Privateer with a Tarsus

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So, here is my thread about playing through Privateer in only a Tarsus. I did it once, but I lost the savegames (well, I guess I still have them, but where?).

This time, however, I not only simply want to finish the missions: I also want to spare as many friendlies and other interesting persons as possible.

So, let's start! When I first played the game I did some transporting missions to earn my first credits, however this time, I did a lucky patrol run in Troy and managed to kit out the Tarsus - between some additional bounty hunts. First the Tungsten Armor and Afterburner, Engine Level 1, then two Meson Blasters, then a Hunter AW 6i, a Rocket Launcher, another one (all FF), upgrade the Meson Blasters to Tachyon Cannon, buy the Repair Droid, Jump Drive, ECM Level 3 - and off to Sandoval. Talked my way out of encounters with pirates as often as possible.

The Sandoval mission is straight forward. I talked my way out of some pirates and killed a few Retros. Talons can easily be defeated by releasing two FF missiles quickly after another, then finishing them off with the Tachyons.

Tayla was also not difficult, the most haunting thing are the asteroids. Talk your way out of pirate encounters, I fled Militia as I didn't want to kill them. A good tactic is to use Afterburner and when flying with keyboard, tapping in "a circle" - left, down, right, up and repeat. Wait about 1-2 seconds between each tap, so your Tarsus fully flies in the new direction. Look for the small pebbles moving past. It should be about an inch of deviation on your screen relative to the destination (about 1/5th of the front screen in your Tarsus). That way I also fled Riordian - didn't want to kill him, as I didn't also want to steal his job: I just want the info.

The first Lynch mission is incredibly easy: jump to Seelig, talk to him, jump back when he turns hostile. No need to fire a single shot.
The second Lynch mission is more difficult: Kroiz can be evaded when you enter Rikel via 44-P-1M. Immediately after entering, lock on to Kroiz to be able to talk to him. When he's talking, open the Nav Map and select Nav Point 2 (Jump to Midgard). Continue talking to Kroiz until he turns hostile, then boost using the technique described above towards Nav 2. Use "A" or "D" to check the distance. When it's about 60.000 to Nav 2, open the Nav Map and select Siva (Nav 3). Fly towards Siva, again evading by using the circle technique. I made it there in my second attempt (hit an Asteroid on my first attempt).

Kroiz is spared (but Lynch still comments on his death) and it's on to the next mission.

The Stilettos are very difficult. I managed by selecting one after another, then shooting at them using two FF missiles each, then fleeing using the circle technique towards Romulus. You have to execute the run flawlessly or they'll hit you and then it's a matter of luck to survive. If they hit your A/B or engines it's over. I had a lot of luck on my second attempt to run at the hidden nav point into pirates, which could be appeased with just one hail each - that distracted those Stilettos enough to make it through.

That's it so far. I'll post as I move along. I remember one of the blockade missions to be the most difficult (and fighting the Kamekh in Gamma without rockets, that took about half an hour or so).

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I'm sorry that didn't appear in real time, something triggered this post to be stuck in an approval queue... which is something I didn't even know existed! Eager to hear more about your Gemini Sector adventures.

 

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No worries! I managed to finish Lynch's missions in the meantime, there's only the one left with Miggs attacking you. As soon as you jump into Newcastle, lock him again so you can insult him
There are some nice radio messages you can send him. He's in a Talon, so no worries - but four of them can still get the better of you.
I upgraded to Shield Level 2 in the meantime. You can lower them by pressing "S" to some level between Level 1 strength and completely off (yes, lower than Shield Level 1), but it'll still give you some shield.

Then it's off to Oxford, my favourite planet! I guess I simply dig the train - which funnily looks like a tube when seen from the landing pad (and like a high speed train, as an ICE, when at the market place).

The first mission is to save Hunter Toth. I had no problems there, lower shields to that in-between-level and blast away. Stay close to Toth, though. The Drayman will fly with 200 kps towards Oxford, so adjust your speed when you're done to escort it. I don't know if that's necessary, but during my first play through ever I think I lost the mission because I engaged Autopilot and Toth was killed by.. something?

Anyway, the next mission is the Black Rhombus. I really love that one, and I hate it at the same time: I don't want to fight software pirates and I don't want to fight a Galaxy because that's my second favourite ship (to the Tarsus) but then they're deleting the stuff in Oxford, too - so despite their ideals (which I share) they're fair game.

The second to last mission with the Vulcan Forge is the first one where I encountered Demons as an enemy. Pity. They are quite tough, beware the Torpedoes. You will survive a frontal hit, but when one manages to get behind you, you're toast: you will lose your speed and that's it.

Two FF missiles and a lucky shot with both Tachyons will do the trick. I recommend going in with full shields, then as soon as you got a few hits (or the first missile or two) and things calmed down, switch to the lower level and immediately back up: this will give you more energy and slowly raise your shields for the next barrage.

And a final one, again an escort mission. This time be careful: the Talons are aggressively targeting the Drayman the second you look away! Kill them with extreme prejudice.

That's the end for Masterson's missions. Pity, I really like this guy (and his missions!). Honest work.
When you enter the library you get some background info on Dr. Monkhouse. I remember that as a kid I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to go next - English not being my first language. I used a dictionary to play this game (and I learned English that way!). There's a typo in the text (and it's consistent: they wrote university wrong - univerisity).

Off to Palan we go. Meet Monkhouse. When you get there, Bounty Hunters are hostile (also on the way, e.g. in Perry), but you can actually talk your way out of their encounters. Same goes for your trip to Basra! Use this. Interestingly I have turned friends to pirates in the meantime, so the asteroid field was no problem at all.

Now that I'm older I understand a lot more of the dialogue with Murphy, in more than one way! The first mission is tough, but doable. Try to send two missiles for each Demon, take a potshot with the Tachyons, then switch. Switching is key! Switch shields to lower as soon as the first barrage ends, then up again immediately. Switch between enemies. As soon as I have dealt out the first missiles, I don't lock onto them - keep moving!
The pirate encounter in the asteroids brought the idea to lure them into the Asteroid field: that can be done, but this time there were Retros - tough luck. I didn't survive. On my third attempt I managed to finish the mission the conventional way.

Now the most difficult mission ever (except for the Kamekh, which I already mentioned): fight four Demons, then four Centurions. I almost did it, but the Centurions can take a beating. I took out one and was scoring hits on the second, but it didn't explode and eventually one of the other two got me: that was my end. Maybe I'll try tomorrow again to lure the Demons into the Asteroid field when there are pirates - it could work, especially when the Centurions spawn at Nav 1 and take their time to get to the field so I can repair.

More to come in a few days!

In the meantime I tried to get Dosbox play Midi with the Fatboy soundfont, but it doesn't work. However I replaced the GOG Dosbox with Dosbox staging and this one emulates the look of CRT monitors! Nice! It still doesn't use the Fatboy soundfont, though - although it has Fluidsynth built in. I guess I'm still handing it over to the Windows Midi.

 

[Magamo]

Re: Dosbox staging midi
If you are comfortable with editing your dosbox-staging.conf in notepad, in your [midi] section, set 'mididevice' to 'fluidsynth'
Under the [fluidsynth] section set your 'soundfont' to the full path to your selected .sf2 file. If you add an integer afterward, it will attenuate the volume produced to be that percentage of the standard (I often run with 20 to lower it to 20 percent, so that midi doesn't overpower all other audio)

That should get staging to output through fluidsynth.

 

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Re: Dosbox staging midi
If you are comfortable with editing your dosbox-staging.conf in notepad, in your [midi] section, set 'mididevice' to 'fluidsynth'
Under the [fluidsynth] section set your 'soundfont' to the full path to your selected .sf2 file. If you add an integer afterward, it will attenuate the volume produced to be that percentage of the standard (I often run with 20 to lower it to 20 percent, so that midi doesn't overpower all other audio)

That should get staging to output through fluidsynth.

Thank you! I tried that, it didn't work so far. Maybe I have to replace the dosboxPRIV.conf with the dosbox-staging.conf from my %APPDATA%/Local folder? I'll try this tomorrow.

Short update on my progress: I am stuck.
I managed to get to Basra (that was easy), meet Monkhouse and then fly to Palan. Not only is Lynn a tough broad, her missions are tough, too. The first one (eliminate those Demons) is actually pretty easy.

The second mission however- that's tough. It's not three Demons but four, followed by four Centurions. The Demons by itself are dangerous, but the Centurions are a killer. You practically need to keep using afterburner all the time and squeeze in a few shots as well- energy management is almost impossible. Suffice to say you can't run full shields.
In fact, I had to resort to external help to finish this mission: I lured them to the asteroid field between Basra and Palan, where luckily some friendly Pirates were helping me. This almost worked, I often managed to get them down to two Centurions left- but it was not enough.
Only when I tried to lure only one Demon to the asteroids it finally worked: I taunted the first one, waited until it was about 15.000 klicks away, then ran toward the asteroid field. Luckily only two Demons followed! I killed them, returned to Nav 1 and lured the other two Demons into the field. When I was finished with my repairs the Centurions showed up and I had still 16 FF missiles left.

It was still close. I had no armor on my left and front, almost no armor on the right. The cannons would only shoot occasionally and I could basically only turn left and slightly up. I don't know if I killed the last Centurion or if the Pirates did - but it was gone. I was limping home to Palan for my last mission. When I landed my Jump Drive still wasn't fully repaired.

That was some seriously tough sortie, and it's nothing compared to the last one.

Those four Demons at Basra chew you up within seconds. I managed twice (out of about a dozen attempts so far) to kill two of the first four, which leads to another two, fresh Demons to arrive. It's impossible. Also my luck ran out, when I went to the Asteroids hostile Militia were waiting.
I could have pleaded to them, but I was busy evading both the rocks and the Demons- to no avail.

I know I could just land, but this would be a failed mission - I want to avoid that. I'll keep on trying, but it's really frustrating at that point, even more so as I managed the Centurions and this felt like such an accomplishment - and now I have to succumb to mere Demons.

 

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Another update: I finally did it! Again the "lure them into the asteroid belt between Palan and Basra"-trick worked. Luckily for me some pirates were waiting there, and we're friends. The militia wing did nothing, but the pirates managed to do some damage.
Also being some 30 klicks away from the reinforcements arriving helps - a lot!

In fact, once you have defeated the first four and the second wave when they arrive, it's easy going. Well, not exactly easy, but I didn't limp back to Basra as I did to Palan after the Centurions.

As everyone knows, once you meet Monkhouse the Kilrathi show up - and they are mean. The Gothris by itself are a mouthful, but being in a 300 kps Tarsus and fighting Dralthis is - difficult.

I didn't. I ran. It worked, although I did manage to hit an asteroid in the belt (why do THEY never hit them - or at least, why is it so rare? I know asteroids always move opposite to where the player is facing, but when they follow me, shouldn't they run into a barrage of asteroids then?).

So I bode goodbye to Lynn (she still is not satisfied with me, oh well) and talked to Monkhouse. Charting new systems? After that talk I am even more looking forward to Star Citizen!

In Rygannon, I met Taryn and just got my first mission. Shoot, just as I got friendly with pirates now I face them again as enemies. Why? Also on my way to Rygannon I encountered a load of Retros - a glimpse into what's to come or pure chance? That is, are they scripted? Or are the system stats changed after you talked to Monkhouse? That would be interesting to find out.