I just mean 3D as opposed to sprites for the graphics.  We're way too early to confirm or deny any particular design directions but I can't imagine a Star Control game that doesn't have top down combat.

Yep. Though GalCiv III would come out first.

"I'll replay 'em for a day and then come back and yell atcha 'bout what I want and what the game should most definitely have.

Which, really, is the only reason I come to these forums.  "

 

 

@Chuck1es, may I suggest checking out my game Ur-Quan Masters HD? It's Star Control 2 with the original graphics, plus my new HD graphics. It's everything Ur-Quan Masters has, plus a lot of features and gameplay improvements that it doesn't have. If you're more of a purist, you can them off. I admit, I'm completely biased, but I think it's the best version currently out there. 

Lol! Windows 8?

Nah, I feel that the  U.S. government is doing a good enough job spying on us. It seems to be the only thing they're good at, because running the country is clearly not something they're good at.

I'd laugh if it wasn't so sad.

I just finished UrQuan masters. The only thing I missed was the 3DO ending....So I watched it on youtube LOL

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that in Star Control II, most of the history of the first war was spoken by CMDR Hayes as "I remember". There is a lot of detail that was never mentioned in Star Control I, and if Hayes got something wrong, well, he's been trying to keep a starbase alive, not study history.

So, you have the pre-history printed in the SC2 manual, then the the remembered history of CMDR Hayes. All Star Control I had was simulations of the great battles. There is a lot of room in the middle to play around with.

*Edit, fixed image links, added another*

Personally besides wanting to see the old races again (and being able to visit the Slylandro again or to encounter a Taalo would be awesome), I've always found invertebrates like jellyfish/ctenophores to be great inspiration for really "alien" races, and the ideas presented earlier in the thread of some races being more system bound or neutral to affairs around their space seemed pretty neat and easily workable into the universe. 

I'd definitely say that the chenjesu/chmmr were my favorite race in terms of uniqueness, living crystals generating/manipulating electrical fields to interact with their environment is just so different and cool compared to the "typical" scifi alien. I was also a big fan of how unique the Slylandro are biologically, and always hoped someone would be kind and give them some refitted dreadnoughts so they could spread their glowy bits across the stars.

Also when it comes to design, there's some great stuff on DA and Star-Control.com of the races we all know.

Larry Niven's books, The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand had a neat alien race concept in the Moties (I guess also seen in Babylon 5's Minbari). A highly caste centric race, with specialized Diplomats, Warriors, Engineers, and Mini-labourers.

A rock-like creature race would be interesting too (MOO's Silicoid, or FTL's Rock race)

Ship-wise, I'd really like to see an agile ship like the Supox that can reverse. It was my favourite ship to play just cause it was so erratic and unpredictable… Maybe a different plant-based intelligent life form?

A species with biological ships (ala Babylon 5's Vorlons) would be cool too.

This is an awesome idea, however there are many people out there who probably don't even know about the forums. To second what jdhd said above, I've also come across a ton of outstanding work by artists on DeviantArt (careful though, DA gets a bit perverse and often NSFW if you have the mature content filter off) and other sites and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them don't even know about Stardock rebooting the franchise at all yet. We'd either need to get word out to them or allow third-party submissions on their behalves. Here are just a few I recall that are just terrific stuff. Niklas Janssen has a very cutesy anime-inspired take on the material that shows a deep understanding of expressive, dynamic character detail with lots of different poses that retain the humorous aspect of the source material.

by spacecoyote (link)

http://androidarts.com/starcontrol/star_control.htm
http://androidarts.com/starcontrol/scs.htm
by Niklas Janssen
(has a HUGE concept art gallery based on his own ideas for a sequel)

Brown Ur-Quan Concept by Tiina Aumala (link)

The Great Reunion by Tiina Aumala (link)

Hello. Big fan of the series. I reply the game every year so because of the awesome Story and gameplay. Very excited that it's been revived by passionate people. i always hoped that in the next iteration of the series that we would learn more or resurrect other species mentioned in the game. I thought that the umrah would be a great way to get some species like the Zebranky back (as a joke) or use cellular regeneration / cloning for the Burivexese, brown Ur-quan or Drall. Alternatively, depending on the timing, there could be interesting species on plants in the sphere of influence of the Ur-quan that haven't been cleansed. 

Edit: just noticed that it was mentioned that none of the above would be valid options given the constraints about not touching canon without approval. My bad. Still like them. 

While not having complete racial descriptions made up, I feel like sharing this simple tool I made today on the fly while toying around some ideas. This is just a crude example and can be greatly improved upon by simply adding more traits and/or new definition trees. What we're having here is a sort of random generator for a race that gives you certain core blocks that define the species. These core blocks can be fleshed out to create a proper space race. Here goes, Ddudey's Random Race Roulette:

1 Biotype              2 Culture                3 Attitude & personality       4 History

1 Organic            1 War and power       1 Xenophobic                    1 Tragic 
2 Fluidic              2 Global unity            2 Withdrawn                      2 Brutal 
3 Crystalline        3 Hive mind               3 Overly social                   3 Forgotten 
4 Mechanic          4 Tech aspiration       4 Utter liar                        4 Shameful secrets 
5 Gaseous           5 Honor code            5 Merchant-minded            5 Past glory, lost 
6 Energetic          6 High ethics             6 Nice to absolutely all       6 Past glory, intact 
7 Dimensional     7 Deep philosophy     7 Gullible                          7 Isolated 
8 Hybrid             8 Max religion            8 Weak willed                   8 Mixed with other races 
                                                         9 Strong willed                   9 Revolution 
                                                         10 Zealous                        10 Steady development

5 Goals                                    6 Twist                      7 Special

1 GALAXY DOMINATION            1 Spy upon others       1 Symbiotic
2 Transcendence                      2 Double agent            2 Psychic
3 Global consciousness             3 Galaxy level bet        3 Descended to here
4 Discover the Meaning of Life   4 Prankster race          4 Ascended to here
5 Self-preservance                   5 Kleptomaniac acts
6 Over-achieving self                6 Selective memory
7 Find a goal                           7 Translator errors
8 Reason to exist                     8 Schizophrenic
                                              9 Rebellion

What we do with the above chart is to pick a random set of seven numbers like 2, 3, 1, 1, 5, 3, 1 or 3, 2, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3 and then check which traits they correspond to. In the examples we get: Fluidic, hive-mind, xenophobic race with tragic past with self preservation in mind. As a plot twist they're partaking in some galaxy level bet that'll affect something somehow. In addition, they're a symbiotic race. With this core I'm thinking of some bizarre gel-eel beings that fear other races because of their tragic history which could include a great war with huge losses for example. This bloodbath has caused them to hate other sentient beings as they fear that history will repeat itself. The plot twist might reveal that even in their xenophoby, they've decided to incorporate some other race into their biosystem in order to overcome their historical hatred against other beings. The bet goes to show whether they can survive this self-inflicted state of symbiosis or destroy themselves in the process.

The second example would be crystalline beings with unified social structure. They're overly social towards other races and dwell in their past glory days, preferring to numb others with stories of their old. As they gaze into the past and long for forgotten glory, they strive to ultimately conquest the known universe in order to revive what they once had in their own mindset. Twist included, their true goals are not revealed until they've established a firm foothold on the galactic scene. Acting as friends and secretly working against the player. They're a race of beings that has actually descended into a lower level of exsistance for whatever reason. Mayhaps life was too easy "up there". Maybe they desired to re-challenge themselves.

The above are just quick and a bit silly examples but go to show the principle I'm using. Play around with the concept, see what you can come up with!

Edit: Minor polishing.

Here's one crazy thought, if we're looking at a reboot with an alternate timeline...

What if, in this timeline, the Kzer-Za were moving just a little bit slower and the Kohr-Ah just a little bit faster, so the Kohr-Ah start making their presence felt first? If this came initially through refugees arriving in their wake, this would present the opportunity to introduce new races - in the form of those refugees. Then, when the Hierarchy does arrive, the Kzer-Za's power base of Battle Thralls will be founded on the races of the quadrant they're emerging from rather than local races, creating a second influx of new races.

Either way, though, I think it's imperative that the races that are established as being indigenous to systems close to Sol and not part of SC Prime's deeper mysteries (like the Mmrnmhrm and Mycons) be included - Chenjesu, Ilwrath, Shofixti, Spathi, Syreen, Umgah, VUX and Yehat - although their histories may be quite different (explaining why spin-off races like the Pkunk and Androsynth aren't included in the above list, although I'd prefer they did return). Others could probably sustain being left out of the full game mode, but it would be nice to see the ships of each of the SC2 races available in melee even if they don't appear in the initial adventure game (kind of like how the Androsynth, Chenjesu and Mmrnmhrm ships are in Super Melee despite their ships not appearing in the full game).