Orion Trader Chronicles

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:54 am

Hello everyone, this is a log of my experiments with the modified Orion trader configuration and what the impact of having a light fighter present early has on gameplay.

First off, I started with a clean saved game with a fully equipped Tarsus and 150K credits in the bank and hadn't met with Sandoval yet (first scripted mission).

I travelled to New Constantinople space station and added a Dralthi light fighter to my fleet. The ship cost 75K, improvements 8K (weapons,hull, armor - no autotracking) so total cost was ~ 83K all in all.

The plan is to use the Dralthi in conjunction with the Tarsus to complete the first few set of missions and then through a mixture of trade and combat accumulate enough credits to upgrade the Tarsus to an Orion.

My trader configuration for this ship includes a 75K starter price and a 100unit cargo hold. This effectively makes it an intermediate merchant ship and the logical upgrade choice on the way to a Galaxy.

I plan to use the Confed tactic of using a light fighter to explore new territory and exploit any new trading opportunities that arise from those explorations.

First step is test my 2 mass driver, Ion gun Dralthi in a few combat missions then away to meet Sandoval I go. Have to be careful not to lose the artifact again - this time I'll keep it on the Tarsus and use the regular ship dealer upgrade to transfer the relic to the Orion.

No way I'm keeping it on the Dralthi.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:30 am

Found out that it's a very bad idea to switch ships during a mission. Took on Sandoval's errand in the Tarsus ,switched to the Dralthi parked in NC and the mission (and most probably the artifact) disappeared from my computer screen readout.

Reloaded the saved game, dropped off the iron in NewCastle then ran back to NC to pickup my much missed Dralthi - no problem this time my Kilrathi hold had the alien relic.

The mass driver/ion gun combo works very well btw , the Talons are exploding quite a bit quicker now though it's still tricky to hit them sideways without autotrackers.

I remembered why I hated driving the Tarsus at this stage, while accumulating the 150K bucks the Talon pack encounters grew more frequent with 3-4 hitting you at the worst possible time.

Actually looking forward to being able to upgrade to the Orion, I miss trade/cargo missions. Funny how a little expansion to the cargo hold size and a price drop can completely change your perspective of this ship.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 7:16 pm

It took several back to back, packed cargo runs in the Tarsus but I finally got 300+K - which is about how much it would cost to decently equip the base Orion shell.

The purchase price of 75K is a bit low, upping that to 100K would separate it from the light fighter but it would still be cheaper than the Galaxy by a substantial margin.

With Level 3 reactors & shields, multi-jet turn enhancers (you need this, the Orion's turn rate is pretty horrible), tungsten hull & armor, intermediate HW radar (only one worth buying in that class). a meson turret and two Ion guns plus Proton torps my survivability as a trader went way way up.

The 100 unit cargo hold is ample space to regularly do triple cargo runs without worries.

This ship still sucks as an escort due to the poor acceleration and turn rates, those missions I'll leave to my Dralthi. As a merchanter, the ability to shrug off kamikaze attacks by Talons makes this a very welcome addition to my fleet. I can imagine how it would be like once I can afford a level 5 reactor and shields.

Definitely holding onto this, even after I get my Galaxy. Options are very,very good

z30 · Post by **z30** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 4:46 am

Seriously considering the unthinkable. The Oxford 3 mission is coming up and the firepower of the Dralthi just won't cut it. Despite the Galaxy being my all time favorite ship am weighing the option of adding the Centurion to my little fleet.

Up to now I didn't need it, the light Kilrathi fighter has been surprisingly adequate to the combat and Tayla's missions. Didn't have to kill too many militia fighters which you end up doing with a slower ship.

Getting the Centurion would give me :

light fighter
medium fighter
heavy merchantman

A good spectrum of ships that should last me a while.

Before I tried this experiment I would have laughed at anyone with the temerity to suggest that I'd pick the Orion over the Galaxy. It has become a strong merchantman alternative to the latter and the option of having both, one very strong in defense the other in offense just boggles the mind.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:00 am

One of the problems that light fighter pilots is lack of staying power. Because you lose lot of your firepower once missiles are exhausted, doing back to back search and destroy missions becomes riskier and riskier.

You don't often have a choice of where to go, bounty missions are far fewer than cargo runs which are easier to cluster system wise.

So what do you do when that big, strapping Centurion is out of your reach and your missile load consists of 3 IRs? Hire wingmen, and there's where weaknesses of the current system show up.

I took a single Talon bounty (9K) mission and a another one (5 bogeys this time for 13K). Cost of a single orion merchanter wingman?

25K

He didnt' last long either, the 5 Talons in the second mission jumped him immediately and scattered his dust about 15 seconds later.

One of the few things I miss about my other space fighter game , Tachyon, is the ability to pick and choose what wingman joins you and make that choice permanent. For each mission your partner takes a cut, and the better he is the bigger a cut he gets.

Once a better pilot becomes available, you just dismiss your old buddy and hire the new one. Complete stats about pilot skill and ship are available so getting a new one isn't russian roulette.

What I'd like to see in PR is some indicator of how good the mercenary you're hiring is and some idea of what his ship and ship weapon loadouts are. Just cutting down the unpredictability of these factors goes a long way in making this option more attractive.

Maybe a regular option of having experienced confeds or bounty hunters, marked as such and priced accordingly would be a good first step.

edit : the effects of the current wingmen system is more strongly felt on the Dralthi. Demon and Gladius players should have an easier time of it.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 6:30 pm

Restarted the Orion trader scenario, this time getting a Demon instead of the Dralthi as a light fighter ship.

I had to trim down the top speed from 1200kph to just 1000kph - at the original speed it was virtually invincible against Talon swarms. The downgraded speed made bounty missions risky (and enjoyable) again.

The tight gun grouping made my 2 Meson, 2 Laser gun array more lethal than normal. I've never seen light guns shred Talons this fast. Even in afterburner mode the gun array still cycled rapidly enough to be very damaging against light ships - and all this without autotracking as of yet

Since the Demon's 50 unit cargo hold made the Tarsus obsolete (easy enough to fit 3 lucrative cargo missions) this was downgraded to 20 units.

This is the deadliest light fighter hands down, no wonder the Ox 3 and Palan 3 missions are so tough!

z30 · Post by **z30** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:15 am

The 20 unit cargo hold for light/medium fighters is perfect for people who, in the early stages, want to do combat/escort missions 24x7 and not bother with heavy trade.

The safety margin you get from picking up just one lucrative merchant guild cargo mission make up for bounty hunting missions gone wrong. I've had one instance where my fighter took 20k+ damage, wiping out the profits of the last two runs.

As an intermediate fighter, the modified Demon is the best ship in the current crop. The Dralthi lacks the firepower for tricky escort missions and the Gladius is too reliant on missile power to get quick reliable kills.

Having said that, I've gone back to the Gladius - really like the capability of firing 2 guided missiles at once to take out that first bogey. Besides I finally found a nice tri-gun combo that works out well so far , 2 Particle guns and a Mass driver. It's still no Demon (but then what is?) but I love the ship.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 6:49 am

Just bought the Orion shell and am slowly upgrading it (sold off the Tarsus entirely). The mix of single cargo missions on top of bounty/scan/escort stuff is working on my Gladius.

Was actually able to take down a Retro Drayman earlier but it took time with 3 mesons, should be able to do it easier with my current gun config though I miss the very focused firepower of the Demon.

The reduced top speed should make the Ox 3 mission easier, I'm wondering if I can handle that in the Gladius instead of having to spend money upgrading to the Centurion.

If the Gladius can handle that then the Demon definitely can

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:53 am

Just the shield remaining for the Orion now. It's been a unique experience being able to assemble the ship one great part at a time instead of having to settle for substandard ones then upgrading them as time goes on.

It's going to be possible and enjoyable for fighter jocks to skip the trade ship upgrade entirely and assemble Centurions in the same way. You don't even need the Tarsus to do it.

Really looking forward to what a level 5 Reactor and shield can do.

Post by **MamiyaOtaru** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 1:22 am

z30 wrote:Really looking forward to what a level 5 Reactor and shield can do.

I hope it lives up to your expectations. I worry that in 1.2 and lower the Orion's reduced mobility negated the thicker shields. I think it has been rectified some for 1.3, but do tell me how it feels to you in 1.2.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 4:51 am

MamiyaOtaru wrote:I hope it lives up to your expectations. I worry that in 1.2 and lower the Orion's reduced mobility negated the thicker shields. I think it has been rectified some for 1.3, but do tell me how it feels to you in 1.2.

I'll take it the most dangerous places and give detailed feedbacks. Will be careful not to have any illusions about the shields keeping me safe or that my typical piloting style with the Galaxy will work here.

I'm hoping that most of the player's frustration with this ship was due to the being forced to take combat/escort missions due to the tiny cargo hold (tiny for a merchanter).

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:45 pm

...and of course as soon as I drove my Orion out of Constantinople, that's when I realized that I had forgotten to add the rear turret

The lack made a big difference as I found out when 4 Talons jumped me.

What people say about the thick shields not making a difference is true, those won't save you unless the ship is tweaked and driven right.

Front loadout is two Plasma guns, Proton torpedoes and a tachyon turret in the rear. The Level 5 reactor is enough to power the heavy guns but not if you keep using the afterburner.

Autotrackers significantly increase your kill rate, the Plasma guns alone can quickly vaporize a Talon with a few hits. Proton torpedoes with autotrack are just great - one good hit and the Talon is dust.

In dogfights, you need to use the shelton slide to keep the fast circling bogeys in your gunsights. And even that won't work unless you've installed the multi-jet turn enhancer.

With these upgrades and tactics I've learned not to use my afterburner in dogfights and rely on my shields. The latter will buy you enough time for the enhanced kill rate to whittle down the enemy numbers.

These don't make the Orion a good fighter - it still is a very poor choice for escort and bounty missions. As a merchanter though all of the above plus the 100 unit cargo hold make it a very good ship for risky runs in dangerous territory.

Just one thing keeps it from being a great merchanter - imagine the rear turret relocated where the radar dish currently is. In this new position that could cover front, back and sides with even better coverage than the Galaxy's top turret.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:45 pm

The modified Orion earned me enough credits fast with minimal deaths, enough to equip autotrackers on the hull weapons and missile launchers for both ships and upgrade the radar to an advanced Hunter.

People playing the stock Orion get disappointed because the huge amount of money doesn't pay itself back when run as a hunter ship. Those driving this baby as merchanters won't be disappointed, it doesn't have the Galaxy's firepower but I've survived Talon swarms in the Orion that would have crippled the Gal.

The fighting style takes a bit getting used to because you rely on the Shelton slide a lot for dogfights. If the Gothri is a like a black panther, the Orion is more like a bear

z30 · Post by **z30** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:14 pm

A bit bored of trading and wanting to have the upper turret before I took the Orion out again - I decided to fly my souped up Gladius (nothing more to upgrade

and ran into swarms of Kilrathi's and Talons everywhere I went.

After repeatedly being mauled and limping back to Constantinople with just a sliver of armor left, I took one look at my badly depleted bank balance and hauled my heavy merchantman out again.

It was incredible. The ship just plowed through opposition, I was able to complete 90% of my cargo runs without dying. The autotracked Plasma guns and Proton torpedoes just swatted the Dralthis and Talons out of the sky and my shields and armor enabled me to make it planetside with barely a scratch.

I've nicknamed this ship the Bear , because that's what it felt like.

Now the problem is getting to the state where you have Level 5 reactor & shields, Plasma guns, Tachyon rear turret, Level 3 Radar and autotracking for all the weapons. That takes a LOT of cash and you can't afford all of these in the early going.

It's the reason why so many Orion potential pilots give up early, it's too weak in the beginning, not to mention it's cast in the wrong role in the first place.

I believe that the top turret placement will make the ship easier to play from the start. Two meson guns and a turret aren't that expensive to get and that's all the firepower you need to handle frontside assaults.

Post by **MamiyaOtaru** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:10 am

Where did you put the top turret? Behind the radar? Spiritplumber had the idea to give it a chin turret, an idea I rather liked.

astrokai_sc · Post by **astrokai_sc** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:45 am

Hi z30 - as I wrote in the other thread, I find that the turrets, heavy shields and armor really make the big traders fierce battleships.

There is all that argueing in the WC manuals as to how an ace pilot in a light fast fighter can easily outdo you - that is certainly true, but not for AI-driven opponents, or a mediocre human pilot if Privateer was multiplayer. My galaxy has both fusion front guns and both turrets, and all upgrades you can get - and once you run into a swarm of 6 Talons (even retros), you just spit rockets and salvos at them and then the turrets do most of the work themselves. The mighty shields, thick armor and the level 5 reactor just pull it off - it's a gunship rather than a trader, but to get it there you pay around 2 million credits.

Many Kilrathi at unfortunate angles are a different story though, Dralthi are just fast and can take more than a Talon.

While it is certainly questionable whether a merchantman should be so powerful from a game balance/logical point of view, I love the fun I am having with it. I feel it would be more realistic though if the capships were more powerful - e.g. Draymans should have way more strong turrets. I guess that is a relict from WC1, where it was all about fighter cover - the logical consequence would be that Draymans or other capships never fly alone, but always with some fighter protection.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:50 am

MamiyaOtaru wrote:Where did you put the top turret? Behind the radar? Spiritplumber had the idea to give it a chin turret, an idea I rather liked.

Err..it's nearly there

Got the turret to the roof level but it's facing the wrong way and still has to go up a bit. No tests with new model as of yet. I'm planning to park it at the rear edge first then work my way to behind the radar to check where the best place is.

I also like the chin turret placement (reminds me of the Millenium Falcon and the stormtrooper raid thing ) as long as we keep the rear turret. The Gothris ,Dralthis and Talons always go for my ship's rear end - I think they think it's a Drayman.

Should I test both? The cockpit coordinates are already in the units.csv and it should be simple to add the second turret.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 6:22 am

astrokai_sc wrote:Hi z30 - as I wrote in the other thread, I find that the turrets, heavy shields and armor really make the big traders fierce battleships.

Couldn't agree with you more there. I'm a Galaxy fanatic, and was drawn to it at the start by the fact that it had two turrets - was able to complete the original campaign with a Gal.

I'm really happy with the presence of Turret AI in PR, though the aim isn't very accurate the volume of firepower is nothing short of incredible for a merchant ship.

Definitely not a fan of defenseless trading ships.

astrokai_sc wrote:
There is all that argueing in the WC manuals as to how an ace pilot in a light fast fighter can easily outdo you - that is certainly true, but not for AI-driven opponents, or a mediocre human pilot if Privateer was multiplayer.

What the WC manuals don't say is how many ace pilots there are - I'm betting that they constitute 10% or less of the total combat pilot population. A decent/good Galaxy pilot should be able to outdo most fighter jocks.

Merchanters have the advantage of not having to hunt down enemy ships for a living. You can take a diff. system route, or just hold them off till you can make it planetside.

astrokai_sc wrote: Many Kilrathi at unfortunate angles are a different story though, Dralthi are just fast and can take more than a Talon.

The Dralthi is blade thin , turns on a dime and has a hell of an acceleration compared to the Talon though top speed is the same. While driving one, I had to be careful not to outturn thos Retro ships and I took far less damage than my Gladius normally does. Flying through asteroid fields at full speed is a piece of cake, only the Demon could catch you in that enviroment.

One of my favorite light ships, I just couldn't kill things fast enough in it specially in escort missions which is why I switched to the Glad. Those ace AI pilots are amazing with it, they actually do damage with 3 lasers !

astrokai_sc wrote:
I feel it would be more realistic though if the capships were more powerful - e.g. Draymans should have way more strong turrets. I guess that is a relict from WC1, where it was all about fighter cover - the logical consequence would be that Draymans or other capships never fly alone, but always with some fighter protection.

The feedback I've seen from Drayman pilots is that their escort fighter AI isn't good enough to deter attackers. My wingmen in the game generally suck, they're good for distraction but not much else.

What I'd love to see is the smaller (than Drayman) medium heavy 800(?) ton fireighter with the 500 unit cargo hold,two turrets and 400kph top speed. We were discussing this in another thread and now that I think about it, if it can hold it's own just like the Galaxy does and if it could carry just *one* fighter - the player could pop into the escort and defend his own merchant ship.

I'm trying to get a feel of what the correct balance should be between a fully loaded Galaxy and the modified Orion trader with (possibly) two turrets. Should both be capable of Level 5 reactors and shields?

The Gal definitely has the edge in manueverability and acceleration while the Orion is just plain *tough*. It took a mix of 6 gothri's , dralthis and talons a LONG time to kill me in my last game session. Looking forward to a rematch with the relocated turret

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:12 pm

Well, on the other ship thread (the larger merchy) I have no abilities as of yet at modeling... if someone could throw a simple model at me to play with... just something I can test the concepts on, it doesn't even have to resemble a spaceship.

I'll try to re-scetch something appropriate later and maybe even grab wings and see if I can figure it out. At the moment I'm more interested in writing a stats line for it in units.csv to see how it feels (and maybe even send it over to z30, if your interested, seems this might well be becoming your area of expertise.)

Duke Derek · Post by **Duke Derek** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 4:43 pm

with all this talk of making the orion cheaper and balancing stuff, it all seems to be based on changing everything around the Galaxy, why not bump up the price a bit (~300k?)

then the Orion would be the intermediate step between Tarsus and Galaxy. sorted

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:28 pm

I took it a step further, I downloaded wings and built a model... ish... thing... yeah. Anyway, export is not working too nicely... it crashes. More in a bit.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 5:32 am

JonathanD wrote:Well, on the other ship thread (the larger merchy) I have no abilities as of yet at modeling... if someone could throw a simple model at me to play with... just something I can test the concepts on, it doesn't even have to resemble a spaceship.

I'll try to re-scetch something appropriate later and maybe even grab wings and see if I can figure it out. At the moment I'm more interested in writing a stats line for it in units.csv to see how it feels (and maybe even send it over to z30, if your interested, seems this might well be becoming your area of expertise.)

Hardly

Altering the values in a spreadsheet is a far cry from being able to design and create a good new ship model.

If you're looking for a model, take the Orion - I think there are values you can alter to expand the space it occupies , change the mass, the way it accelerates,maneuvers etc. Then we can add the turrets the way you want it and do basic concept testing of whether the design will even perform well.

Alternatively, you can take the Drayman and shrink it - wait a minute, didn't someone do this before ?

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 1:07 pm

z30, at the moment I have a basic model vaguely similar to what I had in mind... it's close enough for turret mounting at least, which is the biggest thing I wanted to play with.

Now, if I could get it to export... read something about different versions of wings not working with certain plugins so maybe thats an avenue to follow.

That's not to say the model I have is really usable on a permanent basis ingame but it does follow the... flow of what I had in mind. If i could export it.

z30 · Post by **z30** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:24 pm

JonathanD wrote:
Now, if I could get it to export... read something about different versions of wings not working with certain plugins so maybe thats an avenue to follow.

That's not to say the model I have is really usable on a permanent basis ingame but it does follow the... flow of what I had in mind. If i could export it.

Somebody on this board probably knows how

Having driven and fought in the Orion this much, I've realized that a big freighter can survive provided it has high enough cruising speed (~350-400kph) and enough turrets to protect it's rear.

BluePaladin keeps saying that the Orion PR is superior to the original - it's because of the Turret AI which can keep them off your six. The ship you're building obviously won't have the turn rate to keep up with a Talon even though it's just spinning on it's axis to keep up.

But with enough firepower to cover it's rear - it won't have to. I'm beginning to think you really might need 3 :

===( o ).............( o )===
-------------------/........\
----------------------------|O===

---------------------------/

Forgot the put the first hump ....

JonathanD · Post by **JonathanD** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 3:32 pm

Hmmm, so the a pure aft turret as well?

You can't tell in the pic, but the back side features cargo bay doors on the lower rear of the ship, for fast enty/exit. Something like a droppable loading ramp. A turret near that would let you open the door and tractor stuff in

(well, not in game, but it's a cool concept.)

You don't think giving the rear-hump turret a better line of fire would suffice? I just feel like 3 turrets is an awful lot of firepower for a merchy. though if it was somehow limited to say, at max... a meson turret, it wouldn't be.

[edit] I feel that some strong outboard thrusters would help compensate a bit for the lack of manuverabity. Make a focus on roll rate, since the ship is long and fairly thin, it's feasible to have a solid roll rate which greatly increases the usefullness of the turrets.

Vega Strike Forums

Orion Trader Chronicles

Orion Trader Chronicles

Galaxy alike...

Re: Galaxy alike...