Hey everyone!

[NSF]

Thanks, and cool! Could I send you a PM then?

[Zeracles]

Posting requests openly could make for an interesting thread. Something like ``I will bump this thread until one of you draws X". We either get great art or an amusing amateur hour so a win either way.

Good advice, but you just ruined the experiment

That's hardly spoilery

I wasn't suggesting it was, I was alluding to something else, an experiment to provide some evidence regarding the propensity of new players to abandon the game for being too boring, if their attention is not drawn by experienced players to the better ways of playing that make the game more fun (hardly spoilers, as you say).

But there is a certain satisfaction in struggling, being harassed by enemies and working hard to finally win the game.

I agree, I think that's necessary and as an experience I actually don't mind it that much, as mentioned it's not that bad if played properly. But I think the real flaw is that it's easy to play inefficiently and think that is the way the game is meant to played. Other games impose more pressing penalties for boring and inefficient styles of play, thereby ensuring that people don't play them that way and thus don't get bored. That's what SC2/UQM does wrong, in my opinion.

So I don't necessarily think it would be better off with a different resource gathering mechanic, but a way to force/motivate people to play better so they don't get bored would be good. People modding the game aren't thinking in this direction. They should.

[Death 999]

I would rather not know than find out that the advice was helpful at the expense of losing fans in the control group.

As for physics...

On the solar system scale, gravity is too trivial a force for it to be a concern to navigation.

There and in combat, there are some serious differences from normal physics. Notably, gravity only exists in a square area around the planet, thrust has limits, and (most) bullets do not inherit their source's velocity.

[Eth]

Wow, thanks for the warm welcome everyone! In all honesty, I pretty much already HAVE spoiled the game by watching the walkthroughs. Is it weird the mineral gathering reminds me a lot of Mass Effect 2's whole probe launching thing?

As to those artists, do you think there's any chance they may do requests?

I generally do not do requests, unless they happen to amuse me. I take commissions, though!

[NSF]

Sadly, I don't really have any money for commissions.

[Zarnium]

Speaking of the game's accessibility, did anyone here actually manage to complete the game entirely on their own? As I recall, I figured out almost everything by myself, but I could not figure out where ZEX's beast was. After my first failed game, I gave in and looked it up. I still can't figure how any of ZEX's hints actually lead you there.

(BTW, friendly suggestion, use spoiler tags when answering this, given that we've got a new player here and all.)

[RTyp06]

I never beat the game when I first played on a 80x386 PC in the early nineties. Years later, when I discovered the UQM remake and online walkthroughs, I finally beat the game.

I don't recall if I cheated on the Zex beast mission or not, but I did have problems with the Syreen/Mycon mission and had to take a peek at how others beat the SaMatra after failing a number of times on my own. I also looked at the wiki to figure out what some of the artifacts were used for and how to use them.

[Death 999]

We failed our first runthrough partly because we took forever to upgrade our speed but mainly because we got stuck with the only thing left to do being finding the talking pet. We should have been able to work that one out.

[Eth]

It's been over 20 years, but I remember a bit. I had a big player's guide to help me. ZEX's beast was one of the things I had to look up, IIRC. Perhaps if I had read [/i]The Little Prince[/i] I would have been able to figure out the clues to finding the beast...

[Dyandod]

The original version of the game had some dialogue that was taken out in the UQM version:

The pertinent passage goes as follows
`... demise, It(!) basks in yellow light within the eight star constellation of Linch-Nas-Ploh.'
We have translated `Linch-Nas-Ploh' to mean approximately
`the snake-like creature who has swallowed the elephantine beast.'
I am afraid this is all that I know.
I hope it is sufficient.