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News: Celebrating 30 years of Star Control 2 - The Ur-Quan Masters

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| | |-+  Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the story
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Author Topic: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the story  (Read 43484 times)
Christopher Butz
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #45 on: May 05, 2003, 03:34:38 am »

About Zex - I'd like the surface of the planet to have a lot critters and the ability to re-capture the bad monster to sell back to the Melnorme.

Chmmr - Have their sphere of influence start small and grow quickly, the game is almost over when they awaken (at least for me it was) so I think every time you access the starmap, the Chmmr sphere should grow significantly until they start making headway into Ur-Quan space.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #46 on: May 05, 2003, 08:08:24 am »

you think that would be best? I guess I'd suggest that the Chmmr sphere expands slowly but also moves towards the Ur-Quan space. You could change the rates of movement and expansion so Chmmr space always has Procyon, but i don't think they should cover the /map/. I know they beat up the ur quan in a few weeks, but then again, they've also been in stasis for a while. I just don't think they should have a sphere of influence any bigger than the Ur-Quan's, is all. I think it's a bit too much power for them to build up so quickly. I get the feeling Chmmr power isn't in space, but in a single few large fleets that they smash the Ur-Quan with. They're more concentrated, that's it.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #47 on: May 05, 2003, 08:43:33 am »

Has everybody forgotten about the Black Spathi Squadron?!!!  I know I spent countless hours searching for them.  I always hoped to find them on some backwaters planet outside of a sphere of influence (but near the Spathi sphere) slowly biding their time until they could help the 'cowardly' Spathi rise up against the Ur-Quan.  They'd be a welcome addition.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #48 on: May 05, 2003, 08:33:07 pm »

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Has everybody forgotten about the Black Spathi Squadron?!!!  .... They'd be a welcome addition.


I too think this would be a neat idea, but with a spin on it.  I think you should find them on some random world, but the actual "group" would only be like 3 spathi ships or something.    Not even a full squadron.  The black ships with red stripes would be from the paint being wearing off their "red" ships.  They are like a bunch of "merc" Spathis that can barely keep their ships flying, much less painted.  Basically, their mythos would have grown larger than they really are.  Wink  Just the fact that they are "merc" like in their ways, the "normal" Spathi over-glorified them and they spread "rumors" to other people like the humans (and Cmdr Hayes).  Which would explain why they never really accounted for anything and why you never saw them in the *original* game.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #49 on: May 05, 2003, 11:07:44 pm »

Black Spathi certainly sound like a good idea. What would you have them do though? I mean, if they join you, we need a new ship (not very new, but different still) if they don't, they'll just be a random conversation, they certainly can't giver you anything. Well, they would be interesting trivia at hte very least

As for the mining, I like the ideas of finding some old blasted mining station on pluto or something with blueprints and such.However, I still think mining would be very hard. I mean, while the technology used is certainly much better than today, I still imagine you'd have to tie down quite a lot of resources in the project (transports, mining equipmnet, rations for miners, fuel, air and water...) for it to become cost effective very quickly. Once you have a mine set up with replicators and whatnot, maybe it'd run just fine. Or maybe all these personnel you have on the starbase who've never done any mining would pull the wrong switch and blow themselves to kingdom come.

And over a thousand ppl? Sure, but seeing as you (in the game) don't know how many you are going to eed before it's over, you might not want hem too spread out. Also, does anyone remeber, how many are absolutely essential to running the staion?

As for Zex base, maybe there could be another graphic, and a more detailed transmission from the lander crew, buth what else would you want from there? There's nothing but critters down there....
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #50 on: May 06, 2003, 07:40:22 am »

A couple of things:

1. Hayes specifically mentions that he "has 1900 men and women under his command", and that is well-emphasized by having him mention your loss of a thousand crew and their price rising following that. However - nothing at all happens when you pack up the remaining 900 crew and beyond. I checked. Both as a plot-hole fix and as a bit of an added challenge, I think the price should again rise - even more dramatically - at 1500 and then at 1800, each time mentioning how crew is running out. Then, after having recruited 1900 crew, this option is no longer available. The only solution is to get the Shofixti to replenish the base's stock. Actually, this is mostly theoretical, as even the freshest of newbies is unlikely to lose 1900, or even 1500 for that matter. But that's good, because the game should still be winable if the Shofixti thing somehow goes wrong.

2. Hayes really doesn't say anything about the Kohr-Ah starting their whole cleansing trip, not even when their sphere surrounds Sol or when they're specifically coming for you. The the game is practically over at these times, it's only logical that Hayes will urge you to make haste so that not all be lost. Besides, a huge armada of Kohr-Ah closing in on the starbase from all directions would be a nice touch.

3. Added starbases and possibly colonized planets, good idea. Adding the wrecked Mother Ark - I second the idea. Having starbases or new colonies pop out of nowhere, signifying "build-ups" or natural growth, no. Changing the original code s hard as it is without needing to add new orbits in-game.

4. I agree with what's been said about the Androsynth: Having them around in UQM is against the basic plot concept of the whole thing. Finding them locked up in *pretty space* (which has gone **frumple**, as you may recall) is a splendidly good idea - for a sequel, not here. And besides, I don't think that a long range exploration mission could stop the Orz from *smelling* them, obviously a trans-dimensional ability that transcends space and possibly time. The Orz got them all, no doubt there, but no one said they're all DEAD. Just gone. Great sequel stuff.

5. Old sphere-of-influence map: Interesting idea, that could be incorporated by having the spheres appear after having spoken with the commander about information about old Alliance races, thus eliminating the need of extra dialog. Alternatively, an old map could look significantly different than the curent stellar map, giving the SC1 rotating-star-map effect.

6. Forget about mines. The idea is alien to a game built so heavily around exploration, and is besides impractical for such underequipped, understaffed civilizations such as the post-war Earthlings.

7. I second the idea of adding other crash-landed craft, and especially precursor items. Exploration never ceases!

8. Lastly, though it obviously entails a lot more work than it's actually worth, it would be nice if the Ilwrath (Dill-Rats?) would actually be using the new pronounciation rules given to them by "their gods", perhaps Thraddash-style.

I guess I should shut up now.  Lips Sealed
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #51 on: May 06, 2003, 09:21:22 am »

*applauds loudly at the Talking Pet*

I totally agree. I mean, with 1900 people, Hayes *might* afford to let a few of 'em <maybe 100> go to have cruisers patrolling Sol, but I think that might be too much. Besides, that space station is huge. I mean, they can fill out the spine of a massive Precursor Service Vessel in under a day with modules. That must take tons of people to run.

BSS: Cool. Actually, the only use that I see for them is giving you some spathi ships after they slaveshield their homeworld. Perhaps a limited amount, like a group of 12 or so that hang around the starbase after you get them on your side? You can take them from the group up to a certain amount. Maybe the BSS are activated if you still have Fwiffo when Spathiwa is slaveshielded. But really, I can't imagine any other use.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #52 on: May 06, 2003, 04:50:28 pm »

Quote


8. Lastly, though it obviously entails a lot more work than it's actually worth, it would be nice if the Ilwrath (Dill-Rats?) would actually be using the new pronounciation rules given to them by "their gods", perhaps Thraddash-style.


I would really like to see this, great suggestion. It's good to see that there are almost no plotholes mentioned in this thread it says a lot about the quality of the game Smiley .

On another note: There's a lot more scientific information on some of the planets of the solarsystem then there was when the game was made, maybe it would be nice to change the planet maps/images of the planets and moons in the solar system to match with how they look in real life. Might be too much work though.
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Death 999
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #53 on: May 06, 2003, 08:16:41 pm »

1) Saturn has more moons than Jupiter. If we could get those in, even if there are zero minerals on them (having already been mined out, probably), it would be way cooler than just the one we have, which looks silly sitting there alone.

2) Speaking of Saturn -- RINGS on GAS GIANTS!
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #54 on: May 06, 2003, 09:59:03 pm »

I wouldn't add extra moons, currently the game only shows the large moons in the solar system (roughly equal in size to our moon and bigger) which is a good thing. saturn has only one big moon, as in sc2, jupiter four. Adding all the moons would create a huge mess since jupiter and saturn both have well over fourthy moons each Shocked.... It would be nice if the game used real maps of mars/io/ganymede instead of the current ones though. But it's not much of an issue, it doesn't have any gameplay implications, so it might be better left unchanged, It isn't that important.
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DarkeLyte
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #55 on: May 06, 2003, 10:27:27 pm »

Now this is rather a trivial point, and correcting it would mean altering the speech files a bit (which I know is a slim chance), but when you first reach the Earth starbase, Hayes tells you to find the radioactives at Mercury.

He can't scan your vessel, so he has no idea who you are or what race you belong to. Why does he assume that you know which planet is called Mercury? Shouldn't he tell you that you can find the radioactives on the planet closest to this system's sun?
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Death 999
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #56 on: May 06, 2003, 10:51:03 pm »

Well, probably he figured that if you didn't understand, you'd ask.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #57 on: May 08, 2003, 01:53:14 am »

Then add the function to ask this Grin pretend to be the awesomely strong 'unidentifyable' stranger.

Would be neat.
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Nic.
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #58 on: May 09, 2003, 04:23:43 pm »

With regard to Precursor items:  The point of precursor items in Starcon was, quite simply, to encourage players to play offensively and to explore.  Any player who boxed themselves in by only fortifying the systems around their starbase eventually had a fleet of "super-ships" knocking on their door.  So it was in every player's best interests to rummage around the systems looking for upgrades, if only to keep them out of the hands of their opponent.  In SC2/UQM, exploration is the entire point of the game, so that "itch" has effectively been "scratched" already.  And Sc2/UQM already has Precursor items; I seem to recall ten of them, arranged in a pattern, that you can collect and use to get fuel, upgrades for your flagship, and information Tongue

Also, in Starcon, the items and their locations were distributed randomly around the system, and the upgrades were non-transferrable; whichever ship landed on them first got them, and kept them.  This was good, because players could either explore with multiple ships and gain their upgrades quickly (and have multiple "super-ships"), or explore with a single ship and create an upgraded "mega-ship" (at the cost of slower exploration)  As proposed so far, the upgrades would be done in the opposite fashion:  they would be found by the lander on planet surfaces, and transferred to/installed on the ship of the captain's choice.  And since the game is wired the way it is (currently), they would have to live on the same planets every time.  Since the "character" of the upgrades would be in such contrast to the original version, and since there is already an upgrade path (if only for the flagship), I can completely understand their omission from SC2/UQM, and support keeping them out.  Besides, "perma-shielded" Terminators have no place in the Sa-Matra battle.

With regard to Mines: As proposed so far, I would posit that if you had enough resources to get a mine running, you wouldn't need to.  e.g., if you've got 50K RUs sitting around, you can buy as much fuel as you're ever going to need, and can safely ditch your cargo bays for the remainder of the game.  In that case, why bother with mines?  They would be a pointless and costly distraction, and would add nothing to the game at that point.

Also, according to the story and current game dialog, the Precursor ship is supposed to be HUGE.  Far bigger than any Hierarchy vessel, it requires much, much more maintenance and fuel.  All starbase resources are supposed to be put towards just keeping that colossal bucket of bolts held together, which is supposed to be why the Commander raises such a stink about losing too many crew in the game.

Solution Looking for a Problem:  I think that a very nice addition to the game would be for ships in hyperspace to be able to "follow" you in and out of star systems; i.e., not only do the probes follow you around hyperspace, but they chase you around the planets as well.  This would make them seem much more tenacious, and would augment the severity "probe problem" quite nicely.  Thoughts?
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Re: Looking post-1.0: "Shoring up" the s
« Reply #59 on: May 09, 2003, 07:45:23 pm »

Me likey the idea of ships following you into the planet system. It would prevent the 40 or so Ur-Quans of various persuasions who sit on your planetary system's door step waiting for you to inevitably come out that you have to fight before going on.
Has anyone ever had to fight so many ships that you just gave up and started the game over?
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