Cool things about Privateer and RF I didn't know until a recent replay.

[-danr-]

Cool Privateer trivia:


- You can actually fire missiles at targets behind you as they give chase. It's simply a matter of selecting cockpit view, arming the missile, hit fire, then select rear turret view and locking on to your pursuer from there...then watch the missile emerge from the back of the ship and wipe out the pursuing target.

- You can afterburn through Asteroids without ever hitting them or dying. Simply line up with your nav-destination crosshair, and whilst holding down on the afterburner, 'circle around it' so that you're heading towards it but constantly pitching and yawing big circles so that it stays basically in the middle of the screen.

- You can attack (and I think destroy) the Steltek scout that gives you the information about the drone and arms you to attack it. The scout offers no resistance, and appears to be unarmed, but it will become a 'red' target after you start shooting at it, but will continue talking to you as normal. You don't need to use the Steltek gun to damage the scout.

- Despite all the talk of Brilliance being a lucrative drug to smuggle, Ultimate will actually make you considerably more.

- You can dump your contraband whilst you're being scanned, and if you're quick enough the Militia/Confeds won't notice and let you pass. Then simply tractor beam your goodies back up and be on your way.

- Killing Reismann's Paradigm on the last mission of Privateer does not lose the mission. In fact, wiping out all the Confeds waiting for the drone at that navpoint has some benefits - it will stop them destroying you with friendly fire, and depending on how strong your system is, DOSBox sometimes struggles if there are too many ships in one place at a time. With the Confeds out the way, it's much easier to get a shot at the drone.

- Despite what the Steltek scout says, I've never run out of shots trying to kill the drone.

- There appears to be no way to 'please' Mercenaries once you've angered them. This is one of my major gripes with the storyline, as you're required to kill a load of them destroying the Palan blockade meaning that they're on your case for the rest of the game. There seems to be no faction you can kill that makes the Mercs like you again...Am I wrong about this??

- Finally, something I didn't notice last time out (2002) that most of you probably did, in Righteous Fire you can have your faction standing records wiped clean for 200,000 credits by talking to Lynch, who's in the bar on Basque in Pyranees. This means everybody likes you again, except cats and Retros - but hey, you can't have it all. Lynch will offer this service free as a one off after you have killed Governor Menesch.

 

[Wedge009]

Interesting...

• That rear-firing missile thing sound like a glitch, or lack of foresight on the part of the programmers. I imagine you're exploiting something in the engine that wasn't tested/expected.
• Many have said they can fire afterburners through asteroids with a similar technique in WC1, WC2 and Privateer, but I've never managed to achieve it reliably. I still remember frantically speeding through asteroids during Taryn's exploration missions... only to get smacked by one rogue asteroid that still managed to track me despite the constant manoeuvring.
• I think I remember experimenting with attacking the Steltek Scout, but I can't remember if it's possible to block your game by attacking it too early (thereby making them refuse to communicate with you and upgrade your gun).
• Yes, the profit margin on Ultimate tends to be substantially more, given that the base price is so much higher than Brilliance.
• Yes, this is the point of being able to jettison cargo in the first place, I think (although you could also use it to dump cargo in favour of more valuable goods if you're full). You just have to be careful not to accidentally bump into your precious boxes while doing so. Of course, this technique doesn't work for plot-missions where contraband scanning is scripted.
• I wouldn't destroy the Confed ships for performance reasons, but I imagine there's no internal flag on the survival on the Confederation ships to allow for the possibility that the drone could target them too.
• No, there's no limit to the high-powered version of the Steltek gun. In-universe, I would guess that what's 'limited' to the Steltek is practically limitless for a 'lesser' species like humans. Real-life, it's possible that this was something that was planned but never implemented? Though I can't imagine for what purpose.
• Yes, you are incorrect about the hostile mercenaries. Repeatedly using the comms to make them friendly will work temporarily, and attacking Pirate/Retro/Kilrathi(?) ships will eventually make them neutral/friendly on a long-term basis. The way I tend to avoid this problem in the first place is to just out-run scripted mercenary ships in plot missions.
• Yes, Lynch offers to reset your records in Righteous Fire.

 

[Marc]

- There appears to be no way to 'please' Mercenaries once you've angered them. This is one of my major gripes with the storyline, as you're required to kill a load of them destroying the Palan blockade meaning that they're on your case for the rest of the game. There seems to be no faction you can kill that makes the Mercs like you again...Am I wrong about this??

Interesting...

Yes, you are incorrect about the hostile mercenaries. Repeatedly using the comms to make them friendly will work temporarily, and attacking Pirate/Retro/Kilrathi(?) ships will eventually make them neutral/friendly on a long-term basis. The way I tend to avoid this problem in the first place is to just out-run scripted mercenary ships in plot missions.

In my case I spent about 3 days time flying missions for the mercenaries guild (that's like 30 missions a day!) and using my comm channels to appease them in the odd run-ins.
But now me and the bounty hunters are like 'best friends forever!... or until I kill some of them again.

 

[Wedge009]

Flying missions for the Mercenaries' Guild doesn't do anything to affect your standing directly, although the missions you fly often involves killing pirates and Retros, which will.

 

[-danr-]

Thanks for the link Wedge009, but I can't get your website to work tonight, browser keeps telling me its taking too long to respond because it's busy. Anyhow, if that's a commodity profit list, I'll be very interested to check it out.

That rear-firing missile thing sound like a glitch, or lack of foresight on the part of the programmers. I imagine you're exploiting something in the engine that wasn't tested/expected.

Yeah there's certainly no mention of it in the manual, I wonder if there was originally an intention for turret-mounted missile launchers. This is just speculation of course, maybe it was removed at the last minute which is why my method works - that or as you say it's just a glitch.

Attacking Pirate/Retro/Kilrathi(?) ships will eventually make them neutral/friendly on a long-term basis.

Again thanks, I'd tried this already, obviously I just didn't persist long enough for it to yield their respect again.

The way I tend to avoid this problem in the first place is to just out-run scripted mercenary ships in plot missions

That's ok for some of the missions, but Murphy orders you to destroy a couple of Merc patrols (each containing several ships) and of course when you mount the final offensive on the blockade, you need to shoot down about 12 of them I think!

 

[Dundradal]

WCPedia has the price list for Priv uploaded...

Priv Commodity Prices

 

[-danr-]

That's just great, thankyou!

 

[Wedge009]

Thanks for the link Wedge009, but I can't get your website to work tonight, browser keeps telling me its taking too long to respond because it's busy.

Yeah, it just so happened that the server went down for about half a day. It hasn't had a failure in a long time, but it's back up as at time of writing.

That's ok for some of the missions, but Murphy orders you to destroy a couple of Merc patrols (each containing several ships) and of course when you mount the final offensive on the blockade, you need to shoot down about 12 of them I think!

I remember those ones. If you only kill the ones absolutely necessary and out-run the rest, it may still get you hostile with them, but it does depend on how many pirates/Retros you've killed relative to the mercenaries. I tend to fly around a lot before actually flying the plot missions, so by that time I've racked up several pirate/Retro kills already - possibly hundreds, I can't recall.

 

[ChrisReid]

No, there's no limit to the high-powered version of the Steltek gun. In-universe, I would guess that what's 'limited' to the Steltek is practically limitless for a 'lesser' species like humans. Real-life, it's possible that this was something that was planned but never implemented? Though I can't imagine for what purpose.

Well, it would probably make a frustrating gameplay element. Some players will take much longer than others to shoot down the drone, and so how many shots do you let them have? Making a tough ship seems difficult enough.

 

[Wedge009]

That was something I considered. Which makes me wonder why that little bit of dialogue was left in, but I suppose it's not a big deal.