Privateer Universe

[PaulB]

I'm confused.
Some of the post I've read mention Privateer Parallel Universe and WCU.
I get the impression they are/were seperate projects that are/were trying to merge into one bigger project.
I've read that PPU was an expanded PPG or Privateer Remake.

Is/Was there ever a completed (or usable) PPU or WCU or PPU++ for Windows ???
if so why isn't it available someplace for download?
I've seen a couple of post links to Rapidshare and mega.co.nz but those are not useful unless you pay for a subscription. They both have download limits unless you subscribe.

I like PPG but I sure like to try one of these others (if they are >= quality) and relatively bug free (compared to PPG).

Paul

[ermo]

I understand your confusion.


As I understand it, the timeline of the various versions looks like this:

* Privateer Remake (PR) -- newest release is v1.2, which is from 2005.

* Wing Commander Universe (WCU) -- newest release is v0.2a, which is from 2005. WCU re-uses and expands on Privateer Remake and makes the wider Wing Commander Universe star systems and ships available. WCU is described as being "A Privateer style game with Wing Commander ships, set in the Wing Commander Universe. The year is 2669, you have complete freedom to do what YOU want. choose your own destiny as either a male/female human, Kilrathi or firekkan as you travel the universe."

A slightly different take on the goals and features of WCU is available on the dedicated WCU site.


Privateer Remake suffered a reportedly acrimonious split into two forks:

* Privateer Gemini Gold (GG) -- newest release is v1.03, which is from December 2009 (various patches are floating around). Attempts to be a faithful recreation of the original Privateer. The Privateer Remake purist's choice if you will.

* Privateer: Parallel Universe (PPU) -- chuck_starchaser's spiritual successor to PR, which adds more ships from WCU while adding features that are not found in GG (turret AI, new quests, flyable draymans/confederate fighters/stillettos, updated ship variants, among others). Does not include the expanded WCU star systems.

PPU was hosted on a forum with an associated version control repository hosting both the source code and the playable binaries which is unfortunately no longer available. As such, the last available copy of PPU is the one hosted on the download sites you mention. These copies run on Windows. These copies also unfortunately use an outdated version of the VegaStrike Windows binaries.

In the Frankenstein's Monster is Alive! thread, travists attempted to create an updated hybrid of PPU and WCU. I believe he originally attempted to make (parts of) WCU run on GG as well.

With inspiration from travists' work, I took the latest version of PPU, ripped out the outdated Windows stuff and (among other things) updated it to run with the newest (Linux) version of the VegaStrike engine. Since travist's intention was to revive Wing Commander Universe, I named my PPU rework Privateer: Wing Commander Universe (PWCU). The goal was to eventually re-use as much of the WCU content as would make sense, as it would be a shame to see it just sit and suffer from bit rot.

At present, I have not integrated the wider WCU content in my PWCU project. Therefore PWCU is currently roughly equivalent to the old PPU and possibly slightly more playable -- at least it was when last I played it. IIRC I was doing the Black Rhombus mission in the Oxford system and was having my ass handed to me by a very well armored Galaxy. One of the things I put particular emphasis on reworking was the IMHO broken automatic ship upgrade system, which now no longer makes opponent ships use completely improbable upgrades. We're talking a level_5 reactor + level_5 shield generator + 3 heavy guns on a light ship which should at most support a level_1 reactor + shield generator + light gun upgrades. Prior to this rework, the upgrade system was in my experience thus making opponent ships effectively impossible to kill unless one used the dev ship.

Currently, PWCU does not run on Windows. I have so far failed to successfully build the requisite VegaStrike and Python binaries and the binaries supplied by the VegaStrike project do not run my PWCU code. I sort of ran out of motivation to investigate this any further, as I could play just fine on Linux.

I hope that at least clears things up a little?

[PaulB]

One of the things I put particular emphasis on reworking was the IMHO broken automatic ship upgrade system, which now no longer makes opponent ships use completely improbable upgrades. We're talking a level_5 reactor + level_5 shield generator + 3 heavy guns on a light ship which should at most support a level_1 reactor + shield generator + light gun upgrades. Prior to this rework, the upgrade system was in my experience thus making opponent ships effectively impossible to kill unless one used the dev ship.

Awww, don't say that man
I've modded my version of PPG.
Galaxy.begin has the level 5 reactor and shields PLUS I edited the level 5 reactor and shield to make them even more powerful.
And I have 2 "edited" fast firing, low power tachyon cannons plus 2 "edited" faster firing, lower power Plasma cannons plus 2 FF missile launchers with 20 missiles each plus 2 IR missile launchers with 20 missiles each plus 1 Torpedo launcher with 20 Torpedos. and a ship speed of 600/1400.
And my Centurion.begin also has the same guns and IR launchers but I can't only get the 2 FF missile launchers to let me buy 10 FF missiles each. I don't know why I can buy 20ea for the Galaxy and only 10ea for the Centurion. Oh, and the ship speed of the Centurion is 700/1700.

I got tired of being wiped out in any ship to ship combat I had with the original game configurations. LOL
I'm a 62 year old guy wiht bad eyesight and reflexes and I needed an edge - LOL.
And you can Buy these additions (more or less). They are not saved game mods. I had to do some mods in computer_lib.py and weapon_lib.py (I think it is) to try and get more of the red block mounts to show up when buying the weapons. I got 8 mount blocks to work for the galaxy and had to edit a copy of the JPG that it pulls the mount number images from. I couldn't quite get the Centurion to work as well with the Mounts block numbers - not sure why.
This is my 1st experience with python and it's been 15 or 20 years since I last did any real programming so I think I've done pretty well considering. It's been fun AND frustrating.

I had been doing 3D modelling in Active Worlds which uses Renderware models (and you can also use truespace .cob files). But I'm not doing that anymore since the economy crashed and I also lost my cable internet access.

I sure hope you/y'all and get a good expanded Privateer game going.

BTW, maybe you or someone else here can help me with a problem (this is from a same post on the Privateer Comlink forum):
Sometime back I posted about needing to edit the colors of the Quine computer because of my eyesight.
Well I got that all to my liking editing computer_lib.py.

Now I need to edit the color or brightness of the text of the mission displays on the Merchant Guild computer.
The dark green is hard for me to see. I haven't been able to find which file (if any of the .py files) I need to edit. I suppose it could be built into the other game modules or something or maybe it also is part of the computer_lib.py and I just can't figure out where n the file it is.
It didn't seek to me that the mercenary_guild.py had much to do with it but then I couldn't really make heads or tails of it.

Does anyone know?

Paul

[PaulB]

I understand your confusion.


As I understand it, the timeline of the various versions looks like this:

* Privateer Remake (PR) -- newest release is v1.2, which is from 2005.

* Wing Commander Universe (WCU) -- newest release is v0.2a, which is from 2005. WCU re-uses and expands on Privateer Remake and makes the wider Wing Commander Universe star systems and ships available. WCU is described as being "A Privateer style game with Wing Commander ships, set in the Wing Commander Universe. The year is 2669, you have complete freedom to do what YOU want. choose your own destiny as either a male/female human, Kilrathi or firekkan as you travel the universe."

A slightly different take on the goals and features of WCU is available on the dedicated WCU site.


Privateer Remake suffered a reportedly acrimonious split into two forks:

* Privateer Gemini Gold (GG) -- newest release is v1.03, which is from December 2009 (various patches are floating around). Attempts to be a faithful recreation of the original Privateer. The Privateer Remake purist's choice if you will.

* Privateer: Parallel Universe (PPU) -- chuck_starchaser's spiritual successor to PR, which adds more ships from WCU while adding features that are not found in GG (turret AI, new quests, flyable draymans/confederate fighters/stillettos, updated ship variants, among others). Does not include the expanded WCU star systems.

PPU was hosted on a forum with an associated version control repository hosting both the source code and the playable binaries which is unfortunately no longer available. As such, the last available copy of PPU is the one hosted on the download sites you mention. These copies run on Windows. These copies also unfortunately use an outdated version of the VegaStrike Windows binaries.

In the Frankenstein's Monster is Alive! thread, travists attempted to create an updated hybrid of PPU and WCU. I believe he originally attempted to make (parts of) WCU run on GG as well.

With inspiration from travists' work, I took the latest version of PPU, ripped out the outdated Windows stuff and (among other things) updated it to run with the newest (Linux) version of the VegaStrike engine. Since travist's intention was to revive Wing Commander Universe, I named my PPU rework Privateer: Wing Commander Universe (PWCU). The goal was to eventually re-use as much of the WCU content as would make sense, as it would be a shame to see it just sit and suffer from bit rot.

At present, I have not integrated the wider WCU content in my PWCU project. Therefore PWCU is currently roughly equivalent to the old PPU and possibly slightly more playable -- at least it was when last I played it. IIRC I was doing the Black Rhombus mission in the Oxford system and was having my ass handed to me by a very well armored Galaxy. One of the things I put particular emphasis on reworking was the IMHO broken automatic ship upgrade system, which now no longer makes opponent ships use completely improbable upgrades. We're talking a level_5 reactor + level_5 shield generator + 3 heavy guns on a light ship which should at most support a level_1 reactor + shield generator + light gun upgrades. Prior to this rework, the upgrade system was in my experience thus making opponent ships effectively impossible to kill unless one used the dev ship.

Currently, PWCU does not run on Windows. I have so far failed to successfully build the requisite VegaStrike and Python binaries and the binaries supplied by the VegaStrike project do not run my PWCU code. I sort of ran out of motivation to investigate this any further, as I could play just fine on Linux.

I hope that at least clears things up a little?

I think that Config for the Black Rhombus is intentional as that Galaxy Loadout is in PPG as well and in fact I used it as a guide to further enhance the stock Galaxy in my PPG units.csv with modded reactors, shields, additional guns and missile launchers and just about everything you can think of.

PaulB

[bassgoonist]

It sounds like for windows there's really nothing to speak of as far as recent stuff goes, still, is there?