Notices

The Ur-Quan Masters
— an intragalactic adventure game

Download Page | Bug reporting | Package | Homepage

Category: Action/RPG | Year: 1992

License: GPL (code), CC A-NC-SA 2.5 (content) © 1992, 2002 Toys for Bob, Inc.

The Ur-Quan Masters is the public release of the legendary Star Control 2 from 1992. Starcon2 was a revolutionary adventure game which featured role-playing elements and 2D arcade-style space combat in the grand tradition of Space War. The Ur-Quan Masters brings together the best features of the PC and 3DO versions and adds a fast-paced Super Melee mode.

You assume control of a single vessel built with an advanced alien "Precursors" factory-planet and return to Earth, only to find it enslaved. In your epic quest to overthrow the Ur-Quan overlords, you must travel to remote star systems, gather resources, outfit your flagship, recruit alien allies, battle diverse foes, and discover and disrupt an enigmatic enemy tradition in time to prevent the annihilation of the entire human race!

This package includes the application and will install the required game content. You may also install the optional uqm-3do-data package (130 MB) to add the music and dialogue voice-overs from the 3DO release of Star Control 2.

Experience one of the greatest space games ever made!


Links: Previous discussion / other versions | PNF | Ultronomicon | Wikipedia

Versions
Latest, Stable (extras)
uqm-0.6.7-0maemo5

UQM now automatically switches to the us keyboard layout during play so that N900s without up and down arrow keys can play without trouble. It also increases the screen blank time while open so the cutscenes and dialogue don't go black.

Controls: Use Shift and Z or Ctrl and Q for firing, arrows for direction, Space and Enter to open menu and select, and Backspace for escape. You can Ctrl-Backspace away to other windows and the game will pause and go to sleep so it doesn't kill your battery.



The accelerometer control utility is included but a core part is still not user friendly to set up. Sorry if you were excited about that.

Have fun playing UQM!
3DO Content Package

For those who would like to add on the 3DO voiceovers and music, the package is in Extras. It's highly recommended, but it is about 130 MB, so make sure you're on wifi before grabbing it! Click the arrow to install.

Other Resources

Starmap

tomt over on the uqm forum made a nice starmap that shows the same information as the starmap that originally came in the Star Control 2 box. You can use the Maemo Browser to view it, which permits zooming (unlike the image viewer). To zoom in, make a clockwise circular motion on the screen. Anticlockwise will zoom out. You can also pan around by dragging, as always. Click on the small version here to open it:


If you want to have it available off line, you'll need to save a copy: after you open it, long-press on it and select "Save Image As". Then, save it to Images. Open it in Maemo Browser by long-pressing this link and choosing "Open link in a new window" from the pop-up menu. Then, bookmark it. You can use the bookmark to open the image from your own N900 in the browser.

It will be included in the package of the next release of uqm.

Community TODO and known issues:

• Test that it meets the QA requirements and report. Please consider testing this version so the keyboard layout fixes can get into Extras.
• There's a known bug with media player and games that have sound. Don't play music with media player while playing uqm.
• Joydev kernel module package and improved Accelemymote accelerometer-joystick driver to make accelerometer control a user-friendly option
• Any others?

Proposed Enhancements
(UQM Alterations Under Consideration)

These are potential changes that would make UQM behave differently than Starcon 2. In other words, attempted improvements: a task not to be undertaken lightly.

Because these are generally changes not welcome in the main upsteam project, most of them will only happen if there is significant interest by users. If you have a new improvement or like one of these, speak up!

• Lander report font color blue=>green: improves visibility on small screen. (ArnimS) [Implemented]:
• Accelerometer control: use tilt as a joystick. (Flandry) [Partially implemented]
• Fast orbit: skips final approach for planets with no moons or ships in orbit. (Flandry) [Proposed]
• Handbrake mode: default action for lander is go; "back" stops. (OVK) [Proposed]
• Matrix mode: reduced combat speed. (Flandry, ArnimS) [Proposed]
• Adaptive difficulty: AI gets easier as you lose. (ArnimS) [Proposed]
• Starmap mouse support: pan and select autopilot destinations with the touchscreen. (Flandry) [Proposed]
• Maemo-specific names: change ship and person names to Maemo-related values. E.g. N900 ship, Captain Maemo. (Flandry) [Proposed]

I just wish that repos we're up so i could get newest version... its impossible to play with finnish layout with stable version.

damn server move

Edit: Is there any way to download this piece of art?

UQM is a really faithful port combining the best of pc and 3DO versions.

And SC2 / UQM is very impressive for the challenging combat, which requires you to learn tactics.

My thoughts are that it is a bit too discouraging in combat for 2010. But tampering with the delicate frustration/reward cycle is not to be undertaken lightly!

UQM homepage has a great section on combat tips: (link)

Ideas for difficulty:
* if user dies often on one enemy, slowly reduce enemy difficulty
* maybe adjust ship durability factor
* maybe allow lower combat fps
- someday maybe hints from uqm page in game after dying a lot from one enemy

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new to game?

A Nice Comic Explaining Background Story: http://www.star-control.com/hosted/gl-comic/

First Things To Do http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/First_Things_To_Do

First hour gameplay review by a real noob http://firsthour.net/first-hour-review/star-control-2

The Pages of Now And Forever -- Star Control 2 Fansite: http://www.star-control.com/

Overview of Ships: http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/List_of_ships
Detailed Reference to Combat http://ledmeister.com/supmeler.htm

...

In case you don't believe me and Flandry... LISTEN TO DUKE HIMSELF.

http://starcontroller.com/wp-content...tarcontrol.mp3
http://starcontroller.com/?p=373

UR-QUAN for Prez

Man that's a disturbing image.

Thanks for posting the extra information ArnimS. UQM really is a complex and long game when compared to recent titles--especially for mobile devices. Using Ctrl-Backspace to skip out to the Notes app to record useful information and star systems you discover may be helpful.

I hadn't seen that comic before. It's a nice bit of back story, but afaik a bit noncannonical. Not in any important way--it's just that the Ur-Quan did not destroy all the cities it says they did, which makes a lot more sense given the story uncovered in UQM.

I'd like to make a request of the UQM fans, especially those with N900s without full arrow keys: please see the TODO list in the second post and test the new version of UQM. The fixes to keyboard mapping and layout need to be available to general users ASAP. Thanks for your support of the UQM Maemo 5 port.

PS Try to avoid getting gruesomely killed.

Please test the new version of UQM. The only changes are fixes to the keyboard layout and the screen blanking.

I would like to propose an enhancement.

Could it be possible to have an alternative mode for lander movement? What I have in mind is a mode in which the lander would be moving all the time forward (like the up arrow would be constantly held down). The reason why I would like to have this is that it is (at least for me) really difficult to control the lander, I just can't push the left/right arrows simultaneously with up arrow. This means that every time I like to turn the lander I have to stop which typically gets me killed in the difficult planets.

Thank you for the excellent job with this port!

EDIT: Thank you for adding my proposal into the possible enhancement list and also adding the "stop" function into idea. The problem of difficult controls might be taken care of when the accelerometer control function is functional but this might be an another workaround.

On Controls

You make a good point. Both the starship and rover steering in the game require only three keys, not four. The "down arrow" key has no use for directional control, and as such is a waste of a central location for a thumb.

There are two ways of making use of that observation. The first is to essentially stick the "up arrow" key unless the "down arrow" key is pressed. This is what i've termed "Handbrake mode", and i will see about adding it, when i have time, as a separate option for both the lander (the most obvious change, since you almost always want to be going full-tilt planetside) and for the ship (less useful because not using thrust is a more common case).

The other would be to map "Up"" to the "down arrow" key, which would be a problem for menus. There's nothing to stop you from doing it yourself using some other keys besides the arrows, though. For example, j, k, and l as left, forward, and right, respectively.

I have tried using the accelerometer for controlling the ship, and it was not a very pleasant experience. I'm not saying it won't become an option, but i'm not expecting it to solve any control issues.

Other news

I have added a high resolution starmap image to the first post. It is a user-designed replica of the poster that was included in the box of Star Control 2, so it's not a spoiler: If you load it into Maemo Browser, you can zoom in with the circle gesture and it's actually a very useful tool to find things more easily than using the in-game starmap. While i'd like to make the in-game starmap as slick and user-friendly as Maemo Browser, it's a longer-term goal.

Actually how about up-arrow toggles forward motion? Press once to start, once to stop. Sometimes i want to stop to 'turn on a dime'...

[EDIT] As discussed with Flandry - perhaps Arrow up to move (accelerate) and arrow down to stop (brake). He had a good point that accidental toggling would be annoying.