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

[Elestan]

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!

You had a pretty thorough play-through. The only noteworthy thing I can recall you missing was the second hyperwave 'caster, which had been placed on Arcturus 1a by the Druuge to lure the Kohr-Ah into killing the Burvixese (thereby distracting them from the Druuge homeworld). It works the same as the Umgah version, but can be traded back to the Druuge in exchange for a full refuel. Doing so when you have a ship full of empty fuel tanks is very profitable, and generates an amusing conversation.

You also didn't find all of the 10 Rainbow worlds, which was expected, as many of them can only be found by exhaustive exploration. Their positions form two lines of an arrow pointing to the upper-right of the map ("coreward"), with the tip at Groombridge. There was originally going to be an easter-egg video from the game developers on that world, but it didn't make it into production.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but because fuel can be sold back for RU, each unit of bio-data is effectively worth 40 RU, which makes them far more valuable even than exotics.

In any case, congratulations!

In subsequent play-throughs, you can get a significant jumpstart by making an early trip to the northwest as soon as you've scrounged the resources to max out your engines and buy the necessary fuel. There, you can get the Ur-Quan warp pod on Alpha Pavonis, record the Rainbow world on Beta Pegasi, head to the Arilou homeworld to get the Portal spawner, and hit the Corvi system to turn off the probes. Then I usually do a tour-de-force of the Rainbow worlds, letting the Melnorme refuel me as needed. The ten of them yield 5000 credits, which are enough to buy all the technologies and about 60000 RUs worth of fuel, which can be converted into ship modules. With those, you can finish the game start to finish in an afternoon.

[Draxas]

Congrats Trog, and thanks for letting us old timers experience this game again for the first time. I know I finished it for the first time back in 1994 (and many times since), so it's been great reading about how you figured out the puzzles and interacting with aliens, rather than just knowing where to go and who to talk to. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as we did reading about it (though based on that "best game ever" comment, I think it's safe to assume that you did), and now that there's nothing left to spoil, hopefully you'll come join us in the other topics on this forum as well. Things are pretty slow around here, as I assume you're aware, but enthusiastic new members will often get us old timers to come crawling back out of our caves.

Anyway, congrats again on freeing Earth; it was hard won, well earned, and a blast to follow along!

[Quasispatial]

Congratulations, captain, on the well-earned success of your lengthy campaign against the Ur-Quan oppression. It's been interesting getting to follow you from start to finish (with good story content to boot), and now that you're done, you're at last all clear to check out all that juicy content in the more spoiler-filled sections of the forum.

I hope you enjoyed detonating your glory device with Talana and the Sa-Matra both. By all appearances, this only had good consequences.

I'm sure I'll see you around here and there. Have a good one, Trog!

[The Troglodyte]

Well done!

that was the single most enjoyed playthrough of UQM (or any game) I was allowed to have a share in.

I’m glad my approach provided some decent entertainment. I tried to improvise with each situation and tried to let my reactions reflect the feelings the game brought out in me and it was my pleasure to have the opportunity to share it with all of you.

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).

Yikes! I don’t know how I would’ve faired without the portal.

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.

I guess I didn’t really attempt as many experiments concerning the Sa-Matra’s weapons. To me they seemed invincible, but I’ve gone back and put your suggestions to the test, and you’re indeed correct; I just wasn’t patient enough I suppose. It must’ve been that I was so close to my target that I surmised the easiest path to victory was simply to repeat my tactics, but with a crew-packed Vindicator. I must agree with Draxas when he pointed out that was rather out of character for me to throw away life like that, but seeing my goal so close to hand, it seemed like the time for prioritizing completing the game over my own preconceived values I had formerly followed throughout. I regret nothing!! (notice my in-game Shofixti justification tactic)

You had a pretty thorough play-through. The only noteworthy thing I can recall you missing was the second hyperwave 'caster, which had been placed on Arcturus 1a by the Druuge to lure the Kohr-Ah into killing the Burvixese (thereby distracting them from the Druuge homeworld). It works the same as the Umgah version, but can be traded back to the Druuge in exchange for a full refuel. Doing so when you have a ship full of empty fuel tanks is very profitable, and generates an amusing conversation.

I’m going to have to give that a try. Some of the Druuge’s reactions were whimsical during my playthrough, and I’d like to explore their dialogue in these matters.

You also didn't find all of the 10 Rainbow worlds, which was expected, as many of them can only be found by exhaustive exploration. Their positions form two lines of an arrow pointing to the upper-right of the map ("coreward"), with the tip at Groombridge. There was originally going to be an easter-egg video from the game developers on that world, but it didn't make it into production.

Interesting. Admittedly, towards the end of the game my focus was diverted to the point where I stopped concerning myself with the Rainbow worlds, but I had started noticing the line pattern, but having noticing it within two separate lines far from each other, I kept trying to form a shape in my head, but never made the arrow shape connection. I figured the puzzle would ultimately reveal itself to me, which is why it lost track in my mission objectives, considering it wasn’t deemed imperative at the time.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but because fuel can be sold back for RU, each unit of bio-data is effectively worth 40 RU, which makes them far more valuable even than exotics.

Never noticed that either, but that’s most likely due to the fact that RU acquisition quickly became unnecessary (even though I’ll admit it didn’t keep me from continuing my planet scraping (and ejecting!))

In subsequent play-throughs, you can get a significant jumpstart by making an early trip to the northwest as soon as you've scrounged the resources to max out your engines and buy the necessary fuel. There, you can get the Ur-Quan warp pod on Alpha Pavonis, record the Rainbow world on Beta Pegasi, head to the Arilou homeworld to get the Portal spawner, and hit the Corvi system to turn off the probes. Then I usually do a tour-de-force of the Rainbow worlds, letting the Melnorme refuel me as needed. The ten of them yield 5000 credits, which are enough to buy all the technologies and about 60000 RUs worth of fuel, which can be converted into ship modules. With those, you can finish the game start to finish in an afternoon.

Another interesting notion! Hmmm… I’ve got a few hours to spare…

Congrats Trog, and thanks for letting us old timers experience this game again for the first time. I know I finished it for the first time back in 1994 (and many times since), so it's been great reading about how you figured out the puzzles and interacting with aliens, rather than just knowing where to go and who to talk to. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as we did reading about it (though based on that "best game ever" comment, I think it's safe to assume that you did), and now that there's nothing left to spoil, hopefully you'll come join us in the other topics on this forum as well. Things are pretty slow around here, as I assume you're aware, but enthusiastic new members will often get us old timers to come crawling back out of our caves.

Anyway, congrats again on freeing Earth; it was hard won, well earned, and a blast to follow along!

Oh Draxas! You sure know how to give someone the warm and fuzzies! And It IS the best game ever! It’s truly been a blast (in more ways than one!) and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment. There have so many times that I’ve gone through my daily routine, pondering some creative thoughts and hoping that I can put those thoughts into words, and then when I’m writing those logs (especially the ones with a little added flare!) I loved going back through and wondering what you guys would think, smiling to myself when I’m sure it will provoke a response. Of all of the aspects of the game I’ve enjoyed, the anticipation of sharing my logs has been the one I will truly miss the most.

Congratulations, captain, on the well-earned success of your lengthy campaign against the Ur-Quan oppression. It's been interesting getting to follow you from start to finish (with good story content to boot), and now that you're done, you're at last all clear to check out all that juicy content in the more spoiler-filled sections of the forum.

I hope you enjoyed detonating your glory device with Talana and the Sa-Matra both. By all appearances, this only had good consequences.

I'm sure I'll see you around here and there. Have a good one, Trog!

That’s for sure. I’ve tiptoed around here enough so it’s about time I let my hair down and come traipsing into the wild!

[palmpet]

Sorry I'm late Trog! Congrats man! This has been a long time coming and you didn't disappoint! Your first contact with any given race was always a highlight! Also a while back I tried to direct you to Algol because of that one obscure line of dialgoue, if you haven't guessed by now, there isn't actually anything there for you to find. I was just trying to feed you a little Red Herring heh.

[Elestan]

You also didn't find all of the 10 Rainbow worlds, which was expected, as many of them can only be found by exhaustive exploration. Their positions form two lines of an arrow pointing to the upper-right of the map ("coreward"), with the tip at Groombridge. There was originally going to be an easter-egg video from the game developers on that world, but it didn't make it into production.

Interesting. Admittedly, towards the end of the game my focus was diverted to the point where I stopped concerning myself with the Rainbow worlds, but I had started noticing the line pattern, but having noticing it within two separate lines far from each other, I kept trying to form a shape in my head, but never made the arrow shape connection. I figured the puzzle would ultimately reveal itself to me, which is why it lost track in my mission objectives, considering it wasn’t deemed imperative at the time.

If you would like the full list of Rainbow Worlds, it can be found here.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but because fuel can be sold back for RU, each unit of bio-data is effectively worth 40 RU, which makes them far more valuable even than exotics.

Never noticed that either, but that’s most likely due to the fact that RU acquisition quickly became unnecessary (even though I’ll admit it didn’t keep me from continuing my planet scraping (and ejecting!))

Err...I think I might dispute the use of "quickly". You spent a long time resource-gathering. In case you want to see the highest-profit locations, I extracted a detailed list of every planet from the game data a while back, and put it into sortable wiki form here.

In subsequent play-throughs, you can get a significant jumpstart by making an early trip to the northwest as soon as you've scrounged the resources to max out your engines and buy the necessary fuel. There, you can get the Ur-Quan warp pod on Alpha Pavonis, record the Rainbow world on Beta Pegasi, head to the Arilou homeworld to get the Portal spawner, and hit the Corvi system to turn off the probes. Then I usually do a tour-de-force of the Rainbow worlds, letting the Melnorme refuel me as needed. The ten of them yield 5000 credits, which are enough to buy all the technologies and about 60000 RUs worth of fuel, which can be converted into ship modules. With those, you can finish the game start to finish in an afternoon.

Another interesting notion! Hmmm… I’ve got a few hours to spare…

You've surely earned the record for longest playthrough...now I'd be interested to see how quickly you can pull off a win!

[krulle]

Oh Draxas! You sure know how to give someone the warm and fuzzies! And It IS the best game ever! It’s truly been a blast (in more ways than one!) and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each and every moment.

Then this deserves a COWABUNGA!

Anyway, I also wanted to know how you liked the "cut-out" scenes?
The sequel ideas hinted at in the end credits?
Written by some space-bored avians? How it'll all be about one Druuge? With a VERY revealing costume? Directed by the Neo-Dnyarri?
Sponsored by the PKUNKRA-line: Just call 1-900-PKUNKRA. That's 1-900-PKUNKRA, 24 hours a day! Only two bucks per minute. (children under 18 must have parental permission before calling.)
In my head I tried to put it together into one, and even though I was in a pubertarian age, the result did not appeal to me, very Rule 34... At least Tanaka/Katana would not feature in it, but poor Talana with that Druuge? That killed everything... *shudders*

I loved it, with all the different details, some in-character (Frungy!), some clearly off-character (being actors),
it are in my opinions the very best game-credits I've ever seen. And a real good reason to actually let them run.


Just for your easier reference:
all in-game quotes can easily be found here: http://www.sa-matra.net/quotes/
I also like this map, where you can select the stars according to bio-data, minerals, artifacts, races, ... spoiler/non-spoiler... Alas, my employers filter has recently added the site to non-allowed.

[Borgie]

Congratulations Troglodyte!

I'm a bit late to the *party*, but I knew you could do it!

Speaking of being late, I've still got a lot of catching up to do. I'm still on page 46. I think your excessive time travel set me back 100 pages.

[Tormuse]

Hey! Congratulations on your victory! It's been a long time coming! (Over four and a half years? Wow!) You've brought some new life to this community in your time and you've been fun to follow.

If you want a suggestion of a ridiculous way to play the game, check out the time I tried to win without ever visiting the Earth starbase! (Note: I don't actually recommend you try this)

Are you planning to do a similar playthrough of Star Control 3? Obviously, you should expect a considerable step down in quality, but it would be interesting to see your take on it anyway. (It's a pretty Universally hated game, but I still think it had some good ideas for tying up some of the loose ends in SC2)

I'm not sure if you noticed, but because fuel can be sold back for RU, each unit of bio-data is effectively worth 40 RU, which makes them far more valuable even than exotics.

Huh... somehow, it never occurred to me to do that, but it makes sense... Visit the Melnorme with a ship full of empty fuel tanks, buy a crapload of fuel, then sell it. Of course, by the time you've got enough bio-data to get all the technology and/or information, you pretty much have more RUs than you know what to do with anyway.

[Elestan]

Visit the Melnorme with a ship full of empty fuel tanks, buy a crapload of fuel, then sell it. Of course, by the time you've got enough bio-data to get all the technology and/or information, you pretty much have more RUs than you know what to do with anyway.

Not necessarily. As I noted earlier, each Rainbow world logged yields 500 credits, and you only need about 2000 credits to buy out the tech. This means that the RU value of each Rainbow world is effectively 10,000 - nearly twice as much as the best gemstone world. The Umgah also provide 500 bio-data (convertible to 20,000 RU) upon being freed. I only scavenge for minerals long enough to max out my engines and buy enough fuel to get me to the upper left of the map. After that, selling back extra fuel pretty much pays for the rest.