UQM(6)

NAME
uqm - The Ur-Quan Masters – space exploration game

SYNOPSIS
uqm [-bcCfghklMnopqsSTuwx] [-i style] [-m soundtrack] [-r resolution] [--addon addon] [--cscan style] [--font font] [--menu style] [--safe] [--scroll style] [--shield style] [--sound] [--stereosfx]

DESCRIPTION
uqm is a port of the epic space game The Ur-Quan Masters.

The default settings for an uqm install are 3DO music, 640×480 windowed mode, and pure SDL graphics drivers. You may pass various command line options to customize your experience.

The options are as follows:

-b, --meleezoom mode
    Melee zooming mode ( pc or 3do); step is an alias for pc and smooth is an alias for 3do. Default is 3do. Slower machine owners can set it to pc to get better performance in melee.

-C dir, --configdir dir
    Sets the directory where the game will store the config data.

-c mode, --scale mode
    Graphics scaling mode ( bilinear, biadapt, biadv, triscan, hq or none). Default is none. Try these to get smoother graphics, at a performance cost.

-f, --fullscreen
    Uses full screen mode. The opposite of -w.

-g val, --gamma val
    Sets gamma correction. 1.0 causes no change (unless your graphics card is originally set to a different value). Higher than 1.0 makes the image brighter, lower than 1.0 makes it darker.

-h, --help
    Display a help message.

-i style, --intro style
    With 3do, use the 3DO intro and ending movies (if you have them). With pc, use the PC intro and ending sequences and slide shows. Defaults to 3do. Regardless of which option is selected, the PC sequences will be used if you do not have the 3DO movies.

-k, --keepaspectratio
    Keep 4:3 aspect ratio when using custom resolutions.

-l file, --logfile file
    Set a file to receive the diagnostic information that would otherwise go to the console.

-M volume, --musicvol volume
    Set music volume (0–100).

-m soundtrack, --music soundtrack
    Select either the 3DO remixed soundtrack with 3do or the .MOD-based PC soundtrack with pc. Defaults to 3do for songs that were in fact remixed.

-n dir, --contentdir dir
    Set the directory where the game will seek its data.

-o, --opengl
    Use OpenGL drivers. This produces higher-quality graphics, and may be faster as well – but it also may not work on older cards. It also permits use of any screen resolution. The opposite of -x.

-p, --fps
    Print fps information in the status window.

-q setting, --audioquality setting
    Can be high, medium, or low. Specifies how nice the audio sounds. Slower machines should lower the audio quality.

-r resolution, --res resolution
    Sets the screen resolution. Unless --opengl is set, the only valid values are “640x480” and “320x240”.

-S volume, --sfxvol volume
    Set sound effects volume (0–100).

-s, --scanlines
    Simulates interlaced displays.

-T volume, --speechvol volume
    Set speech volume (0–100). If set to 0, the game runs in ‘no speech’ mode and the oscilloscope reacts to the music.

-u, --nosubtitles
    Disables subtitles.

-w, --windowed
    Displays the game in a window. The opposite of -f.

-x, --nogl
    Do not use OpenGL drivers. This is more likely to run on systems with poor or no 3D acceleration, and is often faster, especially on older or less well supported cards. Only the 320×240 and 640×480 resolutions are available when not using OpenGL. The opposite of -o.

--addon name
    Enable the named add-on in the game. See the ADD-ONS section for details.

--cscan style
    When scanning planets, display information using text (with pc) or pictograms (with 3do). Defaults to pc.

--font style
    Use PC-style fonts and colors (with pc) or 3DO-style (with 3do). Defaults to pc.

--menu style
    In menus, display options as text (with pc) or pictograms (with 3do). Defaults to pc.

--safe
    Start the game in safe mode. Safe mode will ignore stored user settings, like resolution, fullscreen mode, sound driver, etc. This is useful if you have somehow wrecked your configuration files and cannot get to the in-game setup menu to change the settings.

--scroll style
    Using the left/right arrow keys, scroll voiceovers and subtitles one page at a time (with pc) or smoothly (with 3do). Defaults to pc.

--shield style
    Use the CPU-intensive, 3DO-style throbbing slave shield graphic (with 3do) or the PC-style static slave shield graphic (with pc). Defaults to pc.

--sound driver
    Specifies which sound driver/mixer to use. Can be openal, mixsdl, or none. openal is only available when it has been compiled in. It may produce higher-quality sound and will probably be faster, but it is not very stable on Linux platforms, and may not work well with some sound cards. Use none as a last resort if you cannot get other drivers to work, or if you have no sound card.

--stereosfx
    Enables positional sound effects in melee. Currently works only when using openal.

STARTING THE GAME
Simply invoke the uqm program to run the game. After a splash screen, you will see the main menu, which has five options:

New Game
    Begins a new Full Game. This is a galaxy-spanning space adventure full of diplomacy, exploration, combat, high treason, and low cunning. The introductory cutscenes will set the scene; the below section THE STORY SO FAR provides more extensive backstory for the curious.

Load Game
    Restores a Full Game session that was saved earlier.

Super Melee!
    Puts the game in Super Melee mode, where you may hone your space combat skills or challenge your friends to fleet battles. See the SUPER MELEE section below for details on this game mode.

Setup
    Lets you configure many options to customize your play experience. Most options will take effect once you exit the setup menu; a few specially marked options require you to restart uqm. Setup options are preserved across sessions.

Quit
    Exits the program.

CONTROLS SUMMARY

  General Game Controls
F1 or Pause
    Pause game
F10 Exit game
F11 Toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode

  Full Game Controls
Space flight:
Up  Thrust
Left and Right
    Steer
Space or Right Shift
    Main Menu

Menus:
Arrow keys
    Scroll through selections
Enter or Right Ctrl
    Make selection
Space or Right Shift or Escape
    Up one level

Conversations:
Left and Right
    Rewind/Forward
Up and Down
    Scroll through selections
Enter or Right Ctrl
    Make selection
Space or Right Shift
    Skip, Show/Hide summary

Star Map:
Arrow Keys
    Move the crosshair
Enter or Right Ctrl
    Select destination
Space or Right Shift
    Main menu
Keypad +
    Zoom in
Keypad -
    Zoom out
/   Begin search. (Type star or constellation name to find matches)
Tab Jump to next match

Space Combat:
Up  Thrust
Left and Right
    Steer
Right Ctrl or Enter
    Fire Primary Weapon
Right Shift
    Fire Secondary Weapon
Escape
    Emergency Warp Escape

Planet Exploration:
Up  Forward
Left and Right
    Steer
Right Ctrl or Enter
    Fire stun bolt
Right Shift or Escape
    Blast off

  Melee Controls
Top Player:
W   Thrust
A and D
    Steer
V   Fire Primary Weapon
B   Fire Secondary Weapon

Bottom Player:
Up or Enter
    Thrust
Left and Right
    Steer
Right Ctrl or Enter
    Fire Primary Weapon
Right Shift
    Fire Secondary Weapon

These controls are configurable from the Setup Menu. You may define up to six “Input Templates” and assign a template to either or both players. Some commonly used key configurations are pre-defined, as well as popular variants. To change key bindings, select the binding you wish to change and press Enter. At the dialog box, press the key (or joystick gesture) that you wish to assign to this action.

SAVED GAMES
The saved games are kept in your personal directory for uqm data. This directory is automatically created the first time you start the game. On Unix systems this personal uqm data is stored in ~/.uqm.

You will generally only need to know this if you intend to transfer savegames to another computer.

INTERPLANETARY EXPLORATION
When in a Solar system, use the thrust and steering controls to move about the system. Intersecting a planet will move you to the planetary system; flying over a planet or moon will then put you into orbit. From there you can talk to the inhabitants, or, if the planet is uninhabited, send a lander down to gather minerals, investigate energy readings, or capture life forms.

PLANET LANDING
To land on a planet, you need to achieve orbit, then fill a planet lander with crew and send them down. You will usually want to scan the planet first. Mineral scans will indicate easily harvestable mineral ores and other resources. Energy scans will indicate unusual installations, which will effectively always be worth investigating. Biological scans will show where life forms are on the surface.

Minerals are necessary for building up and maintaining your flagship, so harvest them wherever you can. There are nine varieties, each color coded:

•   Common elements (carbon, nitrogen) are cyan. Worth 1 resource unit (RU) per unit.

•   Corrosives (chlorine, iodine) are red. 2 RU per unit.

•   Base metals (iron, tin) are grey. These are common, and usually worth harvesting, but not terribly valuable. 3 RU per unit.

•   Noble gases (argon, xenon) are blue. 4 RU per unit.

•   Rare earths (lanthanum, ytterbium) are green. 5 RU per unit.

•   Precious elements (gold, silver) are yellow. 6 RU per unit.

•   Radioactives (uranium, astatine) are orange. 8 RU per unit.

•   Exotics (antimatter, magnetic monopoles) are purple, and a princely 25 RU per cargo unit.

Minerals may be unloaded at Earth Starbase by talking to Commander Hayes, which will give you RU that you may spend to upgrade your flagship.

However, there are many hazards on planetary surfaces. Life forms are often hostile, and need to be subdued with your stunner or evaded. Earthquakes (expanding circles) can hurt your crew, lightning may crisp them, or lava flows and hotspots can fry them. Be careful, especially on hotter or more seismically and atmospherically active worlds. If your crew level starts dropping dramatically, flee quickly with the Escape key!

Stunned life forms may be captured and analyzed by your planet landers. The information you gain from this may not be immediately useful, but it will eventually come in handy.

Landing on a planet costs fuel, and the heavier the planet, the more fuel it requires. Make sure you don’t spend so much fuel exploring planets that you can’t get back to Sol!

INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL
When you leave a solar system, you will push up into HyperSpace. In HyperSpace you can travel great distances quickly, but you must continuously thrust to move. Otherwise, you will gradually slow to a stop.

While you can fly about in HyperSpace just like you do in a star system, the Galaxy is Large, and you will usually want to use the Auto-Pilot. To use the Auto-Pilot, select “Starmap” on the menu. This will show you a map of the quadrant (the galactic Core is in the upper right corner). To fly to a location, move the cursor there and press Enter. Then press Space to engage the Auto-Pilot.

DIPLOMACY
When you encounter an alien starship, you will usually get a picture of their task force and a chance to choose between conversation and fighting. If you choose to fight, you will transition immediately to space combat (below). Otherwise, you will talk first. If talks go poorly, space combat will likely ensue.

If the task force shows ships streaming off in all directions, you have reached a fortified world, and there are an unlimited number of starships facing you. You cannot win such a fight – if combat ensues, you will need to warp out.

SPACE COMBAT
When combat begins, you are prompted to select a ship from your task force. A one-on-one space combat then begins, and continues until either the enemy fleet is destroyed (in which case you salvage the wrecks and continue the game), your flagship is destroyed (ending the game), or your flagship warps out of combat (consuming 5 fuel units but ending the encounter).

Each ship has two major stats: Crew and Combat Battery. Crew are effectively hit points. Getting hit by weapons kills crew, and if all crew are eliminated, the craft is destroyed. Firing weapons typically requires energy from the combat batteries, which is replaced over time. The precise speed of energy regeneration and cost of weapons fire varies by ship.

Space flight is mostly inertial (you’ll drift if you stop thrusting), but each ship has a maximum velocity that can only be exceeding by “gravity whipping” around the planet. Don’t hit the planet unless you want to take lots of damage.

Each ship has a primary and secondary weapon mode, unique to that race’s craft. The descriptions of those follow.

  Ship Descriptions

Androsynth Guardian
Primary weapon: Fires homing acid bubble clouds.
Secondary weapon: Transforms into the ‘Blazer’, a comet that does considerable damage by ramming its opponents.

Ariloulaleelay Skiff
Primary weapon: Auto-aiming, short-range laser.
Secondary weapon: Random teleport.
Note: The Skiff is inertia-less, and stops instantly when thrust is removed.

Chenjesu Broodhome
Primary weapon: Crystal Shard. Travels until the fire button is released, then shatters.
Secondary weapon: De-energizing Offensive Guided Interceptor. Launches an autonomous DOGI that rams the opponent to drain their combat batteries.

Chmmr Avatar
Primary weapon: Immensely powerful short-range laser.
Secondary weapon: Tractor beam.
Note: Has three orbiting “ZapSats” that attack anything that gets in range.

Druuge Mauler
Primary weapon: Long range, high-recoil cannon.
Secondary weapon: Sets one crew on fire to gain combat energy.

Earthling Cruiser
Primary weapon: Homing nuclear missile.
Secondary weapon: Point-defense laser.

Ilwrath Avenger
Primary weapon: Short-range flamethrower.
Secondary weapon: Cloaking device.

Kohr-Ah Marauder
Primary weapon: Spinning blades that stop and home when the fire button is released.
Secondary weapon: Fiery Ring of Inevitable and Eternal Destruction (F.R.I.E.D.), a short-range corona of energy that blocks shots and inflicts lots of damage.

Melnorme Trader
Primary weapon: Charged shot. The longer the fire button is held, the stronger the shot.
Secondary weapon: Confusion beam that scrambles enemy controls.

Mmrnmhrm X-Form
Primary weapon: Lasers (X-form) or homing missiles (Y-form).
Secondary weapon: Switch between X-Form and Y-Form.

Mycon Podship
Primary weapon: Homing Plasmoid.
Secondary weapon: Regenerate 4 crew.

Orz Nemesis
Primary weapon: Howitzer cannon.
Secondary weapon: Secondary with left and right arrows rotates the primary cannon. Secondary with Primary launches space marines that invade the enemy ship and kill their crew.

Pkunk Fury
Primary weapon: Three-way cannon.
Secondary weapon: Fling insults at opponent. This is the only way the Pkunk can regenerate combat energy.
Note: On occasion, a destroyed Fury will be resurrected with full fuel and power.

Shofixti Scout
Primary weapon: Energy Dart.
Secondary weapon: Glory Device. When pressed three times, the ship will self-destruct, inflicting vast damage on nearby vessels.

Slylandro Probe
Primary weapon: Lighting weapon.
Secondary weapon: Absorb a nearby asteroid and convert to combat power. This is the only way the Probe can recharge.
Note: The Probe is inertia-less and always in motion. Pressing thrust will reverse its direction.

Spathi Eluder
Primary weapon: Simple forward cannon.
Secondary weapon: Backward Utilized Tracking Torpedo (B.U.T.T.), a homing missile fired from the rear of the vessel.

Supox Blade
Primary weapon: Forward firing glob weapon.
Secondary weapon: Secondary + left or right will cause you to drift laterally, while Secondary + thrust will make you fly backwards. This cancels your current velocity, so be careful!

Syreen Penetrator
Primary weapon: Particle Beam Stiletto.
Secondary weapon: “Syreen Call” – psychic attack that induces enemy crew to jump ship, where you (or your opponent) may capture them to add to your complement.

Thraddash Torch
Primary weapon: Straightforward blaster cannon.
Secondary weapon: Afterburner. The afterburner exhaust does more damage then the blaster, so use it as a weapon!

Umgah Drone
Primary weapon: Anti-Matter cone. Does not require combat batteries to use.
Secondary weapon: Fly backwards suddenly and at high speed.
Note: The Drone only recharges batteries if you do not fire for a long time, and then the energy all returns in one lump.

Ur-Quan Dreadnought
Primary weapon: Fusion Blast.
Secondary weapon: Launches autonomous fighters to harass the enemy. When they run low on fuel, they will fly back to the Dreadnought. Catch them before they expire. Each fighter requires one crew to pilot it, so take care not to weaken the core ship.

Utwig Jugger
Primary weapon: Six-shot cannon. Requires no combat battery energy to fire.
Secondary weapon: Force shield. Absorbing hits re-energizes your batteries. When the batteries are exhausted, the shield is permanently disabled until combat ends.

VUX Intruder
Primary weapon: Gigawatt laser.
Secondary weapon: Limpet mines that track enemy ships and slow them down dramatically if they hit.

Yehat Terminator
Primary weapon: Twin autocannons.
Secondary weapon: Force shield.

Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger
Primary weapon: Anti-matter spray gun.
Secondary weapon: “Tongue attack”, a point-blank range attack that does grievous damage.

SUPER MELEE
Super Melee mode is pure combat. It’s designed to let you hone your skills for the full game, or to challenge your friends to fleet matches. Selecting “Super Melee!” from the main menu will bring you to the super melee main screen.

This screen is dominated by the fleet design screen. Move the cursor over a ship slot and press Enter to change the ship assignment, or press Delete to remove the ship. You may select the fleet name and press Enter to edit the fleet name to something of your choice. The number next to the fleet name lists the fleet strength; this is simply the sum of the point values of all ships in the fleet.

The right hand side of the screen has buttons for managing the battle. Each side has four buttons associated with it: LOAD, SAVE, CONTROL, and NET. The LOAD and SAVE buttons let you load and save fleets. A variety of fleets of various strengths are pre-defined, and you may add your own by saving fleets you design.

The Control button has one of five settings. Human Control puts the fleet under the control of a human player. (The precise controls for that player are set in the Setup menu, but the bottom player’s controls are always the same as the full game’s controls.) Then there are three levels of computer control:

•   Weak Cyborg is not a particularly good shot, and will only use special weapons if the ship absolutely requires the special weapon to function at all (Pkunk, Slylandro). This difficulty level only appears in the full game when fighting crippled ships.

•   Good Cyborg will actually use its special weapon, but it’s still not much of a threat. The Good cyborg provides a gentle introduction to Star Control combat if you are unfamiliar with the gameplay. However, you will soon wish to switch to...

•   Awesome Cyborg. The AI will fully exploit each ship’s abilities, and is also a tolerably good shot, compensating for inertia and choosing its shots. Enemies you meet in the full game are almost always piloted at this level. If a battle is giving you trouble in the full game, this is the setting you want.

The last control option is Network Control, which will be set if that side is controlled by a non-local opponent. To set up a network game, push the Net button on the side you wish to be under your opponent-s control.

In order to connect, you must agree on a port (the default is 21837, which should not require any change) and set a net delay in frames. To compensate for network lag, a keypress or keyrelease will only take effect after this many frames. While higher values make your ship seem to respond more sluggishly, they give the keypress information more time to reach the remote party. If the game stutters, this is because it is waiting for this keypress information to arrive, which is an indication that the input delay is too low. Super Melee runs at 24 frames per second, each frame delayed will delay the input by about 42 ms. The delay used is the maximum of the desired value for both parties. The default is 2. Values lower than 4 are typically acceptable in terms of responsiveness. Future versions may automatically decide on the best value to use.

Once the port and delay are set, one player must select the first option (Wait for incoming connection), while the other enters his opponent-s hostname or IP address into the Host field and then pushes “Connect”. Once the connection is established, the control scheme for the remote player will flip to Network Control to register the connection. To disconnect, change it away back to one of the Human or Cyborg options. Once connected, you are both free to edit your fleets to provide a properly balanced battle.

Once all fleets are in readiness, press the Battle button in the center right. (In a network game, both players must select it with no intervening fleet edits. Moving away from Battle or having your opponent change their fleet will cancel your readiness state, and you will need to reselect the Battle button.) When all players are ready, the battle begins.

The ship selection screen is much as it would be in the full game, with two notable exceptions: a question mark in the upper right allows you to select a new ship randomly from those remaining, and a red X allows you to exit the combat entirely. (It is also possible to exit the melee at any time by pressing F10, just as one can exit anything.) If nobody quits, the combat will continue until one side has been completely destroyed. At this point, both fleets are shown so that one may compare initial and remaining fleet strengths. Press a key to return to the melee menu.

To return to the main menu after finishing with Super Melee mode, push the Quit button in the lower right.

THE STORY SO FAR

  The Beginning
The time is in the year 2155. Yet the story begins over two centuries before, in the 1930s, a time when surface vehicles on Earth burned fossil fuels. It’s all hard to imagine now, of course, getting from place to place in a dangerous noisy machine with an engine that set fire to spurts of prehistoric goo. Makes one shudder. Humans had another quaint oddity in those days; it was a little box called a radio that transmitted a mindless mix of music and speech. The radio was a harmless diversion, really, until the radio towers got taller and the broadcasts got stronger. Until the transmissions began to pulse out into the vacuum of space, riding electromagnetic waves throughout the universe. It wasn’t long before the broadcasts from Earth reached distant stars, and several alien races took notice of this new evidence of life on the far-off blue planet. One of the species listening was the Ur-Quan, a life-form devoid of conscience or character, a race genetically compelled to conquest. As early as 1940, the Ur-Quan began to formulate sinister schemes to attack Earth. Other aliens, meanwhile, benign species that wished only peace, lay plans to warn Earthlings of the Ur-Quan threat.

  The Scrutiny of Earth Intensifies
From their strange worlds many light years away, both good and evil aliens watched with growing interest as Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the planet in 1961. Less than a decade later, a tremor swept through the advanced life-forms beyond the solar system as American astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin became the first men to tread Earth’s satellite moon.

Alien scrutiny of Earth intensified. Meanwhile, the fratricidal conflicts that had scourged mankind since the species evolved continued unabated. The Small War of 2015 came close to obliterating civilization on Earth when nuclear combat broke out between several Middle Eastern countries. Fortunately the exchange was relatively small, limited to less than a dozen warheads, and a global conflagration was narrowly avoided. Even so, nearly a million people died. The terrible loss of life and the near-thing of a planetwide Armageddon sobered heads of government around the world. The leaders of the industrialized nations and the Third World met at the United Nations headquarters in New York and agreed to cooperate in an immediate strengthening of U.N. authority. Within six months, the U.N. Security Council had assembled a large Peace-Keeping Army and assumed worldwide control over all weapons of mass destruction. “Mass-kill” devices were gathered up from every country that possessed them. The weapons were then dismantled and their components stored in huge subterranean bunkers that came to be known as “Peace Vaults.” Simultaneously, the U.N. outlawed the sale of smaller arms. It took nearly a decade to end all armed conflict on earth. Yet the goal was finally achieved. Ten years after the U.N. summit, in 2025, the Earth experienced its first year without war.

To ensure the total destruction of the arms trade, the United Nations prohibited future weapons research, including the development of nuclear fusion and fission technologies that might be adapted for bomb-making purposes. Laser applications were also closely monitored to prevent the design of “Star Wars” -like weapons.

Despite these restrictions, science continued to advance across a wide spectrum of disciplines, especially in bio-technology. Brilliant Swiss Scientist Hsien Ho combined the now-complete human genome map with sophisticated genetic-engineering techniques and perfected the artificial parthenogenesis – cloning – of humans at the Zurich BioTeknik in 2019. Though the clones were, to all external appearances, human, Hsien Ho modified their genes so that they were not capable of producing offspring.

Meanwhile, a new religious order, known as Homo Deus, or “The Godly Men,” was founded in the aftermath of the Small War and the emotional turmoil caused by the destruction of the Holy Lands. Its charismatic founder, former car salesman Jason MacBride, built his worldwide following on the thesis that the Millennium was near. MacBride even predicted a specific date, March 11, 2046, when Heaven and Earth would join, and each devout person would be elevated to a divine status. The movement captured the imagination of millions of poor and disillusioned individuals worldwide. Within a few years, “Brother Jason” was one of the most powerful and influential people on the planet.

For most people on Earth, the following two decades were a golden time of peace and prosperity. This was not the case for Hsien Ho’s now adult clones. Seeing Ho’s creations as a threat to his “Godly Men,” Jason MacBride fought to have the clones declared sub-human. Calling them “Androsynth,” or the “fake men,” he used the vast resources of his human rights. Sadly, as the years passed, the Androsynth became little better than well-treated slaves.

Not unexpectedly, March 11, 2046 came and went without the arrival of Jason MacBride’s promised Millennium. Citing a “lack of genuinely devout people,” MacBride withdrew from public life and faded into obscurity, his power and fortunes rapidly declining.

By the middle of the 21st Century, Earthlings had begun to colonize their solar system. Planet orbiting factories led to lunar bases and soon there were mining and research outposts scattered across the Asteroid Belt. Yet the expansion of mankind into deep space was limited by the relatively slow speed at which spacecraft could travel. Research began in earnest to develop a ship that could warp toward distant stars faster than the speed of light.

  The Androsynth Rebellion
In retrospect, the Clone Revolt of 2085 was inevitable. Stronger, smarter and more adaptable than normal humans, the Androsynth despised and deeply resented their status as slaves. By the late ’70s there were tens of thousands of Androsynth distributed across the planet, many of them doing sophisticated scientific and technological research. Then, in the spring of 2085, the Androsynth staged a worldwide rebellion, throwing off their chains with the help of a sympathetic human underground.

The uprising had been exquisitely planned. Within 24 hours, the clones had captured nearly every spaceflight facility on the planet. Androsynth working at the centers had secretly fueled and readied over a thousand spacecraft to carry their people off this hated planet. Two days after the rebellion began, the freed clones took over all orbital and lunar bases, leaving not a single Androsynth on the face of the earth. “Star Control,” the recently established wing of the United Nations’ military forces, made several attempts to evict the clones. Each time the Star Control ships approached, the craft were burnt to ashes by colossal MASER weapons that Androsynth scientists had fashioned out of formerly benign energy broadcast units.

After two months of futile strikes on the Androsynth strongholds with conventional weapons, the U.N. leadership decided to use the means of mass destruction stored in the Peace Vaults. Yet before the nuclear bombs and laser rays could be reassembled, Star Control scoutships watching the orbiting bases reported an amazing sight. Eight of the largest space stations were accelerating out of Earth orbit, heading towards the periphery of the solar system. The Androsynth had somehow modified the huge space-stations for flight, including the recently finished StarLight Hilton.

Though Star Control chase ships were never able to catch the space station, a ten thruster ore freighter on its way home from an Asteroid Belt mining base with a hold full of titanium was able to make a high-V interception of the rag-tag fleet. As the freighter pilot approached the fleeing space-stations, they suddenly began to glow with a bright energy field that spun around the ships with blazing speed. According to the pilot’s recorded testimony, a “great red hole” over 500 meters across appeared in front of the space stations. As he watched in disbelief, the stations flew into the hole one by one and vanished in a starburst of white lights. When the last of the Androsynth strongholds had disappeared, the hole collapsed rapidly inward, imploding finally to nothingness.

Over 30 years would pass before humans encountered the Androsynth again.

  Aliens Contact Earth
In 2112, the largest and most remote space installation, Ceres Base, was built on the 700 kilometer-wide asteroid of the same name. Three years later, Ceres Base would be the site of mankind’s first official contact with an alien life-form – the crystalline Chenjesu. The alien vessel suddenly appeared out of nowhere, a scarlet flash of light announcing its presence as it took up a position 3 kilometers above the asteroid. Almost immediately, the alien ship began broadcasting this message:

“People from Earth: We are the Chenjesu. We mean you no harm. We come in peace with an urgent message. Heed these words: there is a horde of conquering warriors advancing toward your solar system from deep space. They are called the Ur-Quan. They know you are here. They will make slaves of you as they have made slaves of a thousand races across the galaxy. They will enslave both our species, Chenjesu and Human, unless we stop them now.

“We are not alone in our struggle. There are others who will fight with us against the Ur-Quan. Together – in an alliance with the remaining free stars – we may yet turn back the enemy, defeating the Ur-Quan and its Hierarchy of Battle Thralls.

“We beseech you to join us, for we desperately need your help. But we do not have much time. What is your answer?”

For over a week, the answer from Earth was stunned silence.

  The Alliance of Free Stars
The Chenjesu representatives were patient. Beings of vast intellect and perception, they understood the psychological shock their sudden appearance had on the inhabitants of Earth, a people who, amazingly, had never before had contact with a species other than their own. The aliens remained in the solar system for several months, conferring with the political, military and scientific leaders of Earth. Meanwhile the Chenjesu’s starship transported U.N. observers through HyperSpace to visit several worlds that had been attacked by the Ur-Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. The sad evidence of wholesale slaughter and devastation, and the accounts of dazed survivors, proved that the Chenjesu account was true. On August 1, 2116, Earth joined the Chenjesu and their other allies – the Mmrnmhrm, the Yehat, the Shofixti, and unofficially, the Syreen – to form the Alliance of Free Stars.

Following formal ratification of the pact by the United Nations, Star Control was placed under the direct authority of the Alliance Command Council.

The Chenjesu expected Earth to play a major role in the Alliance, both as combatants and suppliers of war material. Even though Earthlings were technologically primitive, their civilization had thousands of huge modern factories and millions of skilled workers able to manufacture both munitions and spacecraft. The tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapon components stashed away in the Peace Vaults were an additional bonus which surprised even the Chenjesu.

On the day following Earth’s formal induction into the Alliance, an alien race known as the Ariloulaleelay appeared, landing first on the Earth’s moon. They transmitted a request to meet with Alliance representatives, and a delegation of human and Chenjesu diplomats journeyed to the lunar surface to establish contact. The Arilou explained that they too were threatened by the Ur-Quan and had come to join the Alliance of Free Stars. Alliance headquarters was consulted, and soon afterwards the Arilous were welcomed into the coalition. Although the Arilou were extremely secretive – being unwilling to discuss even the locations of their homeworlds – they provided additional strength to the Alliance. This strength was to be tested almost immediately.

  The Course of the War
There were many great battles between the Alliance of Free Stars and the Ur-Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls. Both the Alliance and the Hierarchy built hundreds of asteroid forts all across the spiral arm of the Galaxy. Only a small fraction of these fortified positions, and the colonies and mining basses that surrounded them, survived the fighting.

As the war spread, new alien races were drawn into the conflict until finally there were 14 separate species at war. On the Alliance side there were the Earthlings, the Chenjesu, the Yehat, the Mmrnmhrm, the Ariloulaleelay, the Syreen, and the Shofixti. Fighting with the Ur-Quan were the Mycon, the Spathi, the Androsynth, the VUX, the Ilwrath, and the Umgah.

By 2134 it was becoming clear to both sides that the Ur-Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls were slowly but surely winning the war.

  Captain Burton’s Discovery
On March 16, 2134, Star Control Captain I. Burton, a highly respected 28-year-old female Earthling, was leading a task force of heavy cruisers on deep recon into what was believed to be a friendly sector near the Zeeman-Vela star cluster. Burton was brilliant and beautiful, with wide-set deep blue eyes, a white even-toothed smile and silky straw-colored hair. She also had a figure that turned heads, even aboard a warship hurtling through deep space. She had just taken a navigational star fix when the ships from Earth were suddenly ambushed by an elite force of Androsynth Guardian combat vessels. The Androsynth ships had been modified for extended blazer mode, giving them increased speed and range.

The task force was cut to shreds and only Burton’s vessel, the Tobermoon, escaped immediate destruction. Knowing the Tobermoon could not outrun the Guardian ships, Captain Burton engaged in a desperate ploy to save the ship and crew. Fear crinkling the corners of her deep blue eyes, she warped her craft toward the heart of Zeeman’s Star, a nearby supergiant sun. She had a desperate plan, a last ditch ploy she prayed would confuse the pursuer’s sensors. The bridge crew began to panic as heat in the cabin climbed to oven-like temperatures. Two enlisted men finally broke under the pressure and came for Burton, terror in their eyes and sweat pouring down their faces. But the captain had guts as well as beauty. She drew her sidearm and held the mutineers off, gaining the precious minutes she needed. Finally, the cabin temperature now nearing 150 degrees Fahrenheit, she judged they were close enough to the titanic star for her plan to work. As the Tobermoon’s outer hull began to liquefy, Burton jettisoned the ship’s entire stock of nuclear missiles and detonated them. From the perspective of the Androsynth, the vessel they were chasing had exploded when it flew too close to the superhot sun.

As the Androsynth task force warped out of the system, a severely damaged Tobermoon slowly emerged from its hiding place behind Zeeman’s Star. Burton ordered a damage report. As she’d suspected, the craft sustained severe damage. Worse, the ship’s engineers informed her they couldn’t make repairs without a planetfall on a world with a breathable atmosphere. Like most supergiant stars, Zeeman did not have any Earth-like planets in orbit around it. The Tobermoon limped through space for almost a week before Hyper-Radar reconnaissance located a hospitable planet orbiting the dwarf star Vela. The planet was called Vela II, and it proved to have both an oxygen-rich atmosphere and deposits of metal ore the humans could refine and use to repair their ship.

After a successful landing, Burton ordered the engineers to begin repairs. She sent the rest of the crew off to explore their surroundings. It was only pure chance that a young ensign chose to enter a unremarkable cave in a nearby hillside. What he found within the cave was the most remarkable discovery of the century – a huge underground installation, the size of a small city, built in the distant past by an extinct race known only as the Precursors. The cave was massive, over 2500 meters long and averaging 50 meters from floor to ceiling. Off the main tunnel were countless side passages and hidden niches, almost all crammed with futuristic equipment and hundreds of long-dormant robots. Halfway down the main gallery, a deep crevasse sliced across the tunnel floor, evidence of a tremendous prehistoric earthquake that had offset the adjoining walls by more than ten meters. Over the centuries, water trickling into the cave from the planet’s surface had carried countless minute traces of calcium carbonate that settled out as lime. As the limestone sediment built up, the deposits covered much of the Precursors’ wondrous machinery with a smooth coating called flowstone that was now five to ten meters thick in places. Artifacts of this powerful and technologically advanced alien species had been found in every quarter of known space. Yet this was the first time an entire Precursor base had been discovered. Captain Burton recognized that the wealth of advanced technology could bring the Alliance victory over the Ur-Quan – but only if scientists could be brought to Vela II to study the fantastic find.

Realizing that the surrounding region of space could fall under the control of the enemy at any time, Burton accelerated repairs to the Tobermoon and rocketed back to Earth at emergency warp speed to report her findings to her superiors at Star Control. Within a week, the Tobermoon was on the return leg to Vela II, crammed full of hastily assembled scientific equipment and experts on both the Precursor’s civilization and their advanced xenotechnology.

  Expedition to Vela II
The most respected but least liked Precursor expert in the expedition to Vela II was Professor Jules Farnsworth. The professor was well known for his formidable intellect and his extensive knowledge of the Precursor civilization. Though recognized as a great mind, Farnsworth was also widely disliked for his flamboyant egotism and rude impatience with peers who did not hang on his every word. The man was simply impossible to work with for anyone with a modicum of self-respect.

It wasn’t long before both his fellow scientists on the mission and Captain Burton rued the decision to bring Farnsworth along, for the professor did little but complain during the voyage from Earth to Vela II. Yet as irksome as he was, Professor Farnsworth proved his worth almost immediately upon his arrival at the Precursor installation. Within hours he located the base’s deactivated central control computer. While the professor worked feverishly on the ancient aliens’ computer, Captain Burton received a fateful message from the Star Control High Command.

As feared, the Ur-Quan had smashed through the defensive lines drawn between the Mira and Indi constellations. Star Control reconnaissance ships reported that a large Hierarchy task force was hurtling toward the Vela star system. Captain Burton was ordered to evacuate all personnel from Vela II and return to Earth immediately. Burton’s heart beat like a hammer in her chest as she read the rest of the message. Star Control was paranoid that the Precursor’s advanced technology would fall into the hands of the hated Ur-Quan. To prevent the Hierarchy from obtaining these ancient secrets, Burton was ordered to install nuclear devices throughout the Precursor installation. Once the Tobermoon was in orbit, she was to set off the weapons and destroy the entire complex.

The non-military members of the Vela II research team were stunned by the order. Destroy the most significant discovery of the century? It was unthinkable! Professor Farnsworth was especially distraught, for he was in the middle of several critical research projects that promised to unlock ancient Precursor technical secrets. In an uncharacteristic display of courage, Farnsworth offered to remain behind, promising to detonate the nuclear bombs if the Ur-Quan found the Precursor caves. The majority of the other scientists and engineers also asked to stay on Vela II and continue their research. Finally, Captain Burton was persuaded that saving the treasure trove of advanced Precursor technology was more important than obeying a direct order from the High Command. Still, she didn’t trust Farnsworth to detonate the nuclear bombs should the Ur-Quan land. She decided the only logical thing to do was to remain behind herself.

On August 11, 2134, Captain Burton gave over command of the Tobermoon to First Officer Chi, with orders to leave the star system immediately. He was to return to Earth at best speed and brief the High Command on the expedition’s desperate attempt to save the Precursor installation. Chi promised to return with a relief party and supplies as soon as the Ur-Quan attack was repulsed. After the Tobermoon had lifted off, the team quickly moved all their equipment deep into the cave system and obscured all signs of their presence from the planet’s surface. Now, if an Ur-Quan reconnaissance ship scanned the terrain, Vela II would appear uninhabited. The weeks turned into months as Captain Burton and her team of 200 waited for the return of the Tobermoon.

  Marooned
After six months in the caves, food reserves grew critically short and Captain Burton imposed strict rationing. Professor Farnsworth found a data bank in the computer memory describing Vela II’s flora and fauna. Burton felt her spirits soar as Farnsworth pointed out several plants and animals that could be harvested for food. The most likely sources of meat were the red-brown Libixx, animals that looked like winged rabbits, and the six-legged Ortogs, 2,000 pound beasts with pendulous udders that resembled a cross between a cow and a lizard. Both had cell structures, internal organs and flesh remarkably similar to mammals on Earth. The Precursor data also indicated that several plant species – especially the giant blue-flowered Iccamullon – had the same proteins, sugars and starches as crops humans had been raising for centuries. Captain Burton assigned teams to hunt wild animas and harvest food planets, allowing them out of the caves only under cover of dark for the first year they were there. Then, gradually as the years passed, the marooned Earthlings grew confident they were safe from discovery by the Ur-Quan on this out-of-the-way little planet. They began to see themselves as colonists and most moved out of the caves to settle on the surface. Still, with Captain Burton prodding them, the humans remained cautious, building camouflaged houses and planting crops in purposefully chaotic patterns. Eventually they gave their planet a name: Unzervalt. It meant, simply, “our world.”

Ten years slipped past, marked by the deaths of a dozen colonists from accidents or old age, and the birth of 42 children. Several of the scientists had now become full-time farmers. Others fabricated old-fashioned bullet-firing rifles and disappeared into the Unzervalt wilderness, appearing months later clad in Ortog skins and bursting with tales of strange landscapes and even stranger life-forms.

  Farnsworth’s Breakthrough
After more than a decade of hard work, Professor Jules Farnsworth announced with considerable fanfare that he had finally succeeded in unlocking the secret of the Precursor Control Computer. Without Captain Burton’s permission – indeed without even knowing what would happen – Farnsworth commanded the computer to initiate its prime function. The resulting near-disaster almost got the professor put in the stockade.

Suddenly, the immobile machinery within the cave roared to life. Huge electrical arcs shot between massive electrodes, incinerating a wooden storage shack. Robotic vehicles began tearing across the cavern floor along pre-programmed paths – paths which led them right through several man-made buildings. A 30-meter-tall crane-like machine detached itself from one wall and swiftly rolled through the cave, nearly crushing a group of panicked scientists. It was a miracle that no one was killed in the ensuing chaos as humans fled the caves in terror.

The next day, robotic vehicles emerged from the cave, and cut down a nearby forest. They leveled the ground, covered the surface with some kind of metallic plastic, and then returned to their cave.

Bronzed from the Vela sun, her straw-colored hair pushed up under her commander’s cap, Captain Burton led a squad of volunteers back into the caves on a cautious reconnaissance mission. Inside the main cavern, the squad came upon the robots assembling the spine of a huge ship – a starship! Although the robots clearly knew the humans were there, turning to focus benign scanners on the volunteers several times, they obviously did not consider the Earthlings a threat. Captain Burton decided it was safe for humans to return to work in the caves, so long as people kept out of the robots’ way.

Days later an abashed Farnsworth was finally coaxed back to the Precursor Control Computer to continue his research. Almost immediately, the professor discovered two significant facts. First, the construction process would soon transition out of the caves and assembly of the starship would continue on the planet’s surface. Second, as far as Farnsworth could tell, the construction was going to take a long time.

The “long time” that Farnsworth predicted turned out to be nearly a decade. The colonists grew accustomed to the framework of a great starship looming above their tiny village. Day after day, a hundred robots moved across the surface of the vessel, welding and fitting, assembling and fabricating.

Then one day, without warning, the construction robots stopped work and returned underground. They assumed their original positions in the cave and shut down completely. The cave was exactly the way the research team had first found it – silent, motionless. A flustered Professor Farnsworth frantically asked the Control Computer for an explanation, and got an immediate answer. There were not enough raw materials left to finish the vessel, nor were there suitable substitutes anywhere on the planet. A week of tests by Burton and her team proved the ship was complete enough to blast off from the surface of Vela II. But it would have to cruise slowly through Hyperspace, lightly armed, and with only enough room for a skeleton crew.

There was another problem. The controls for the vessel were not designed for humans. It became obvious from the interior layout of the starship that the Precursors were giants, and seemingly not bipedal. Levers were almost impossible to move, three people were required to actuate a single switch, and the chairs, beds and other furnishings were better suited for a wooly mammoth than a human.

Some kind of automated control system was needed. After mulling over the problem for several days, Captain Burton decided that the only answer was to remove the Central Control Computer from the cave and configure it to run the ship. Surely Professor Farnsworth knew enough about the Precursor computer system to give it whatever commands were necessary to take the ship back to Earth. Despite vehement protests from Farnsworth, the Captain ordered the Precursor’s computer installed in the vessel. After 20 years marooned on Vela II, the colonists were at last ready to return to Earth.

Or were they? Pressed to begin programming the computer, Farnsworth broke down and admitted he didn’t have the foggiest idea how to do it. It turned out he had never understood the incredibly complicated system. Instead, for years he had secretly employed the natural computer talents of a precocious young genius. This gifted child, now a young man, had been born on Unzervalt – the son of an officer from the Tobermoon and a Research Team engineer. Each night, after Farnsworth left the Control Computer console, the young boy had crept into the caves and tinkered with the computer. Within a few months, the child had established a rapport with the computer far beyond anything Farnsworth had accomplished. When the Professor discovered the boy’s nocturnal activities, he used gifts and phony promises to win the child’s confidence, then talked the young genius into activating the entire complex.

This time, the Captain did throw the Professor into the stockade.

Then Burton called this young man into her office and proposed a plan. She would command the starship, and he would serve as pilot, acting as the interface with the starship’s Precursor computer.

With trepidation, you accepted.

  The Return to Earth
After 3 months of intensive crew training, Captain Burton felt it was finally time to leave Unzervalt. You weren’t so sure, weren’t entirely comfortable with your new role as a starship officer. Burton listened as you expressed your doubts, then put an arm around your shoulders and reassured you. You’d make a fine pilot. She’d trust a ship to you any time. Besides, all the plans were set. The two of you would lead the return to Earth, and once there send back a rescue ship for the colonists left behind. If necessary, Burton vowed, you would fight your way through the forces of the Ur-Quan Hierarchy.

You, above all, will remember that trip, for during the journey you went through a rite of passage. You left Unzervalt a boy and soon found yourself forced to be a man – to lead bravely and boldly and wisely. Think back. Do you recall the exhilaration of blasting off from the tiny planet where you were born – and the sheer terror later? Three days out, as you approached the perimeter of that cursed Oort Cloud, you found the Tobermoon – derelict and tumbling through space. The deep burns along her hull were mute evidence she’d seen combat. And lost. The discovery was, of course, a great shock to Captain Burton. Unconsciously she chewed her bottom lip, and for the first time her handsome face showed the awful strain of the past twenty years. She’d been engaged to Captain Chi. Through the decades she’d clung to the hope she’d see him again, kept alive the dream they’d shared of marriage and children and a life together. Now the dream was shattered. She knew he was gone, even though there was no body to mourn over. Strangely, there were no bodies at all on board. And most of the important ship systems were intact. Do you remember how Burton wondered, tears brimming in her blue eyes, if Officer Chi and the other crew members had been taken prisoner? How her words conjured up a picture in your mind of the Earthlings being tortured – their ordeal provoking mirth in the soul-less Ur-Quan. With a few days work, the engineers brought the Tobermoon back to life. What came next changed your life forever. With Captain Burton the only one aboard qualified to pilot the Earth Cruiser, you were put in command of the Precursor starship. Admit it. Standing on the bridge – those epaulets the grieving but bravely smiling Captain Burton pinned on gleaming from your shoulders – you felt proud, sure of yourself. Hey, truth be told, at that moment you thought you were invincible.

Your confidence didn’t last long, did it? With the Tobermoon leading the way, you and Burton pushed your ships out into HyperSpace – the parallel dimension where distances are fantastically compressed and interstellar travel feasible. Blazing white flashes surrounded your vessels and everything took on a crimson hue. Something up there wasn’t right. Remember? Your body felt like it was in a vise and your head was spinning. You fought for control, forcing yourself to focus on the soft voice of Captain Burton radioing a command from the Tobermoon: “Set course for Earth.”

A day later – you think it was a day, but now, looking back, you can’t be sure – a sinister shadow began following you through HyperSpace. It moved fast, real fast. Within a couple of hours it had approached close enough to interact with your ship’s hyperdrive field, pulling you both back into TrueSpace. At close range, the enemy ship looked like a pair of spinning red globes surrounded by a crackling energy field. Some kind of glowing rod or energy beam connected the red globes. The alien craft built up speed rapidly as it zeroed in on the starship you commanded. Burton saw the attack coming and signaled you to warp out of the area immediately. A moment later you watched on your command console monitor as the Tobermoon flashed away on a trajectory to intercept the alien ship. As you pushed up into HyperSpace, you saw a crackling bolt of energy lance out from the alien vessel and strike the Tobermoon. Burton’s craft wobbled violently, then veered off on an erratic course in the general direction of Unzervalt. The Alien craft was apparently satisfied with disabling the Tobermoon, for the strange ship made a 180 degree turn and rocketed at warp speed toward deep space.

Once your starship reached HyperSpace, you radioed the Tobermoon, only to learn that Captain Burton had been killed by the alien’s unexpected attack. You felt sick to your stomach. Then you wanted to punch the bulkhead. You’d been half in love with Burton, you knew that now. Life stunk!

Captain Burton’s death left you in full command of the mission to find Earth. You navigated the Precursor starship back on your original course, your mind swirling with all that had happened. A terrible doubt overtook you, gnawing at the edges of what had always been your strong self-confidence. Could you pull this off? You, a son of Unzervalt, born in a cave, raised on Ortog milk and Libixx meat. You, a man who’d never set foot in a university, never had formal space flight training beyond the crash course from Burton? You’d taught yourself everything, learning from reading computer programs and watching how engineers and scientists did things. The question ate at you now; had you been both a good teacher and a good student? Good enough at both to prepare you awesome task that lay ahead? Time would tell.

And time did tell. Five days after the alien attack you arrived at a stellar vortex leading out of HyperSpace. Your scanner showed the vortex spiraling down to a brilliant yellow star. You knew at once that this was the great star that had given life to your ancestors, the star your Earthling progenitors called the Sun! You warped down out of HyperSpace and took a navigational fix. You were just beyond the orbit of the ninth planet of the yellow star. Earth was the third planet out from the Sun. With all thrusters on, you can reach the blue planet in two days. A horrible thought flits across your mind. Had the Ur-Quan broken through the Alliance defense lines and attacked your ancestral home? Was there devastation? Had cities been obliterated by nuclear weapons and the survivors left irradiated mutants, genetic freaks roaming the ashen landscape like primal apes? You’ll know in 48 hours.

ADD-ONS
uqm has basic support for add-on packages. Though it is not very elaborate yet, you can install some content add-ons. Add-ons created for UQM releases prior to v0.7 are not compatible with this release.

Inside the directory where the content is installed, in the content/ directory, there is a directory addons/. In this directory, you can place add-on packages, like 3domusic, 3dovoice, remix and others, or create new directories with .zip files to be used in addition te the standard content .zip files. Each add-on must contain at least one .rmp file to tell the game which resources the add-on provides. When you specify the command- line option --addon addon, the .zip files inside the directory content/addons/addon will be included in the game. --addon may be specified more than once to enable multiple add-ons.

3domusic, 3dovoice, and remix are intended to be used as add-ons, and can be turned on and off from the in-game setup menu.

BUGS
After several years of enthusiastic testing, uqm has dramatically improved its stability, but it is still beta software, and bugs certainly still lurk. Upon finding a problem, we’d like you to report it, but before you do, please do the following:

•   Try to isolate what causes it: “ Crashes with a null dereference about half the time when firing and taunting with a Pkunk ” is better than “Melee doesn’t work”. If the game crashes, notice what error is produced; if the game hangs, check to see if the game-exit key (F12) works.

•   Go to the bug database: http://bugs.uqm.stack.nl/ and post a report of the problem there. Search the database first to see if it has been already posted; if we get many duplicate reports, processing them eats our time from actual development. If it’s been reported, and you have more information, feel free to confirm that you’ve reproduced it by adding a comment to the report. If ten people have already confirmed it, though, it’s probably best to treat it as duly reported.

•   Whenever possible, for bugs that only occur under certain conditions, include a save game with your bug report that duplicates the bug. In the case of a crash, a stack trace can be very helpful for us too. If you don’t know what a stack trace is, don’t worry about it.

•   If your issue is more like “support request” than bug report and you want help from other users, then it might be more appropriate to post it to our forum: http://uqm.stack.nl/forum/.