joy!

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not joystick, though i am certain I may have some questions on that later. I am positively THRILLED to see this in the works! My DOS box apparently ate it while it was sitting on the shelf and wont even post anymore regardless of what I do to it (this saddens me greatly, as it was a machine totally dedicated to Privateer) I have been fiddling with other options to get it to run in XP recently as a burning urge to play priv again haunts my every thought. I am presently at work (searching for ways to make priv run in windows aside from dosbox) and I have ALWAYS wanted a 3d/updated make of the game, I dont really care if content is added, i just wanted an updated version of the original so i could stack patrol missions on top of each other endlessly until im a trillionare again =D. Since it appears that content/difficulty tweaks are being added I am even happier, I would kave sold my first born to a hungry kilrathi for this long long ago, I am DL as soon as I get home. THANK YOU.

If there is a way to give donations to the project or some other way I can assist in its production, please let me know.
 
I registered with name Rushifell and it just dosent seem to want to let me log in for my post, regardless of forum issues, I am thrilled to see this in the works.
 
That's great to hear :) I had the same wishes as you to see an updated version and that's exactly why this project was born. All of us working on it have that desire, we make this so we can play it!

There are always things to be done. Some things are more complicated or involved than others, but one thing that is always incredibly helpful is to have people test it out and give feedback on balance issues. One personal mission I have set for myself is finding out what it would take to make someone want to fly the Orion, and how I can make changes while leaving disadvantages in place. Balance is tricky, so the more comments we get on it, the better. Thus, try it out! Let us know how it goes.

Once you get it, have a look at the game files. If you have a way to contribute content of some sort, let us know. We can discuss how things work and get you going if that is what you want.

At any rate, welcome! I hope it lives up to your expectations. (or comes really close ;) )
 
I can think of one thing offhand that kills the orion, granted it has great shields and armor, but aside from that, its a piece of junk, I bought one once to toy with.. and never repeated that mistake. I did always find it amusing that the graphic for the missile launcher on it was double barrelled, the ship is designed to be a tank, slow but able to take a series of severe blows. I would either change the rate at which it turns, reduce afterburner cost/sec, or give it the ability to essentially "strafe" essentially allowing you to maneuver the ship in a way that allows you to use the main guns in a manner similar to a turret. It might not fix the orion but it might add some interesting bits of strategy to the gameplay when using one, rather than just going in for a slugfest, its built like a tank, make it perform like one.
I am personally a big fan of 4 tachyon and a centurion, give me a load of missiles and I will take out any number of ships you throw at me with ease (one thing I am glad to hear about is difficulty tweak)
Perhaps give the orion a storage bonus for Torpedos ONLY, if you elect to use missiles you can still only have 10, but with torps you can carry, maybe 30 or 50. Torps are very powerful but not always easy to use or practical in every situation, very similar to a real tank. This would make them formidable in the hands of an enemy hunter, as at present theyre sitting ducks that take a long time to kill.
Just a few suggestions in giving it some desireable qualities.
increased maneuverability, not directional velocity.
increased torpedo capacity
make it not look like an old boot (i know it would change the original game a bit, but c'mon, the thing is atrocious)
maybe decreased afterburner cost/sec @ cost of afterburner not giving quite same speed boost (say 50kps slower, but does not have as great of an affect on gun use as it does in other ships when afterburning and firing simultaneously)
just a few things i can recall off the top of my head that might give it SOME reason to be used, I did everything in cenrurion, I never had need of any other ship for any reason. I toyed with galaxy for a bit and I actually liked a few things on it and could dogfight reasonably well with it against 1-3 opponents (talon, cats wiped the floor with my cargo), but nothing like centurion where you can take on 5 cats and come out totally unscathed.
 
to elaborate, I am not sure what capability is available with the engine, but if it is possible to separate directional thrust with maneuvering thrust, IE main engine cuts out and you to continue to drift in whatever direction you were heading but gain the ability to turn very quickly while remaining on the same flight path with main engine cut to 0, until you turn main engines back on/afterburner. It would make piloting it be a bit more advanced than just flying and turning/rolling as previously. This would enable you to burn in a direction, cut your engines and drift, then turn and face sideways, up,down whereever, and continue to drift until main engine is back on, which then begins to propel you in the direction you are facing. I do not know what level of physics is presently available in the current engine and if this is possible/practical, but even a laser with an engine can be an irritating problem given superior control over its range of motion.
 
That would be easily doable. Vegastrike is driven by Newtonian Physics: we give the ships ridiculous thrust and limit their speed artificially to simulate the privateer feel. Implementing sliding well, in such a way that it fit into the game could be problematic, but it is possible.

Higher torpedo count sounds interesting.

Afterburners use energy at the same rate in all ships in the remake. However since the Orion has more momentum and takes longer to accelerate, this has the effect of draining more energy to get up to speed. Inertia (mass really) could be lowered some.

A Galaxy should be a lot more useful now that turrets can fire on their own. This will help the orion as well, but not as much (and no more than it helps the Centurion. Again, why use an Orion? ugh) Origin did a good job of making it unwanted lol.
 
heh only thing i ever use turret for before was tractor anyway, i put guns on it because i could, not because i used them, lol.
Orion would be a heavy sucker to there would be more mass to accelerate and I see your point on the afterburners, so let me revise it, *sustained* use of afterburners gets a reduced cost when moving in whatever direction you are facing, inital use should be the same as any other or slightly greater than that of the other ships, and once the inital kick is over with the cost is reduced permitting guns to be used more freely with orion while on AB vs other ships.
If you have ever seen B5 and know what a White Star is, I am talking mobility similar to that, without the obnoxiously high speed and total disregard for physics that those ships display, lol.
Torpedoes are very powerful and fun to mess with, but compared to FF or HS missiles, pretty much worthless due to how they must be used and ammo supply, remove supply issues and they may become more practical.
 
If you want to help out some...there's also checking our our mother project, Vega Strike at http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/

This remake uses that engine--and the people developing the engine (myself included) would be happy to accept donations for the Vega Strike engine using the donate button there, or even give you CD's if you want to buy them.

Privateer Remake is naturally strictly nonprofit charity work :-) for everyone here to enjoy. 009 will require a lot of testing--and its release is imminent... pending 2 pieces of art and 1 or 2 code fixes that I'm working on at the moment.
If you can model that's another thing you can help us with.
 
what would be ideal would be having the cockpit being a turret itself with separate controls for controlling the ship and the direction he cockpit is facing with the cockpit having a full 3/4 sphere range of motion, so it could look down, backward under the main engines, upward in front of the, to both sides and forward, but that would require a LOT more work than just tweaking some thrust settings and really does not fit in with the rest of the ships in the game, it would be awesome to see though/
 
thanks for the info on vegastrike. I am not able to model unfortunately but I am willing to ocassionally sit down and meticulously tweak settings until they feel right, etc.

I have to download this game before I make too many other suggestions atm, the orion is just such a piece of junk anything I could come up with would be improvement so I posted some ideas :p
 
Rushifell said:
what would be ideal would be having the cockpit being a turret itself with separate controls for controlling the ship and the direction he cockpit is facing with the cockpit having a full 3/4 sphere range of motion
Click to expand...
The Orion does have those hinges at both ends of the neck.. Not sure how it would work but interesting idea. Taking the b-wing one step further.
hellcatv said:
009 will require a lot of testing--and its release is imminent... pending 2 pieces of art
Click to expand...
I've been getting the impression you'd like to see that scout ;)
 
OK (sorry if i sound picky or if i say something that does not come across properly, i mean to be constructive, I was hoping for a slightly mroe direct remake, its good but not quite what i was hoping for :( )
played with it for a bit and it looks like a nice start and it holds to the priv feel fairly well but there a few things i seriously dont care for personally:
1. targeting:
why on gods green earth am i targeting helen base from jump to war, having to cycle throught every target to find my enemy is getting me killed and fast, "e" used to switch to nearest hostile, it does not appear to work this way now, I shouldnt be able to target them unless im at or very near the nav, I miss the sector map system horribly
2. missiles arent so great, but that something I can probably get used to. flight controls are decent. they seemed to collide with each other FREQUENTLY as they were launched, or maybe i shot them down, not really sure, lol.
3. the shop, the new in game shop shell is decent but i seriously preferred it the old way, but thats just me. A lot of it is simply adjustment to a new system.
where are my guns O.o?? nothing to buy! I want my tachyons!

I like the new mission system, provides significantly higher number of missions for selection and is easy to use, however ive never seen a patrol for troy once, and dozens for other systems.
Combat was fine in respect to weapon usage/damage, when the missiles didnt explode upon launch they packed a fair punch.
I had some issues with taking damage for no apparent reason when fighting against some drayman (who likes voyager -.-) I know they have meson blasters.. but i never saw nor heard shots and my shields were getting pounded.
it looks great.
I am not sure of the opening "video" was included but it never played, but i think it tried to
docking was so much simpler before >< but not too terrible once i figured out what in the world was going on.


For reference:
Ati9800 PRO 128
AMD thoroughbred 2100+@2100MHz 200FSB
512 Corsair 2-3-3-6 @200MHZ
Epox 8rda+ Nforce 2
XP Pro
Saitek X45
 
4 words: RTFM

1) the targetting system has greater flexiblity than you might imagine:
h to switch between hostile u to switch between units... e to turn on examine mode... n to switch between nav points...t switches between all targets

2) you shot them down... the AI stops firing its guns a bit after firing missiles--you must too..it's a disadvantage to pumping the sky full of explosives

3) different bases have different weapons--we can make it so all bases have all weapons :-) we're considering this for the next release--think it's worthwhile.?

patrol is random...sometimes for troy sometimes not--you have to adapt and take different kinds of missions... also look for cleansweep--that's like patrol but you must destroy all enemies (like the plot missions)

don't shoot down your own missiles. they cause you damage

there is no opening video... we can consider adding it at some point--it's very tricky to sync up audio and video-- especially if you don't have decent tools.

try turning difficulty to hard...then you have to dock in the docking boxes and it's more realistic.

Given that we have direct simple solutions to all of your complaints I can't take your criticisms seriously :-) it seems like you must like the game.
We're perfectly willing to listen to suggestions--but much of it is just having an open mind to some engine improvements... rather than forcing it to be exactly the way the old one was (i.e. ignoring collisions between bolts and missiles) :-)
 
I appologize for having just gone in and playing it rather than reading the manual, I assure you that this is standard procedure for me, not reading the manual and all.
I hooked the original up on DOSBox last night and played through it for a bit, the control in the new version is better as far as precision goes hands down.

I figured that missile collissions/shoot down had been added when I was able to target missiles similar to priv 2, it is going to take a LOT of adjustment for me to get used to it.
Since this is now possible, what counter measures?
Also, shields, can i still turn them off? i tried S and didnt see it actually do anything (maybe im crazy it was 5:30am anyway) But I do specifically remember it not changing the level (or perhaps not displaying that the shield level had changed) in the little shield status window.

Bases with weapons would be interesting, I dont know how much I would like it but I think that if any bases get them Perry should hands down. Perhaps make some features possible to turn off, base weapons, automatic landing etc, features that are present but must be turned on/off according to users preference/desired level of difficulty.
Base weapons are just as hazardous to me as they are to others, so it could add an interesting twist to defend base missions.
 
Unregistered said:
...Perhaps make some features possible to turn off, base weapons, automatic landing etc, features that are present but must be turned on/off according to users preference/desired level of difficulty.
Base weapons are just as hazardous to me as they are to others, so it could add an interesting twist to defend base missions.
Click to expand...

If anyone puts AUTOMATIC landing back in I'm dumping the game. I HATED THAT.

sorry. I just freaked.

I really hated getting YANKED out of a really hot dog-fight and losing FOUR missions because I "LANDED" where I took off.


Not that I was much of a fighter, but hey. . .No auto landings, PLEASE.

Wendy
 
No auto landings...I hate that too.
And I write the engine which is used in the vegastrike game and happens to be used by the privateer remake folks as well;-)

To turn down the shields we opted for 'i' and 'shift-i'
the reason for this is that s is currently bound as a camera panning key-- because it's near f,q,z the other 3 camera panning keys.
 
I think that was a pet hate for most of here Wendy, so I don't think Auto Landing will be coming back in ... at least I hope not.
 
smegging forum still wont let me log in properly ><

Its just a suggestion, it dosent really make any large difference to me if its there or not, the main point was that it might be a good idea to include options to turn on and off certain new features, nothing more.


I love how I have to log back in with every post with cookies on, remember me checked and having it not log me in at all, its awesome. ^^b
 
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