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Universal Combat - First Impressions


Supreme Cmdr
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Alrighty.

The good: I liked the fact that the game has indeed NOT been dumbed down. This will not fly well with some game reviewers as they expect BF1942 complexity (and not more...) everywhere. The game runs smooth on reasonable hardware. The wildlife is really nice, I love to fly at low altitude and watch the birds passing by. I won't go into detail how much I like the range of actions available to the player, as this is what this game is all about.

The bad:

x) The UI. Take a look at the options menu at 1280x1024 and you see what I mean. Texts overflowing the (fixed size) dialogs does not look professional. Things like the Logistix and Tactical computer could be merged into one screen. Just as in BCM, most screens are empty except for one or two controls, and you have to step through quite a long sequence to get to the light. It's like being forced to crawl through a keyhole to enter the hall. A complete overhaul could really improve the whole game. Hire a seasoned HMI-designer and let him revamp the whole thing. It's definitely possible to keep the whole functionality while getting rid of the individual "mostly-empty-screens".

EDIT: I'm actually quite ok with the Tacops screen. It has a lot of functionality yet it's reasonably simple to use.

x) The options. There's no support beyond 1280x1024, and especially no widescreen support. The latter is excusable for some older opengl games, but under D3D there's no real reason.

There's no global mouse invert that I could find. I can toggle the y-axis invert option on and off, it has no effect on first person mode for example.

x) Sounds. They're mostly low quality, some are outright annoying, and almost all samples have been preprocessed with some reverb.

x) Trees. Ok they are there, but they look like what I did in my games back in 2000. The upside is that they don't use much processing power of course. It's good that they're there, they just don't look exceptionally nice.

x) First person mode. Uh oh. This is the part of the game that still has the most icky feel to it IMHO. There's a whole thread about looking up and down, yet the biggest gripe I have is the fact that the whole fps-episode just doesn't "feel right". The collision detection is shaky, and one never knows what units one can enter. Simple optical cues could tell you that, for example.

Some features are really useless IMO, like the ability to look around while keeping the current heading. You can turn your viewpoint and look into your own head, whee

x) Some CTDs. But that's to be expected. Entering ground vehicles and installations seems to be very crash-prone.

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Well, I got my copy yesterday to have a play about with and this is a total newbie viewpoint so please excuse me if I get excited about things that seem silly to the veterans out there.

The Good.

Space. Mmm.lots and lots of it. For you explorers out there, there's a lot to see and a lot to do just in space. Last night I spent most my time in Roam mode defending Earth from any and all reds that came into the sector.

The combat is exciting, well paced and most importantly...great when your ship is severely damaged and you still win the fight. (I.e. Nuclear core issues)

In Battlecruiser Generations I felt the combat was too fast. Fighters would wiz by and the commander wouldn't even see them except for on the radar. Now I can visually see an enemy Insurgent heading straight for me, guns blazing. (Of course, I also see my fighters cruise past my Cap ship and blast the fecker away.)

The visuals in space...just the best I've ever seen. Shields, Planets, Ships, Explosions. Wow oh wow.

The bad for the space aspect of this game, it's hard to pin point a negative issue as I had such a blast in space but if there were one it'd be the jumping camera if your AE ejects and runs about on top of his Cap ship.

Planetary portion of the game.

Again, wow. The scale is amazing...even if you just land the cruiser and get your AE out to have a look at the size difference. It's incredible.

Landscape engine, trees, water, hills and cities/bases are much better looking now. When you are in a base, you FEEL like you are in a base and not a Lego display. (Which is how I felt in BCG. )

Combat on foot: Great, especially when you use your jetpack, fly over the enemy and blast from on high. (Just watch your fuel/thrust level thingy...ouch.)

Negatives on foot: Shaky camera again and a tad annoying when you approach a vehicle/building and bounce back. I'd prefer it if the player simply stopped when collision was detected. When the camera is playing nice, the combat is great...when it steers off to the left or right on it's own, I get a little dis-heartened. (I don't have a joystick attached so it's not poor joystick config causing that.)

Vehicles again are very nice. It's nice to have such variety.

My only problem, and this is from a newbie standpoint: Setting up and deploying troops via shuttles...not easy but I'll learn and that really is an issue for me to learn how to do properly.

That's my first impression from 1 night of playing. I must admit, the role-player in me is waiting for the patch which allows us to salute out men and have them salute back.

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quote:


Originally posted by Werewolf:

x) The UI. Take a look at the options menu at 1280x1024 and you see what I mean. Texts overflowing the (fixed size) dialogs does not look professional.


It sounds like the fonts are not being positioned according to the screen res. Up to what res can you run before you notice this? 1024x768? I am currently running it as 1280x1024 and everything looks fine. This could be a driver or font issue. The registration DB is going online in a bit, at which point you can add your system specs to sig and open a problem report so that this can be investigated.

The HUD system dynamically scales and positions text based on the screen res. If thats not working, then its either a driver of font issue.

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Things like the Logistix and Tactical computer could be merged into one screen.

They are two computer systems which do completely different things. You are encroaching in design issues which go back to the legacy days. With all the changes that the series has gone through, if I had found that it was necessary to merge the two, I would have. You have to understand and accept the fact that they are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT systems. I didn't create two systems just to make more work for myself.

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x) The options. There's no support beyond 1280x1024, and especially no widescreen support.


And the problem is what? I guarantee you that you that during a major battle, you won't even be able to run the game at anything higher than 1024x768 with all options turned on, let alone 1280x1204 or higher.

The screen resolution can go higher, its just not supported because the text and fonts are not guaranteed to upscale and position correctly. This is documented in the FAQ. e.g. to change the res to 1600x1200 or higher, you have to use the same method described in the FAQ.

Why should it support widescreen? Are you kidding me? The thought never even crossed my mind and it never was in my design to begin with.

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The latter is excusable for some older opengl games, but under D3D there's no real reason.

Really? How many games actually do support widescreen? And why?

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There's no global mouse invert that I could find. I can toggle the y-axis invert option on and off, it has no effect on first person mode for example.

The y-axis toggle should do that and if it not effective in fp mode, I have to look into that.

quote:


Sounds. They're mostly low quality, some are outright annoying, and almost all samples have been preprocessed with some reverb.

They were sampled in order to process correctly under DirectSound positional and so that they still play correctly when mixed in with several simultaneously playing sounds.

quote:


Trees. Ok they are there, but they look like what I did in my games back in 2000. The upside is that they don't use much processing power of course. It's good that they're there, they just don't look exceptionally nice.

If they were any higher quality - given the scope of the planet, you'd never be able to run the game. Most games with lush vegetation take place in a limited boxed environment.

You can turn them off in CONFIG - and thats exactly why I added this toggle in the RC2 build.

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x) First person mode. yet the biggest gripe I have is the fact that the whole fps-episode just doesn't "feel right".

Please explain. And remember, this is not - and never was - a dedicated fps. The fp mode is just another feature in the game and since BCM has done exactly what it was supposed to do, albeit its more advanced in UC.

And how many IA scenarios in fp mode have you played, in order to come up with this conclusion?

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The collision detection is shaky, and one never knows what units one can enter. Simple optical cues could tell you that, for example.

If you read the manual it would tell you what units you can enter. I can't think of any game that gives you a visual cue to tell you what units you can/cannot enter.

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Some features are really useless IMO,


Such as?

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like the ability to look around while keeping the current heading. You can turn your viewpoint and look into your own head, whee

The camera is at your own head. Its an out-of-head camera. In fact, you don't even need that camera because you can still be moving in one direction (e.g. W to go forward) while using the mouse to glance elsewhere (e.g. to the right). You don't need to use mouselook.

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x) Some CTDs. But that's to be expected. Entering ground vehicles and installations seems to be very crash-prone.

No, CTDs are NOT to be expected. There were no reported nor recorded CTDs when the game went to replication. And AFAIK, entering ground vehicles (you can't enter ground installations, so I have no clue what you're talking about) should not cause a CTD. If it does, open up a problem report and it will be investigated.

quote:


Originally posted by Scarlek:

Negatives on foot: Shaky camera again and a tad annoying when you approach a vehicle/building and bounce back. I'd prefer it if the player simply stopped when collision was detected.


You are 100% right about this. I find it annoying too. The reason it bounces back is to give NPCs the ability to alter their direction. If there was no push back motion, then they would repeatedly collide with the object if they tried to turn while still close to it. Know what I mean?

I need to rethink this a bit and I will probably disable the bounce back for the player.

quote:


When the camera is playing nice, the combat is great...when it steers off to the left or right on it's own, I get a little dis-heartened.

Its your mouse Since it controls the camera, any slight movement will cause it to shift. This is EXACTLY why I was hesitant to revise the way it worked in BCM/BCMG btw - but everyone beat me up over it and so I conceded and a new method was implemented.

Speaking of combat, have you played IA0114? Your thoughts? HINT: Try using the /i commandline cheat the first time you try it - or you'll die. A lot.

quote:


My only problem, and this is from a newbie standpoint: Setting up and deploying troops via shuttles...not easy but I'll learn and that really is an issue for me to learn how to do properly.


Tutorials coming up. Hang in there n00b

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quote:

You are 100% right about this. I find it annoying too. The reason it bounces back is to give NPCs the ability to alter their direction. If there was no push back motion, then they would repeatedly collide with the object if they tried to turn while still close to it. Know what I mean?

I need to rethink this a bit and I will probably disable the bounce back for the player.

That's good news and something to look forward to. Definately 'sort of' get it. The NPC's bounce back, change their angle/direction and go forwards. Rinse and repeat... It's a guess from someone who read something about AI pathfinding years ago so possibly wrong. Either way, glad it's not just me.

quote:

Speaking of combat, have you played IA0114? Your thoughts? HINT: Try using the /i commandline cheat the first time you try it - or you'll die. A lot.

*Runs off to load up UC at work.* Lets see how a noob survives a challenge from the Supreme Commander eh? I'll screen shot the end result and post a link to it.

I'd just like to congratulate the entire Dev team for making a game that I'll never ever finish...I'll give it a blooming hard go though. !

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quote:


I haven't had much time since to actually get into the game, but I have done enough to notice the shuttles will not seem to deploy the drones on a planet's surface as they used to. Instead they seem to bob up and down in Search and Destroy mode, never actually landing or deploying the mining drone. When looking at the orders of a deployed shuttle it shows the orders as SAD rather than Deploy Drone.

Shortly after spending an hour or so waiting for my shuttles to deploy the mining drones the game crashed to desktop. I believe the reason to be the darn VIA chipset on my motherboard and not the gae itself, however. Wish I could find the right combination of configuration for this chipset to elliviate such problems, but haven't succeeded yet.

In spite of it all the game looks great and remains one of my favorites which is why I put up with the CTDs and continue to try to play it. I'm not sure about some of the changes yet. I suppose I can get used to the over time. I spent so much time playing BCM I'm sort of stuck in that control frame of mind.


Just tried drone deployment and it works fine. As long as you set the waypoint correctly. The CALS system is a bit dodgy (especially on slopes) in 1.00.01 so maybe that whats you are experiencing. Several revisions have been made in the upcoming 1.00.02 - which is probably why it works on my end?

As for the gaming looking great; so much for them saying they reduced the price because of its quality. Bastards.

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quote:

quote:

Things like the Logistix and Tactical computer could be merged into one screen.

You have to understand and accept the fact that they are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT systems. I didn't create two systems just to make more work for myself.


Okiedokie. What do you think about my suggestion of getting rid of the "tunnel-view" dialogs? I mean reducing the amount of mouse clicks needed to get to SC1 loadout, for example.

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quote:

x) The options. There's no support beyond 1280x1024, and especially no widescreen support.


Why should it support widescreen? Are you kidding me? The thought never even crossed my mind and it never was in my design to begin with.


I see you don't have a widescreen notebook

I, too, thought of such things as obsolete. But once I got my Dell Inspiron 8600, I immediately added widescreen resolution support to all the games I'm currently working on ("Illumina" + the opensource branch of "Enemy Engaged")

Why? Because those black bars on either side don't have to be there

quote:

quote:

The latter is excusable for some older opengl games, but under D3D there's no real reason.

Really? How many games actually do support widescreen?


Quite a few actually, especially new ones tend to include 1680x1050 and 1280x800.

quote:

quote:

Sounds. They're mostly low quality, some are outright annoying, and almost all samples have been preprocessed with some reverb.

They were sampled in order to process correctly under DirectSound positional and so that they still play correctly when mixed in with several simultaneously playing sounds.


Hmm, I honestly can't see how adding a reverb makes a sound mix "better". I thought of this as a design decision (maybe as in: walking sounds different to yourself when you're wearing a protective suit with helmet)

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quote:

Trees.

If they were any higher quality - given the scope of the planet, you'd never be able to run the game.


They're only rendered within a certain radius of the camera's position. Does the planet size play any part in that? And as I said, it's good that they're there. Better than flat polygons.

quote:

quote:

x) First person mode. yet the biggest gripe I have is the fact that the whole fps-episode just doesn't "feel right".

Please explain. And remember, this is not - and never was - a dedicated fps.


I know. That's why it doesn't bother me all that much. The game is so huge that polishing every edge is probably an infinite task. As to what bothers me, it's mostly related to collision detection (someone else mentioned the bounce-back). This is especially apparent when you walk on rather flat-angled surfaces of a building. There are some missile silos where parts are actually walkable - but that doesn't work very nice.

quote:

quote:

The collision detection is shaky, and one never knows what units one can enter. Simple optical cues could tell you that, for example.

I can't think of any game that gives you a visual cue to tell you what units you can/cannot enter.


Im not saying the information is not anywhere in the manual (in fact it's in the manual addendum on the CD), I just proposed that showing you what unit is controllable would make the game much more intuitive. As for examples, lookie here:

ps_screenshot_522.jpg

quote:

quote:

x) Some CTDs. But that's to be expected. Entering ground vehicles and installations seems to be very crash-prone.

No, CTDs are NOT to be expected.


Roger that, I will try to find a short way to reproduce it.

quote:

quote:

When the camera is playing nice, the combat is great...when it steers off to the left or right on it's own, I get a little dis-heartened.

Its your mouse


I observed the same thing, and I swear I didn't move the mouse at all.
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quote:


Originally posted by Werewolf:

Okiedokie. What do you think about my suggestion of getting rid of the "tunnel-view" dialogs? I mean reducing the amount of mouse clicks needed to get to SC1 loadout, for example.

Its too late for that now. Its not more harder than it is to pilot a ship. If I am to make such a revision,

I might as well do similar undertakings elsewhere. Ain't gonna happen. At least not in this game.

quote:


I see you don't have a widescreen notebook

I, too, thought of such things as obsolete. But once I got my Dell Inspiron 8600, I immediately added widescreen resolution support to all the games I'm currently working on ("Illumina" + the opensource branch of "Enemy Engaged")

Why? Because those black bars on either side don't have to be there


Wrong. I own a tricked out Dell Inspirion 8500 - which was top of the line back when I got it in April 2003 (for

E3). The black bars never bothered me.

However, if you want to take this to email, we can discuss further and I'll see about implementing it

if at all possible.

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Quite a few actually, especially new ones tend to include 1680x1050 and 1280x800

Right. But this game [uC] was never speced nor designed to support those odd resolutions.

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Hmm, I honestly can't see how adding a reverb makes a sound mix "better". I thought of this as a design decision (maybe as in: walking sounds different to yourself when you're wearing a protective suit with helmet)


I never said reverb was added. You did.

quote:


They're only rendered within a certain radius of the camera's position. Does the planet size play any part in that?

Yes, if they were rendered regardless of camera's position, the game won't run.

Of course the planet size plays a part. Do you have any idea just how large these planets

are? Check: You can probably fit the entire Planetside game - on a postage stamp - and stick

in a corner of the Earth planet in UC. Don't believe me? Go into Tacops and measure it yourself.

Earth alone has an actual equatorial diamete of 12756km in UC. Do the math and you will

come up with the surface area coverage.

quote:


As to what bothers me, it's mostly related to collision detection (someone else mentioned the bounce-back). This is especially apparent when you walk on rather flat-angled surfaces of a building. There are some missile silos where parts are actually walkable - but that doesn't work very nice.

The reason its a tad quirky is because some of those buildings are tagged as "support structures". Meaning

that you - or NPCs - can climb on them, walk/drive, jetpack onto them etc. For this reason, the system

has to do lots of checks. And one of the quirky aspects is that since they are support structures, you

can't - for example - prevent an NPC from climing on to them, since you can. If I disabled this flag,

then they all become solid objects. The result being that you can't e.g. jetpack to the top of a building

for sniping, getting away from hostile fire etc.

The bounce back is a concern of mine too, but since it doesn't detract from gameplay, its low on my

priority list of "enhancements".

Because our games are enhanced over time - due to their full price - UC selling for $19.99 is not

going to benefit from anything other than bug fixes and the minor tweak here or there. The plethora

of enhancements seen in the 1.00.02 update will be the last. Any further versions will be bug fixes

only. I have no choice in the matter at this point.

quote:


I just proposed that showing you what unit is controllable would make the game much more intuitive. As for examples, lookie here:

Oh, thats what you mean. I will think about it, because you are right, it does look informative. The

problem is that considering that you can switch to and control almost every asset in the game, it

could very well clutter the scene if those sort of Planetside cues were used. I guess they could be

drawn based on distance from the object. Dunno, but good suggestion - I'll think about it a bit

more.

quote:


I observed the same thing, and I swear I didn't move the mouse at all.

Odd. If you can find a common denominator for this, please open a bug report in the appropriate

section.

btw, as a developer, what do you think overall about the game? Especially wrt Dreamcatcher's comment

that they lowered the price because of its "quality"?

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

btw, as a developer, what do you think overall about the game? Especially wrt Dreamcatcher's comment

that they lowered the price because of its "quality"?

19 Bucks is the price of a budget game, something that has very limited play value, titles like LaserArena or inane arcade shooters. Neither UC's quality nor it's play value warrants such a classification. And the thought that halving the price will double sales could come straight from a dilbert comic. What if they slashed the price by a factor of 10, would that multiply sales by 10 too?

If any game I write ever gets as complex as UC, I'll be glad to get it half as right as you. I'm glad I am able to use existing engines like the extraordinary Torque engine. I went through the whole "do it yourself" routine once, thank you, and I'm amazed that UC works as it does now. You almost certainly have to worry about things like float precision for such a big honkin' space sim, and that's something I don't wish my worst enemies

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quote:

Originally posted by Extinct_Reptilia:

quote:

Originally posted by Scarlek:

The combat is exciting, well paced and most importantly...great when your ship is severely damaged and you still win the fight. (I.e. Nuclear core issues)

Would you say that the space combat is better than previous BC games? The best?


I'd say it suits my preferences to space combat better. This time round I get to see all the glory of my kills and I can do it in my own time. (BCG made me feel like it was a rush to do so, now I can kill in style. Not sure where the difference lies, all I can say is that the 'pace' of the game is nice and even for me.

quote:

I am more than willing to sacrifice realistic sizes for increased quality per square mile

What's real? I consider real to be as close to this world/realm/plane of existence as possible. That means that earth is big, jupiter bigger. Fancy looking trees don't make things 'real' in my books. Scale does. Anywhoo...enough of the Morpheus style chat about the 'real' world or we'll all end up qouting from films.

Right then, SC...you asked me to check out IA0114 and I did so. Man alive!! I died in like 5 minutes. I think I'll stick to ordering my boys about from the safety of space thank you very much. I'll give it another go when I'm more skilled and learned in the ways of UC.

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quote:


Originally posted by Scarlek:

I'd say it suits my preferences to space combat better. This time round I get to see all the glory of my kills and I can do it in my own time. (BCG made me feel like it was a rush to do so, now I can kill in style. Not sure where the difference lies, all I can say is that the 'pace' of the game is nice and even for me.


You keep mentioning BCG. You mean BC3K, BCM or BCM Gold, right? Because BCG was renamed to UC. Which is what you are playing

quote:


Right then, SC...you asked me to check out IA0114 and I did so. Man alive!! I died in like 5 minutes. I think I'll stick to ordering my boys about from the safety of space thank you very much. I'll give it another go when I'm more skilled and learned in the ways of UC.

Well, you should just add the /i cheat to the shortcut and you won't die.

But what did you think of the environment, suspense (of being capped in the dark ) etc etc?

ps: I am tired of deleting posts in the thread. So, if you don't have the game, don't post in here. Thanks

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Ah yes, not BCG at all in fact. (My shorthand is awfull!) I meant to type in BCMG.

As for cheating, where's the fun in that? I want to be able to win it for real! Suspense and atmoshpere on that scenario is fairly cool, especially when your troops are calling for evac because [muffled noises] and then the [more muffled noises] start heading your way.

wot? No spoilers? ah dang it.

I'll be playing that scenario all week now and then some more no doubt. Once I get a handle on ordering my troops about and avoiding enemy fire I'll be able to report more on the scene.

Seriously good fun though, I was on my way to Zilon in the Banards Star region and pretty much had my ass handed to me on a silver platter by an ODS and co somewhere along the lines. (Had no time to look to see where I was. ) I must have walked right into a 'Rai' party or something, fighters, cruisers and shuttles all labelled as 'Rai' something or other right next to where I jumped in. Again, not much time to look given the bashing I received. I'll be reading up on everything because apparently, some systems are hostile to noobs.

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quote:


Originally posted by Scarlek:

I'll be playing that scenario all week now and then some more no doubt. Once I get a handle on ordering my troops about and avoiding enemy fire I'll be able to report more on the scene.


Thats where the PLV and TOM come in. Thats why they were implemented. If you haven't done so already, download and print the manual revisions. They are documented in there.

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Okay ... I've been messing around with UC all day and still cannot get the shuttles to deploy the mining drones. I'm setting waypoints just as described in the manual which is the same way I set them with Battlecruiser Millennium but it doesn't seem to work. At one point I ordered the shuttle to halt and the craft descended to a minus altitude on the planet's surface. Don't know how far down it might have gone, but when I ordered it to resume waypoints it continued to descend at the waypoint location with the Hold order.

I don't understand the jump gate from the Earth to the Moon. Seems to distract from the realism a bit. I much prefer the old method of Millennium. No matter I can get used to it.

I still experience sudden drops to the desktop. I have to save and save often to keep from losing my game. I'm fairly sure the CTDs are caused mainly by my motherboard chipset. Never have liked the VIA products. I'm considering ditching this mainboard for a good P4 Intel motherboard. Then maybe I'll be able to play the game without so much frustration. I've tried everything from lowering the graphics from 32 bit to 16 bit, but nothing helps. I have all the latest drivers and have followed the troubleshooting faq faithfully.

Overall it's a good looking program and still ranks as my favorite. I just wish I could resolve the issues I've uncovered so as to be able to really enjoy it. I can deploy the mining drones if I fly the shuttle in myself, but even at that whenever I enter the atmosphere the computer takes over with its graphical display and when I come out of it I get a warning of damage and I'm on the surface bouncing around in a hovering mode. There's no flying it in for a soft landing that I've found yet.

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Derek,

My copy arrived today and I have been playing it non-stop. Since BC3K I have been intrigued with this game concept. Now it is my opinion that you have captured the essence of the GAME. Congrats on putting out such a fine product. I hope that the legal stuff gets worked out in your favor and that you can support the game. Great job.

Respectfully,

Nicholas Dogris, Ph.D.

Director

www.PsychologyOnline.com

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quote:


Originally posted by Stahl51:

Okay ... I've been messing around with UC all day and still cannot get the shuttles to deploy the mining drones. I'm setting waypoints just as described in the manual which is the same way I set them with Battlecruiser Millennium but it doesn't seem to work. At one point I ordered the shuttle to halt and the craft descended to a minus altitude on the planet's surface. Don't know how far down it might have gone, but when I ordered it to resume waypoints it continued to descend at the waypoint location with the Hold order.


This has already been reported in this thread. And it works just fine here. So I suspect that the CALS revision (mentioned in the 1.00.02 entries), addresses it.

quote:


I don't understand the jump gate from the Earth to the Moon. Seems to distract from the realism a bit. I much prefer the old method of Millennium. No matter I can get used to it.

There's nothing to understand. There is a station around the moon and having the moon and Earth in the same space region - and with two stations in the same region - will cause performance issues if both stations are under attack at the same time etc. Not everyone has the processing power to run this game with one station in a massive fleet battle - let alone with two stations. Know what I mean?

quote:


but even at that whenever I enter the atmosphere the computer takes over with its graphical display and when I come out of it I get a warning of damage and I'm on the surface bouncing around in a hovering mode. There's no flying it in for a soft landing that I've found yet.

In UC, the planetfall ingress altitude is the max ceiling for the craft (check the appendix). Which means that if you are using a MK1 shuttle, you will ingress at 3000 feet. If you entered the planet at high speed, well, guess what, you'll crash into the ground (since you'd be pitched down) given that the shuttles max speed is 1500 m/s. Given those figures, on ingress, you will crash into the ground because you'd be travelling at 4921.259 feet per sec. I'm surprised the craft is destroyed.

The game appendix is your friend. Read it.

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well I got over to the mall and picked it up tonight. I haven't really had much time to go in depth, but it's great so far. I'm having some graphics glitching that I'm trying to track down and some view jittering when I walk on the hull of my CC in space, but the vegetation and flocks add a nice touch and the models are excellent. Gameplay is going to take a little time since the key commands are different now.

Great job SC!

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After play it A while longer I still say... wow whats a game!!!! Now if your were to take this game "UC" and "X2:the threat" and a small bit of "Startopia" into spinoff series.... I'll prepose to you(SC) in front of a national audense!!! This game still rock... learning curve is still a little high mainly just because of the keybaord layout. but that is all.

I think there might be a bug if you accedentaly walk or run it to any building. Doing that made me pop almost on top of the building but left some of me stuck in the building... I was going to take a picture of it to show me really stuck in almost in mid air... no jetpack at all, but hit the exit key insted. I'll go and do again if you would like.. well I am off to bed. night night.

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Just got home from work and finished installing the game. Flipping through the manual here and, boy howdy, is it a step and a million halves above previous versions of the game. Clear, concise, organized, easy to understand & follow. Previous manuals read like handbooks for military grade aircraft... this is much better written.

First impressions after 30mins of futzing around in-game... bad-ass. Huge graphical upgrades - for that I am deeply grateful (especially over the planetside flora). The FP controls don't really bother me at all, I prefer this to old style... but that's just me.

BTW, I was shocked when the game arrived and I saw I had a $20 refund coming on my preorder. There's easily $40 worth of game there, why the bargain... ?

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There's easily $40 worth of game there, why the bargain... ?

Ongoing stuff, it's mentioned here.

As an additional note to my first impressions, last night whilst flying in my Battlecruiser Mk3 I managed to down an enemy Firestorm and watched a shuttle escape from the explosions. I gave chase and being not-so-wise I didn't dispatch my fighters or a shuttle to tackle the issue. Needless to say, the shuttle out ran me and as I came out of Hyperspace, 2 cruisers appeared right by the warpgate. Enemys. Dang it! With my ship badly damaged from the previous fight, it's almost like the enemy shuttle knew where to go for me to be trapped like a rat.

I gave it a good bash but in the end my Mk3 was crippled, no power, no engines. It was just barely alive so I thought 'hey, if the enemy can do it..so can I.'

A plan formulated.

The AE ran down the corridors, chuckling to himself as he mulled over the plan.

'Get into Shuttle 1 and launch, lead the two bastards to Galcom HQ and let HQ dispatch em.'

As the AE stepped into the Shuttle bay...

BOOM

Ah well, maybe next time eh? Limitless gameplay I tell you. Who needs a demo when a noobie has an experience like that?

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Originally posted by Scrivener:

Just got home from work and finished installing the game. Flipping through the manual here and, boy howdy, is it a step and a million halves above previous versions of the game. Clear, concise, organized, easy to understand & follow. Previous manuals read like handbooks for military grade aircraft... this is much better written.


Don't even get me started on that manual. I was actually writing that, while trying to wrap up the game, fix bugs etc etc. But of course, since I'm the only one qualified to do a manual for this game, well, I had to do it. Layout (i.e. taking my MS Word source and setting it for print in QuarkX) and production credits go to Dreamcatcher of course.

quote:


The FP controls don't really bother me at all, I prefer this to old style... but that's just me.

The WSAD flight controls does take some getting used to, but I think its easier. I might put back the old 1-0 system in a future game if too many people don't like this new scheme.

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