Hello & suggestions!

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

The artwork is defintly excelent.

Could you try making a Centurion skin in Pirate Colours please?

[chuck_starchaser]

OT:
The Centurion was the best ship bar none in the original game, and it was mostly reserved for "bosses", like Menesche an Jones. If there's a PU campaign where you have to defeat a "pirate boss", I'd see a justification for having a "pirate Centurion"; not otherwise.
BTW, the reason in PR/PU/WCU the Centurion was overtaken by the Demon was the fact that we didn't have *per ship* armor figures, so the fact that the Cent had much better armor than the Demon hasn't been reflected in the Remake; but that's something Targ Collective is working to fix. If he succeeds, we'll have per-ship armor stats; and the Centurion's glory days will be back
/OT

[targ collective]

It will be fixed, Chuck, although not entirely as it was originally - players will have the option of putting armour of better protection over their ships even if the thicknesses were designed for other models. EG a Talon with stock Durasteel armour could use any of the upgrades for the Stiletto too, but the Stiletto would not be able to use any of the Talon's armour.

Have a little faith - it's a question of when (day after tomorrow latest now I have the figures) than if.

[Orthuberra]

Hmmm, some questions to answer...

Dilloh
-The banned weapons is another contraband choice I made up, there will be others on the way.
-Yeah the steltek armor thing is basically an idea I had for a mission where pirate you (not burrows) explores a jump point (new star system/planet maybe?) in search of a smuggling route to (insert place here) and finds some lost alien stuff. After bringing back some of the space salvage, then the pirate base allows you to buy steltek armor. At least that's how I thought it out in my mind.
-Secret compartment is what it is, I want to see if I can make it work somehow though.
-Fast Jump Drive is exactly what you thought, and I'm trying to see if I can make it work (i.e. instant jump at cost of fuel or power or something like that).

micheal
-I suppose I can make a new centurion texture for you, just not this moment.

Speaking of pirate bosses and textures, I was actually considering making a boss ship or two. They will simply be mods to normal fighter classes, but in both shape, texture, and stats. I got the idea from looking at the WC Arena ship pics w/ heavily modded Arrows & Dralthis & stuff. This will be a ways though.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

I'm not sure now. The Centurion seems to be very common, that's why i wanted i pirate skin. Pirates should not just fly talons. Did real time pirates just sail sloops (small recon ship) or Frigates (medium warships). A pirate pilots anything he can get his hands on. Maybe a Pirate Orion, Galaxy, or Tarsus?

[chuck_starchaser]

I'm not sure now. The Centurion seems to be very common, that's why i wanted i pirate skin. Pirates should not just fly talons. Did real time pirates just sail sloops (small recon ship) or Frigates (medium warships). A pirate pilots anything he can get his hands on. Maybe a Pirate Orion, Galaxy, or Tarsus?

You mean in PR/PU? I was talking in the original game, there's a very few occasions when you encounter Centurions: The "bosses" of the mercs around Palan, Garovick's ship, in Delta or Gamma, wherever it was; then in RF Menesch and Jones fly Centurions.

In the original games, pirates fly Talons, and just once a Galaxy. And there's an explanation why: Menesche was selling Talons to them.

But I wouldn't mind to see a "pirate boss" flying a Cent; what I would mind would be to see a homogenization of the Privateer Universe, whereby all ship models appear at similar spawn rates, and any faction flies any ship. It would make the univers unrealistic and BORING. There needs to be ships that are very commonly seen, and ships that are almost impossible to spot, and everything in-between; and ships that are only flown by one faction, and ships that are flown by many factions. Basic esthetic principle of having variety in the amount of variety. If you have too much variety, then you have too little variety of variety.

[Dilloh]

I agree with chuck about spawns, still I agree with Andy about pirate ships. Pirates are also known for capturing ship, robbing bases - if I was a pirate I would care the hell of a Talon and try to steal a Centurion, a ship which carries one, or raid a base with a ship dealer. Or I'd just take the 200000 credits I made with smuggling and killing, get myself a NY baseballcap, a Lacoste polo shirt, a Levis Jeans and walk into an ordinary ship dealer, looking like an ordinary guy, and get myself an ordinary Centurion.

EDIT:
Just forgot about the Jack Wolfskin boots. Please don't take my comments as advertising/spam, I'm not getting any money from textile cooperatives.

[chuck_starchaser]

That's true, but perhaps the problem with the original game was that the price of the Cent didn't reflect how good the ship was, or how infrequently you see one. I always thought it should be at least 400,000 creds.
Anyhow, pirates are organized into klans, with pecking orders; and even if you had the money to buy a Cent, you probably wouldn't "insult" your boss by flying a better ship than him, right? Or you might have the ship but use your Talon, and only take the Cent out for your off time cruising

[Zool]

You mean in PR/PU? I was talking in the original game, there's a very few occasions when you encounter Centurions: The "bosses" of the mercs around Palan, Garovick's ship, in Delta or Gamma, wherever it was; then in RF Menesch and Jones fly Centurions.

Apart from these "bosses", who else is there to fly a "pirate" centurion anyway?........no one.

But I wouldn't mind to see a "pirate boss" flying a Cent; what I would mind would be to see a homogenization of the Privateer Universe, whereby all ship models appear at similar spawn rates, and any faction flies any ship. It would make the univers unrealistic and BORING. There needs to be ships that are very commonly seen, and ships that are almost impossible to spot, and everything in-between; and ships that are only flown by one faction, and ships that are flown by many factions. Basic esthetic principle of having variety in the amount of variety. If you have too much variety, then you have too little variety of variety.

I agree with Chuck here too, I don't think it would be a wise thing to do giving all factions all ships. However (now working on Andy's side) if there was a way to severely limit it, it's not impossible that the pirates could have a few salvaged and repaired ships available to them. Surely at least in theory it's possible for them to have found a derelict every now and than that could be re-used.

Is there any way of having a special one off spawn point that spawns VERY, VERY rarely or a huge delay in spawns, that could slip the odd "non-standard" pirate vessel into Gemini. Then our wonderful new artists could do pirate versions of civilian, militia and even confed and maybe even Kilrathi ships. As long as we only saw one or two a week (in real earth time) then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Oh, and chuck, with the new ZR changes, the "cent' will be about 750,000 creds.............wait till you see the price of a GGS.

[chuck_starchaser]

Oh yes! My dream of seeing the Cent restored to king of the hill status is finally coming true! Thanks!
Yeah, with Targ's armor balancing project, the Cent should be the best civilian fighter to fly, once again; and 750,000 creds sounds exactly right to me.

It seems these changes will warrant me rolling up my sleeves and coming up with a revamped Cent model and texture... And what about a 3D cockpit? If I make one, do we know how to throw them in-game?

Sorry, what's a "GGS"?

EDIT:
WRT prices balancing, not sure how useful this info is, but besides the prices in Privateer, there's a reference in canon regarding the price of a fleet carrier in 2668:

Bonus 68: How much did it cost to build and launch one fleet carrier around 2668 without fighters?

Answer: 73,000,000+ Confederation Dollars

I guess one could graph ships by mass and do a price interpolation, for obtaining prices of like Draymans and whatnot; --though, perhaps military ships should have a x2 to x4 price multiplier...

EDIT2:

Indeed, sequestered or salvaged ships are a possibility. Spiritplumber wanted to have pirate bases that would have like pieces of capships attached to them, like for extra armor and turrets, in fact; but that was in connection to my Priv 3 project, in which there will be secret jump points to systems off the official maps, where "real" pirate bases would be based.

[Orthuberra]

You mean in PR/PU? I was talking in the original game, there's a very few occasions when you encounter Centurions: The "bosses" of the mercs around Palan, Garovick's ship, in Delta or Gamma, wherever it was; then in RF Menesch and Jones fly Centurions.

IIRC, William Riordian was a pirate and flew a Centurion in-game too, so that makes a precedent for a pirate boss Centurion. Very true about the variety of ships and their frequency too, Centurion should be uncommon. The game would get boring very fast if all ships were just random and everywhere.

[chuck_starchaser]

Riordan, very true! Good memory! So this Riordan guy used to run Brilliance from Pentonville to NC, eh? You'd need the speed of a Cent to do that, with all the militias around NC. Unless Tayla used to grease hands for him; but she can only grease Confed's hands, wasn't it? The militias are not in and still attack you, right? Too long ago; can't remember the details.

[Dilloh]

you probably wouldn't "insult" your boss by flying a better ship than him, right?

Even in the original Priv it was obvious that ship posessions don't reflect your relations with factions - you could land on a pirate base using a Galaxy, an obvious merchant ship. I don't think that ships are like cars, status symbols, else I'd get myself an Arrow or a Dralthi. Your boss should be lucky if you brought an adequate tool in, see?

Or you might have the ship but use your Talon, and only take the Cent out for your off time cruising

Another point for using a centurion or galaxy - it makes smuggling easier if you look like a merchant or hunter at first glance. But there are / seem to be transponders, so there's no need to ID a ship's faction.

Apart from these "bosses", who else is there to fly a "pirate" centurion anyway?

I could think of several guys. Ever noticed the accumulation of pirate bases in NW Gemini? Is it so far off that they could have a clan boss?

I don't think it would be a wise thing to do giving all factions all ships.

Of course not... cats fly cat ships, Hunters don't use the Talon for it is too light, Merchants fly freighters, you name it. Pirates take what they find. TrigunX once made a cool pirate centurion texture, but he only posted screenshots, no texture file, and is no longer active

Is there any way of having a special one off spawn point that spawns VERY, VERY rarely or a huge delay in spawns, that could slip the odd "non-standard" pirate vessel into Gemini. Then our wonderful new artists could do pirate versions of civilian, militia and even confed and maybe even Kilrathi ships. As long as we only saw one or two a week (in real earth time) then I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Interesting concept... I don't know yet if it is possible to define the ships being spawned, but if there's no way, we could create an extra pirate-leader-faction with strong ties to the pirates, maybe to the confeds (for being bribed regularly) and some other partners?
Man, so many ideas, so rare spare time...

It seems these changes will warrant me rolling up my sleeves and coming up with a revamped Cent model and texture... And what about a 3D cockpit? If I make one, do we know how to throw them in-game?

3D cockpits would be great! I don't know how to implement them, but it'd be the same concept like using the F9 key - you'd have to hardcode the ships to go to a camera view inside of the ship. Just to propose a way to do it.

Sorry, what's a "GGS"?

Galaxy Gunship.

WRT prices balancing, not sure how useful this info is, but besides the prices in Privateer, there's a reference in canon regarding the price of a fleet carrier in 2668

whereas Privateer refers to credits, even in the original game. You payed around 500000 credits for a good equipped centurion, so I just wonder if 146 centurions would make up a carrier. Maybe the relation between credits and confederation dollars is not correct at all.

[chuck_starchaser]

you probably wouldn't "insult" your boss by flying a better ship than him, right?

Even in the original Priv it was obvious that ship posessions don't reflect your relations with factions - you could land on a pirate base using a Galaxy, an obvious merchant ship. I don't think that ships are like cars, status symbols, else I'd get myself an Arrow or a Dralthi. Your boss should be lucky if you brought an adequate tool in, see?

Well, I was half joking there; but my point was really to find reasons NOT to give Cents to the pirates, for the reasons I satated: about too much homogenization. The Centurion was the best ship by far, in the original game; rarely seen around, and therefore a pride to own; and I dream of it being so again in the Remake/PU/WCU. I don't want to see Centurions all over the place; I want it to be something special, like owning a Lancia in North America; something very expensive that almost nobody else can afford, or is wise enough to spend the money on.

Or you might have the ship but use your Talon, and only take the Cent out for your off time cruising

Another point for using a centurion or galaxy - it makes smuggling easier if you look like a merchant or hunter at first glance. But there are / seem to be transponders, so there's no need to ID a ship's faction.

Ditto.

Apart from these "bosses", who else is there to fly a "pirate" centurion anyway?

I could think of several guys. Ever noticed the accumulation of pirate bases in NW Gemini? Is it so far off that they could have a clan boss?

But he said ***apart from*** pirate bosses...

I don't think it would be a wise thing to do giving all factions all ships.

Of course not... cats fly cat ships, Hunters don't use the Talon for it is too light, Merchants fly freighters, you name it. Pirates take what they find.

Well, Centurions are quite rare, so pirates would rarely find them.

TrigunX once made a cool pirate centurion texture, but he only posted screenshots, no texture file, and is no longer active

You like THAT ?! Red and Green... Arrgh.

It seems these changes will warrant me rolling up my sleeves and coming up with a revamped Cent model and texture... And what about a 3D cockpit? If I make one, do we know how to throw them in-game?

3D cockpits would be great! I don't know how to implement them, but it'd be the same concept like using the F9 key - you'd have to hardcode the ships to go to a camera view inside of the ship. Just to propose a way to do it.

Ah, no; there's already a standard way of putting in 3D cockpits; and they are used in Vegastrike. I was just asking in case someone here was familiar with the process, so I wouldn't have to read the wiki how-to.

WRT prices balancing, not sure how useful this info is, but besides the prices in Privateer, there's a reference in canon regarding the price of a fleet carrier in 2668

whereas Privateer refers to credits, even in the original game. You payed around 500000 credits for a good equipped centurion, so I just wonder if 146 centurions would make up a carrier. Maybe the relation between credits and confederation dollars is not correct at all.

There's no such thing as Confederation Dollars; that's a mistake; it IS credits. Anyhow, why compare a fully equipped Cent to a barebones carrier? There'd be two main areas in the costing of ships: Material and labor costs. Material amounts grow with roughly the cube of linear scalings. Labor costs grow roughly with the square of linear scalings. But material costs would be almost negligible in an era of asteroid mining. So you could take mass figures and raise them to power 2/3 to obtain relative cost figures (square the mass, then take cubic root).

[Dilloh]

Well, I was half joking there; but my point was really to find reasons NOT to give Cents to the pirates, for the reasons I satated: about too much homogenization. The Centurion was the best ship by far, in the original game; rarely seen around, and therefore a pride to own; and I dream of it being so again in the Remake/PU/WCU. I don't want to see Centurions all over the place; I want it to be something special, like owning a Lancia in North America; something very expensive that almost nobody else can afford, or is wise enough to spend the money on.

chuck, you're an oldschool guy - but I like that flavour. I agree, I always used to patrol Gemini in afterburners but when I encountered a Centurion, I turned down my engines and observed the ship as long as it was in range. It is quite easy to tune down the spawning rates for any faction, still it is not possible to prevent certain shiptypes to appear in flightgroups - so there will be no lonely Centurion riders.

But he said ***apart from*** pirate bosses...

Oops, I forgot about that. Well - virtually anybody.

You like THAT ?! Red and Green... Arrgh.

It reminds me of Pizza, and I like Pizza. No just kidding, it was a rarely seen color schematic - like the mentioned Lancia in North America. Mankind wa always very creative in creating insignia, but that doesn't necessarily include beauty. Just think about flags from some countries.

There's no such thing as Confederation Dollars; that's a mistake; it IS credits. Anyhow, why compare a fully equipped Cent to a barebones carrier? There'd be two main areas in the costing of ships: Material and labor costs. Material amounts grow with roughly the cube of linear scalings. Labor costs grow roughly with the square of linear scalings. But material costs would be almost negligible in an era of asteroid mining. So you could take mass figures and raise them to power 2/3 to obtain relative cost figures (square the mass, then take cubic root).

Okay then, so we are running into economic problems in PR/PU/WCU. 73mil credits is not enough in a game where you can earn up to 10mil with a full paradigm cargo run. It would sound reasonable with the classic Privateer, where there were no capships to fly and general mission payment was about 1/3 lower - it would take you weeks of gaming to earn 73mil.

I'd appreciate, not only for the sake of canonity, to tune down all prices and payments - unless you want to have a currency like the former italian lira after some further rebalances, after new and more expensive ships, after after after.

[chuck_starchaser]

Indeed, when I gave myself the Cutter to test it out, I was getting 30 million credit missions from the Merchants' Guild. I thought that was a bit too generous... Heck, I could buy myself the Tiger's Claw with a full complement, and Blair in it, after just a dozen runs; and with the cargo capacity of a carrier, I could then make enough money to buy the Confederation...

[Zool]

OMG That Centurion was awful, good effort on the work though.

Chuck, have no fear about ships making super huge piles of creds. I have toned way down the cargo bay sizes on the Draymans, Paradigm and Kamekh for ZR2. Now you will only be able to haul:
Drayman: was 5000 to 6000; now 1000 to 1200
DraymanCVL: was 10000; now 1250 to 1500
Paradigm: was 100 000; now 2000 to 2200
Kamekh: was 100 000; now 1500 to 2000

The second number in each set is the maximum allowable upgrade.

Oh, I have seen, on the very rare occasion, a Hunter in a Centurion, very rare indeed. Other than that it was only storyline "bosses" or characters of note who flew one.

LONG LIVE THE CENTURION

Yes, It's my fave ship too.....

[chuck_starchaser]

Hahaha; good stuff; we should start a CSS (Centurion's Status Society), and fight for a return of the Centurion's glory, or threaten to fork PU if we don't have our way (just kidding, of course).

Sounds good. The only misgiving I have is with the DraymanCVL. It seems like a classic story of feature creep: First it's a mini-carrier; then it's also a mini-destroyer, full of turrets. Additionally, it turns out, has higher hold capacity than the standard Drayman. I was talking about this with Targ at the WCU forum. My argument is that if the CVL is a mini-carrier, it neither needs, nor can fit, nor power, nor use turrets effectively:

1) Doesn't need them, because if its escorts are outnumbered/overpowered, it is toast no matter.

2) Cannot fit them because where I'll be fitting the landing/takeoff tubes is where those 4 stiped rectangles are... (and they will look like pretty big boxes already; remember the Dray isn't too big; only 80-some meters long)...



So, if we put turrets between them bays, we'll have to limit their firing cones.

3) cannot power the turrets because it would probably use more power for the sake of speed, instead, which is much more important in a (mini-) carrier.

4) cannot use turrets effectively because of friendly fire. A destroyer typically has turrets coming out of its teeth, but it goes chasing bombers and corvettes all by itself, NOT with escorts.

I think there's a need to nail down the purpose/role of the CVL and to give it only such features as it needs, and no more, and in fact to take out other features, such as cargo space, vis a vis a standard Dray, for the sake of restoring balance.
And since I'm at it, for the standard Dray, how about making it not have turrets, or maybe 1 turret, out of the factory (maybe justify it on some obscure regulation), but make it *moddable*, such that you could add turret hard points to it, which would then allow you to add turrets. This would
a) satisfy canonical concerns, (original Dray had no turrets, though I know it's moronic)
b) It would give a use to those otherwise useless and stupid looking rectangles with stripes (they'd essentlally be removable armor pieces giving access to hull hardpoints, which...)....
c) Would make for spots where either a turret mountpoint OR a prefab fighter bay can be attached, which in turn...
d) Justifies that you can either put up to 4 turrets and turn a Dray into a mini-destroyer, or put 4 bays to turn it into a mini-carrier, or something in-between.

(BTW, Targ was just asking me to make the top "warts" round, to be able to fit turrets better. I think turrets belong on hard points, and those warts don't look like hard points to me; I think hard points would attach to the hull through those (removed) striped rectangles. JMHO. And would look a lot better.)

EDIT:
Heard the argument that the DrayCVL is a mil spec ship. I beg to disagree: The hull is a civilian Drayman hull. If the idea is for it to be a military ship, there's a military (WC1) Drayman, which I could model & mod for the cvl, instead.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

...the turreted Tarsus for example (some pirates use it, the turret is very good for tractoring in).

Thought that was interesting.

Chuck, the Cent. is a ship that can be described with a four letter word starting with s and ending with t.

The Drayman
[img]http://deeplayer.com/dan_w/WCUships/Drayman/dray05.jpg
http://deeplayer.com/dan_w/WCUships/Drayman/dray05.jpg[/img]

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

...the turreted Tarsus for example (some pirates use it, the turret is very good for tractoring in).

Thought that was interesting.

Chuck, the Cent. is a ship that can be described with a four letter word starting with s and ending with t.

The Drayman

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

...the turreted Tarsus for example (some pirates use it, the turret is very good for tractoring in).

Thought that was interesting. Why not give them some Kat ships. Now either I can get Evil Govorner Mensch to start selling them other ships or i can (me big pirate boss trying to take over Gemini) just bump the amount of pirates up. If a Drayman is to have slight phase shielding the just take a few draymaen in as a talon would find it hard to destroy.

In the original games, pirates fly Talons, and just once a Galaxy. And there's an explanation why: Menesche was selling Talons to them.

Why just talons? If i can get more money from them selling better ships i would do anything.

EDIT:

Yes, I'm a Expert Mercenary. 768 posts.

[chuck_starchaser]

Why just talons?

Who said "just talons"? I said Cents should be rare to find, and so perhaps only pirate bosses use them. And if there's something I hate is having all my arguments simply ignored and being asked to repeat myself. Like the homogenization arguments. You don't agree? Then argue back; don't just ignore them. Now you want to give kat ships to the pirates. Yeah, keep mixing it all up... Hey, why couldn't the kats fly Confed ships? They could buy them through Menesch...

By the way, Menesch was selling Talons to the pirates, probably until he started selling them to the Retros also, at which point the Confeds cut him off; or else until he gets kicked out of his governor job and he can't launder money on behalf of the confeds; so he had to go to the kats to get any ships at all, and when he does so he gets cut off from the pirates market by the likes of Lynch, who've taken over his biz as middleman between pirates and Decomissionings. So menesch can *only* get kat salthis and can *only* sell them to retros.

[Dilloh]

Downshifting the DraymanCVL seems to be a good choice for me - still the ship is z30's invention and I wonder what he'd say if it was that much rebalanced or taken out. Though I personally dislike it I say, I have objections, it is rarely seen in Gemini, only as Rangrior or mission spawns, not as flightgroups at all, nearly no chance to buy it (till now ) - still I might consider finding another purpose for the current DraymanCVL design (maybe a RF rebalance?).

I remember the WC1 drayman model - it'd make more sense if the militia used a ship like that one, for they might have access to the old junkyards of the confederation and refit those models.

I fully agree in downshifting the capship-values, especially concerning cargo values. We shall see how this eventually affects fighter values, but anything is better than being able to buy the confederation after 10 minutes, though.

[targ collective]

If you're worried about trading profits, why not put a hard limit somewhere to prevent the total pay going too high? Something like [refers to recsue mission] if (creds>1,000,000) creds=1,000,000 would set a hard limit of one million credits per cargo mission, although it would be more realistic to set such a limit to the cargo you have to haul.

That would save the need to cut cargo space, and allow a proper carrier to function ingame.

[chuck_starchaser]

Or, to get a quantum leap forward in realism, progressive taxes could kill you ...