Universal Combat CE

"This scenario is completely free form and is designed to be role played using your imagination." Sounds good! Lets see....what am i going to play....? I think i will be a terran paramedic! That sounds fun, doesnt it? Ok, what to do? There are no orders. There is no fleet. There is a whole lot of nothing and me in an unarmed ship. Oooh wait there actually is a ship in distress. Thats a job for us mateys! We approach! All men to their stations! We are going to doooo... -nothing. Thats right. There is no action we could take to actually help the distressed fellow. Can that truly be? Lets check the discussion board. Some other guys also wondered what the purpose of that career might be. Aha, thats interesting. Everyone should be glad that the developer gave us so many different possibilities to play the game and we are such dumb idiots that we cant use our imagination to play the game properly. Yes thats right! Its all in our imagination! Sit in your bathtub and you are the captain of a nuclear submarine on its mission to save earth. Imagination YAAAAYYYYY!!! So much fun!!! Well, lets try something different then. A military carreer seems more appropriate for the game setting. What to do, what to do? Ok i figured it out a little. I embarked on a planet, i ran around, i even shot something. I dont know exactly what i did it for. The planet was marked as hostile. Hurray for imagination! I shoot at the enemy base with my spaceship destroying some cardboard building like thingies - supposed to be a military installation. And nothing else happens. Lets have a look at the forum again. Do my actions have any impact? Not really. Bases rebuild themselfes after you destroy them. Spaceships spawn randomly. Everything resets, if you just wait long enough. You have a huge galaxy filled with meaningless balls (planets) and ships and no purpose at all. --> Imagination Problem is: With an empty sheet and a pencil you could truly use your imagination. With this game your possibilities to actually interact with anything are very limited. You can fly to it, you can land/dock or shoot it. Thats about it then. And whatever you do, it does not matter in the slightest. People, dont get fooled. This game is not complex, it is just poorly designed. You can fly your ship using the cursor keys. There is no huge background mechanic that wants to be figured out. It was hollow, it is hollow and it will be hollow in all future releases (please let it be the last one...it is just an unsatisfying waste of time). If you want something complicated and fun, try dwarf fortress. Thats a game to love! I bought the Battlecruiser Millenium Edition back then...i was so incredibly disappointed and furious. When i lingered in the shop and spotted someone who grabbed the game box i would go and talk them out of buying the game. I hope i saved some folks a little money and the huge dissapointment of this franchise. RIP -------------------------- EDIT: 29.07.2015 With the "DLC - The Lyrus Conflict" it gets even more ridiculous. This developer is selling his idea for a game (in my opinion it has never been complete) in a new coat over and over and over. Derek Smart, 24.07.2015: "Yeah, the DLC (Lyrus Conflict) is basically lot of refinements, and graphics overhaul. No new features. That's for Universal Combat Advanced which is full blown sequel." http://steamcommunity.com/app/345580/discussions/0/613957600540266427/#p7 Derek Smart, 07.02.2015: "But basically, if I do end up doing it as planned (Universal Combat Advanced), it will have the same gameplay features as this 2015 remastering of UCCE v2.0 but with a complete graphics overhaul..." http://steamcommunity.com/app/345580/discussions/0/606068060825246172/ How people still dont see through this charade is beyond my grasp. He is doing it since 20 years. I know, i know, we are all waiting for that capital ship simulator since we seen Battlestar Galactica / Star Wars. We got to wait some more. This game series is not it and never will be. Dont support the shady business of false advertising.

"Don't Alt+Tab" - Derek Smart, developer of Universal Combat CE. You know there is a serious problem with the game when even the developer tells you not to alt+tab, even in the collector's edition. I alt+tabbed anyway and it crashed the game which is a real shame because I had to read through the 93-page PDF Game Manual just to find out how to move my ship forward. Universal Combat CE is just another renamed, slightly updated version of Derek Smart's Battlecruiser 3000AD series from 1996. Much like its NINE predecessors (that's right, there are 9 previous versions of this same game), Universal Combat is horribly plagued by gamebreaking bugs, poor interface and design, horrendously glitchy gameplay, extremely boring and poorly written storyline, no tutorial and lack of explanation for basically everything in the game. The controls and ship GUI are so confusing, it will leave you scratching your head at pretty much everything. I wouldn't even pay a dollar for this game. It is garbage.

Ohhhhhhh nostalgia..... how I hate you. You Make me play a game I thought was epic as a young gamer, and then you go and beat me over the head with it years later..... When I saw UC was free on steam I downloaded it almost instantly. "MY CHILDHOOD NEEDS THIS" said my brain, not knowing what horrors were to come. Oh the bugs.... Oh the nonexistant story..... Oh the wtf moments. I played the game for about 20 minutes, and of that 20 minutes, 15 was recovering from game breaking crashes, first at the video options screen trying to change resolutions, then after trying to make planetfall on some red thing I found in a random spot on the map. Then it crashed on the startup. You know, I think it was telling me to leave it alone, to spare the fond memories of me actually playing the game. You know what, thank you UC:CE, you spaired my childhood memories from having to be corrected by crashing before I could actually play. 0/10 would not collect this edition.

So.....this game. Putting aside any personal isssues with Derek Smart (and let's be honest, a lot of people have issues with him), let's try to be as objective as possible in this review... What exactly is UC and does it live up to its claims? It's a 'do anything in space' simulator. You want to command a battlecruiser? Check. You want to be a Marine on a planet shooting stuff? Check. You want to fly from a planet to space and dock with that carrier you see over there? Check. The problem is...well....the problems are... One: Excessive micro management: Why for instance, should the commander of a large ship have to manually set power levels? Why can't....say....the crrew AI do that for you and if you want to then alter it, you can? By default, there isnt't enough power to go around and you have to go in and manually set it. Or, say you want to send....I don't know, four Marines and a tank and a pilot to a planet. You have to tell each individual what to do. There's no group option. Two: HUD issues. The HUD itself isn't intuitive at all, the three MFDs at the bottom of the screen don't easily tell you what they are, the radar is 2d, not 3D and that is confusing as well as you got no clue if the enemy target is above or blow you. Three: Questionable vehicle physics. Why should a shuttle be able to stop on a dime in space? I can understand tanks or ATVs stopping quickly on a planet, that makes sense, however...a shuttle, in space, you cut the power and it instantly stops? Really? Yes, I'm aware it's explained away as some technical stuff but that's an easy and cheap way to get around the issue. So what are the good points then given I've laid out some issues with it? One: You can literally go anywhere and do anything you want to. For instance in a free roaming scenario, I have taken a battlecruiser from Ear to the Moon, landed troops, done exercises, got picked up by the shuttle and flown back, all without cutscenes or scripting. Two: It's seamless once it loads. Yep that's a big, big plus. You want to go from planet to space? Get above a certain height and push a button, then confirm it (again....micro management issues but....), there's a few seconds worth of animation and you're in space. Same for going to a planet.s, get close, it'll ask establish planetfall, say yes,a nd sit back. It's pretty. Oh yes it is, it's some of the most atmospheric graphics in a space game....and you feel as if you can actually go to that nebula, or that planet....or even that base and dock there You are not the hero. Okay, this is astrange one but....most games are all about the player, right? Well, UC, CE isn't. There's an entire universe going on, things happen regardless of you being around or not. You can be in a system and go off for a few days, come back and find that station you were docked at got attacked and changed hands, or there's a war on a planet that broke out while you were going there. However....I personally wouldn't recommend it unless you want to spend a LOT of time reading and learning. It's not a simple pick up and play game in the least, it takes time, dedication and (sadly) figuring things out on your own so you don't have to deal with Derek Smart to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, once you like it, it's definitely good but I do feel many, many people will be put off by Derek Smart and won't even look at it. If UC was made by somebody else and released on Steam for free, it would get a much, much better reception, I can absolutely say that for certain. Either way, although this has not recommended at the top, try try it out. Make up your own mind and be prepared for a lot of reading and learning too.

IMPORTANT TIP If you jump into this game without reading the manual (you roguish maniac you!) and you’re stuck press either Ctrl+H, Alt+H or Shift+H which will both pause the game and call up the manual or control bindings. Press Ctrl+H to exit the documents. Well…I usually don’t bother writing Steam reviews as I often trust in the overall consensus of those that have already done so (what difference would my 2 cents make?). However this is probably the first time I have found myself in a situation where a game I hold in high regard is otherwise very divided in opinion. I suppose this is the very essence of what it is to be a “niche” game so the first thing I should probably say in this review is that “Universal Combat” (UC) is not for everyone. You will come out of it either loving it or hating it, but very unlikely anything in between. Now much has been said about the need to read the manual before playing and I can appreciate that many gamers nowadays (particularly the younger generation) would consider this requirement (at best) rather quaint in 2015. Indeed with there being so many free games and demos right there at your fingertips, I can see how the investment of time would be a deal breaker for some. As such the best I can do is tell you what 3 aspects of UC appeal to me the most, and should you be intrigued, perhaps you might be willing to preserver though the trials of learning how to play it. * Scale: The 3D environments for both space and planet side are mind-bogglingly vast and I am not aware of any other space sim that can match it (at least outside of an MMO). Capital ships dwarf the size of their occupants (you’ll notice this if you decided to go on a space walk outside your ship) and these ships in turn are tiny compared to the celestial scale of the planets & moons within this universe. If find that UC conveys the enormity of space exceptionally well. It is a very humbling experience to fly to a plant and watch as it fills up the entirety of the view screen. *Planetary landings: Like the space environment, the planet surface is massive (it takes 5 hours in real time to fly around the Earth in a shuttle) and they all have a day/night cycle (some even have weather effects). But what really sets this apart from every other space sim I’ve known is that it lets you land on any moon or planet you come across and explore it in first person (even a gas giant if you don’t mind dying). Any on top of that you can land anywhere you like on the planet’s surface rather than being restricted to predefined zones. However I will admit that the price for this vastness is a great deal of emptiness as the areas outside the city & base zones are pretty much uninhabited. Nevertheless I feel that the procedural generation works well mixing up the terrain features so it’s not like the surface is uniform and everywhere looks the same (the exception of course being barren moonscapes which are supposed to look samey). * A.I I’m the kind of guy that is fascinated by A.I in gaming. I find it as much fun observing what an A.I does in various situations as I do playing the game. And Universal Combat has a pretty interesting A.I to observe. Even as you go about your business in the game there is a hell of a lot going on behind the scenes. Trade ships are randomly generated which proceed to each star station along a route buying & selling goods. This will affect the inventory a station has to sell as well as the economy in general. Next you have raiders which are also randomly generated. They will try to attack the aforementioned trade ships and thus their success/failure also affects inventory & economy of the stations. You have : - Criminals being generated, with police being generated to pursue them. - Diplomats appearing and assassins dispatched to attack them. - Colonists & workers headed to uninhabited planets to build cities - Paramedics looking for the distress signals And of course rival military forces clashing in as chance encounters or as retaliation for some other transgression for which the player never witnessed. While you're docked in a station getting repairs a whole dammed war could be going on outside and given enough time nations that were allies in the beginning of the game can sometimes become enemies just by one incident that the player may have nothing to do with. *Overall: To me Universal Combat is something very special: A vast simulation experiment with a game thrown in. I have been watching this game’s predecessor (the Battlecruiser series) since 1998 and in all that time I have seen nothing which comes close to it in terms of scope & scale. UC is a vast improvement on the old Battlecruiser series in every conceivable way and yet here it is being offered for FREE!?...Unbelievable. However as I said before it is not for everyone.

I can totally understand the negative reviews - this is a hard game to like...in fact its a hard game period! I had some crashing issues on first release on Steam but they seem to have been resolved now. The game itsself, looks pretty much like your typical space sim/shooter - but its much more than that. Your are not some agile little FTL fighter - you are a battlecruiser / a capital ship / a mothership. If you scratch the surface you can micro manage just about everything onboard your ship...including sending agile little fighters out. I dont want to go into epic detail and make this review stupidly long, but suffice to say the learning curve is massive. I played this as a kid and i loved it! I still do - however i also loved hardcore Flight Simulators when i was a kid...and i think it is a similar kind of pleasure i get from this game. Dont play this game because you want to shoot spaceships - play it because you want to spend a week learning to pilot a starship (and manage its crew!) ...then wage some war >=) Its free afterall! It'll only cost you time - but it will take you longer than a day before your playing like a Battlecruiser captain. FYI - You will probably have to go looking for your own fun too - there's a whole galaxy to explore, but no sign posts along the way ;) Basically, IMO, Its a totally flawed masterpiece!

I own a hard copy of the original CD release. I bought it because the description and pictures on the box appealed to me. Little did I know the headache I was in for. Unnecessarily complicated and poorly-mapped controls, obscure acronyms defined only in the error-filled and insulting manual, and a developer who won't and doesn't hesitate to badger and fight with prospective customers make this a very difficult game to recommend. In fact, the only reason I would recommend even downloading it is because it's free. As the saying goes, anything free is worth what it costs, and in this case, it is quite literally true. And don't buy the "bug-free" claim. Many people experience crashes - but according to the developer, that's the player's fault for not having compatible hardware (which is often not the case), not his fault for failing to account for such possibilities. Oh, and you can't Alt-Tab or it crashes - and again, nothing there but excuses from the developer.

Great idea, Great Potential, Very Poor execution. The game is far too complex for most players to grasp, which is good and bad in and of itself. It desperately needs a comprehensive tutorial. There are several bugs, such as the infamous ALT+TAB crash. there are also some developer oversights mostly dealing with ground ops, for example: when driving an armored vehicle such as a wildcat, the camera should be relative to the turret, not the chassis, also the turret controls should operate independant of the movement controls. I should be able to aim upwards without moving forward. another issue i noticed is that when deploying ground troops from a vehicle, it is difficult to recover personnel because when they are ordered to return to base, they don't move close enough to the vehicle to actually board it. simply put, it's a great premise, but needs a lot of work. I would recommend a team of developers to do a full remake on a more modern game engine. I would not recommend this for most gamers.

(played the old universal combat and played bc3000ad way back in the day when i was too young and in love with the idea of being a starship captain like picard to let the constant game breaking bugs and crashes stop me) three kinds of people play this game: 1. people who bought it and quickly realized it was a buggy, broken mess of a game that has great potential it will never realize 2. those who, by some miracle, have managed to get the game running for more than 20min at a time on their machine and are too busy roleplaying star trek to be bothered by the lack of content / strange design decisions / the "learning curve" (more on that below) and 3. immature, insecure, sycophants (many of whom i suspect are derek smart's rl buddies and perhaps some are even him behind multiple accounts who knows) who will blindly and ruthlessly shower their overlord with endless praise for this true gift from God he hath created and bestowed upon us unworthy cretins, all the while getting all huffed and puffed deep down in their mother's basements and going to war for m'lady derek smart in every single online forum to speak his name in such a fashion as to be truly shining examples for white knight fanboys everywhere. remember kids, if you dont like this game it means you just "aren't intelligent enough" to "understand" it. with sufficient mental training and enlightenment - not to mention weekly donations to the church of derek - you too can overcome bugs, crashes and ♥♥♥♥ game design! "the learning curve": there isn't one. GASP. i can hear them all grabbing pitchforks already... nah the game just doesn't tell you how to do anything and makes you figure it out. works for some games, but not for one that is purposely vague and complicated for seemingly no reason. people will point the finger at me saying this and say HURR HURR SEE?! HE'S JUST TOO STOOOOPID FOR SMART PEEPOLE GAME! no, i figured this ♥♥♥♥ out / knew how everything worked when i was in middleschool playing the old 3000ad, this one works almost the same. it's not "hard" - it does not present any true challenge, it's just annoying as ♥♥♥♥ on purpose to new people and you have to spend a good while clicking on things or searching around or pressing random buttons or searching online to figure out how to do even simple tasks. needlessly difficult =/= challenge. the whole "StOoPiD pEoPoLe CanT uNdErStAnD tHiS gAmE" response is just the easiest ♥♥♥♥ tier argument they can come up with whenever anyone critiques how pointlessly complicated things are or how bad the UI is designed (or when the game inevitably crashes every 10min) and all this doesnt even scratch the surface but you get the point the game is an amazing idea. i would kill for a true starship captain simulator, i have craved that type of experience ever since i first saw star trek as a kid or saw the inside of a star destroyer in the star wars movies. i honestly wish SOMEONE competent could design a game like that. but this game aint it.