Using 1.0pre5
Bugs:
- Sometimes when I buy a new ship there is cargo in it that I didn't buy.
- Turrets turn themselves off (or freeze) a lot, and often require several hits of CTL-t ALT-t to try and get them going again.
- my weapons fire gets absorbed by jump points. If I want to shoot an enemy inside a jump point I need to move in there with them.
- strange enemy movements, suddenly backwards or a leap upwards upwards. Not inertia, sliding, possibly not even strafing. Others have mentioned it and I have seen it as well.
- Is there supposed to be music? I get none.
- Do ECM's draw power? The hot key to toggle doesn't seem to work for me. To be honest I don't think ECM power drain would make the game more fun, only a little more 'busy' requiring the additional hot key.
Armor sections:
Did the original have so many armor sections? (I would check but can't run it anymore). I thought there was only front, back, left, right (like shields). If there are now more sections that might explain why so many people think the talons have become so resilient to torpedoes: you need to hit the correct section rather than just the same shield side. It also doesn't seem all that compatible with the armor display readouts (is just the minimum displayed?). Either way talons are not as slow and chunky as the original so hitting the same point will be more difficult. Not that I care since the combat seems a bit better than the original (though it does seem harder, even on the easiest setting).
Difficulty Setting:
Easier should be, well, easier.
Afterburners:
They don't seem to be afterburners at all. They seem only to be capable of increasing max speed without effecting acceleration. If I am below normal max speed and I hit afterburners it currently does nothing while still draining energy. Where is the energy going? In a dogfight while turning a lot there is no point using them. I think ship acceleration with afterburners active should be a fair bit more than when you don't use them (perhaps twice as much, or an amount relative to the max speed increase you gain over regular max speed). The 'forward thrust with afterburner' description in 'flight characteristics' for ships suggests it is changeable. It would certainly make dogfights more fun, and make sharp turns less suicidal (you could get back up to speed more quickly instead of being a sitting duck). I don't remember what the behavior was in privateer original, but in WC3 I think afterburners really did accelerate you a lot.
Mission descriptions:
Can missions be made to show their destination base (and the base descriptions of type and faction)?
I would like to see fixed cargo sizes on cargo missions before taking the mission. If there is insufficient space in my hold at present and I try to select the mission it should give a message saying 'insufficient cargo space' and still leave the mission available.
Automatic landing zones:
It would be nice if they became automatic after asking for landing permission and moving close, like the original game.
Auto Pilot:
Auto pilot to move closer to the destination (closer by 1/3 or 1/2 the distance perhaps, if no hostiles in the area). It's really boring (and was in the original) to sit and wait while you reach your perfectly safe destination, especially in the slower ships. In fact it's a disincentive to use slower ships and I don't think that should be the case since autopilot is supposed to take the tedium out of long travel.
Demons:
They have become the super light-medium fighter of the game (like a rapier from WC1), but perhaps shouldn't be. Why is it able to mount 4 heavy guns? Just a look at the graphics of it suggest that it has no room for it. Having limits on gun sizes makes ship design more interesting and variable. Do we really want to have every ship capable of carrying any weapon? Limits on the missile mounts have been actively used in design and I think using the gun size limits would be good. Which brings me to the demons in the available patch. I like the price (well, maybe a touch low) and gun limits on them (though I think the missile limits of the normal stock demon is better, and the hold should be more like 25 or 30). These ones make a great medium priced fighter once outfitted, possibly before something better.
Tachyon Gun:
I think it should be a medium gun instead of heavy. While in WC3 it was heavy, it always seemed like a high efficiency, high rate of fire medium weapon in Privateer.
Better turret behavior:
Turrets independent, utilizing ITS, fully automatic, only tries shooting at targets in its field of view. Perhaps some behavior could be as an upgrade.
Transferable weapons and parts:
I would like to be able to transfer my ship parts (or at least those that might logically be transferable) to a spare parts section (kind of like the 'my fleet section' but just for parts). It would save money (and more importantly my TIME trying to recoup the loss) over selling them to a dealer then buying back the same parts moments later (for full price) for a different ship.
Generic, specific and elite parts/upgrades:
I have only seen one ship specific part: a class five generator (or maybe it was a shield) for a Galaxy. Does this suggest the rest are generic? Ship specific parts (possibly rare, expensive, availability linked to missions or as pay, availability linked to base factions, limited locations etc) that give a ship higher capabilities than generic parts could add another dimension to ship development. Maybe even some higher cost generic (elite/miniaturized or whatever) parts that take less upgrade space would be good. Certainly I have seen these kind of parts on some of the military spec (or variant) ships (parts taking 0 space instead of 1), and if such parts exist I would prefer them as more 'official' parts rather than looking like bugs, glitches and cheats.
Cheap ships:
I would like a few cheap ships available early, without the need to finish parts of the main storyline beforehand. The tarsus is not much fun and it takes too long to get a different ship. It's an ultra cheap merchant ship, but I mainly like the fighting missions in a light ship (though that might change if really good turret behavior becomes available.) If I recall the orion used to be the cheap (though highly upgradeable) intermediate before getting a better ship (the centurion).
Combining 'specific parts' and 'cheap ships', perhaps talons should be available at the start of the game, and some special talon parts (perhaps level 2 reactor + shield) could become available (at pirate bases? do any have ship dealers?) after doing Tayla's missions.
Military Spec ships (and variants):
They have been buggy for me (too many to remember or list across both Linux 0.9d and 1.0pre5) (in terms of the equipment they come with, trading parts or repairing, performance etc.), and seem only to exist to get around the upgrade limits of the ship (I like upgrade limits in some form, for it adds variety and decision in ship building). I say ditch variants, (or simply make them 'package deals', with real parts bundled rather than magically integrated, inaccessible and taking no space). Better to have a variety of totally different ships with a regular upgrade procedure instead of dodgy varieties. See also my section on parts and upgrades above for a better way of getting around upgrade limits.
Cargo vs upgrade space:
If upgrade space can be converted to cargo space (using small and regular cargo upgrades) then cargo space should be convertible to upgrade space.
Hull + armor points:
Should upgraded hull + armor points be the same regardless of ship size and design? It seems only dependent on the material (plasteel, tungsten, isometal), but surely a 20 tonne ship should have less than a 200 tonne ship if the same material is used. Perhaps making the points relative to the ships base stats (if any exist other than 0) rather than absolute, such as plasteel being normal, tungsten 2x and isometal 4x. Ship armor weak points (like side armor for the demon) are also made irrelevant by the current system of absolute levels.
Variable size and mass of ship components:
I see there is a system in place for ship components to have variable upgrade space and mass, but these are not used much which is a shame (perhaps they are largely redundant if we only want a simple fixed number of upgrades with the upgrade capacity variable, which is an overly simplistic/unrealistic system that I don't really like). For instance a class 9 shield should take up more upgrade space and have a greater mass than a class 1 shield. In fact I think these features (upgrade space (a true limit) + mass (something you try to limit to keep ship performance up)) should be what limits what upgrades you take instead of a fixed limit like a Tarsus having a max level 1 powerplant (or 3 in RF? Has that been implemented?). You may decide you are willing to use more upgrade space for a level 2 powerplant (perhaps going without something else to make space), along with taking a penalty on acceleration that would accompany the extra mass. The acceleration penalty would be proportional to the total ship mass, so a 5 tonne powerplant would have a large penalty for a 20 tonne ship, but be trivial to a 200 tonne ship (acceleration = force/(total mass)). (Turning rates might be affected but not as much since distribution of mass comes in to play, and objects inside the ship near its center of mass would not effect it as much as say the mass of the hull which is further from it.) Large ships would need a larger upgrade space for bigger shields and generators, but realistically more space is exactly what they would have.
Changing the game stats to reflect this without greatly throwing out the game play would mean that the base (bare bone) ship weights would need to decreased, but that should be easy. Deciding what should weight what can be done by taking your desired ship + loadout and deciding what total weight you want (perhaps the current base weight plus hull), then dividing those weights (logically, not evenly) over the components + base ship weight. After a couple you should have an idea of component weights + size, and further mod and ship weights are easy.
Special parts for specific ships in such a system would simply be restricted to a ship type and be smaller + lighter than normal.
A lot of the stuff I have suggested might not require any code changes (only stats) so maybe a trial patch like the one available now could be done.
