So they’ve launched a Patreon and it includes (viewable to non-subscribers) the first look at real graphics with the Chmmr. Looks good!
I just got the email, and I think I’m going to join this Patreon. The thought of getting a sequel to the Ur-Quan Masters is too good to pass up.
On the one hand, my friends and I played melee to death on my old 386 and loved it. On the other hand, even 15 year old me couldn’t understand, if I had a capital ship and a small fleet of alien friends, why would we (or the UrQuan for that matter) choose to fight our enemies one on one, gladiator style?
Then again, would MOO-style fleet battles be better for a game like this, gameplay wise? Probably not. Maybe a grand melee with everyone at once?
I’m still frazzled by the illogical nature of the combat system.
My problem with the combat system is that I just can’t do it anymore. It’s fine if they want to go with something similar to the original, more power to them, but I’m not going to be able to go on that journey.
And if I remember right, even in Star Control 2, I think I “cheated” a whole bunch by using mostly the most powerful ships and even your own mothership.
The combat is really my only beef with the game, and as you guys mentioned it’s fairly easy to cheese. (mm, beef and cheese, I’m getting hungry). I’m hoping they have something new and interesting lined up for the new game.
Easy to cheese is a feature, not a bug.
I’ve said before that I hope they modernize the combat to be more like Galak-Z, meaning more physics based than even Star Control 2, with more emphasis on correct momentum. But we’ll see. I’m not too worried. They really did a great job at the time in both Star Control 1 and 2. And then Legend did a great job with the combat in Star Control 3. Yes, they feel clunky now in the 2020s, compared to Galak-Z and other modern games, but it’s not like Paul and Fred have been sitting on their asses outside the games industry in the meantime. They have a pretty good perspective on what feels good and what doesn’t, so I feel like I can trust them.
That’s a perspective, not a fact.
I Patroned up. A true SC3 is just too tempting.
I too, as one says, patroned up.
Sorry, I meant it’s designed to be that way. Whether that’s good design or not is, as you say, a matter of perspective. Like when DarthMasta mentions using the most powerful ships and your own mothership, that’s what you’re potentially meant to do (although it’s optional, obviously). You’re constantly trying to gather allies and resources so that you can get more powerful ships and improve your own mothership. The whole basis of Star Control’s combat model from the first game onward is a big game of rock paper scissors where certain ships are really powerful against other ships by design, which in turn are really vulnerable to other ships by design. This can be overcome by player skill, obviously, but it’s a fundamental part of the design. Similarly with the mothership in Star Control 2, it’s meant to become an overpowered behemoth, as a reward for gathering the right technology and resources.
OK, that sounds less like ‘cheesing’ then and more ‘letting the game funnel you into a progression that should naturally allow you to become more powerful over the course of the game’. Which didn’t seem to be my experience as I remember it (and it’s been a while, so take that for what it’s worth). I should probably load the game back up and see how time has treated the game - but there’s always that risk of a game that looms so large in my recollection, then not quite living up to it. I guess that’s the retro gamer’s burden.
But I didn’t really hate or even really dislike the combat. I thought it was a ton of fun in super melee, which as you mentioned was a fun little game of trying to find the proper ship and strategy to counter your opponent. It just didn’t work as well for me in the campaign, where it wasn’t as easy to counter other ships in the early game, because those counters weren’t yet available to you. I just mention combat because it’s the one aspect that always took SC2 down a notch from completely perfect to oh so close.
Would Approaching Infinity work for you then?
Maybe pretend it’s a bunch of fights happening in parallel? Like when superheroes fight it out. In fact, maybe we should suggest to them that this should be the idea in SC3.
I have no idea what that means.
(ignore the “early access” label, it’s been out for over a decade but only got out from under Shrapnel’s publishing contract and onto Steam a couple of years ago)
Never heard of it, looks interesting though.
It’s very well regarded but being on Shrapnel for so long definitely kept the word of mouth down. There’s a dedicated thread for it around here somewhere.
So before a battle you’d have to assign each ship an initial combatant… that’d be cool, since you’d be forced to make some suboptimal matchups in some cases. Maybe if there’s a mismatch in numbers, two on one might work, with AI filling in?
Part of me really does like the massive melee idea though, which would also streamline how quickly it plays out, since basically it would be one big real-time battle… and then makes for a fun replay where you could zoom out and watch it happen. And then you get dynamics that make more sense, like missile boats can be lobbing from further away while the brawlers get in close, etc…
Star Control 2 is an arcade game wrapped in an exploration game wrapped in a grand galactic story. The arcade part is basically Asteroids. (Or, less famously but more precisely, Space War.) Head-to-head battle gives the player direct agency over the outcome, makes their skill and tactics matter, and provides a dose of action and adrenaline to contrast with the wide-open wandering through space and alien-blabbing that makes up the rest of the game. For me, all these things are more important than whether its how actual space-faring humans would fight actual space-faring death-caterpillars/spazzy-clams/hyper-dimensional fish-bots. That’s not to say both the mechanics of Melee and the way it’s layered into the adventure mode and balanced to the progression couldn’t be improved and updated, but trying to solve a problem of realism or setting-logic is likely to just result in something that’s less fun to play.
Right, yet if it was one big melee battle, it would still be arcade gameplay… just more action packed. You could jump around between ships, dodge bigger ships, take on a pack of smaller ones… like an interactive Gratuitous Space Battles… I dunno, there’s room to explore something that keeps the feel but adds to the experience, rather than have a conga line of one on one battles that’ll feel dated and get old quick.