Which SC1/SC2 ship was your favorite? Which did you hate the most?

Didn't have a favorite in SC1.

Used them all.

in SC2 I was exceptionally good with the Melnorme and the Thradash.

I could use that scrambling device well with the melnorme. Even shoots thru planets. Then attack...

Thradash is fun to use. The afterburners can be used as a defense or an offensive weapon. Even its primary shots shoots pretty good distance.

Easily my 2 favorite ships.

btw...The supox is probably one my favorite looking ships in the game.

The worst? Umgah is bad, but even that ship is better than Zog Fot. Worst ship in the game imo...

At least you could easily kill the Zoq-Fot-Pik Stinger. The Umgah would annoyingly stick around.

It's funny how everyone always waxes poetic about the ships being so balanced, and I even tend to be nostalgic about the incredible balanced combat system... but when I think about it... REALLY think about it... there were clearly some ships that destroyed and others that were pretty much useless in the heat of battle. I mean... a Supox or a Shofixti or a Zoq Fot would never be able to take down an Urquan Dreadnaught or the CHMMR Avatar.

Even your favorite Arilou would be pretty helpless against a Chmmr.

Other ships that weren't too useful... Druuge? Their "special" was burning up crew to accomplish something that other ships did automatically (recharge battery)? Same goes for the "special" Slylandro power (eat an asteroid) and the Pkunk power (insults) to recharge your battery - when other ships just recharge on their own? Kinda lame. Should have done something cool like charge up your main blaster or something.

Utwig's gun wasn't powerful enough... Shofixti had to die to do any sort of damage... Zoq Fot Pik's stinger was lame (should have been insta-kill if you managed to get that close)... I don't even remember what the Supox's special was... in fact, that race as a whole was nothing more than a sidekick, without any real plotlines of their own... Umgah and Thraddash just died far too quickly (with what, 6 crew??) to do any damage. Vuz was just a slow downgrade from the CHMMR.

As for the best ships?

I loved the speed and agility of the Pkunk - hardly did any damage, but their quickness made up for it and they ultimately could take down the Sa-Matra.

The Spathi ship was killer because it perfectly embodied the Spathi race. I'll never forget it. Squirt missiles out your butt as you're madly running away? Perfect strategy.

The Mycon was a very successful ship for me and did extreme damage up close and the cloud followed the enemy.

And I love... love love the Syreen's ability to make the enemy crew jump ship. If you can manage a battle stealing or killing crew on their way to your ship and when he's got just one crew left, nail him with your blaster? It's the ultimate Humiliation.

As for the BEST ships, the ones that were most powerful? It's an easy choice of three:

1) Chmmr Avatar

2) Urquan Dreadnaught

3) Kohr-Ah Marauder

Go head to head with any one of those, and you're probably toast no matter what. But this was probably by design - it wouldn't make much sense if the big-badguys were driving around a Stinger or a little Torch. They had to be awesome and tough!

Same goes for the CHMMR - arguably, most of the game is about setting them free - but if the ships you gained were the Yehat Terminator ships? Would be pretty anti-climactic.

And finally, my favorite ship, as well as the most powerful - a completed souped-up, decked-out Precursor Vessel. Heat-sinking blasters, 200 crew, never-ending battery, sides lined with turning jets and thrusters? Could take down 20 ships in a row, no problem. And I'm glad it ended up overpowered. I put 100 hours into the damn game, I better have a kickass ship by the end!

Yeah, there were some lackluster ships, but all-in-all, SuperMelee was very balanced. Not only did you have the point system, you also had a rock-paper-scissor dynamic.

The Avatar costs 30 points. The Shofixti Scout costs 5 point. It only takes 2 Scouts to take out all 3 of the satellites. Without the satellites, the Avatar is a sitting duck. That's 10 points to neutralize a 30 point ship.

The Kohr-Ah Marauder was powerful, but an Utwig in the hands of a competent player/AI could take one out due to the Marauder's slow moving projectiles. You could keep the Utwig's shield up for every razorblade or plasma ring hit. The Utwig's shields had a weakness in the fact that the ship didn't recharge, and the Chenzezu Broodhome was able to effectively leech the power away.

Now, I'm not defending that there weren't bad ships (Zoq Fot). There were. But... Some of the ships you called out were only bad against certain ships or in the hands of a bad player. The Supox, for example, is fantastic if you are a good enough pilot because it can exploit the fact that the SC2 engine could only rotate ships in fixed increments. If you strafed just right, you could position yourself between enemy bullets coming from two rotation points. (For the record: I'm not this good. The AI is, though. Watch it play against itself and you'll see.)

My thradash could take out an urquan or Chmrr Avatar on every battle.

The thrusters not only kept me away from the tractor beam, but fried the escorts and ship.

It also fried the urquan fighters and ship.

In fact, my thradash could take out every ship in the game, with exception to the kohr-ah.

when the thradash uses its thrusters, its the fastest ship in the game.

yes, over Pkunk, comet form from andrsynth, probe or any other fast ship. I've tested every ship against it.

But it only has 8 crew.

Despite my forum name, my favorite SC ships were always the Chenjesu Broodhome and Mmrnmhrm Transformer.  with the Chenjesu I loved completing a slingshot around the planet for speed and just sniping people with there main attack from around the map.  The Mmrnmhrm it was just always fun to be a dick and nickle and dime everything from range.  Until you had to go snub nose with a Chmmr but hey sometimes you gotta roll the hard six.

I never really looked at any ship as one that I hated, more as a challenge.  Obviously the Zoq Fot were very frustrating.  I think if there was one ship it would be the Supox Blade, as good as I was I just never could master the manipulation of there secondary skill. 

I love how Star Control II's campaign didn't even include the POSSIBILITY of playing Androsynth, Chenjesu, or the Mmrnmhrm... yet they found it in their hearts to create their kickass ships for Super Melee only! That's true passion and dedication to world-crafting. It was more important than the bottom line, and that's an exquisite way to run things.... *hint, hint*

Ships cost different amount of points. Yes the Chmmr is very powerful, but for its 30 points you can get 2 or 3 other ships instead. A lot of the ships you mentioned are actually good., especially in certain matchups. Druuge is one of the best Chmmr counters, Utwig is probably the best Kohr-ah counter and has a pretty good matchup with the Chmmr. On the other hand, a VUX usually beats Utwig pretty easily. Shofixti's self-destruct can kill or cripple a lot of much more expensive ships - use it against a Chmmr and you've taken out its zapsats and a third of its crew! Slylandro is fine for its cost and does well against other fast ships. The "lame" specials are balanced with the ships' other attributes in mind. Druuge's gun is as damaging as the Ur-quan's and super long-ranged, so with normal fuel regeneration the Mauler would be very overpowered. Plus their special fits the race very well.

Not to say Melee didn't have any balance problems or that the point values are always right. When the Ur-quan Masters team added online Melee, some issues were found over time as people played competitively and figured out the matchups. For example, the Dreadnought is actually significantly inferior to the other 30-pointers and not really worth the cost (a lowly cruiser can eat half its crew easily, for example), and the Androsynth is super undercosted at 15 points, which also indirectly makes the Orz much weaker. The Shofixti is actually probably too good for only 5 points, considering that it can seriously weaken the Chmmr and potentially kill anything with 16 or less crew. The Umgah is mostly useless, yes. I was part of the online Melee community for awhile, though I was mid-level at best.

The biggest problem is actually the Thraddash. First of all the AI gets utterly destroyed by the afterburners. And against a smart human player who knows better than to chase it mostly creates annoying stalemates. Good play from both sides stalls matches out so much that it was often banned from online play.

Still, they did a pretty good job for the time, considering the main focus was single player and that they never anticipated people would one day play online. None of the aforementioned issues are gamebreaking at least, besides the Thraddash (and it's easier to enforce "don't use incredibly tedious and obnoxious tactics" in person). However, net-Melee players did develop a balance mod that changes the point values and makes other adjustments. For example, the Androsynth's cost is bumped up and the Ur-quan Dreadnought is reworked to make it worth 30 instead of knocking the point value down.

http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/Balance_mod

sure! If you're talking about the long-game and using multiple ships to take down just one... But there's almost a 0% chance that a shofixti could take down a Chmmr by itself....I'd like to see Star Control get the balance of something like Street Fighter, where each character alone was a viable option. You don't need to use a team of Ryu and Dhalsim and Chun-Li to take down one Zangief just cuz he's bigger. But don't get me wrong! I loved the ship balance and how each was unique and interesting. It just occurred to me that upon further scrutiny, there could be considered some imbalances. And certainly in the single player game without the point system... You're not going to take on the urquan and the Sa-matra with a couple Umgah, three Arilou, two Druuge and a Shofixti. You're gonna use as many Chmmr as you can and some Pkunk!

SuperMelee: I understand your balance suggestion. You want the ship-to-ship combat to be evenly matched (aka: a viable option). Consider that there is a meta game larger than just ship-to-ship combat. SuperMelee is centers around putting together a fleet that is locked to a specific cost and then choosing your ships in that fleet to counter your opponent's active ship. You might bench your powerful ships until the end to secure a victory or use them all upfront to clear the field. It's very strategic. Making ships evenly matched would do away with the point system and diminish this sense of strategy.

Consider something else... If you wanted to make every ship viable against every other ship, how would you do that without compromising the design of the ship?

I became really good with my Yehat/Pkunk vessels, those ships were extremely fun to use when they worked right. Barring that I became good with utilizing the standard Earthling Cruiser to pop off shots against VUX and Mycon ships, and became quite good at it. One ship that I suck at using are those Umgah ships, they had far to small a niche for me to use effectively.

I played SC2 over 20 years ago, when it was new, but I remember being very good with the VUX ship that used Limpets.  SC2 had a Nemesis or Rock Paper, Scissors Balance but I could do well against any ship with the VUX so I always thought of it as my best ship.

Chenjesu was my favorite because it rewarded planning. The ship was a sitting duck: slow top speed, slow acceleration, slow turning, and a "hard to miss" profile. It was a terrible choice in the hands of twitch/reflex pilot. But planning to score hits a couple of seconds into the future made it unstoppable.

The amazing thing to me about SC ships is that they retain the personality of the aliens that fly them.  You would never assume a pkunk flew an umgah ship.  Everything from the art of the ship to how it was naturally flown in combat makes perfect sense from a lore point of view.  That being said, I like the imbalance of ships.  It makes sense to me that a thraddash ship is crazy fast and can take on larger enemies, but it also makes sense that it's fragile to much damage and encourages reckless flying.  In the same way, would you want the zoq ship to be able to compete with the Ur-Quan dreadnaughts?  It just wouldn't make sense from a lore perspective.  I think the way the original game balanced by ship points rather than for each ship makes sense moving forward.

My personal favorites were probably the Supox, Orz, and Yehat ships.

Yehat is a nice durable introductory ship.  The shields, maneuverability, and fast battery recharge make it very forgiving and quite powerful against most (not all) ships in the game.

Orz has a huge skill ceiling.  Lots of things to keep track of and learn how to properly use to make it as effective as possible in a fight, but once you get the hang of it, they are a blast to fly.

Supox ships are just so much fun to fly.  You master the strafe technique and it gives a huge advantage in fights.  Not a hugely powerful ship, but way better than I originally gave it credit for.

In general I like ships that offer quick handling and that reward planing and skill.  I tend to dislike the overpowered huge ships or ships that are sluggish.  Bottom of the list are probably:

Ur-Quan - Launch drones and win against most ships.  Kind of boring.

Druuge - Sluggish, not an interesting secondary, dies to pretty much any competent pilot.

Mycon - Ugh.  Run away and shoot.  Is there any other real strategy?  Well, I suppose using the planet...

...

I remembered the Vux as a favorite, and I do like using it, but playing SC2 again for the last few days... the Spathi is pretty much a super ship that pretty easily beats any other ship.  I've been using that in all the fights so far.

Actually, I just remembered the most fun ship to fly, the Orz. This is mostly due to its *special sauce* cannon and its *frumple* Marines

Umgah was better in SC1. It had a bigger cone than SC2 (I don't know why they shrunk it - the balance mod made it bigger again), and the battle arena was smaller so its short range was less of a liability. Plus the fact that it was the cheapest hierarchy ship could be important in full game. Still weak, but not a complete joke.

Thematically, my favorite ship was the Mycon Podship. I like everything from the graphic to the music. Its weapon and regen were great as well.  I also loved the fact that without careful planning you could eat your own shot making gravity slingshot a mixed blessing.

For my personable favorite to play, the Mmrnmhrm X-Form in the original.  It was great at harassing and get in your face and blow you away.  Required lots of skill to use effectively.

From SC2, I loved the Pkunk Fury, fast spinning death with insults. Even dying wouldn't keep it down. I had one rez 6 times. Its' short range meant that you needed skill to use although it was hopelessly outclassed against certain ships.  It really needed a secondary ability so it could have some effect against the Marauder or the Avatar.

My least favorite from the original was the Ilwrath Avenger. Short range and slow meant that you basically had to hope your opponent killed themselves.  Needed more range. Its cloak was just as tough on the pilot as your opponent.

My least favorite from SC2 was the Druuge Mauler. To many handicaps for what you got.  It either needed more powerful gun or a better secondary ability. Sacrificing crew to shoot limited its durability too much.

IVE Killed a urquan dreadnought with a suppox. You just have to play to thire munverability vs the bulky slowness of the dreadnought. 

I honestly only ever used the main ship in 2.  I hated all of the fighters and never bothered to get good at any of them.  I only used the fighter fleet to hold back up crew.

Favorite:

A well landed crystal ball from across the map while using a Chinjesu. I loved the "thump" of a full ball hitting my enemy. And if they got too close, spam fire and it created a LOT of close-in flak damage. I got stuck in more than a few gravity wells with it though...

I also really enjoyed the Mycon, when used properly. Rear-firing ships were strange, but usually quite effective.

And, of course, the Chmrr...oh what was not to love about that!  "Eat burning solar wind, Ur-Quan scum!"

Least Favorite:

Druuge. That ship was so hard to aim, and when you fired, you accelerated backwards, which destroyed your aim again. Top of the list!

Shofixti. Cute little guys, but I never could get them close enough to do any good without dying first.

My favorites are the Melnorme, Slylandro, and the Orz.

All of these are very fun to fly, and have a huge skill ceiling.  The Melnorme is a lot of fun cause it has a charge weapon and dismantles their ship with swirling colors.  The Slylandro is a lot of fun to confuse the player by immediately changing directions with the forward keys.  The Orz is fun cause of the rotating canon.

My least favorite is the Shofixti, you couldn't do very much with them.

After playing it again I really like the Spathi, Supox, Orz, and Syreen ships a lot.  I don't really like the ZoqFot or Earthling very much.

It's practically impossible to lose against the AI with an Ur Quan or Kohr Ah, but I am only thinking of ships the player uses in the full game.

My favourite would have to be the Shofixti if only for how the little guys could unexpectedly massacre Dreadnaughts. Ur-Quan launches fighters? Keep your distance and pick them off with the peashooter, he learns better? Get in close and sit in that little angle where the dreadnaught can't face, slowly tapping away at it's health. Much, much harder against a human opponent of course but the way the matchup could go appealed endlessly to me as a kid. I loved the plucky nature of the little guys so I was loathe to use the self-destruct, a last resort!

Least favourite has to be the Mrn-mhrm, More than any other ship as a kid, it made our matches long and boring, someone would go into the fast missile launching form and stay at top speed spamming missiles, not even trying to aim, it'd eventually pick apart the opponent with little that they could do to counter. The other form had a habit of just dying very quickly.

Most of the other ships I loved to varying degrees, I for one am in favour of a lack of balance, it allows people to be creative with the ships, break out the weird and wacky special weapons and the like, more freedom to design and allow the ships to reflect something of the character of their race.