What Privateer 2 was not

z30 · Post by **z30** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:27 am

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/PRIVATEER_ ... ml?tag=nav

Review above, most of which I agree with.

One of the saving graces was the starting ship, the Straith, a very decent light fighter with an ever more decent ship upgrade (Shaman) easily attainable. In fact, come to think of it, if PR was ever redesigned to offer players two separate tracks merchantman/fighter jock it would go :

Straith --> X --> Centurion

Tarsus --> Y --> Galaxy

The Orion just doesn't fit in either track, in terms of flight peformance ,weapon load and cargo capacity it really is a very odd duck

In many ways Privateer PR is more a sequel than Priv 2 ever was. Delegating the job of creating Privateer 2 to EA was one of the worst things Origin ever did.

Priv 2 had movie clips and great graphics and retained the navcomp, star systems but lost the richness of the original by eliminating merchant ships from the inventory. This had two nasty side effects :

* Designers had to fill the gap by making more fighter ships, most of which were redundant and not very good ships at that

* It cut mission complexity in half, as a fighter jock you had Bounty, Patrol and Escort missions. Trade meant you had to hire Draymans/and other vulnerable cargo ships to carry the merchandise you bought to another system. That was assuming you could keep them alive in the first place

There are *some* things I'd like to see ported over to PR, the animated planetary landscapes (the windmill scene comes to mind) are better than the static scenes in the original Privateer. The Straith, as I mentioned earlier, would fit in very well in the remake - players who're angling for the Centurion would jump at it as their first ship.

http://www.wcnews.com/ships/p2straith.shtml

Nice one isn't it ?

[edit : last picture was that of the Heretic, not the Straith ]

Asides from that, there isn't really anything in Priv 2 worth backporting back to PR which is kinda sad. Origin had the chance to build on Privateers momentum and make this game genre something to reckon with.

Instead, years later, none of the would be successors (Freelancer,Tachyon etc) ever measured up to original and we're all still here - waiting for the next breakthrough.

Duke Derek · Post by **Duke Derek** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:54 am

an idea that's a little inspired by some of the stuff you've brought up (ie, a nice way to say a little off topic) is the idea of a choice of starting ships, rather than just Tarsus, one could, say, have the opportunity to choose between Tarsus or Talon (maybe needs to be slightly more balanced but you get the idea...). although maybe this isnt really possible in PR when there are so few ships as it starts...

i liked in Frontier: Elite II, that you chose either Easy, Medium or Hard starts and they put you in progressively worse ships, with progressively worse reputations around the galaxy in more difficult starting locations until you ended up in some backwater with all the major powers hating you

z30 · Post by **z30** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:17 am

Duke Derek wrote:an idea that's a little inspired by some of the stuff you've brought up (ie, a nice way to say a little off topic) is the idea of a choice of starting ships, rather than just Tarsus, one could, say, have the opportunity to choose between Tarsus or Talon (maybe needs to be slightly more balanced but you get the idea...). although maybe this isnt really possible in PR when there are so few ships as it starts...

I think it's a great idea - not everyone wants to trade or do cargo runs. The only problem with the Talon is it's got overwhelming speed and acceleration for a starter ship. Otherwise the light armor is very armor and shields are very like the Straith's.

One easy option for the developers would be to provide the Talon/Straith/X as relatively low upgrade cost, say 20-25k. That would enable fighter jocks to junk the Tarsus early for a starter ship more to their liking. Or it would enable people to have two ships - one for cargo runs another for bounty/patrol.

It's funny, but the Orion actually has a smaller brother in Priv 2- the Aurora :

http://www.wcnews.com/ships/p2aurora.shtml

Heavy shielding and armor for it's class but not as great a weapon load if I remember right.

Maybe the dev team could include it as a starter ship for the Orion hehe

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:20 am

I agree on many points. Although i must say I did LOVE freelancer. Aside from being a good game, that brought back many of the things I loved about privateer(ie. merchant ships) it had BEAUTIFUL star systems. I would go to Kusari just for the vistas.

But enough about that.

I thought the idea of hiring transports was interesting. Not prefered, mind you, but interesting. Especially the bigger ones. The behemoth was almost a warship. Hire a good wingman, and a behemoth, and you have a decent strike force. I wonder if something like this could be implemented. Like hiring a small corvettes type ship(mabye a modified drayman, like a turreted drayman, with reinforced hull, but less cargo space). But on the other hand, gotta be careful about adding so many bells and whistles that it isn't privateer anymore.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:50 am

blue_paladin42 wrote: Especially the bigger ones. The behemoth was almost a warship. Hire a good wingman, and a behemoth, and you have a decent strike force. I wonder if something like this could be implemented. Like hiring a small corvettes type ship(mabye a modified drayman, like a turreted drayman, with reinforced hull, but less cargo space). But on the other hand, gotta be careful about adding so many bells and whistles that it isn't privateer anymore.

I actually had to think about this for a while, and now that I have a hot fresh cup of steaming coffe am ready to reply.

At what point does addition stuff spoil what Privateer is supposed to be? Made a short list for everybody to respond to :

* bringing in ships from other universes (ie. Startrek, Babylon 5 , Free Lancer etc)

* bringing in equipment and stuff from other universes that don't fit WC and Privateer lore

* adding systems and planets with no relation to the WC universe

The repulsor beam I can live with , it's just a reversal of tractor technology. Cloaking device, well it's there in the lore. And let us not forget when Chris came up with the Privateer concept nothing like the Galaxy existed in WCU. The prototype of this ship exists in Elite, the stock merchantman/fighter hybrid everybody loves.

So just the act of adding stuff doesn't necessarily break the game as long as it doesn't spoil your immersion in the WCU universe. In fact, I'd love to see more merchant ships (hint hint )

All the suggestions I've seen in this thread so don't commit this fault in fact they're very much inline with the direction Privateer was going.

Charlie Whiskey · Post by **Charlie Whiskey** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:05 am

I actually liked the idea of hiring cargo ships in Privateer 2, but too bad the AI wasn't particularly bright. I suppose a mix will be cool - ie you can either fly the cargo ship yourself or if you are a fighter jockey you can hire or even buy one since we have fleets in the Remake. It is even more cool if I can hire pilots to fly wingman with my spare ships!

TheBruteSquad · Post by **TheBruteSquad** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:49 am

Ummm....

I must concur with z30

The idea of adding priv 2 ships to PR is just too far out in regards to WC story and logic, and I feel that the developers and other distinct members are taking PR in a fairly orthodox direction. Let's face it... The Priv 2 ships were very unlikely to have been around in 2669, (Priv 2 takes place more than a hundred years later I think), and they're in an entirely different sector --> "The Tri-System Area"... More than a hop and a skip from Gemini.

That said, The WCU project is a more appropriate candidate for your "outside the box" ships. Heck... you could have the "Tri-System Area" included within the Universe. I don't know how jumping between sectors works though.

If ships are added to PR, there should be careful consideration to WC story/logic (which the developers have been doing well). Decommissioned military craft are, I think, the best way to go. I'd really like to see Hellcats, rapiers, raptors, scimitars, ALL of em!

One last thought... The Lognbow. I need to fly a Longbow in bounty missions!

I need to stop... I've made enough requests, being someone who knows nothing about game programming.

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:05 pm

Brute, you need WCU. I know how yu feel about flying old WC ships, and thats what WCU is for

. RAPTORS WITH TORPEDOES! AND WCU ships can be imported >:D

As for saying to be carefu about adding too much stuff, i'm just saying to excersise caution. Privateer and Privateer two were two separate games, and although many things were added to the remake, like autotrackers, ISO, repulsor beams, very little wasn't somehow in the original game in some form. Like demons, they were in the original, just not flyable.

I really think making hiring draymans might be neato. And making some variations, like having a standard model, lightly armed, tons of cargo space, and a more heavily armed variation. And it wouldn't break canon to badly IMHO. But adding new ships, and the tri-system area, especially with the debate on whether or not P2 was even a WC game, is probably a bad idea.

Ge0rgy · Post by **Ge0rgy** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:07 pm

well, i have to confess that i started with privateer 2.

freelancer was ok, especially in graphics, but some thinag were odd.
perhaps after story you can easily fly a sabre or titan, and return to liberty sector where is NOTHING that would ever be able to keep up with a titan.

flying a titan with some appropiate weapons (i had sunblast B) you can easily take out nearly everythin in that area. even the militarys.

the strenght of fighters seemed somewhat to increase the more far you get away from liberty. which i think was a bit odd. since the different "areas" can be in war with each other. and if the strength is so unbalanced then, what would keep the ones away of taking the others space just in one battle?

i mean a fleet of corsairs with sabres/titans would be able to conquer most of liberty in one day!
that was one of the odd things i noticed and a break in overall game-logic.
beautiful game, great graphics, nice plot and all that, but some things really did not fit together. (and it was branded microsoft.. which is not something i like in particular!)

well, what i liked was such stuff like different shield-types (gravitron, molecular, positron) and their special weaknesses and strenghts against different weapon-types!
and that idea of "shield batteries" which helped to get the shields coming up more quickly if they were down. it did not mean you don't have to dodge, but you also do not have to fly circles and dodge everything for minutes until you can start the next attack.
overall the fights were really nice and full of action.

so in history of that game type there surely was no match for privateer, but some other games still had interesting ideas i think.

About adding stuff... well, if it fits in the game, ok!
I mean, time goes on! even in 25xx or in whatever time, people improve technology, design new ships, invent new things and all that.
so its just a part of the universe and evolution that things are added.

so overall i think, privateer remake is great, but there is still no end of evolution.

greetings,
Ge0rgy

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 2:05 pm

I've always felt like we needed more merchant ships... theres a nice long line of fighter/combat ships, but only 3 real merchants... I guess adding something totally new might break things, though. But just in case someone is thinking about it... hehe...

Maybe something with about 500 hold, reasonable armor, a bit faster than a drayman and with no AB... you get yourself an actual medium transport thats fillls the economic gap.

We had a discussion in another thread about maintenance costs... IE, it would be cool if it costed you money to operate a ship (time based... crews gotta eat, fuel consumption, wear and tear, etc) In game, once you have a drayman, you can make tons of money and personally I think it would be cool if some of that went to maintenance... and the more complex your ship was, the more it would cost. How you would actually figure this out... well... I don't know. But it would still be cool :p

Duke Derek · Post by **Duke Derek** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 4:08 pm

hmm, scratch what i said earlier, i think PR should be pretty much that: Privateer Remake, changes in the little things is good, like AI turrets but it's just a remake with some little bugs/caveats removed.

i was thinking that maybe another version was neccesary, like PR and GG where one stays true and one diverges, well have PR and PR2 or something, were PR2 has loads of extra stuff and things but then i thought WCU pretty much fills that hole and also, there's only a certain amount of stuff one can fit into Gemini Sector...

Fireskull · Post by **Fireskull** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 4:10 pm

I feel so out of place by saying i'd rather use a orion than a centurion.

I am just a bit off I guess

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:50 am

JonathanD wrote:I've always felt like we needed more merchant ships... theres a nice long line of fighter/combat ships, but only 3 real merchants... I guess adding something totally new might break things, though. But just in case someone is thinking about it... hehe...

Maybe something with about 500 hold, reasonable armor, a bit faster than a drayman and with no AB... you get yourself an actual medium transport thats fillls the economic gap.

We had a discussion in another thread about maintenance costs... IE, it would be cool if it costed you money to operate a ship (time based... crews gotta eat, fuel consumption, wear and tear, etc) In game, once you have a drayman, you can make tons of money and personally I think it would be cool if some of that went to maintenance... and the more complex your ship was, the more it would cost. How you would actually figure this out... well... I don't know. But it would still be cool :p

I really can't imagine that having a new merchant ship would break the game balance. It wouldn't outmatch a fighter ship in the same class in terms of firepower,speed and manueverability for one.

The first new ship in this class should fill in the gap between the Tarsus and the Gal with performance, cargo load and weapon capacity somewhere between the two.

It should have one turret, this would be the first experiment in fitting a fighter turret on a merchant ship so just one

Cargo capacity would match of just be above the Tarsus.

It would be a bit blockier than the Gal, in many ways this would be the Gal's prototype in the Privateer universe. Cost would range between 75-100K.

Another ship could be a variant of the Galaxy prime with one missile turret and one gun turret. Keep the missile turret ammo supply small not more than 10-15 to keep it balanced and stick to FF missiles. This would be the favorite of merchanters anyway, you're fighting to get away clean with your cargo intact and as a deterrent to raiders FF are the best.

Picking up on your idea, there would probably be a cargo ship bigger than the Galaxy but much smaller than the Drayman. The Galaxy is what, 200-400 tons and the Drayman 2,000 ? Say an 800-1000 ton medium transport with more speed and more firepower than the Drayman.

Orion hull weapon config, 2 gun mounts and 1 missile mount in front , one rear turret and Galaxy top and bottom turrets. Top speed of 400-500K so slower than a Tarsus with afterburners but still substantially faster than a drayman.

Hmm...the more I look at the medium transport idea the more I like it. Needs a name though

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 1:59 am

How about: Camelus or Camelidae.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 2:49 am

JonathanD wrote:How about: Camelus or Camelidae.

How about Camelopard ?

It's where Latin name of giraffe's was derived (Giraffa camelopardalis), got this from a link :

----------------------

camelopard \kuh-MEL-uh-pard\, n.
Origin: Greek "kamelopardalis" or "kamelos,"
meaning camel + "-pard," as in leopard, via
Latin, Medieval Latin, and Middle English.

* A giraffe.

The Greeks thought giraffes (in Greece?) looked like half-camel,
half-leopard hybrids, and so they combined "kamelos" and
"pardalis" for the animals' name. Nowadays one rarely hears
"camelopard" for "giraffe," mostly because the latter is
kid-friendly while the former is explorer-in-pith-helmet-friendly.

-------------------------

http://ransford.org/pipermail/word-l/20 ... 00285.html

I like the idea of a camel and leopard in one , specially for a heavily armed merchanter

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 3:00 am

So what would it look like?

A bumpy ship with teeth?

blue_paladin42 · Post by **blue_paladin42** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 3:04 am

I have actually found the PR orion to be superior to the original, but then again, mabye I have just gotten better, because it isn't any different

Anyway, I rather like it for fighting cappys.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:24 am

JonathanD wrote:So what would it look like?

A bumpy ship with teeth?

Sort of

I was thinking its manuevering/insystem thrusters would be on the side (just like the Gal) so it wouldn't have the huge blind spot the Drayman has in the rear.

Also the cargo bay doors would be at the bottom, during dangerous pickups and deliveries the ship could swoop down, use the thrusters to hover, open the cargo bay doors , tractor the crates up/down then zoom off.

Turret placement would be :

[top]
------------ 0-
=========0- [rear turrent]
------- 0-
[bottom]

So the upper turret could cover the rear also. I can't forget the Demons' ripping the Drayman apart over and over by parking themselves in the rear and just blasting away.

A design for very dangerous times.

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 6:33 pm

Well, was working on a design on a flight last weekend. Thought the planes might give me inspiration. Anyway, on that note I was working on something with only 2 turrets (I think 3 is overkill, personally) I made a quick visio of it (3d, I don't do I'm afraid) but I really need to get some regular graph paper and draw it out on there. This is a total junk picture but just an idea?

You can tell me how ugly it is now, it's very undetailed (trust me, a hand drawn one is gonna look a ton better) but just for kicks, think of this, plop another turret on top, some landing strut mechanism, thrusters in those boxy things on the sides (extended out a bit from the center). On the back lower section, a cargo door opens up to allow quick entry. The upper level can contain additional cargo space, crew quarters, and a passenger compartment in a varient, perhaps.

I have another equally nasty design I might throw up later. Unless I can get to some graph paper first.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:42 am

JonathanD wrote:
You can tell me how ugly it is now, it's very undetailed (trust me, a hand drawn one is gonna look a ton better) but just for kicks, think of this, plop another turret on top, some landing strut mechanism, thrusters in those boxy things on the sides (extended out a bit from the center). On the back lower section, a cargo door opens up to allow quick entry. The upper level can contain additional cargo space, crew quarters, and a passenger compartment in a varient, perhaps.

I have another equally nasty design I might throw up later. Unless I can get to some graph paper first.

We're thinking along the same lines, let me grab a coffee and let's see what i can do with the pic. The two turrets on top sounds like a good idea, I was thinking of making the rear a bit more "humped" and the side thrusters front edge a bit more to the rear.

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 2:25 am

My thought on the two turrets on top were that the lower compartment was removable but... well from a modeling perspective this part may be a bit more difficult, I'm thinking the front-upper turret should be elevated enough to cover front and down even about 10 degrees. (basically, the turret mounting is not-quite level with the "top" of the ship, I'll drop a visio in to illustrate this) This makes it effective in head on fights as well (especially with auto) the rear-upper would have a similar aft coverege (place it on that rear hump thing to give it decent aft coverage. End result: you get a pretty dangerous craft, especially given it's gonna be moderatly manuverable. I should think a design like this would be built with a high roll rate (to compensate for the lacking lower turret coverage.)

What sort of hold volume? I'm thinking base 500, with maybe 200 of the upper deck being convertable into hold space.

I've been playing with beam weapons (something non-existant in PR and in privateer originally, but thats available in the engine) for the paridigm and kamek, makes them alot harder to take down because they WILL hit you if you get close for a good gun run. But they're not real powerful, gives the orion an edge against the caps still simply cause it can take the abuse. It kinda evens the playing field but I doubt something like this would make it in game as it's VERY non-canon hehe. But beams are cool in turrets

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 3:09 am

JonathanD wrote:I'm thinking the front-upper turret should be elevated enough to cover front and down even about 10 degrees. (basically, the turret mounting is not-quite level with the "top" of the ship, I'll drop a visio in to illustrate this) This makes it effective in head on fights as well (especially with auto) the rear-upper would have a similar aft coverege (place it on that rear hump thing to give it decent aft coverage. End result: you get a pretty dangerous craft, especially given it's gonna be moderatly manuverable. I should think a design like this would be built with a high roll rate (to compensate for the lacking lower turret coverage.)

Two humps? small one in front and a larger one in the rear each with a turret on top.

JonathanD wrote:
What sort of hold volume? I'm thinking base 500, with maybe 200 of the upper deck being convertable into hold space.

500 sounds just about right. That's nearly twice what a cargo enhanced Galaxy will carry. What would the top cruising speed be - 200kph and maybe 400kph with afterburners ?

JonathanD wrote: I've been playing with beam weapons (something non-existant in PR and in privateer originally, but thats available in the engine) for the paridigm and kamek, makes them alot harder to take down because they WILL hit you if you get close for a good gun run. But they're not real powerful, gives the orion an edge against the caps still simply cause it can take the abuse. It kinda evens the playing field but I doubt something like this would make it in game as it's VERY non-canon hehe. But beams are cool in turrets

Are these something like the tractor beam ? How do you enable them - would love to see what they look like.

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:11 pm

Are these something like the tractor beam ? How do you enable them - would love to see what they look like.

Yeah, they are like the tractor beam... sort of. Take a look at "handlaser" in weapons_list.xml.

The main "theory" behind beam weapons in vegastrike (that I have seen) is that bolts are slower, and take measurable time to reach their target, but have more power when they hit. Beams travel at the speed of light but are less powerful overall, however they also do damage for as long as they can be maintained (this is controlled both by power drain against your reactor, as well as a "stability" variable assigned to the beam.

Since beams are more or less instant, they have as much chance of hitting a demon or centurion as they do of hitting a drayman. Since they have less power, though, they are definatly more effective against the light, fast ships. This is why I see them as something of an equalizer for the big cap ships, you can still take them out with a centaurian but you better watch that you don't get into beam range or you're gonna get chewed up in the process.

Anyway, back to your question, to actually make one work you either have to make new entries in units.csv + weapons_list.xml or replace an existing weapon with the beam type, and edit it accordingly. It's kinda hairy, really.

Back to the camel thingy :p
I like the speed ratings. Makes it fast enough to do some runs that maybe a drayman isn't suitable for.

Yes two humps, I'll draw something out later.

Attached today is a graphic demonstrating what I meant about not having the turret quite level. The diaganol line represents the plane to which the turret is actually affixed. if you mount the guns, then, on the back on the rear hump you could do this without the guns being able to fire through the ship (which aside from looking silly, obstructs your view :p)

Redav · Post by **Redav** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:33 pm

Well, it wasn't a sequel but I still really enjoyed it. I felt that they did things in halves in some areas but I still emersed myself in it.

I too long for a modern equivalent to Privateer. It must be hard for game makers to concentrate on game play as opposed to graphics

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:57 pm

heh.... go ahead and laugh.

Here is my first attempt at a 3d... anything. Although I did do the wine glass tutorial for wings. STILL can't get it to export though but at least it gives me a better idea on turret placement. The front turret, as is, has a pretty poor forward LOS owing to the cockpit, it can only aim down perhaps 5 degrees. The aft turret has a terrific LOS down perhaps 20 degrees.

I guess I need engines... thinking 2 on each side about 2/3 back... I may start from scratch though, I've learned a good bit along the way.. .I think.

*readies himself to be ripped apart by the artists*