About to try to beat Star Control 2...no spoilers!

[The Troglodyte]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain’s Log – Apr 14, 2158 – Starbase – Status: Docked

What? Did you think I was dead or something? The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I’ve always wanted to say that. And they were indeed greatly exaggerated… by me! Fell for it!

Anyways, I find myself back to the old drawing board, but we get a second chance to confront the Sa-Matra, and this time, armed with the previous experience, we shall more be prepared than ever!

First of all, we dismissed a majority of our fleet in favor of ships which can take on the combined remnant forces of Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah which remain after the Dnyarri does its Pied Piper routine, but also be useful in case they’re needed to help out the reinforcements of Yehat and Pkunk to destroy the 8 shield generators surrounding the asteroid shell which houses the Sa-Matra, so we’ll be keeping an Arilou Scout (overall effective), the StarRunner (Fwiffo may be a coward for the most part, but the Eluder is a Dreadnought killer) an Orz Nemesis (effective against both Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah) and a Pkunk Fury (our secret weapon against the Sa-Matra).

Therefore, we’ve replaced the Syreen, Thraddash, Druuge, Earthling, Yehat (since it is replaceable and not as useful as the Pkunk –- admittedly, a phrase I never thought I’d say) and Supox ships have all been replaced by Utwig Juggers and Chmmr Avatars:




Afterwards it was certainly time to make some modifications to the Vindicator, considering our current flagship set-up turned out to be our major downfall during our first engagement. In fact, I went back time and time again to try to maneuver our big hulk of a sluggish harpoon into the belly of our targeted whale, but alas, no matter how times I tried we simply didn’t have enough crew to man the controls and keep our onboard ship operations functioning long enough to reach our goal as those little hellacious fireballs and green bouncy thingies prevented us from achieving our victory.

Considering we never actually used any of our weapons or defensive systems on the Vindicator in the previous engagement (I mean, we did, but they were of little use against the Sa-Matra’s forces) so I had the ship stripped of all its armaments and peripherals and replaced with crew pods. Then I stood before everyone and gave a very passionate speech of how we’re seeking volunteers that we’re going to be going on a one-way trip into the jaws of death, but their sacrifice would be etched forever in the passage of times and blah, blah, blah, sunshine, roses, heroics and all that good stuff. Of course, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and everyone stepped forward in unison and the hands went up quicker than the rebels claiming to be Spartacus. You should have been there, it was magnificent!




Due to my uncanny recruiting ability, I told them we would have a special drawing and only the first lucky 250 people would have their place of honor by my side as we sacrifice ourselves for the greater good… well, except for me of course, because, well, you know, somebody has to be in the escape pod, and there’s really only room for one, that being me, and I know it seems like it would be roomy, but it’s not… trust me. Somebody has to be the triumphant hero, so it may as well be me! Besides, I’ve already moved in the pool table, wet bar, and my easy chair.

And wouldn’t you know it?… all of the winners of the drawing ALL turned out be Shofixti! Hey! Don’t look so surprised… I mean, by now they outnumber us like 50 to 1… there’s really no beating those odds! Lucky little furballs. Wink. Anyway, and the entire crew has been given joystick control panels which will give them all access to the engines, for in case our helmsman dies during the fight, ensuring that there will always be someone at the helm to accomplish our objective.

We will now depart Starbase to face our destiny! Captain out.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Draxas]

Well... I suppose that is a viable way to punch through the defenses. Considering I could count the number of crew losses up until now on my digits, though, it seems out of character. Still, whatever allows you to push through to victory in the end; after all, the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake!

[krulle]

I think the galaxy itself is not concerned with the Ur-Quans and any of their actions and the reactions to that.

Sapient life-forms do, but not the universe itself.


Now the happenings of SC3 are of a much bigger concern to the universe.... But that's happening in the KessariQuadramt, and far from home.... And in an alternative multiverse.... (read: in the fan-accepted canon it never happened anyway)

[Stickman_king_28]

this'll be good...

[Quasispatial]

Now if he just knew that the defensive systems stopped spawning after the shield goes down...

[Tormuse]

A bit late, but I just saw that you failed to make it in your last pass. AAaahh! NOOooo! D: You succeeded at the hard part and failed the easy part! Oh well, with that near success under your belt, I'm sure you'll make it this time.

[Draxas]

Now if he just knew that the defensive systems stopped spawning after the shield goes down...

To be fair, it took me a few tries to figure this out on my own when I was first playing the game. Unless you have an Avatar out, it's not likely you are going to be shooting down the defenses much, which makes it pretty non-obvious.

[The Troglodyte]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Captain’s Log – Apr 20, 2158 – Delta Crateris – Near Planet 5 – Red Alert

After taking the usual route by using the Portal Spawner to bring us near Crater, we dodged the usual patrol coming from Delta Crateris before proceeding into the system, followed by telling the Dnyarri to ask the surrounding Ur-Quan circle fleet to stand down, and then we found ourselves back at a familiar spot:



But this time around we were ready for them…

We sent 1 of our 4 Utwig Juggers to take on the first ship, which turned out to be an Ur-Quan, which the Utwig handled without much of a problem, especially due to the unwillingness of the Dreadnought to release her autonomous fighters, which could at the very least serve to confuse or distract the Utwig, but whatever. The next ship of course was a Marauder, which the Jugger, having taken minimal damage in the previous battle, almost destroyed the Marauder vessel, but the Kohr-Ah won by a very slim margin.

The ever-opportunistic Fwiffo signaled that they would finish off the Kohr-Ah vessel, which they did after a few passes, but I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised when the StarRunner did not warp out immediately following the victory (a typical Spathi strategy in any victorious moment) but they actually stuck around and destroyed the next Ur-Quan, but they took a fair amount of damage in the fight and warped out before another Marauder showed up.

We sent in a Chmmr Avatar to go head-to-head against the Kohr-Ah, and they blasted the Marauder warship into oblivion with a surge of laser that cut a hole directly through their hull and then sliced it in half! Unfortunately, this only left the Avatar with 1 ZapSat remaining but more critical, only a scarce crew left after taking such heavy damage. The Ur-Quan, still unable to deploy fighters due to the lone satellite defense, but they still dished out a fury of fusion blasts that finished off the Avatar before the Ur-Quan had lost of third of their own crew.

The Orz Nemesis showed up and quickly released a long line of space marines, nearly all of which were promptly onboard the Dreadnought and slaughtering their crew and destroying their ship from the inside out within mere seconds! Knowing another Marauder was about to show up, the Nemesis retreated.

Another Chmmr arrived and pulled the Kohr-Ah to within weapons range with their Tractor Beam, and they blasted each other with everything each vessel had at their disposal, but the Avatar was able to get their licks in much more quickly, and the final guardian was no more… leaving us all alone with our real target.

And you could set your watch to the arrival of the victorious rebel Yehats and their newfound companions (and royal superiors even!) the Pkunk. No, really, you could set your watch to it, because it happened this way exactly last time, at precisely the same time! Of course, they gave us 2 Yehat Terminators and another Fury, but 1 was all we needed.

After the usual Dnyarri pep talk, we sent our Pkunk that we’ve had since the beginning of this long journey (from the original 4 gift ships in fact) and in-turn the Fury took long journey after long journey around the Sa-Matra while firing their side-cannons (well, I mean firing all of its cannons, since they all fire simultaneously, but you know what I mean) whilst cussing profusely (you know, to recharge the old batteries) until all 8 of the shield generators were no more. Then it was time…





We sent in the Vindicator… through the hurled fireballs that would startle even Ryu or Ken (Ha-do-ken!) which burned huge gaping holes through her hull, but persisted like a Skywalker piloted X-wing using the force to send blasts into the only weak spot of the Death Star, but I’ll have to admit the Sa-Matra’s weak spot was much more obvious at this point, and so I followed the Dnyarri’s advise and pressed the big red button on the control panel, which simultaneously started the detonation sequence and ejected my escape pod, which sent me hurtling away from the Sa-Matra, but would I have sufficient time to put enough of a safe distance in time?



Well, I’m writing this so there’s your answer. When I awoke, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! Hubba Hubba:



Of course, it was the beautiful Talana standing over my hospital bed as I regained consciousness. Then the coolest thing happened! Since I’ve been out like a light for the past few weeks, the Chmmr have been using their combined powers to bring down the slave shield around Earth! All right!! I saved Earth after all! Hooray!



Unfortunately, then my over-usage of the time machine suddenly sent me into rapid-aging! Yikes:



That’s right kiddies! Let that be a lesson to everyone that using a time machine repeatedly can have adverse effects! Oh yeah, and that reminds me… and then a different alien species showed up in a big flying saucer and enslaved the Earth:





Just kidding! That picture of the old man is me reading my grandkids all of my captain’s logs from front to back of all of my adventures, including a little adventure involving that last picture with the big UFO ship, but that, my friends, is a story for another time…

THE END (for real finally)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[The Troglodyte]

Hey! The Troglodyte here! I just wanted to say I’ve had such a great time playing the best game ever!… and the fun was made so much more fun for me by all of you for allowing me to share the adventure with you! Thank you! Now, I’d like to take this time to turn things over to you guys and get your feedback and any questions you may have, so feel free to chime in with any of your thoughts and all that good stuff! I myself have a lot of spoiler material to go back through in the last 150 pages! Oh!! And I finally get it! “Annigilate!” Be seeing you!

[krulle]

Well done!

that was the single most enjoyed playthrough of UQM (or any game) I was allowed to have a share in.
It gave me much more enjoyment (due to the long timespan) than my own first try (which ended rather frustatingly, as for some reason on our machine the Portal never opened - which may have had to do with the version I used, where the copy check was forcefully suppressed).
Thank you, Troglodyte!



BTW: there's a lot less risk for your Vindicator if you move in with a Chmmr first, to "kill" the remaining defending weapons. Or any other ship that can shoot at the weapons and protect itself, like the Utwig Jugger, or is fast enough to not be caught by the flames, but still shoot at them.
Spoiler: the defending weapons stop spawning once the generators are gone.