By "derelict" I mean that yellowish object (part of the map, not a
ship) that spits green ooze in two opposite directions.
It seemed to me that the camera focuses in such a way as to keep it in
view, though I've just realized that it's not.

Nevertheless, I've observed that if all ships are grouped together on
the edge of the screen, the camera doesn't zoom in to them if it
involves moving out of the initial area shown (the area shown in the
most zoomed out view). Nor do weapons wrap around.
This also affects pathfinding, as when there's only me and an
AI-controlled ship, sometimes the AI ship gets stuck "in the corners"
- wraps around the corners continually, ignoring everything else that
happens in the arena.

And in TimeWarp the player can choose between multiple camera types in
the Game&Rendering section of the Options.

As to how UQM does it, it's [almost] exactly the same as you did it
before the camera patch, but there are only two players and the arena
is a square exactly four times larger than the area shown on the
screen in the most zoomed out view. This means that whenever a player
wraps around, his ship is at the same distance from the other ship as
measured strictly on-screen (without the ruler wrapping around).

--- In xenoversusbeta@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Jorgensen"
<xenoclone@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks Ceruopran for checking it out and giving me your thoughts. I
think
> the camera issue is a balance of zoom versus smoothness, for sure.
>
> By taking into account the position of the "derelict," I assume you
mean the
> non-human players? In which case, the issue still arises if 4 people are
> playing at once. This is entirely possible since the game can have 4
> gamepads plugged in for people to play with. So even though many have
> suggested just to have the camera focus on the sole human player, that's
> still not a general enough solution to really fix the problem.
Obviously,
> I'd like to fix it such that 4 people can play as easily as 1 person...
> though I think Star Control: Timewarp does indeed focus on just the
player's
> ship... no?
>
> I'll have to see if I can get the Ur-quan Masters running on my machine
> again, and see if I can't figure out what Star Control does
differently than
> what I've tried.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Chris