User:Shiver/PvP Guide

Foreword

This guide is long. If you don't want to read giant blocks of text, hit the "back" button on your browser right now. It assumes you have beaten Star Control II already, are familiar with all the ships and have a serious interest in playing melee competitively.

You may be wondering to yourself, "Who is this jerk and what qualifies him to tell me how to play my game?" Starting from the time online melee was added to The Ur-Quan Masters, I began to play the game in an IRC channel called #uqm-arena on the Freenode server. This was the supposed official hub for net melee. I was not very good when I first started and racked up numerous losses -- a big shock for me at the time. The room was never very active, but I lurked and played in that chatroom for years. We had occasional tournaments. I played visitors, regulars, newbies, experts, UQM core team members, and even Chris Nelson back when Toys For Bob held a chat with the fan community back in 2007. I also played a few trial runs against a player testing out his aimbot, shieldbot, Glory Device triggerbot and artificial lag hacks against me. I am not the world's single greatest net melee player but I've beaten every person I've ever played against at least once. So what qualifies me to write this? Years of experience and an unhealthy obsession with the game.

This guide is written with the "200 points, no duplicate ships" ruleset in mind, which has been by far the most prevalent ruleset used within #uqm-arena. Different rules such as "random ship selection only" or "duplicate ships allowed" will lead to a different metagame where much of the advice provided here no longer applies. Even #uqm-arena's preferred method of breaking stalemates has an effect on the balance of power between ships. Regardless, most information from this guide should still help you improve at player-versus-player even if your way of playing is very different.

Mastering the Game

• Playing against the cyborg is the first step. Understand that combat against a static opponent makes for poor practice. Once you are acclimated to Star Control's combat, live opponents are the only way to improve in any meaningful way.

• Most net melee newbies fight very defensively. This is a good way to start. Aggressive play, while important, is difficult to learn and put into practice. You may as well stay on the Relativity Effect's good side as much as possible until you've got your bearings.

• Star Control's ship line-up really isn't balanced well at all. Some ships are simply better than others. This is a flaw in the game. Expect to see many of the same ships over and over in every player's fleet. Find the best ships and abuse them yourself.

• A small number of powerful ships is better than a large number of weak ships at a low level of play. With a few exceptions, even the "bad" expensive ships are better for a newbie than high performance cheap ships. Gradually rotate lightweight craft into your fleet as your skill set increases. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how useful they are.

• Learn which ships beats which. There are significant rock/paper/scissors dynamics between ships that are often not immediately apparent. No ship in Star Control's lineup is useless, though many are terrible. Smart ship selection is the easiest skill to develop and has a dramatic impact on your effectiveness as a player.

• Learn how to approach every important ship match-up. If a particular match-up seems to happen over and over, it may be worth the effort to run a few drills of that match-up with a live player until you've got the technique down. You could even go so far as to play the opposite side of the match-up to see how your opponent does it. The goal is to work your ship's strengths against the enemy ship's weaknesses. Tactical sophistication is more important than quick reflexes, and almost as important as smart ship selection.

• Get a feel for all the little nuances of melee's bizarre physics. Knowing the exact numbers behind all the various ships and weapon systems can help, but isn't necessary to become proficient. Ship and weapon characteristics are not listed in this guide but can be found all over the Ultronomicon.

Fundamentals

Initial Selection

When a melee match begins, both players must pick their first ship without knowledge of what the other player is using. The best approach is to use something cheap and crappy that you don't care about losing. If your opponent starts out with Chmmr and you only use Zoq-Fot-Pik, this is actually a good thing. That Chmmr has been wasted. You've only paid out 6 points and now your opponent has one of their best ships set up for you to counter. Gaining initiative is well worth the sacrifice of one weak ship. Zoq-Fot-Pik and Shofixti are common starters for this reason. Middle-of-the-pack starters such as Syreen, VUX and Supox are also frequently chosen during the first bout, as they are just powerful enough to lay waste to the weakest ships without leaving you at a disadvantage afterwards. To be more in depth about the first draw, there is a rock-paper-scissors dynamic with starting picks. It usually works like this:

• Low value ships > High value ships
• Medium value ships > Low value ships
• High value ships > Medium value ships

Mis-drawing a high value ship on the first bout will have a significant detrimental effect on your chances of winning, while losing a medium value ship matters a bit less and losing a low value ship is trivial. To skew things even more in favor of the lightweights, the VUX Intruder's ambush ability is surprisingly deadly during the first bout, allowing it to eliminate rivals which it normally can't and inflict significant damage on high value ships.

Countering

Although the most expensive spacecraft are generally the most powerful, they each have a weakness to at least one ship which costs less. It's good to get in the habit of holding back certain ships until the other player deploys ideal prey. For instance, Orz has this interesting habit of leaving a long trail of death and destruction in its wake. At least that's what usually happens unless Androsynth shows up in the arena and slices right through it without even trying very hard. Androsynth costs a bit more than half the price of Orz, so if the other player has Orz in their fleet then you need to hold your Androsynth in reserve. Try to hit every ship the other player uses with the most effective counter available.

Mirroring

Another solution to difficult enemy craft is to pair it up against with the exact same ship yourself. If the other player's ship is already damaged, then the odds of winning are in your favor. Conversely, mirroring a ship with full crew is not a wise course of action. Mirroring is best used when you have no decent counter ships, or have doubts about your ability to counter a particular ship. Most mirror matches involve very little skill, making them particularly worthwhile to initiate against opponents of higher skill than yourself.

The Arena

The arena is the size of four game screens zoomed all the way back. Within the arena's confines there is always one planet and five asteroids. If an asteroid is destroyed, it will respawn off camera. Why is this information useful? Because one player will begin searching for the planet immediately during a non-trivial fraction of all ship-to-ship match-ups. You will find yourself doing this eventually if you have not gotten into the habit already. Even when the planet is not an objective for either player you should constantly be on the lookout for the planet to minimize the chance of crashing into it.

Blind Spots

A ship can only face 16 different directions. If you approach an enemy ship while hiding between their firing lines, they will be unable to hit you. Although this is usually not a major factor, blind spots exist on every ship in the game. If you find that your opponent is approaching along one of your blind spots, it's generally a good idea to reposition yourself so that you have some possibility of landing a hit on the other player. Weapons that fire in a wide spread or automatically home in on their target almost totally negate the presence of blind spots.

Braking

The above header is a bit misleading here; there are no actual brakes in Star Control. If you want to bring your ship to a stop, turn your ship exactly 180 degrees from the direction you're moving in and apply just enough thrust to negate your inertia. Due to differences in acceleration, top speed and ship mass, you will find that the various warships each require a different amount of thrust to bring themselves to a stop.

Flanking

Flanking is a tactic in which an attacker maneuvers around their opponent's front and strikes them from the side or back where they cannot retaliate effectively. This is the only way to fight when piloting a fast and agile craft such as the Arilou Skiff. In some situations a flanking ship can use an enemy's blind spot to help close the distance without being shot at.

Pillboxing

Pillboxing is often the best answer to a flanking adversary. It is best employed by vehicles with fast turning speed and weapon systems that fire continuously, though it can in some situations be performed quite effectively by ships that do not fit this description. To pillbox, simply bring your ship to a halt and then rotate in place so as to lead your opponent with your guns. A stationary craft is difficult to flank, for if it is not traveling in any direction then there is no obvious opening to rush in from. Pillboxing is best performed far away from the planet.

Asteroids

Asteroids are a minor factor, but never to the point where you can totally disregard their presence. Crashing into an asteroid inflicts no damage and will bounce your ship away from it. Any amount of damage will destroy an asteroid, but that asteroid will cancel out with even the most powerful projectiles. Asteroids exist in Star Control melee to add a random element to combat. It is unusual for a player to win or lose a bout because of an asteroid, but that has been known to happen. Situations where one can actively capitalize on an asteroid are rare.

The Planet

A gravitational field extends outward from the planet by approximately three times the planet's diamater in length starting from the planet's outter edge. When a ship's center of mass crosses into this boundary, the two things happen: Gravity will begin to slowly drag the ship inward, and that ship's maximum possible speed will artificially increase to a ridiculous number. Noninertial spacecraft (Arilou, Slylandro and Androsynth's blazer) are not affected by gravity. A direct collision with the planet will kill either one fourth of your current crew, or a single crew member if your vessel has very few staff aboard.

Gravity Whip

The planet can be used to accelerate beyond a ship's default top speed. This is known as the Leyland Gravity Whip. To perform a gravity whip, accelerate through the planet's gravitational field and stop accelerating once you've left the area of effect. A straight push from one end of the gravitational field to the other while passing close by the planet itself will give you the most boost. Ships with low acceleration need as much boost as they can get. Using thrust beyond the planet's area of effect will rapidly bring your vessel back down to its default speed. Due to this limitation a gravity whip can only be used to travel in a straight line until broken out of. This maneuver has a wide range of applications. The most obvious use of the gravity whip is to send spaceborne artillery such as the Earthling or Mycon careening so that they become much more difficult to engage up close.

Orbiting

Orbiting is a defensive technique with some similarities to pillboxing that allows the player using it to escape by gravity whip at any time. Orbiting involves placing your vessel in the planet's gravitational field in such a way that you automatically revolve around it. Many players seem to have trouble with this, but it's actually fairly easy to do. Remember how to brake? Simply repeat that procedure in close proximity to the planet. As you grind to a halt, your ship will begin to circle the planet on its own. You can adjust your orbit by accelerating very slightly in a given direction, and may need to do so to avoid colliding with the planet itself.

Projectile Relativity

Contrary to real life physics, most in-game projectiles are non-relative. That is to say, they do not factor in your ship's current speed or trajectory when they spawn. Non-relative projectiles will appear to travel at a lower velocity than default when fired in a direction your ship is moving towards. The velocity is always the same no matter how they're fired in fact, and that is the cause of the irregularity; using real life physics, a projectile fired in a ship's direction of travel would have the ship's velocity added to their own. High duration, low velocity projectiles such as Spathi torpedoes and Mycon plasmoids are affected by this the most. The tactical advantage or disadvantage caused by non-relative projectiles is very real. To be perfectly clear, moving towards an opponent is detrimental in this regard while moving away is beneficial. This skews melee in favor of the defender somewhat, though aggression still has a big place in melee.

Rules of Play

Few house rules are used within #uqm-arena, but the ones that exist have been deemed essential. Before getting up in arms about being told what you can and cannot do with your game, please keep in mind that plenty of underhanded tactics are permitted and sometimes even encouraged in this guide. You don't have to listen to any of this of course, but net melee tends to fall apart as a form of entertainment when both participants play the game as cut-throat as they possibly can.

Casual Play

Rule: Be lenient when playing against newbies and casual players.

Explanation: It is often better to forgo some or all of the rules following this one when dealing with a non-competitive opponent. The last thing a newbie needs to hear before connecting for a game is a recitation of what they aren't allowed to do. At the same time, you will find that abusive tactics are quite appealing to some of the inexperienced players you will run into. Whether you allow an inexperienced player to get away with fighting dirty or not (and to what degree) is up to your discretion.

Pre-Assembled Fleets

Rule: Have your fleet set up before you connect to your opponent. Do not alter your ship setup once connected.

Explanation: The various warships counter each other. This holds true for entire fleets to some extent, particularly if the point cap is low. It is common for this rule to be disregarded even by veterans, but never during a tournament.

Pausing

Rule: If you need to pause the game for any reason, give your opponent fair warning before you unpause. A similar warning should be given any time you delay your ship selection between bouts.

Explanation: It's common courtesy.

Stalemates

Rule: In the spirit of competition, both players should employ whatever tactics they consider most effective. This may result in a stalemate at some point. If so, the faster of the two ships becomes a designated attacker. The attacker does not necessarily have to make a bee-line directly for the defender, but they are required to take the initiative.

Explanation: Stalemates are bound to happen. We found this rule to be a relatively painless solution. The decision to use speed as a stalemate-breaker did not significantly reduce the effectiveness of Star Control's fastest ships. As it turned out, the most mobile combatants were best suited to withstand such a penalty.

Thraddash Ban

Rule: The Thraddash Torch is banned from serious online play.

Explanation: Thraddash is utterly broken in competitive net melee, both from a balance standpoint and a gameplay standpoint. The Thraddash primary weapon reaches across a very long distance, the afterburner makes it impossible to catch up to and the ship itself boasts a stunningly low cost of 10 points. Combine these traits together and you have the most abusive ship in the game. All of these balance problems might be tolerable were it not for one other thing: Combat involving a Thraddash pilot that's playing to win is almost guaranteed to be long and tedious. No amount of skill or precision will prevent a player from taking a painfully long amount of time to wear most victims down with the peashooter. Thraddash will bore you to tears when it is used up to its maximum soul-crushing potential.

The Androsynth Guardian

Evaluation

This is one of the best fleet additions in the game for its cost, if not the best. Androsynth boasts speed, power and versatility. You should always use this ship and always expect your opponent to have one too. Pity anyone who does not.

Overview

Although the ship's name is "Guardian", Androsynth is designed principally for frontal assault. It does most of its fighting by ramming enemies to death using blazer form. The blazer moves at a constant high speed, hits hard and has a small outline. This outline exaggerates Androsynth's durability; 20 crew is merely average, but it won't feel average as you bob and weave through a hale of gunfire. The blazer's suboptimal rate of turning is somewhat limiting, but not bad. The blazer may crash against its victim multiple times before bouncing off or even wedge itself in the other ship's hull and destroy them almost instantly. These damage multipliers are for the most part beyond your control. The few enemy craft which can outrun a blazer are better fought using bubbles.

There is potential for abusive play with this ship. Although Androsynth itself is not fast, the blazer is. Most ships cannot catch an Androsynth that drops bubbles and then uses the blazer to keep away. Defensive bubbling is considered foul play against all but the fastest ships in Star Control for this reason. The alternative to this is to allow Androsynth to cheese almost every ship in the game to death without even engaging in combat.

List of Techniques

• Blazer Charge: Ideally you should wait for a full battery before going on the offensive to receive the longest possible duration. Whenever you fly past or bounce off a target, you should not attempt to turn around for another attack run until you've bypassed them by a reasonable distance due to the blazer's restrictive turn rate. Remember to get far away from your opponent before the timer runs out so that you may recover energy in relative peace.

• Blazer Hop: The blazer has no wind-up time to speak of, making it quite useful even when Androsynth is low on energy. Low energy blazer hops can be used to hit a nearby assailant by surprise when they think you're vulnerable or perform a quick leap away from imminent danger.

• Blazer Wedge: If an Androsynth blazer gets stuck in an enemy ship, it's practically an instant kill. This can potentially happen whenever a collision occurs. Some ships have structural weaknesses which a blazer can wedge into consistently. The many gaps between Spathi prongs make for excellent wedge points, for example.

• Blowing Bubbles: Although bubbles waver erratically, they also home in on the enemy ship. A small number of bubbles released from a safe distance can be used to force an opponent to abandon a defensive position such as a pillbox or orbit. Any of those may be dangerous to attack with the blazer. If so, this technique can bring them out into the open. A delayed attack of this nature almost never inflicts damage.

• Bubble Trap: If you see your opponent careening out of control (usually from a gravity whip), the best thing to do is position yourself in their flight path, dump a big heap of bubbles and then blazer hop to get out of the way. Opportunities to use this technique are rare.

• Defensive Bubble Cloud: Some enemies are too fast to catch with your blazer form. If you're fighting one of them, devote your entire battery to bubble spam. You'll get better area coverage if you deploy them in separated bursts as opposed to all at once. Maneuver around to keep the bubbles between them and yourself.

Strategic Analysis

As Androsynth:

By far the best thing you can do with Androsynth is counter Orz. Orz is an expensive and powerful enemy which is easily dispatched by this one ship. It is not trivial to take care of with anything else. If your opponent has no Orz, many options open up to you. Druuge, Melnorme, Spathi and Supox make for particularly tasty secondary targets.

There is one thing you should worry about: Androsynth must go point blank with most of its enemies to damage them, so it is quite vulnerable to Shofixti's Glory Device as well as Ilwrath's spout. If you kill something with Androsynth but lose a big chunk of crew, you might run into one of these two ships and it will almost certainly end badly for you. Damage isn't much of an issue if you play Androsynth against Orz, but it can be against other ships. If you must pursue a secondary target and Shofixti or Ilwrath are sitting in the enemy reserve, try to pick something you feel comfortable against and try your best to pull off a flawless take-down. That's the biggest threat. Proper Androsynth counter options that don't depend on significant previous damage cost more than it does.

Against Androsynth:

There are several flavors of Androsynth counter. As the above section suggests, the most cost-effective way to put this ship down is to send in Shofixti or Ilwrath if it's wounded. That's 14/20 crew at an absolute minimum, 10/20 being optimal. A high crew Androsynth is vulnerable to a one-two punch from Shofixti followed by Ilwrath. These two ships leave the most room for error and should be avoided by uncertain or inexperienced players.

Slylandro is another option. It has enough speed and reach to maneuver around all-out bubble spam and wear Androsynth down consistently Slylandro vs. Androsynth is very reliable, yet challenging for players that aren't good at offense and frustrating for everyone.

Kohr-Ah is the safest way to beat an Androsynth. There are many players who prefer Kohr-Ah for this job despite being aware of the more cost-effective alternatives and capable of putting them into practice. Why? Because there is no way to play Kohr-Ah that gives its player a point advantage. It has to beat multiple ships to gain score. Yet Kohr-Ah needs to deploy against something if you have it, right? Androsynth is one of the toughest ships in the game and it's very easy for Kohr-Ah to dispatch.

Important Match-Ups

Androsynth vs. Orz: Your blazer is the perfect weapon for dispatching an otherwise dangerous vessel. Orz marines are killed instantly upon contact with blazer form and the ship itself is not nearly fast enough to evade you. Chase them down and ram into them a few times for an easy win. Try to wedge into the inside of one of the back fins for a fast take-down. Try not to let marines board you if you don't wipe out Orz in a single charge.

Androsynth vs. Druuge: Your blazer form's small outline makes this fight a cinch. Charge up one of the Druuge's blindspots to force them to launch themselves backwards with recoil, then come around from the opposite direction and nail them. You don't absolutely need to force Druuge to throw themselves out of control to win the fight, but it helps.

Androsynth vs. Melnorme: The Melnorme player will give themself an aneurysm trying to hit your small outline. Approach them from the front and weave around to avoid incoming fire. Be cautious if they have a red pulse ready or aggressive if they do not. As you get close to the enemy, veer away and then realign yourself with them so as to hit them in the back or side. Repeat these attack runs until the fight is over. Running into a red pulse suspended in front of Melnorme is probably the biggest danger of this fight, so watch out for that.

Androsynth vs. Spathi: Spathi may be annoying to chase down with the blazer, but you fortunately don't need to do that very many times to win. Spathi is very easy to wedge from any angle due to its shape. Watch out for torpedoes. These don't track very accurately so you should not need to dodge very far out of the way to avoid them.

Androsynth vs. Supox: Blazer charge up Supox's blindspot. Expect them to backpedal and try to hit you. Supox may shift laterally to get themselves lined up with you, but doing so slows their backpedal and is not difficult to avoid. Once close enough, ram them into splinters.

Slylandro vs. Androsynth: Chase Androsynth around their own bubble cloud and tear them up with your lightning weapon whenever you're within range. It may be difficult to find an opening, but Slylandro is fast enough that it can eventually catch Androsynth unprotected and wear them down. The Androsynth may attempt to comet charge you, but that should be trivial to avoid with your superior speed. You will need to be both aggressive and patient to come out on top.

Shofixti vs. Androsynth: Wait for Androsynth come to you in blazer form, then suicide bomb when it gets close. Obviously the other player will attempt to fake you out. To maximize your chances of getting a good blast in, don't press the big red button until they crash into you. Try to poke at Androsynth with your dartgun to force them to commit to attacking for real sooner.

Ilwrath vs. Androsynth: Move away from Androsynth at all times. Force them to chase you across the screen in their blazer form. As they charge into you, cloak and then activate your weapon to auto-turn into them and blast away. Auto-turn is not perfect, so expect to do a lot of frantic manual rotating to try and catch the Androsynth as it attacks you. A wedge-kill is difficult for the Androsynth player to execute, but it can happen randomly on its own.

Kohr-Ah vs. Androsynth: Drop a few spinning blades nearby and try to time your FRIED for the moment the Androsynth's blazer is about to crash into you. Expect them to try and pull a fake-out or two to get you to waste your battery -- it's their only way around the devastating flamewave. If Androsynth does not go on the offensive, they are shooting themselves in the foot; Kohr-Ah excels at long range warfare.

Yehat vs. Androsynth: Bubbles are a joke against your shield and the comet form is not much better. Chase after the Androsynth and pepper them with your pulse cannons when given the opportunity. Your shield should be able to negate any damage the blazer inflicts upon you normally, but you're in deep trouble if they achieve a lucky wedge.

Chmmr vs. Androsynth: Chmmr can beat Androsynth almost every time if you pilot it correctly. This involves flying directly away from the Androsynth at all times, then turning back around to shred them with your laser once they blazer charge at you. Beware of the planet while doing this. Androsynth should never have the opportunity to wedge itself between the bow and wing of your ship as long as you continue to move away from it. This approach works, but I don't recommend using it. There are better targets for Chmmr.