Talk:Sa-Matra

I think it's better to keep the "Precursor Artifacts" only for the things you can take with you in your cargo. That way, the "Alien Artifacts" category, of which "Precursor Artifacts" is a sub-category, will contain everything you can take with you, and nothing more. We could make a category "Precursor Technology" or something like that, which has "Precursor Artifacts", and "SIS Modules" as sub-categories, and also the topics Sa-Matra, SIS, and Mark II (which could together form a new category "Precursor Ships" if we want). Opinions? - SvdB 11:31, 11 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Categorization

That's a good point. The Alien Artifact cat started as a collection of "things you can carry with you." And the Precursor Artifacts seemed like a natural subcat but contained things which, most certainly, were not being carried around. Perhaps a better solution would be to remove Precursor Artifacts from the Alien Artifacts cat (let them both be top level cats) and let things that fall into both (the clear spindle etc.) be both while things that are Precursor but not devices (the SIS, the factory on Unzervalt — it would probably be a good idea to change the name to "Precursor Technology" as you mentioned) be just that. I'm learning to have great respect for the people who make the Encyclopedia Brittanica; this is hard work! Mmrnmhrm 15:35, 11 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Sounds good

I agree, your idea is better. -- SvdB 00:49, 12 Oct 2004 (CEST)

Yehat?

The article claims the yehat reinforcements (along with pkunk) were crucial in defeating the sa-matra. But I never found the yehat to be of any use - certainly less use than the chmmr. Jdorje 02:01, 18 Feb 2005 (CET)

Ever use a Pkunk Fury against the Sa-Matra? The Yehat bring Pkunk Furies with them, and it just so happens that the Fury is pretty much THE ship to use against the Sa-Matra. It's small and fast enough to be easily piloted around the SM's active defenses and it's got a spreadfire pattern that allows you to basically continually circle while hammering the shield generators. Not to mention the fact that, in the event you get hit with a lucky shot, you've got a 50% chance of coming back from the dead. I tried using the Chmmr, the Utwig, everything you can think of. Terminators, Juggers, and Avatars are too slow to avoid the active defenses-Chmmr get eaten alive, Utwigs can shield themselves but get bounced all around the map, and Terminators aren't much better off than the Utwig. Supox Blades work, never tried Eluders but I doubt they'll be so great (the BUTTs won't track on the generators, I believe, and the problem with most ships is that turning to fire at the shield generators is suicide. Try the Fury. You won't go back.

Yes. If I remember correctly, (IP may be different) I was the person who originally added the blurb about the Sa-Matra under the Pkunk Fury. 70.35.228.64 01:44, 1 October 2006 (CEST)

the yehat may prove useful in killing off the remenant fireballs and bouncers, although it's not so hard to do it with the pkunk itself. killing off the sa-matra with utwigs is not hard, but simply takes LOTS of patience. i've found it impossible to do with other ships aside from the pkunk, though i've never been a good supox player anyway. tried eluder, it's of no use. 85.64.228.215 21:38, 26 July 2008 (CEST)

fanfic removal

In view of the recent counter-fanfic rumblings, I removed some of the fanfic and actual historical errors from the article: The battleship was discovered during the first doctrinal conflict by the Kzer-Za, and the magellenic clouds retreat (where the frell did that come from?), and mobile electromagnetic fields and energy matrices. Sorry, I'm a stickler for physics terms except in the face of canon. Hopefully I didn't introduce my own fanfic musings, but if so, I gladly accept the corrections. Fyzixfighter 19:04, 2 Jun 2005 (CEST)

Yay you. - SvdB

Thanks a lot for your hard work in keeping the content of the ultronomicon up to standard. -Fadookie 06:39, 5 Jun 2005 (CEST)

Magellanic Clouds retreat is from the 3DO ending. 3DO may be "less canon" than PC by your standards, but it's still canon.

So, by the way, is the description of the Sa-Matra's weaponry, taken from what we see it do to the Flagship in the 3DO ending movie -- which is, again, canon.

You know, I'm royally sick of coming back here and finding someone who's done little-to-no research claiming something I spent a *hell* of a long time digging up is "fanfic" because he didn't actually go back and check the files, and then everyone praising him for "cleaning up fanfic". There *is no reference in the game* to the Kzer-Za finding the Sa-Matra during the first Doctrinal War. In fact, the only reference to how the Sa-Matra was found is in the conversation with the Talking Pet -- although much of what he says is unreliable, sure, the fact is it's the only place we find reference to where the Sa-Matra came from (the Kzer-Za, Kohr-Ah, Melnorme and Chmmr don't seem to say anything about it), and it's certainly believable it was found during the Slave Empire era rather than the Doctrinal War, when the Ur-Quan would've been far busier fighting than exploring.

Reverting, and *ask* first before you accuse me of making things up.

I could have sworn I found some in game/canon reference that they found it then, but now I can't find a reference (note to self: keep better notes when researching) - so I was probably wrong. I added a contextual remark for the Sa-Matra's source and left in your comments since I couldn't verify mine. And since you seem a little heated and emotional over this, I'll ask again where the Magellenic Cloud reference is before changing it back. I just watched (again) the 3DO ending cinematics (provided over at PONAF) and it didn't mention anything about this result. Was it not in the ending video? Also, since you feel so strongly about the work you put into this, why not officially register so that we can more easily discuss disagreements?

And *ask* first before you accuse me of doing little-to-no research.--Fyzixfighter 10:57, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)

It's in the 3DO voice narration in the ending slideshow, that comes after the ending cinematic (which only shows the Sa-Matra exploding). Talana tells The Captain that the Ur-Quan were last seen "high-tailing it to the Magellanic Clouds". Try the "SC2 3DO Credits" on PoNaF.

Alright, found the "high-taling it for the clouds of magellan" - well I guess I'm wrong on that point. This also leads into a much larger question of how to handle the differences between the PC and 3DO version (I think I'll pose the question over on the Style Guide talk page. Also, I was wrong about being wrong on the Sa-Matra's discovery. After a good half-night's sleep, I finally found my in-game source, the Melnorme (the last historical info they give you):

The civil war between the Green Ur-Quan, the followers of Kzer-Za and their opponents, the death-dealing Kohr-Ah, lasted for decades. It is likely that they would have annihilated each other were it not for a chance discovery by a Kzer-Za -- a Precursor Battleship! The vessel was huge, many times the size of the Ur-Quan's vessels. The Precursor ship sliced through the Kohr-Ah forces in days -- the Kohr-Ah were defeated.

Since the Melnorme are slightly more reliable than the neo-Dnyarri, I'd take this as the primary account. I'm changing the first paragraph back, and I'll add a comment about the neo-Dnyarri's claim. --Fyzixfighter 18:14, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)

What do you all think should be done about the names Repulsor Spheres and Plasma Destruction Toroids? I can't find them anywhere in the conversations or in any of the literature. Did these names come from somewhere in the 3DO version or did I miss something? I added in a comment to try and express that these are names that we've invented, though I'd like to track down where they first appeared as such. My only partial guess is that the Plasma Destruction Toroid name came from the Chmmr's comment about annihilation toroids. --Fyzixfighter 12:21, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)

Sorry to repost only after a little while. I've decided to remove the colloquial names until I can find where they've come from. I'd like to see how widespread the terms are in the community before we include them in the article. Anyone know where these names first appear? --Fyzixfighter 19:07, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)

The source code calls them "Comets" and "Sentinels". — SvdB 00:28, 4 Nov 2005 (CET)

And I've never seen the names used in this article before. — SvdB 00:53, 4 Nov 2005 (CET)

I take you mean the names "Comets" and "Sentinels" have never been used in this article? Let me guess, the Comets are the balls of fire and the Sentinels are the green blobby things. I know there was a sentiment not to use in-code names that don't appear in-game, but if we are going to use names for these things, those names would get my vote. It's a least one step closer to canon than those other names that used to be in here. But imho the sentence still seems to work fine without any names, so meh. Thanks for the info though. --Fyzixfighter 07:04, 4 Nov 2005 (CET)

Yeah I meant that I haven't seen the names that are used in this article elsewhere. About not using in-code names that aren't used in the game, my sentiment is that we should use in-game names whenever available, but whenever a concious decision about something has been made in the source, that should be considered canon too. And the fireballs are indeed the comets. — SvdB 14:17, 4 Nov 2005 (CET)

I found the Sa-Matra and escorts far easier to destroy with Avatars than with the Pkuk and Yehat vessels. "even the most powerful Alliance ships, the new Chmmr Avatar vessels were at insurmountable odds against the defenses of Sa-Matra and their escorts", for me, at least, was way off.

Really? What I usually do is take down the generators with a single Fury. Can this be done with a single Avatar (I haven't tried it)? I agree about the escorts being more easily polished off with Chmmr, though - I usually ditch the Fury for an Avatar once the generators are down (it's annoying if the Fury keeps coming back in this instance!). The first time I played, though, I committed the sin of losing Fwiffo :( which in view of recent murmurings of the thrice-blessed Twin Gods I didn't really have freedom to do. Anyway, I would be in favour of editing the article to say that the Avatar is not so bad against the escorts. --Zeracles 01:45, 1 December 2007 (CET)

It is worth noting that the escorts can be easily dispatched by a properly equipped flagship (one Shiva furnace, one tracker, two hellborne canons) as to preserve all Avatars & Furies, etc. (I use Juggers) for the Sa-Matra battle.--The Doug 5 March 2012

Crateris

Hello. I read the article regarding the Sa-Matra and i noticed that it's missing informations about the place where Sa-Matra has been hidden by the Ur-Quan. I think it's an important historical information. Don't you think it should be specified? Thank you all for the great job in putting this site up. Marco

Cyborg

I was wondering if there should be something added about the Cyborg fighting mode when it comes to the Sa-Matra. (Maybe not to this page, depending how spoiler-specific it is). It doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere on the wiki: If you have Cyborg fighting mode turned on, after the battle against the three Dreadnoughts and three Marauders, you don't fight the Sa-Matra, you instead skip right to the ending sequence! Interestingly, the Yehat show up anyway to give you ship aid.

Technically there are two points during the end-game to optionally turn on the Cyborg - on the Encounter screen right before the Dreadnought/Marauder fight, and on a second Encounter screen just before the Sa-Matra itself. I've always turned on the Cyborg for the first fight, after which things proceed automatically. I've never tried turning it on during the second Encounter screen, so that might be worth an experiment.

I've always been terrible at games that require fast-response controls and precision movements, so the Cyborg mode was a HUGE blessing, without which I would have never been able to finish the game. So I'm hoping the cyborg trick can be documented on the wiki, maybe in the Walkthrough, or somewhere. Dro 13:35, 24 November 2013 (CST)