Been thinking, have some ideas for 1.3 (plus maybe new bugs)

[Solon Halwinder]

First, my ideas.

1. Single missile hardpoints are not nearly as useful here as they are in the Wing Commander core games. I think to get around this weakness, a Gun Capability upgrade for missile mounts (like the Tractor Capability upgrade for gun mounts) is in order. It'd really kick up the firepower on some of the smaller ships. Imagine a Talon with five Tachyons, or a Broadsword with eight Lasers.

Then again, that might be a bit unbalancing.

2. The ability to expand your missile capacity would be very useful, though a purchasable upgrade.

3. The whole "Upgrades take up so much space" stuff is irritating me. That wasn't how it went in the original Privateer, and unless there's a VERY good reason for it here, I'd suggest scrapping it if possible.

Next, bugs. (Pre-RF right now, doing Palan missions, nothing on the side campaign.)

1. You cannot buy hull or armor for the Drayman or Talon.

2. The Drayman can only equip L5 reactor, but up to L8 shields. How does that make sense?

3. You cannot equip the Talon with a jump drive. (Or is that intentional?)

OK, that's all I've got for the time being.

[z30]

First, my ideas.

1. Single missile hardpoints are not nearly as useful here as they are in the Wing Commander core games. I think to get around this weakness, a Gun Capability upgrade for missile mounts (like the Tractor Capability upgrade for gun mounts) is in order. It'd really kick up the firepower on some of the smaller ships. Imagine a Talon with five Tachyons, or a Broadsword with eight Lasers.

Then again, that might be a bit unbalancing.

I hope Mamiya or Spirit drops by one of these days to take a look at the wishlists for 1.3. Till then, here are some workarounds you may find useful.

Best missiles for single launchers are autotracked DF's or Proton Torpedoes. DF's in particular are strong enough to destroy Talons in one hit.

You'd need a higher reactor level to power a Talon with that loadout, currently its at level 2 - not enough. Its also definitely unbalancing

2. The ability to expand your missile capacity would be very useful, though a purchasable upgrade.


3. The whole "Upgrades take up so much space" stuff is irritating me. That wasn't how it went in the original Privateer, and unless there's a VERY good reason for it here, I'd suggest scrapping it if possible.

You can use Excel to edit the units.csv file (in your Privateer units directory) and set column DG (Upgrade_Storage_Volume) for your particular ship to 16. That should take care of any upgrade space limits.

Just be sure to save it in CSV format again.

Missile capacity is embedded in the ship entries in units.csv, its possible to do this but it will required coding. Right now , PR can distinguish between light,medium & heavy missiles but there is no such classification for the launchers.

Next, bugs. (Pre-RF right now, doing Palan missions, nothing on the side campaign.)

1. You cannot buy hull or armor for the Drayman or Talon.

2. The Drayman can only equip L5 reactor, but up to L8 shields. How does that make sense?

3. You cannot equip the Talon with a jump drive. (Or is that intentional?)

OK, that's all I've got for the time being.

imho, mostly intentional. Drayman is an unarmed merchanter - original versions were without the two meson gun mounts you see now. Unfortunately unarmed merchanters don't do very well in PR specially if their top speed is 150kps.

Talon is supposed to be a cheap fighter and inability to add to their armor makes it easier to blow them up in the game It cuts both ways, increase their protection and Retros will be having those to in the campaigns.

Not sure about the Talon not being able to mount jump drives, maybe someone can shed light on whether this is part of the lore.

[OnyxPaladin]

I have to agree that single missile hardpoints are a bit out of touch with reality. We have had missile pods for helicopters for some time now.
They should be a purchasable upgrade, perhaps doing a bit less damage, but having an autotracking capability. Two of these and two ff missiles on a gothri would be quite deadly.

Making the repair bots work a little faster would be nice, since it seems to me they are not the most useful money sink.


A realistic cockpit for the Gothri is certainly on my wishlist but not very high on the list

[Vandrvekn]

If you bought a 'depreciated' Talon, that means it's a milspec model and already has the jump drive and armor. Well, as much armor as the little toy can carry...

[z30]

If you bought a 'depreciated' Talon, that means it's a milspec model and already has the jump drive and armor. Well, as much armor as the little toy can carry...

Thank you very much for that info, it makes the jump capable Talons consistent with WC lore. It is a toy isn't it

[mkruer]

I have to agree that single missile hardpoints are a bit out of touch with reality. We have had missile pods for helicopters for some time now.
They should be a purchasable upgrade, perhaps doing a bit less damage, but having an autotracking capability. Two of these and two ff missiles on a gothri would be quite deadly.

Making the repair bots work a little faster would be nice, since it seems to me they are not the most useful money sink.

While this is true, you have to understand that Missiles pods often fire short range unguided, or limited guidance missiles. Even in WCP the cluster missiles pack (My favorite BTW) had a long range delivery system and delivered 4 short range FF missiles that more or less if they passed the target did not have the ability to comeback around.

I have always wondered in Privateer about their missiles packs, and I came to the conclusion that the missile pack is more of a rapid missile launcher, meaning that the missiles are not all immediately available for launch. Instead one a missile launches, another one roles into place.

[Solon Halwinder]

Some bitching follows this line. Read at own risk.

The chance for enemies to spawn at any given location needs to be lowered dramatically, and also, the enemy types need to be slanted WELL away from the Kilrathi. On a three-system run in my pretty much maxed out Centurion, I typically encounter over a dozen enemies, typically half of those being Kilrathi.

Additionally, enemy ships are STILL way too good at flying one direction and turning every which way, therefore making autotrackers suck. The only reason I managed to beat Palan 3 was because I stayed close to the planet and landed for repairs about every 30 seconds (this in a Centurion) and on Cross 2 (Centurion again,) I only survived because I got hammered, jumped from Gamma back to Delta to get fixed up at a Drayman, and half the Dralthi followed me through the jump point and somehow blew themselves up.

[klauss]

Additionally, enemy ships are STILL way too good at flying one direction and turning every which way, therefore making autotrackers suck.

That's a myth.
I mean, that autotrackers fail because talons "fly facing backwards/sideways".
Autotrackers don't care about a ship's facing, only its velocity (which is physically accurate always).
The only problem with autotrackers is with quickly maneuvering targets, since the linear prediction looses accuracy fast with increasing maneuvering rates.
Meaning: they evade.
Deal with it.
Disable autotrackers (unlock "lower-L" or directly disable "lower-K").

I remember I played a lot enabling/disabling autotrackers when fighting hunters - they maneuver way too much. When they start corkscrewing, you have to disable them and aim at a single point in the corkscrew's trajectory - some shots will hit them there. If you can predict, so much the better, but you risk a synchronized phase-lock that will allow them to avoid all shots. That, or randomize bolt dispersion to make it a statistical process rather than a deterministic "always fail" one - that is, move your ship like crazy, in random directions, creating a "hot zone" of flying bolts. Some will (randomly) hit them, during their corkscrew maneuver. If you keep autotrackers or try to aim, you risk always missing.

That is... aim. Play the game. Fight like you mean it.
It's not an arcade, where you have to sit on the trigger and slap the joystick as if the only feedback you have is the "Toc" noise it makes when it hits the limit.

[Solon Halwinder]

*shrug* Maybe I'm just not as good at this as I'd like to think. I'll give that a try once I manage to capture the Steltek Fighter and Steltek Drone.

Also, a question since I'm posting anyway. What do you have to do to be able to buy Kilrathi fighters? I hijacked a Dralthi by tractor beam with my Drayman, but I want a Gothri and I think they're too big (unless they're 5000 cargo even, in which case my artifacts are giving me just a tiny bit too little space.)

[klauss]

In earlier versions (I'm not sure this means 1.2 inclusively - but I recall Mamiya was decided to take it out together with the cloaking device, so it probably has been taken out form 1.2) you could find the "secret kilrathi depot" and plunder it.
It had the cloaking device and a dralthi/gothri for sale. I think.
I could never buy it, it was too expensive (a few mill), and I did not want to cheat, but I think a few people who did reported some bugs on it, concerning upgrades (not surprising).

In any case, there was some work underway to make dogfighting less difficult, even enough to make autotrackers not necessary and thus nerfable or removable. I'm not sure how that ended, I think Mamiya got busy before he could finish it.

[Solon Halwinder]

I remember the Depot, but as I recall the Cloaker has been removed and I don't recall seeing the Kilrathi ships there.

Then again, I haven't been out that way in a LONG time.

[Mordred]

A couple of thoughts for 1.3:

Any way of making the orion the tank of the original? Even with the shields and reactor maxed, still seemed kinda weak... the armor I guess. but I remember i used to ram things left and right with the orion, and used to blow up talons that way to save missles And I used to afterburn through asteroids because i could take a hit or two of them w/o getting through my shields. Now if you ram any ship, gets through your shields and damages your armor too. And the handling of the galaxy is a little strange compared to the original galaxy... this one isn't as nimble as that one. The orion in PR handles better than the galaxy, and it was the other way around as I recall....

Just minor quibbles, I really love this game (to the point I just dropped my logitec wingman gamepad and spent $60 on a sidewinder USB so I could really get the feel again...) so just curious if this could be fixed. I don't really like editing my ships (makes me feel like a cheater lol). Anyway, thanks!!!

[mkruer]

In earlier versions (I'm not sure this means 1.2 inclusively - but I recall Mamiya was decided to take it out together with the cloaking device, so it probably has been taken out form 1.2) you could find the "secret kilrathi depot" and plunder it.
It had the cloaking device and a dralthi/gothri for sale. I think.
I could never buy it, it was too expensive (a few mill), and I did not want to cheat, but I think a few people who did reported some bugs on it, concerning upgrades (not surprising).

In any case, there was some work underway to make dogfighting less difficult, even enough to make autotrackers not necessary and thus nerfable or removable. I'm not sure how that ended, I think Mamiya got busy before he could finish it.

Oh come on that as no where near as bad as time when the entire flight system was set like the original VS. You would have an enemy ship go from max thrust forward to max reverse (yes it was flying backwards) is less then a second. Talk about not being able to hit anything.

One question remained. don’t you think that a pilot flying like that, their bones would liquefy due to the gforces.

[klauss]

One question remained. don’t you think that a pilot flying like that, their bones would liquefy due to the gforces.

Interesting idea. I never thought of that for VS because canon provides means of ignoring G forces already, but now that you mention I bet limiting G forces, even if not necessary, would make AI pilots feel a lot more natural.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to try that. It would only require playing with angular velocity * speed limits on the AI side. I don't think it would be all that hard.

[mkruer]

One thing that was originally planed but never implemented in the WC games was the affects of G-Forces. This is why in the original game you kept on seeing inertia dampeners being damage, but never affected anything.

Original I think it was intended that once the inertia dampeners were damaged or destroyed, the pilot would be more subject to the G-Forces being pulled, so as you were flying the screen would go black when pulling high G-Forces and red out when pulling high negative G-Forces.

Both of these are relatively easy to implement, and we could make it optional.


In fact I was thinking that perhaps we should official support multiple levels of difficulty.
There would be three criteria for difficulty.

1. Game Speed: as odd as it may sound, the speed at which you play makes a great difference in the pilots performance. I know that when playing the original WC game I would purposely slow down the game play to allow more visual time to track the target. This would be the same as if you had superhuman reflexes.
2. I.A. Difficulty: this should be obvious, but perhaps the most difficult to adjust and balance.
3. Blinding effects: This goes in the same realm as the Blackout / red out / and one additional , white out when you are too close to an explosion or decide to stare directly into a star.

1 and 3 could be implement in the next release, but 2 is a little more confusing and would constantly need to be balanced.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

The g-force thing would be great. so would the speed thing. You have my full support on this.

[Solon Halwinder]

And now some observations since I've finished the Privateer campaign and triggered (but not started) RF.

1. I captured both the Steltek Drone and Fighter (took about three tries before my jump to Nitir didn't also include two or three Gothris, see my earlier complaint about spawn rates) and I noticed something interesting. Once you sell them at the Commodity Exchange, you can then buy them from the Ships screen. And they stay there until you leave and/or save/load. And you can sell yours and buy another after stripping the guns off of it. And you can buy it back from the Exchance.

Layman's terms: Keep the Fighter in your cargo hold and you can get three BoostedSteltek's at a time whenever you want. Most of my ships have at least one BoostedSteltek because of this. WOO!

2. The gun mounts on the Steltek Fighter are autotracked when you get them, but don't seem to work. I tried making it a Stock model by editing my save and making it "steltek_fighter.blank" instead of just "steltek_fighter" and doing so broke it. Couldn't switch to it and couldn't sell it either. Odd thing is, this worked for the Gothri, Dralthi, and Broadsword, which I stole using a Paradigm (for the Gothri) and a Drayman (for the other two.)

3. The ability to force passengers into slave pods should REALLY be disabled, or Passenger missions should be disabled on the Drayman and Paradigm. I have 200 million credits right now, most of that from getting passenger loads of 30,000 or so in my Paradigm and then forcing them into pods, which translates to about 21 million credits per time.

4. The Paradigm has an irritating tendency to hit itself with its turrets sometimes. Or so it seems.

5. The RF upgrades appeared really sporadically from the time I triggered it to the time I saved and restarted.

6. The Milspec Stiletto is still too expensive by at least one zero.

OK, that is all I've got for now.

[Solon Halwinder]

And a few more things.

1. IIRC, the Tarsus should be able to equip L4 reactor / L3 shields in RF. Currently, it can still only equip 1 / 2.

2. The Steltek Fighter can stack multiple of a lot of parts. Mine has 8 Speed Enhancers and can go 1200k/sec or so unafterburned.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

3. The ability to force passengers into slave pods should REALLY be disabled, or Passenger missions should be disabled on the Drayman and Paradigm. I have 200 million credits right now, most of that from getting passenger loads of 30,000 or so in my Paradigm and then forcing them into pods, which translates to about 21 million credits per time.

Or, some people could not do it. If you don't like it don't do it.

6. The Milspec Stiletto is still too expensive by at least one zero.

Well, There is a war on you know. Most are on the front.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

3. The ability to force passengers into slave pods should REALLY be disabled, or Passenger missions should be disabled on the Drayman and Paradigm. I have 200 million credits right now, most of that from getting passenger loads of 30,000 or so in my Paradigm and then forcing them into pods, which translates to about 21 million credits per time.

Or, some people could not do it. If you don't like it don't do it.

6. The Milspec Stiletto is still too expensive by at least one zero.

Well, There is a war on you know. Most are on the front.

[Mordred]

A couple of things I would like to see in ver 1.3:

enemy ships (like those blasted drathi in the cross missions) would come in waves, not sitting 2000 klicks from the jump point in numbers of 10+ (it even says in the mission that they were exploring that sector....)

A pirate guild............

That armor upgrade that they were talking about in another thread (stackable armor for the heavier ships..)

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

A pirate guild............

I think something like that is coming.

[zeo1234]

I've only heard of the Militia Guild being developed but a Pirate Guild would be cool too, though of course it has to be a on pirate base and maybe require that you not be a member of any other guild.

Maybe make ship availability determined by Guild membership?

Here's a wild idea though, why not make a mobile base. Say for the pirates they can have modified a mining base with cap ship engines. It'll be slow as a snail but it can move from system to system making it harder to find.

I don't know if it's possible but I think maybe modifying a ship files could make it work.

Or don't show it move, and just make it pop up in different sectors like the Steltek base it would only show up if you are following a mission.

Anyway, maybe combine that idea with more secret hyper gates, like the one in the Eden system. Located beyond the normal sensor range of most ships but can provide a secondary jump system that maybe only the pirates are aware of or you need your ship to be equipped with a special jump drive in order to use, along with sensors to detect the gates.

Or just make some secret systems which only reveal themselves if you trigger certain missions.

Maybe something dealing with black market Steltek technology that you have to track and destroy or the Steltek Scout will release more killer drones. Drones immune to even the boosted steltek gun.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

I've only heard of the Militia Guild being developed but a Pirate Guild would be cool too, though of course it has to be a on pirate base and maybe require that you not be a member of any other guild.

z30 said something about a pirate hq.

Maybe make ship availability determined by Guild membership?

Already being worked on.

Here's a wild idea though, why not make a mobile base. Say for the pirates they can have modified a mining base with cap ship engines. It'll be slow as a snail but it can move from system to system making it harder to find.

The kirathi had a fighter that was cut out of an asteroid. It was slow, manuvuered like a pregnant whale but it's hull was that of a 'roid so it was almost as good as their cloaking ship.

[zeo1234]

I was thinking more along the lines of a mystery base where we could get some extra missions from, something that could be docked with but only becomes available when a special story arc is triggered, but maybe we can say it is an extension of the fighter-riod thing just bigger?

As for the pirates guild, z30 said in the other parallel universe topic that it will be worked on after the militia guild.