Suggestions for Freelancer>>>Privateer

[Eder]

Originally posted by Delance

I'm talking about the game balance and economic model of Freelancer, not on the morality of the cargo hold of the Ferret or whatever.

Uh, okay... then please, tell me why did you quote my post - and even point out the Centurion's and the Falcon's abilities - when whatever it was you were trying to say didn't have anything at all to do with what I was trying to say.

Originally posted by Delance
3. In Elite, THE ONLY SHIP YOU COULD FLY WAS THE COBRA MK III. That's the MSX version by Firebird. That's the only version I played. That's the premier version of Elite in Brazil. I'm not aware of any version that allows you to buy a different ship. The 2 PC version don't.

Yes, well, that's nice, but not the point at all... I DID say "Elite & Co", in case you didn't notice. I meant "Elite and games of the same series" - in case you didn't realize. So when you tell me that I've used a bad example when I said that people could fly fighter-only, trader-only, or mixed-style ships in "Elite & Co.", either a) you haven't read my post carefully enough b) you don't know what you're talking about, or c) you're just trying to be annoying (after all, the point you were trying to make had nothing to do with the point I was trying to make with my bad Elite example).

Quite frankly, I'm starting to believe option b) - when we were comparing the player's freedom in Privateer, Freelancer, and Elite, you also only took the original Elite into consideration, even though it's not the most complete game of the series. That's basically like saying that the Monkey Island games don't have speech, because Monkey Island 1 didn't.

--Eder

 

[Delance]

You seem to be trying to to pick up a fight for no reason.

All I said is that Elite was a game about trade AND combat by design. That's really a fact, not an opinion.

Originally posted by Eder
Yes, well, that's nice, but not the point at all... I DID say "Elite & Co", in case you didn't notice. I meant "Elite and games of the same series" - in case you didn't realize.

That is, however, not the truth:

Originally posted by Eder
The "WHOLE point of Elite" is that you *can* go for a ship which can both trade AND dogfight - like the Centurion or the Cobra, the Orion or the Viper - but you can also go for a light fighter which does NOT carry cargo (Falcon, Ospray, Eagle, Hawk - Ferret, Hornet, Arrow, Rapier) and leaves you barely enough room for the fuel... and if you've really got the confidence, you can go for a ship which is a great trader, but can't hit the broad side of a barn (like the Boa, Anaconda, and the Mantis) and eats up a dozen Asp Explorers worth of fuel every minute

You cannot buty a Viper, an Ospray, a Boa nor an Anaconda. You can only fly a Cobra MK III. That's not a generalization, but a fact.

That's basically like saying that the Monkey Island games don't have speech, because Monkey Island 1 didn't.

Not at all, it's like saying that since Monkey Island 1 didn't have speech, Monkey Island 1 didn't have speech.

Your point is that since Wing Commander 2 had speech, Wing Commander 1 had speech too, even thought it didn't.

By that logic, since Freelancer and Privateer have speech, Elite does too.

 

[Eder]

Originally posted by Delance
All I said is that Elite was a game about trade AND combat by design. That's really a fact, not an opinion.

Wrong. You said that my "Elite & Co." example was the worst example I could provide to show that fighters, traders, and mixed-style-ships should be separate ships. This implies that you misread my post and were only considering the original Elite (since that's the only game in the series which doesn't allow for the ship choices I mentioned). If you really were talking exclusively about Elite 1, you have no business trying to tell me I'm wrong... since you and I were talking about different things.

Originally posted by Eder
If a Drayman can't dogfight, why should a Ferret carry cargo?

Originally posted by Delance
People like to do both. Think "Centurion". Think "Millenium Falcon".

That's me saying fighters don't need to carry cargo, and transports don't need to be dogfighters... and right after, that's you saying that since Elite 1 only had one trader/combat ship, all ships in all games must therefore be trader/combat ships!

Originally posted by Eder
Fighters should have just enough room for a shield generator, an engine, some guns, missiles, and decoys - like they did in Elite & Co.

Originally posted by Delance
Edit: the WHOLE point of Elite is that the ships could both trade AND dogfight. The Cobra MKIII is both a great fighter and carry a good amount of cargo. It's the opposite of the point you was trying to make, it's the last example you shoud've used.

And that's you considering "Elite & Co" to be the same as "Elite 1".

Please notice that those posts are the first ones on the subject... Granted, in my subsequent post, I used merely the name "Elite" - but only because I assumed that you had read my post properly, and that you had realized that I was referring to the entire series. Apparently, you didn't read my first post carefully enough, though. Read my posts properly before replying to them, or don't reply to them at all. And I'm not trying to pick a fight for no reason, I just don't like being corrected when I'm not wrong.

--Eder

 

[Delance]

Originally posted by Eder
Wrong. You said that my "Elite & Co."

No, I was quite obviously talking about ELITE.

It went more or less this way:

Delance: That orange is orange.
E***: : But not all fruits are orange! That's a generalization! That's like saying all cats are yellow because cheese is yellow.
Delance: What?
E***: Yeah, but I was watching baywatch, so that's like saying a monkey can't eat my socks because my sneakers are crazy.

And that's you considering "Elite & Co" to be the same as "Elite 1".

No, I consider ELITE to be ELITE.

You, for whatever reason, considered my ELITE to be "Elite & Co". When I say ELITE and make a comment that can only be applied to ELITE, it's pretty obvious I was talking about ELITE.

And I'm not trying to pick a fight for no reason, I just don't like being corrected when I'm not wrong.

You listed Elite ships that are impossible to buy as examples. I merely pointed out you can't buy those ships on Elite.

Let's just try to salvage this thread...

 

[Delance]

Originally posted by Bob McDob
Unless you keep getting killed by Hessians in a Humpback!

Unless you are on Omega 5 or Omega 11, Hessian's are not much of a threat, once you get yourself a transport that has decent armor.

But that's not the point. You can get a dromedary and make tons of money on easy missions on Liberty, Bretonia and Kusari. Even if the server has hostile players, you can make lots of cash within Liberty.

 

[Ghost]

Pfftt...you can gain almost 400 credits per engine shipping them from Los Angeles to Freeport in Magallanes
Or carrying Luxury comestibles or goods from New London to Manhattan and gain like 1000 credits per unit.

 

[Bob McDob]

Thank you for all the posts in this thread (well, except for the last seven or eight). Here's a revised shiplist.

Name		Cost		Hardpoints		Cargo		HP
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hornet		$20,000		2 Gun, 2 Msl		10 units		1200
Ferret		$30,000		2 Gun			35 units		2600
Razor		$45,000		4 Gun, 2 Msl		45 units		1600
Talon		$35,000		3 Gun, 2 Msl		60 units		1800
Rapier		$55,000		4 Gun, 2 Msl		15 units		2800
Demon		$65,000		4 Gun, 1 Msl		70 units		2200
Tarsus		$70,000		2 Gun, 1 Msl		150 units		3600
Orion		$75,000		2 Gun, 1 Msl, 1 Tur	75 units		4200
Hellcat		$80,000		4 Gun, 2 Msl		20 units		3600
Raptor		$100,000		6 Gun, 3 Msl		30 units		5600
Galaxy		$150,000		2 Gun, 2 Msl, 2 Tur	225 units	
Centurion		$200,000		4 Gun, 2 Msl, 1 Tur	50 units		4875
Drayman		$2,000,000	2 Gun, 5 Tur		1200 units	12288

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level 30

Stiletto		$3,720,000	2 Gun, 2 Msl		20 units		12400
Gladius		$3,720,000	3 Gun, 2 Msl		35 units		12400

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level 60

Epee		$12,240,000	2 Gun, 2 Msl		20 units 		20400
Sabre		$34,560,000	4 Gun, 3 Msl, 1 Tur	60 units		43200

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level 120

Banshee		$18,480,000	4 Gun, 2 Msl		20 units		33600
Vindicator	$40,960,000	4 Gun, 3 Msl, 1 Tur	40 units		48000

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level 500

Crossbow		$54,000,000	5 Gun, 3 Msl		50 units		60000
Broadsword	$120,000,000	3 Gun, 6 Msl, 3 Tur	80 units		120000
Bearcat		$94,000,000	4 Gun, 2 Msl		40 units		75200

 

[Ghost]

Hey, you can make some WC Capships, there is some tutorials.. i think

 

[Eder]

Originally posted by Delance
No, I was quite obviously talking about ELITE
(...)
You, for whatever reason, considered my ELITE to be "Elite & Co". When I say ELITE and make a comment that can only be applied to ELITE, it's pretty obvious I was talking about ELITE.

Your original comment, however, wasn't any comment about Elite - it was a *REPLY* to my original post, claiming that Elite was the worst example I could have used. However, my example wasn't about Elite 1 at all. It was about "Elite & Co." Please tell me, then... How can you claim I'm wrong about something, when you yourself admit are talking about something else?

My second post seems to have caused some confusion, because there I wrote "Elite" instead of specifying I was also talking about the sequels. I did that because I (wrongly) assumed you also had used "Elite" as synonym for "the Elite series" - since your post was a reply to my post, which was about "the Elite series" after all. It didn't occur to me at the time that you could actually be talking exclusively about the first Elite game, because it makes no sense that you claim my example was poor when you know my example was different than you considered it to be.

I said "In the Elite series, you can buy ships", you said "Wrong! In the first Elite, you can't." - I agree with that, but since I was talking about the whole series, I wasn't wrong. And I don't like being corrected when I'm not wrong. That's all I'm saying.

--Eder

 

[Quarto]

Uh... ok, Bob, so your response to our complaints about military fighters having cargo space is to give military fighters more cargo space?

 

[PopsiclePete]

Does shield batteries and nanobots take cargo space ? That's the only reason why I thinks small military ships like the Ferret or Epee should have, let's say, a cargo space of 5-10.

I agree with Quarto and Eder on this. If you somehow buy a military ship, that's because you intend to make money by taking missions, not by trading. If you want to Trade you'll buy a cargo ship like the Clydesdale. If you want to do both, you'll buy a ship that is in-between like the Centurion.

But the Broadsword and Crossbow are ok to have some more cargo space, IMHO, because they're like small corvettes...

 

[Ijuin]

The revised list looks cool, but I think that Freelancer doesn't allow levels above 38, so having the top ships be like level 500 won't work.

 

[Eder]

I think that the Hornet and Ferret should be the same level as the Stiletto... the Hellcat, Rapier and Raptor should be the same level as the Epee... and the Sabre and Broadsword should be the same level as the Vindicator. Perhaps you should make the Gladius available from the start as well, since it's just a militia ship (like the Talon) when we see it in Privateer. That should give people who don't have enough level to buy military ships a good choice of civilian fighters (though still giving them an incentive to keep playing until they can buy a Sabre).

Hmmm, also, how about adding a military transport in there? Right now, money is the only thing stopping people from getting all the trader ships. A Clydesdale at the same level of the Crossbow could add some incentive to keep playing... maybe even an intermediate transport - how about making the WC1 Drayman the military drayman (level X required) and the Priv Drayman the civilian drayman (available from the start)?

--Eder

 

[Delance]

I think the military vessels should have *some* cargo space, beacuse taking in loot is a big part of being a freelancer/privateer. I'm not arguing that the * military * version of those ships have cargo, but please be reminded that we are talking about a * civilian * version. It should not be the same thing. Also, I'm not sure high-tech and special ships like the Crossbow would be sold to the public.

 

[Eder]

Hmmm. Perhaps there is a way to make certain ships available depending on both level and faction alignment? That way you could make sure that even a guy who's level 900000 still needs to be, say, 80% friendly with Confed to be able to get a Crossbow.

(Sure, you already aren't able to buy ships if they're only available from hostile bases, since you can't land on those... but my point is that if possible, the hottest ships shouldn't be sold from neutral bases either).

--Eder

 

[Manic]

Time to drop my bit in the suggestion box...
1. Abolish shield batteries and nanobots. Wing Commander craft have never been shown to carry those things, and it would make the game more challenging, as people wouldn't be eating batteries to stay alive.
2. Light fighters should probably have between 5 and 10 units of cargo space, and at the bare minimum, one unit for missions.
3. The faction alignment thing is both feasable, and easy to accomplish.
4. mostly fixed gun mounts. the guns would still be able to fire inside a limited radius, but it's just absurd to have "turrets that fire anywhere" and "guns that fire anywhere in the forward reigon". there ought to be some high-end guns (mkIII or IV classifications) for semi-mobile aim.
5. fixed missile mounts. the freelancer ones are absurd.
6. limited ammunition on missiles. say, 3 per for imrec, 4 per for dumb fire, 1 per for torpedoes(or at the very most, 4.)

 

[Bob McDob]

Originally posted by Quarto
Uh... ok, Bob, so your response to our complaints about military fighters having cargo space is to give military fighters more cargo space?

Yes

That, and the fact the Privateer manual describes 50 units as being "enough for an overnight bag, but not by much".

 

[Eder]

I think it's safe to say that bit wasn't meant literally, since in-game, 50 units were enough to carry 50 slaves (for example).

--Eder

 

[Quarto]

Originally posted by Delance
I think the military vessels should have *some* cargo space, beacuse taking in loot is a big part of being a freelancer/privateer. I'm not arguing that the * military * version of those ships have cargo, but please be reminded that we are talking about a * civilian * version. It should not be the same thing. Also, I'm not sure high-tech and special ships like the Crossbow would be sold to the public.

Well, that was one of my original points as well - these ships shouldn't be available in the first place. Civilian versions would of course be fine... but last I checked, they don't produce civilian versions of, say, the F-14, or even something older like the F-5.

At the same time, I must admit that the Ferrets, at least, are available somehow, since a privately-owned Ferret (with a tractor beam, even, though it's used not for bringing stuff onboard but for towing another object) is mentioned in the SO fiction.

 

[Delance]

Yeah, Quarto, but you can't buy a combat-capable vessel like a Centurion or an Orion. We must compare this to Privateer, or the times of the pirates, were private parties could indeed buy combat-capable ships.

On Freelancer, you can buy military-grade fighters, but some think those are civilian versions, because the AI ships have better weapons. Or perhaps the AI cheats.

Anyway, since this is a mod, it would make sense to have some military vessels, but not the rare, expensive and high-tech ones. They can also have some cargo space since they are civilian ships after all.