MOD: Privateer 1.2 Parallel Universe 1.0

[Dilloh]

In one game i played you have one way worm holes that like the discriptions say, let you jump one way only. You could try to impliment something like that. And make better jump points, maybe a swirling mass of matter.

I currently have to take what is already in VS, PR or WCU since I'm no coder. I've slept a night over it and now I'm proposing the following: I'd create a jump point to a new steltek system. This jumppoint is blocked by a cargo unit in the middle of it. This cargo unit has extreme strong armor and shield values. When you try to jump, you get pulled into the center of the jump point like it always happened. You therefor collide with the cargo unit and get blown up. If it is not enough, the steltek turrets on the other side of the jump point will finish you off. Later in the game, both jump points and the block are either removed automatically or you acquire a single missile with extreme phase damage to kill the block - of course you found this on a steltek archeological site. However, you can enter the system, do your missions, and afterwards, everything is gone - the steltek withdraw further from the sector.

IMHO the game doesn't need the ability to make millions of credits in one fell swoop and scooping up dralthi and flogging them for 1.4 million a piece really defeats the purpose of working for a living.

Agreed, but restricting a feature is IMO not the purpose of a mod. Of course, cargo runs offering mils of creds are destroying the game. So let's limit cargo space, lower possible shields, or the ship prices for cat ships.

I think the wingman options need to be looked at more as I won't use them as they are next to useless.

Yes, this definitively needs to be overworked. I even make use of an other "type" of wingmen, much more capable: While flying for Tayla, I really had a bad rep with anyone but cats and pirates. So I accepted a cat-cleansweep in XXN-1927 on my Brilliance-route to NewCon. Not only they kept the militia and confed patrols busy, but also on my way back, I only had one Dralthi left to kill, giving 80k creds to me! For this, wingmen should obey instantly, attack no matter what you order them to attack and be real aces.

I've been going over the posts, and while I'm totally useless at computer-intensive work, I like to think I'm a decent enough writer. At the very least, I could help spellcheck/grammarcheck scripts. If anyone needs anything typed up, just ask. It's my hobby, anyhow.

Welcome aboard... since you've already been recruited by MAS and Gosshawk, you should be quite busy now cmptch and Draken Stark might also be interested in some help for the mod website. Myself, I often need some help concerning the english language.

Also, I gotta ask, I see all this mention of a storyline and things, but I haven't spotted any of it in the actual game thus far. Has this all not been implemented, or have I just missed the download of the latest patch? No offense meant, but finding *any* download amidst the long discussion of story, etc is kind of a bother.

Currently, all major downloads can be found in the URL below in my signature - canonHUDs downloads. Future updates will most likely reappear within this thread due to matters of tradition. A website is planned to cumulate all downloads. We're standing at the very beginning concerning campaign scripting, so there's no fan campaign available yet - but it's my strong purpose to come up with at least a test campaign in canonHUDs2.0.

Is it possible to make is so that the pilots belong to their respective factions and then if you go around and "rescue" them you could then return them to a base of their faction for a reward.

I don't know if it is possible, technically. Somewhere is a script that says either "When a ship is destroyed, dump a pilot with a chance of 25%" or so. This'd need to be split up in faction-related ships. Offering a reward would mean entering a whole new function into each and every base. I can honestly and definitively tell you that this is currently far beyond of at least my possibilities.

Added to this it could also increase your rep with that faction. eg Take Merchant pilots to Speke or New Detroit

This would mean that you shoot a merchant, steal his cargo, give him back, get a reward and he'd possibly like you afterwards more than before? Would cats pay a reward for bringing back pilots who were not victorious? Would pirates or hunters, obviously only having a sense for profit in common, pay a reward for a member of their faction? I can only imagine that this'd make sense for militias, confeds or merchants, maybe retros, but that's it.

Turn them into hitchhikers you say, worth a lot less.

Agreed... the original Privateer didn't interpret ejected pilots as contraband, and you can currently make more money with selling food than with selling slaves.

As for the Kats, you could take them to Perry Naval Base to be interrogated, for a bounty of course, or create a secret base near Kilrathi territory and return them for a reward, with the appropriate rep increase/decrease.

Didn't we have a similar discussion before? I remember the idea of a space hospital offering about 1000creds for each pilot or slave you bring in - a private base stating to be social, but selling the "valuable" patients like ejected officers to the various factions - also worth a side story. This would be much easier to implement as it would only need minor changes: Create a base, a md fixer, pilot/slave/hitchhiker/passenger quantity -1, credits +1000, and you're done.

The idea is to show that the Militia has a moderately strong presence throughout Gemini, and provide you with (relatively) easy access to Militia missions.

If that wouldn't require to spawn the ships only at non-base navpoints, it might be much easier - but I don't know, maybe spawning in other systems than the players is also difficult.

Also, I just gotta say...the Fireblade? An entire mini-campaign? That thing isn't even worth the 500K as is. Maybe if it could be customized instead of being totally straightjacketted...

The Fireblade was my first try in shipdesign, and it has got its fans. I personally dislike godships like the GGS, offering capship shields and turrets like crazy. But I respect it, it is part of the Parallel Universe and part of the diversity. I decided to make the Fireblade milspec so that it cannot be pimped into a godship... and I think it is well balanced. Ever dogfighted one? Quite hard - flying one for yourself, try to hit ctrl+c and see how she cloaks. For the final release, I even took the gun damage down to 60% and I'm thinking of making it more expensive in the next release - but we shall see about that.

Anyhow, the plot with the Militia is already written? I'll take a look at the scripts, maybe make a few suggestions. I know, I know, I'm kinda getting into this late, but at the least, it can't hurt to look over the grammar, huh?

You're not that late - trust me

Still, I already enjoy what's been made in this mod, and I can't wait to see what comes next! Sounds like it's just gotten started!

I also think so - this mod has begun with new ships and rebalances, but the major progress is definitively the new campaigns. Let's all hope there'll be enough scripters around.

[Solon Halwinder]

Anyhow, the plot with the Militia is already written? I'll take a look at the scripts, maybe make a few suggestions. I know, I know, I'm kinda getting into this late, but at the least, it can't hurt to look over the grammar, huh?!

I'd appreciate it. There were a few parts I couldn't figure out how to write. If you haven't read the while thread yet, I posted my completed script on Page 34.

[Night10194]

Alright, about the Militia Script draft. First, the good.

The actual writing is heads and tails above the stuff from the PR bonus campaign, which is good. Burrows doesn't sound nearly as stupid, the grammar and spelling are much better, and his contact actually sounds like an interesting and oddly sympathetic character. Going from their conversations, it definitely sounds like Tamai is an ex privateer himself, considering how understanding he is of Burrows' rather mercenary attitude.

Next, the criticism.

One thing actually stems from the above. I realize this is a five mission mini-campaign, but I'd have liked to have heard a bit more of Tamai's background during the pre/post-mission banter, mostly because I'm curious about the guy. I know Priv isn't the best place for detailed backstories, but he could certainly be interesting. Actually, that's my main complaint about the script. It explains well why the Hunters want to stop all this, and considering that, I would think the Militia would be a bit more suspicious of our favorite badass mercenary privateer. Still, I'm guessing this is more of a 'test' campaign, and things like deeper plot will mostly come later. For all we know, this could just be the opening missions that unlock the Militia ships prior to a larger storyline, at this point.

Overall, I'm *really* glad to see it's better than the Bonus Campaign. I mean no offense to the programmers of said campaign, but the writing in that thing is just...horrible. If I heard Soren talk about 'informing himself I completed my mission (insert unflattering adjective here)' one more time, I swear I was going to hit Ctrl-D. :p

As for my own writing, if you'd like, based on what I have, I could post a sample of, say, what I might do with these Templar or Corsairs. Nothing that's actually intended to go into the game yet, since it'd likely be somewhat inaccurate about the factions, but just something quick so you can see if you think my writing style is alright.

Oh, also, suggestions on the 'fill in later' parts.

Mission 2 Failed: Tamai: "I'm not sure which is more disappointing, Burrows. Your failure to protect our new gunship, or its failure to protect itself." Burrows: "That thing manuevered like a flying cow. They were all over it, and it was nothing but target practice for them. What could I do?" Tamai: "Design flaws or no, you were contracted to protect it. Its safety was *your* responsibility, and you failed. Besides, this was just a prototype of a vessel *designed* to be used in *convoy*, not take on swarms of pirates alone. All those man-hours of research and credits down the drain...Get out of here. I need to think of how to explain this debacle to the Merchants." Burrows: "Right, right. Damnitall..." Do you think it makes Tamai sound too harsh? I mean, it would be a significant mission failure...

I'll have other suggestions up soon.

[Zool]

@ Dilloh

I've got canonhuds 1.4 running on a clean install of of PR/PU, and am still getting the invisible Orion variants. Now, someone mentioned once before a possibility of the problem being in the length of the filename (ie more than 8 characters plus the extension), actually I think it might have been you, and obviously I have noticed that the orion filenames are 9 chrs long.

1) Was there any confirmation of this as the problem?

2) Do you think it would fix the invisible ship problem if the Orion Mk2h and Orion Mk2b were renamed, along with all their references in the other files/folders, with different, possibly shorter names?

3) I was thinking of trying this myself, however, before I do and risk having to completely reinstall and restart my game yet again, is it as simple as adjusting the ship name in the units.csv, master_part_list and the ship folder or are there other references in other files as well that would need to be changed. If so, what other than the ones I have mentioned would need to be changed?

Thanks.

[Solon Halwinder]

@Night:

I like what you did for the Mission 2 Failed. If you could do up "Failed" dialogs for the other missions too (including the first, I think mine's kinda lame) I'd appreciate it.

As to Tamai's character, maybe we could do a little more with him in another short campaign. My idea when I wrote the script was for him to be an ex-privateer who signed on with the Militia for the pay, and decided to stay on. Maybe do the next campaign having Burrows help him dodge some enemies he made as a privateer?

[Dilloh]

I realize this is a five mission mini-campaign

Nobody has yet any experiences with mission scripting. I'd recommend to start off with those five missions until someone comes up with a reasonable storyline for the prologue. Believe me, scripting a single mission is hard enough if you have no idea about Python.

Overall, I'm *really* glad to see it's better than the Bonus Campaign.

I had this discussion with chuck already - although the campaign is technically impressive, it is really far off and out of place. But it is a campaign, and I appreciate any kind of mission which is not stock.

I've got canonhuds 1.4 running on a clean install of of PR/PU, and am still getting the invisible Orion variants. Now, someone mentioned once before a possibility of the problem being in the length of the filename (ie more than 8 characters plus the extension), actually I think it might have been you, and obviously I have noticed that the orion filenames are 9 chrs long.

1) Was there any confirmation of this as the problem?

Confirmed. There were still problems I had no clue about yet. The chars were indeed a problem, but it is no problem to have more than 8 chars if the first 8 chars are unique in the game. My newest theory is that z30 took the orion variant bfxms or pngs from wcu - those might be slightly different and not fit with pr. I'll test that and if I'm right, it'll be fixed with canonHUDs2.0. If the bug is too annoying, you can take the mk2H out of the flightgroups in faction_ships.py.

2) Do you think it would fix the invisible ship problem if the Orion Mk2h and Orion Mk2b were renamed, along with all their references in the other files/folders, with different, possibly shorter names?

I already accumulated my 8char-idea in an earlier patch - the original PU had a much more severe visualization problem with all those variants. I'm just curious why it doesn't happen always by now. You can try to rename everything and if you succeed, feel free to post a hotfix. I can also help out with a batch if files need to be renamed. I will incoop it into canonHUDs2.0 - but as I said, I don't think this will fix the problem.

3) I was thinking of trying this myself, however, before I do and risk having to completely reinstall and restart my game yet again, is it as simple as adjusting the ship name in the units.csv, master_part_list and the ship folder or are there other references in other files as well that would need to be changed. If so, what other than the ones I have mentioned would need to be changed?

There are only references to the folder, the bfxm file(s) and the graphic files. I'd say the difficulty is "medium" and you just need to hack units.csv - simply make a backup of it and write down the original file names if you need to rename something.

[Solon Halwinder]

I had this discussion with chuck already - although the campaign is technically impressive, it is really far off and out of place. But it is a campaign, and I appreciate any kind of mission which is not stock.

How do you mean it's out of place? I thought I did pretty well fitting it into the PR universe.

[Dilloh]

Space communists are rather strange, don't you think? 700 years after all those regimes came to an end, one might think that mankind has learned enough about that topic.

[Night10194]

It's true that campaigns are very difficult, and I'll also admit I likely underestimate their difficulty since I've little knowledge of the actual computer side of things. I'll try not to get over-ambitious. Anyhow, I'll work up new 'failure' dialogues for each of the five missions and post them as soon as possible.

And while the space communists are kinda silly (even if they have awesome theme music!), the thing that jars me most about the Bonus Campaign is that they come totally out of left field, not that they exist. I mean, one second you're running drugs for a poorly-spoken, faceless bad guy, the next you've got some guys with awfully done Russian accents telling you to surrender to the great Soviet U...er, AWACS. I mean, did anyone else see that coming?

Thanks for letting me help out, guys. I'll do my best.

[Shissui]

Misquoting --

. . . space communists . . . come totally out of {the} left

It is only your narrow minded capitalist perspective that considers a space communist to be LEFT. Space communists are always RIGHT !! (Just ask one.)

[Night10194]

Man, I didn't even mean to make that pun! Awesome!

[Solon Halwinder]

Space communists are rather strange, don't you think? 700 years after all those regimes came to an end, one might think that mankind has learned enough about that topic.

Oh, you're talking about the bonus campaign that's already there. I thought you meant my Militia Guild missions. Duh.

Yes, I will agree that Space Communistsâ„¢ are a pretty odd concept. Maybe we could rework that branch of the campaign to be one of the other factions z30 suggested implementing before he disappeared again.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Could replace the AWACS with one of the off-shoot Retro groups.

[Dilloh]

Instead of communists, I'd appreciate a lesser radical group of socialists. The AWACS seem to have the companies and their corruptiveness, but they're also showing their attitude by means of violence. But I'd rather keep my hands of the bonus campaign, since we had to rewrite half of the story if we put in a new faction for that.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Hmmm, I think it is worth it. I was playing through for the Walkthrough and the AWACS just drop in and it does not make much sense.

[Dilloh]

You'd have to change an awful lot of stuff for that - the music wouldn't fit any more, the USSR base pictures, the AWACS communication files, and the whole story - who wants to do that? There's enough to do with the other campaigns, I see no good reason to do so much work for that few changes.

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Yeah true. Just Make a new one instead.

[zeo1234]

Something like that - maybe even better. I remember when I played the original, I nearly got panic (okay, I was about 12yo or so) and had to afterburn all my way, no autopilot was possible unless some cats made the drone busy. Talons were a matter of 10 seconds for the drone. I want to bring back this feeling.

That would be cool, though back when I played the original I only ever had problem outrunning it in the Orion.

So you could just give its weapons more range so you have to get further away before you're safe.

But why? Tractoring in the drone was quite easy, I virtually took any damage. Make this a real challenge, for it can be considered as some sort of bug.

Because if you make the Drone deadly then the slow and clunky Drayman will be taking lots of damage before the Drone gets within tractor range. And forget it if you are pointing in the wrong direction and the Drone is blitz kreging you like a Demon on steroids.

Maybe to the place where the Steltek have retreated to. The player can land there, take a look around, come into contact with the Steltek. Else, there could be an entry to the Privateer 2 Tri-Star-systems. But I favour entering steltek space.

Yup, and the more alien the better.

What about stationary turrets near the jump points? Even friendly Steltek, like the Scout you met before? I think the player should discover a little empire with peaceful Steltek, flying around and first talking before shooting, like the Scout did.

Sure, sounds cool.

Some sort of light ship - okay. One gun mount, maybe something like a slightly better escape pod.

I mean the fighter ship like the one we stole the Steltek gun off of. I know I'm not the only one who wanted to fly that thing.

You mean that the cargo is stored in a dimension rift, like the Suliban do in Star Trek - Enterprise? I always thought this was a strange concept, but we could make use of it.

Dimensional compression is basically turning a 3D object into a 2D object by compressing it's dimensions. If you ever watched the movie Ultraviolet, it's how the main character stored her weapons, also how that kid was stored in the suitcase. Essentially dimensional manipulation so you can do things like make the inside bigger than the outside sort of thing.

But a dimensional rift works just as well.

That's great, but as long as you can tractor in the drone, you'll always have a better ship. So I could rebalance the drone as well as the Scout - lowering warp capacity to minimum, Scouts maneuverability and speed really low, and of course no cargo capacity.

Except the point is not just a better ship, it's a different ship and something to add to the collection that would be unique.

I'll search in units.csv if there's already some sort of super-jumpdrive, combined with adequates jump lines.

It can look like a normal jump point if it's too much trouble, the destination just won't be on the map. That or it can be a serious of jump points.

[Dilloh]

So you could just give its weapons more range so you have to get further away before you're safe.

That among other things, maybe raising the range energy loss to tickle your nerves.

Because if you make the Drone deadly then the slow and clunky Drayman will be taking lots of damage before the Drone gets within tractor range. And forget it if you are pointing in the wrong direction and the Drone is blitz kreging you like a Demon on steroids.

With autotracking it still is no problem. I see several ways to solve that:
- Give the drone a mass of >5000 (makes it intractorable)
- Improve the drones KI so that it will never fly straight
- Remove autotracking capability for the Drayman
- Reduce Draymans cargo hold, as there were wishes before

I mean the fighter ship like the one we stole the Steltek gun off of. I know I'm not the only one who wanted to fly that thing.

I don't know if anybody already designed it - I have absolutely no idea of Wings3D and the other software to create the thing.

Except the point is not just a better ship, it's a different ship and something to add to the collection that would be unique.

Okay, but the feelings divert here - Some want more and more godships, others want the Steltek ships not to be acquirable. But I favour diversity since you can hack yourself any ships and I see no reason to rip out features like they did with the cloaking device. If anybody wants to have a 100% balanced game, he'd better choose Gemini Gold.

It can look like a normal jump point if it's too much trouble, the destination just won't be on the map. That or it can be a serious of jump points.

The problem is to tell units.csv why the one jump drive can use the jump point and the other not. But as I said, turrets are a solution, maybe giving a special ship capable of doing more than seven jumps combined with a jump distance of 10, we shall see...

[zeo1234]

That among other things, maybe raising the range energy loss to tickle your nerves.

Or increase the phase damage so shields would be of little help?

With autotracking it still is no problem. I see several ways to solve that:
- Give the drone a mass of >5000 (makes it intractorable)
- Improve the drones KI so that it will never fly straight
- Remove autotracking capability for the Drayman
- Reduce Draymans cargo hold, as there were wishes before

But making the Drone mass too high would increase it's intertia and reduce its maneuverability.

And removing autotracking would be a bad idea considering how hard it is to maneuver a Drayman already.

So I'd say either go with the KI improvement or Reduce the Drayman's cargo hold capacity.

I don't know if anybody already designed it - I have absolutely no idea of Wings3D and the other software to create the thing.

After all these years I'm sure someone designed it, or something similar. The question is if they even know we're looking for it?

Okay, but the feelings divert here - Some want more and more godships, others want the Steltek ships not to be acquirable. But I favour diversity since you can hack yourself any ships and I see no reason to rip out features like they did with the cloaking device. If anybody wants to have a 100% balanced game, he'd better choose Gemini Gold.

I favor diversity too, though like this suggested scenario I see no problem with having to work to get those ships first. An entire campaign to get one ship is perfectly fine with me.

The problem is to tell units.csv why the one jump drive can use the jump point and the other not. But as I said, turrets are a solution, maybe giving a special ship capable of doing more than seven jumps combined with a jump distance of 10, we shall see...

Couldn't you borrow a situational trigger like having the artifact in your possession when you go there?

Maybe even something similar to the Steltek Gun trigger for RF. Could make the jump automatic by just going to the jump point with the device on your ship?

Then the jump point can be left as normal.

[Dilloh]

Or increase the phase damage so shields would be of little help?

Also reasonable.

But making the Drone mass too high would increase it's intertia and reduce its maneuverability.

But you could increase its governour turning capability once again to fill the gap.

And removing autotracking would be a bad idea considering how hard it is to maneuver a Drayman already.

Who cares for the Drayman? You only need it to tractor in the Steltek ships. You get a Paradigm afterwards and the DraymanCVL might be for sale soon, as well as the Kamekh in a side campaign. Those can keep their autotracking capability. Another idea would be: Take away Draymans Special mount capability, create a special tractor beam only mountable on light weapon slots and make this one much slower and half range. Call it Drayman tractor beam, something like that.

go with the KI improvement

Currently, I don't know how. I'm taking my first steps in Python, with unclear outcome.

Reduce the Drayman's cargo hold capacity.

Still one of my favourites... Would also solve the problem with making million of credits in one run.

After all these years I'm sure someone designed it, or something similar. The question is if they even know we're looking for it?

If it exists, it surely is situated in a WCU shippack somewhere. I have one about 3 months old and gonna look it up.

I favor diversity too, though like this suggested scenario I see no problem with having to work to get those ships first. An entire campaign to get one ship is perfectly fine with me.

Exactly my feelings, mate.

Couldn't you borrow a situational trigger like having the artifact in your possession when you go there?

I don't think so... Has anybody ever tried to reach Delta Prime before Taryn Cross sends you there? I think the base exists, but maybe not yet the gun. I checked out Gaea, and it exists right from the beginning. This is an inevitable fact. But you can talk to the Faithful, this is what can be defined in the base python script. There we go... I think I can take away objects, but not create them with a trigger. And jump points are special themselves. Of course, a trigger would be fantastic.

Maybe even something similar to the Steltek Gun trigger for RF. Could make the jump automatic by just going to the jump point with the device on your ship?

That could be a solution - Remember the Steltek scout? Jumping out without even touching the jump point? Worth a try definetively.

Then the jump point can be left as normal.

No, but we could make a one-way-jumppoint back. If you ever took a look at .system-files, you see that jump points are defined with their destination. The similar declaration in the other files creates a 2-way-jumproute. Example: troy.system says you can jump to regallis.system and the other way around. Delete regallis to troy direction, and you can jump to troy, but not back.

[Dilloh]

- Double Post -

[Dilloh]

UPDATE:
I just noticed that canonHUDs1.4 uses an obsolete units.csv. This only affects the fireblade giving it Demon specs. Those who use canonHUDs1.4 please make use of the attached units.csv

I know this one thrawts Zools Orion Fix, but if its beta is successful it'll be in canonHUDs2.0.

Sorry guys.

- Attachment moved to the official download page. -

[micheal_andreas_stahl]

Couldn't you borrow a situational trigger like having the artifact in your possession when you go there?

I don't think so... Has anybody ever tried to reach Delta Prime before Taryn Cross sends you there? I think the base exists, but maybe not yet the gun.

Yeah i have. I make a point of going out there before i start the campaign. The base was never there before.

[Dilloh]

Yeah i have. I make a point of going out there before i start the campaign. The base was never there before.

There we have our trigger! I'll try to remember that when we'll be starting to script the steltek campaign.