39 replies to this topic

[quantum]

UCAWA has steeper hardware requirements. I'd go with UCAWA if your rig can run it. If not, UCG is the way to go! And you're right, they are two separate games.

[John Prezioso]

Thanks. I have a pretty good rig, so UCAWA will definitely be the one I download. Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to try MP and I'll see you on line!

[Pisces-21]

Well hope to seeya on line soon

[Haggis]

Battlecruiser Next Gen...my life is complete. Thank you very much SC and take your time developing and perfecting it. That reality engine looks so darn good! It should be THE game I always wanted.

Anyway, I guess I will first have plenty of fun playing UCAWA!

[Darkling]

quote:

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Originally posted by Prez:
Okay - true confessions time. I have resisted in the past the urge to join these forums because I have always felt I was not hardcore enough; i.e. I have a wife and kids, a 50 hour a week job, I'm a part-time musician, and just never had the time to devote to keeping up with the game news and developments and such. I always felt like I was in the dark. Well, I've taken the plunge, but I still have way too little time to devote to reading/sifting through forums looking for answers to questions I am confused about.

I wrote the above because I will undoubtedly,sooner or later, ask a stupid question that I should have already got the answer to elsewhere in these forums. Hey, it might be right now, but here goes.

Are UC Gold and UCAWA separate products? I have just read the info pages on both and I am almost certain that they are, but I wanted verification. Moreover, assuming they are in fact two separate products, which one do I want to get if I want a more complete, "hardcore" experience? Again, based on what I have read, it seems I want UCAWA. Hell, I'd have no problem buying both - I know the money would go to a good cause (SC pumping out more awesome games), but I have to admit I got confused around the time 3000AD (wisely) dumped Dreamcatcher. Please forgive my confusion - it seems I am a little too easily confused as of late

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Join the Club, I own 2 companies and usually work 12 hr days Mon-Fri & 4 to 6 Hrs. on Saturday, so it takes me A LONG time to do things in the game.

It seems to me that UCAWA Will have everything that
UC Gold will have, but in addition, it will have full control over Naval Assets, Improved explosion sequences and a few other enhancements that UC Gold Doesn't have. Both are being ported to DX9 Engine, but UC Gold won't require as hefty a Processor (1Ghz VS 2Ghz for UCAWA) Plus UCAWA will need more RAM.

So if your Machine can handle it, I Say go for UCAWA, I'm getting both, so I can run UC Gold on my Office Computer (Which is only a 1.2Ghz) and the UCAWA on my Home Computer that has all the latest toys.

[Marvin]

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Originally posted by Prez:
Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to try MP and I'll see you on line!

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That brings up a very good question: with two products coming out at pretty much the same time, how will MP be handled?

[Spindoktor]

Well I originally was thinking I only needed UCAWA, but I'll also buy UCG for the additional scenarios. The amount of entertainment I get for the money I spend for these games is ridiculous. Its criminal.

Bring it on.

[Darkling]

quote:

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Originally posted by Marvin:

quote:

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Originally posted by Prez:
Maybe one day I'll work up the courage to try MP and I'll see you on line!

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That brings up a very good question: with two products coming out at pretty much the same time, how will MP be handled?

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Well, SC said that the Company will only "Officially" be hosting servers for various UCAWA scenarios, I guess the rest of them will have to be player hosted.

[Supreme Cmdr]

I can see where some people can/will get confused, seeing that UCG and UCAWA are coming out around the same time. But this is a no brainer really.

If the products info PDF which I posted for both products is not enough, let me summarize a few things which will hopefully answer all questions.

The ONLY reason anyone would get UCG instead of UCAWA is if you don't have a rig that is powerful enough to run UCAWA.

Trust me, the demo runs in a small environment and is not even 50% indicative of the power required to run it. In saying that however, if your rig meets with the minimum requirements as indicated on the products page, you will need very little tweaking in Config to get good performance. But again, the minimum requirements are just there as a baseline. So it does not mean that with that setup, the performance would be consistent. The graphics engine in UCAWA is worlds apart (ok, kill me now) from UC/UCG by a wide margin. And not even all the effects are in the demo, simply because the demo uses a different kernel.

Also, the FREE UC mp servers will be dropped once UCAWA goes live. And while I simply don't have the additional funding to host a ton of servers for both UCG and UCAWA, there will be one or two servers for UCG, while the rest will be for UCAWA.

The graphics engine in UCG is the same one in UC; apart from the fact that it was ported from DX 8.1 to DX9. This port doesn't give ANY additional benefits, other than the fact that it uses the most recent DirectX kernel and which the video drivers will take advantage of.

As far as graphics content is concerned, the first person characters from UCAWA were revised (lower poly counts etc) and exported to the UC graphics engine. All this does is give new and better looking character models than those in UC; though (due to the lower poly count) not as high definition as the ones in UCAWA. Some of the weapon models were also exported to UCG because they were tweaked for the new character models.

Finally, had we not ported the less-than-stellar mp engine from GameCom to ReplicaNet, it would have been only in UCG. I made the decision to do this port because I had promised better multiplayer for UC and I wanted to ensure that I upheld that promise. So, I had to go out and license ReplicaNet in order to do that. For a product that Dreamcatcher (1) released at half price (for which I sued them in 2003), thereby fragmenting our royalty income (2) continues to cheat us out of our hard earned royalties, which led to the recent contract termination. Not to mention the fact that we continued to support the game, pay for mp servers since June last year etc.

Anyway, the mp engine in UCG is based on the newer one in UC, but with more advanced mp features and other tweaks. In addition, UCG (like UCAWA) uses a unified lobby system which is the same one we are going to be using for all our games. The Beta testers have been using it since it was implemented with support for UC a few months back. I just won't be releasing it for UC because it only had UC support for testing purposes only.

The official fleet servers will - of course - be UCAWA only. No UC or UCG.

Anyone wanting to get UCAWA and UCG, will only be doing so because they have all our games or because they want to also have the newer scenarios in UCG.

UCG was primarily done for those (e.g. our International friends) who do not - at this time - have the systems to run UCAWA. This is no different from when we went from BCM to BCM Gold.

So, if you can only afford to get one game - and you have the system to run it - UCAWA is the one to get.

Also note that UCO will be running on a modified version of the UCAWA engines.

And before someone asks. No, UCAWA does not contain ANY scenarios from UC or UCG. It only contains its own unique scenarios. It is a stand-alone title.

Finally, as you've probably noticed, the price of UCG is $19.99 and UCAWA is $29.99. I could have priced UCAWA at $39.99, but I have chosen not to. Compare the price of our games, to others like, e.g. X2, Starshatter etc

I hope this clears things up.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Prez:
Thanks. I have a pretty good rig,

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uhm, no you don't. That Athlon 2400 will barely run the game with most of the graphics options turned down; since its borderline minimum requirements. That 2400 is only running at near 2Ghz and the game is not graphics limited. It is CPU limited due to the massive amount of AI processing that it requires; all of which runs on the CPU.

[Jacezz]

well im def getting BCNG

[Cougar_DK]

Thanx for the clarification SC. I will go for UCAWA then - but was looking forward to the upgrade instead of a "new" game. But again for $29.99 we can't get it all.

[Marvin]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:
The official fleet servers will - of course - be UCAWA only. No UC or UCG.

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Thanks, SC, for that very informative summary. But, most importantly, for the above piece of data.

Time for a fleet huddle?

[Freyar]

Geeze... I don't know if I'll be able to run UCAWA as soon as it comes out... Those req's are steep even for my machine... Hopefully I'll make some cash during the summer and get a new faster CPU... I've got a new board already.

[Darkling]

So SC what would be better, a Dual Processor system or a 64 Bit System?

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Darkling:
So SC what would be better, a Dual Processor system or a 64 Bit System?

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My games don't use either. Just get the fastest CPU, graphics card and 1GB of RAM.

[scorchedearth]

quote:

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Originally posted by Darkling:
So SC what would be better, a Dual Processor system or a 64 Bit System?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but dual-processor systems aren't really advantageous at the moment, unless the system is a server, as applications are rarely written to make use of them.

In order for the games SC makes to take advantage of a dual-processor system, SC would have to make them to do so, which as I understand it, would be a waste of time, seeing as how only, what? 3% of the people have them?

Again, correct me if I'm wrong...

[Wolferz]

In addition to the specs mentioned, be sure you have a clean OS install, Disc cleaned, defragged, etc etc.
I only run the game from a fresh reboot and I shut down anything that gets started and runs in the toolbar. Winblows and their automated OS for dummies is nothing more than bloatware designed for a sole purpose... TO MAKE YOUR MACHINE RUN LIKE A DOG WITH NO LEGS. It's incentive for you to go buy the latest and greatest hardware. So, ya think Gates and Co. are in cahoots with the hardware guys? YOU BETCHA!

[ShoHashi]

quote:

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Marvin posted:
Time for a fleet huddle?

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Already on the agenda for the next Fleet Leader meeting, Marv!

Looks like I'll be ordering another stick of memory for my system.

[Mordax Blyrr]

Sweet! I have just gone to an Asus P4P800 mobo, Geforce 6600GT and 1GB RAM, on my already not-so-slow rig (prices here in Holland are great at the moment for getting new hardware).
Let the new revamped capital ships in shiny new DX9 livery roll out the galactic hangar, because I am ready!