Privateer, unlikely solution!

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
In my opinion, THE most difficult mission was Oxford Library 3 where you have to defend the Drayman from two wings of Demon fighters. I was having the hardest time every time I played it, until i came up with a solution;

There was an in-system bounty mission, and a second escort mission involving Retros.

It was initially my plan to visit the other two Nav point first and have the enemy fighters chase me, but luck was on my side, they were all at the same nav point.

I slam on the afterburners to get there quickly, and a comical scene comes into view:

2 Transports, niether with much damage. Bounty Hunters and Retros fighting eachother rather then thier respective targets, and the Kilrathi Dralthi shooting everything in sight (except the transports, thankfully).

I only had to take out one of the Demon fighters, the Retros took care of the other two. Then the second wing of Demons appear and attack. They blew right through the Retros and engaged the Dralthi. I got there in time to take both out and then head back and escort BOTH transports to Oxford.

The Dralthi? I don't know, last I saw he was near crippled and high-tailed it out of there.

I swear this mission used to piss me off so bad, but that I think was the most fun I've ever had flying a Privateer mission
 
Space Point

Privateer's rare escort missions were always a pain... unless you were willing to waste a few credits on missile launchers and locking missiles. A sky full of ImRecs made them pretty painless...
 
2 Launchers loaded with ImRecs was my lifesaver throughout Priv.

This mission was a bit of a pain though, especially if you had started the plot without first getting that fully loaded Centurion. :)
 
I preferred to fly with torpedo launchers - the weapons did more damage and they were cheap as dirt... I still avoided firing them except when I had to. And that's how I became the richest Privateer on the Compuserv flight sim bulletin board in 1993.
 
I've always avoided using missiles in earlier WC games, but I did find them useful on the Hunter Toth escort mission. When I first played Privateer, I was stuck on that mission for a bit until I got used to launching missiles left, right and centre.
 
Nice story, I always loved to watch when AI ships dish it out (or when the monsters attacked themselves in DooM. Too bad that was removed).
 
Normally, I use ImRec missiles, but for that one, I loaded up on FFs, and let fly with reckless abandon. Sure, FFs don't do as much damage, but in a pinch they can serve as distractions, since even one missile tracking activates the AI's evasion routines (even with the drone, that nothing can damage until you get the Steltek gun charged up).

Personally, I thought the expense of tossing around all those missiles was worth it, even if it did take a huge chunk out of the mission payment. Besides, by that point, you should have a fair bit of cash saved up anyway. :)
 
I preferred to fly with torpedo launchers - the weapons did more damage and they were cheap as dirt... I still avoided firing them except when I had to. And that's how I became the richest Privateer on the Compuserv flight sim bulletin board in 1993.

Ah, the torpedo launcher...that was practically the first thing I bought, after getting an armor upgrade. A missile launcher didn't seem to be that helpful until you got a decent radar system. By the time I upped to the Centurion, however, I switched to the missiles.

Hmmm...I wonder which could dish out more damage in Privateer, torpedoes or dumbfires?
 
Torpedoes. Privateer is strange in that its offering of missiles to civilians had the dumb-fire as the weakest missile. Normally, the dumb-fire is the strongest because whatever space was otherwise used for targetting computers could be filled with more explosives.
 
I've been having problems recently with the first exploratory mission. It's not the pirates; it's that the pirates are in the asteroid field that causes trouble. I was using FF missiles, though; would IR missiles work better?
 
For asteroid battles, I usually wait at the edge of the field and 'drag' the enemies out into clear space. Makes the combat much easier.
 
I've been having problems recently with the first exploratory mission. It's not the pirates; it's that the pirates are in the asteroid field that causes trouble. I was using FF missiles, though; would IR missiles work better?

The two missiles do the same amount of damage, so the only advantage with the IR is that it can lock onto a specific target instead of just anything that gets near it.

My best tactic for asteroid fields is just short quick bursts of afterburners -- when the rocks speed up they often cause the enemy ships to run into them... you just have to be very careful (well, lucky) to avoid the same fate.
 
My favorite tactic for getting through asteroids is to fly an Orion with level 4 shields and level 5 engines! Seriously, nothing is getting through those shields unless I say so.
 
Torpedoes. Privateer is strange in that its offering of missiles to civilians had the dumb-fire as the weakest missile. Normally, the dumb-fire is the strongest because whatever space was otherwise used for targetting computers could be filled with more explosives.

Yeah, that is weird.

There are only two explanations that I can come up with:
1) Dumbfires are normally sold with a small amount of explosives, but the military mechanics do some work and take the explosives from one and stuff them in another; less missiles but a bigger explosion. I imagine the practice would be officially frowned upon, but effective enough that crews turn a blind eye to it. Plus their probably cheaper to buy, and better deals in bulk, then IR's, HS's, or FF's.

2) Military dumbfires were considered too powerful to be sold to civilians so the manufacturer was told to reduce the payload. Since no one would buy them at the same price (or at a slightly reduced cost) as others, they decided that making them smaller and really cheap would attract customers that weren't rich, but just looking for a small extra bit of protection. As risky as going out into space is (what with Pirates and Retros) its probably not as dangerous as the front line. Plus as you can see in Privateer civilian ships are not as tough as Confed or Kilrathi ships; so no one really needs the large punch of a military grade Dumbfire (unless they plan on attacking a Broadsword, but thats even more reason to keep the weapons under powered).

Just my conjecture.
 
The two missiles do the same amount of damage, so the only advantage with the IR is that it can lock onto a specific target instead of just anything that gets near it.

Do FF's work like this in Privateer? I could never get them to lock to a target unless LOCK was on, and they would always go for the locked target and never the nearest target.



I just use IR's all the time. Cheaper then FF's and do the same damage. Bit of an error making dumbfires and heat seekers weaker, basically made them almost pointless.
 
There are only two explanations that I can come up with:
1) Dumbfires are normally sold with a small amount of explosives, but the military mechanics do some work and take the explosives from one and stuff them in another; less missiles but a bigger explosion. I imagine the practice would be officially frowned upon, but effective enough that crews turn a blind eye to it. Plus their probably cheaper to buy, and better deals in bulk, then IR's, HS's, or FF's.

2) Military dumbfires were considered too powerful to be sold to civilians so the manufacturer was told to reduce the payload. Since no one would buy them at the same price (or at a slightly reduced cost) as others, they decided that making them smaller and really cheap would attract customers that weren't rich, but just looking for a small extra bit of protection. As risky as going out into space is (what with Pirates and Retros) its probably not as dangerous as the front line. Plus as you can see in Privateer civilian ships are not as tough as Confed or Kilrathi ships; so no one really needs the large punch of a military grade Dumbfire (unless they plan on attacking a Broadsword, but thats even more reason to keep the weapons under powered).

The first one seems unnecessarily complicated, and they both don't hold up when you consider that proton torpedoes are readily available in Privateer. The proton torps assume the role of powerful unguided dumbfires seen in other games. I think the most reasonable and obvious explanation is simply that there are all kinds of missiles that we see and don't see in the Wing Commander universe. Some are guided, some are not, some are weak, some are strong. In something like Privateer where cost and different types of launchers are factors, there's room for the mechanics of the game to include two different unguided missiles.
 
The first one seems unnecessarily complicated, and they both don't hold up when you consider that proton torpedoes are readily available in Privateer. The proton torps assume the role of powerful unguided dumbfires seen in other games. I think the most reasonable and obvious explanation is simply that there are all kinds of missiles that we see and don't see in the Wing Commander universe. Some are guided, some are not, some are weak, some are strong. In something like Privateer where cost and different types of launchers are factors, there's room for the mechanics of the game to include two different unguided missiles.

As much as i love the idea of unguided torpedos, i thought the priv ones were way too weak.
 
Back
Top