the Orz homeworld to wipe out as many as I could. Sooooooo many dead Orz :-)
You must mean - 'Burst into several.'
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Don't you get the option to attack even your allies?
Won't the utwig cancel their peace treaty with you if you start blowing their ships up without talking to them? (though it's hard - maybe try the supox instead).
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Captain Smith
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You can get almost every single race in the game to declare war with you, and it's really quite fun.
True.
you can't piss off the Druuge except by refusing to give them the bomb (I think. I never tried wholesale slaughter of their vessels),
That's how to do it. Blow up their ships when you encounter them. They'll evoke one of their laws as reason to attack you...
The Syreen, Chmmr, Arilou, and Umgah can't be made antagonistic towards you
Haven't tried it yet with the Syreen. You don't get much of a chance to piss the Chmmr off (though I haven't tried). The Umgah are pretty antagonistic to you anyway even without trying anything with them (they'll only let you go w/o a fight if they're under control of the talking pet). And the Arilou, just act like an instinctual savage brute (blow up the first set of ships you see). That'll get them pissed off at you pretty quick and they won't give you the portal spawner even. Not sure if that'll end the game so the talking pet doesn't make it to the Umgah or what.
As I said, see my earlier post, it describes how to get everything mad at you at least the ones I didn't forget.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Good luck - IIRC, you never even find them with ships.
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Shiver
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Okay, here's the list of variants right now.
1) Flagship only (exception: Sa-Matra)
2) No flagship for combat
3) Evil captain
4) Piracy/No mining (exception: radioactives at the beginning, possibly some others to start off)
5) No Melnorme assistance (impossible?)
6) Kohr-Ah rampage
When the game is finalized, I will personally play-test all of these and maybe post a guide for the possible ones on GameFAQs.
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« Last Edit: January 31, 2003, 12:42:35 am by Shiver »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Of course there is the smaller handicap of using no rainbow worlds...
Placing a lower limit on the flagship's max turn and thrust...
No more than 60 crew (or for the berserk, no more than the basic 10!) (this last will keep landers rom being full - I wonder why they can't just sleep in the landers??)
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Shiver
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Of course there is the smaller handicap of using no rainbow worlds...
Placing a lower limit on the flagship's max turn and thrust...
No more than 60 crew (or for the berserk, no more than the basic 10!)
No rainbow worlds is an okay rule to add if someone wants to make their game a little bit more difficult, but it wouldn't really change the game. Lower turn and thrust modules was something I suggested before, but no one really liked the idea of going very slow. Low crew on the flagship is kind of a weird one. I know if I had to do this, I'd simply not use my flagship for combat, which is already listed.
Sorry to shoot down all your ideas, especially since I want people to post suggestions here.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Ah! But low crew on flagship means you also have to run a tight ship concerning landings, AND you can't take many casualties on the other ships in your fleet. When using the rest of your fleet to fight, it really helps to be able to re-crew them after each fight. With only 9 people on the mother ship, well, you're not doing a lot of re-crewing.
As for speed and turn, well I agree with your original idea. Not being able to outrun everybody in warp really changes the kinds of routes you take, sometimes.
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