Gemini's Famous Foursome on the Ballot (November 5, 2012)

[ChrisReid]

Many of our visitors are probably burned out on the subject of voting, but we've got a new front page poll that asks what everyone's favorite Privateer ship is. We've actually never run this poll before - can you believe it?! You can see the last 14 years of CIC polls here. Can everyone out there match these four cockpits to the appropriate ship? Hit the Comments link and share your trivia knowledge!









The last poll asked about fans' expectations on Chris Roberts' new game. About half the people who voted thought he was working on a new Franchise, with over a third thinking it would be a Wing Commander/Privateer.




What is Chris Roberts' new project?




A Wing Commander Game
24.10%

A WC Privateer Game
10.94%

A Star/Freelancer Game
6.98%

A Brand New Franchise
50.29%

Something Else
7.68%

Ended on November 4, 2012 | 859 votes

--
Original update published on November 5, 2012

 

[Monkey Fluff]

(Left to right top row) Tarsus, Centurion, Orion
(Bottom row) Galaxy

 

[-danr-]

Privateer always looks timelessly beautiful. I think the Galaxy's cabin is my all time favorite cockpit art.

 

[capi3101]

Fluff got there first.

Next question: who can name the type of scanner being used in each shot? That one might not be as straight forward...

Not sure this poll is particularly fair...it's pretty much limited to the four PC ships in the game. If it included the NPC ships, I might go with the Drayman, simply because I always liked the (recycled Super Wing Commander) design of it.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

Privateer's cockpits really are particularily beautiful.

I am always amazed that the Galaxy has so many friends.

 

[Wojo]

Pish. All you folkles choosing the Centurion as your favorite. Hit an asteriod in that thing and you're toast! It's weapon spread scatters your shots all over the sector, you'll only get a few salvos off before your energy banks are empty, and extended afterburner burns? Forgetaboudit! Oh and have fun salvaging like half a Drayman's cargo.

Now the Orion. There's a sweet vessel. Put a couple o' decent guns on her, crank the awesome shields down a notch, and you can chase pirates all over the show without letting go of the trigger or the afterburner button. Chuck a torp launcher in for good measure and you got yourself a capship killer, mister.

Thats the end of my disgruntled old coot Orion pilot.

I love the Galaxy cockpit too - it's pretty much the Millenium Falcon of the WC universe, eh? Even down to the cylindrical cockpit... did anyone say 'homage'?

 

[capi3101]

My counter for the Orion - lousy visibility and only one launcher. Decent ship, though, definitely a must if you like/need really strong shields.

Galaxy was a neat craft to fly. Could never get used to using the 360 degree turrets, though, especially after spending so much time with the other ships.

The one I'm surprised is getting any love at all is the lowly Tarsus...

 

[Quarto]

Pish. All you folkles choosing the Centurion as your favorite. Hit an asteriod in that thing and you're toast! It's weapon spread scatters your shots all over the sector, you'll only get a few salvos off before your energy banks are empty, and extended afterburner burns? Forgetaboudit! Oh and have fun salvaging like half a Drayman's cargo.

You know, I actually did feel kinda bad about choosing the Centurion. I would dearly like to say I liked the Galaxy better - I certainly think it has a lot more character to it, and by far the prettiest cockpit. But ultimately, I just had to admit to myself that at the end of the day, I always upgraded to the Centurion, and that's that.

 

[-danr-]

I love a Privateer thread, even if it's all been said before.

Hit an asteriod in that thing and you're toast!

For this reason I always switch to Orion for the ES missions from Rygannon. Makes sense for three reasons:

- The constant Asteroid encounters.
- The constant Gothri encounters.
- The constant Gothri in Asteroids encounters - where you simply can't fight on and have no choice but to afterburn through the rocks.

The game can be won in the Tarsus, with a lot of patience and by mastering the art of afterburning through aforementioned asteroid fields. Here's a trophy picture, my Tarsus in Delta Prime!

But ultimately, I just had to admit to myself that at the end of the day, I always upgraded to the Centurion, and that's that.

The one I'm surprised is getting any love at all is the lowly Tarsus...

The Tarsus has bags of character, when I'm sat in that rusty cockpit, with that mouldy old keyboard on the dashboard, and that 40 year old red lantern still glowing away in the corner, I FEEL like I'm flying a junkheap, and I love it!

When I played this game as a 9 year old, I used to fly, and my brother (sat next to me) would be the co-pilot. As the ship got more and more battered from enemy fire, he would pretend to be rushing around the room making emergency repairs. It's a slightly lame/embarrassing thing to do, but it's a very fond Wing Commander memory from my childhood.

It's clear the Centurion is supposed to be the best flyable ship in the game, but surely that's not the same as it being your favorite. I chose the Galaxy in the poll because it was the ship I enjoyed flying the most, I probably did better in the Centurion, but it wasn't the same. Something I still love about Privateer is the break from flying fighters, it's exciting to be Captain of a freighter/small capship, as we hadn't done that before this game.

 

[Wojo]

My counter for the Orion - lousy visibility and only one launcher. Decent ship, though, definitely a must if you like/need really strong shields.

Galaxy was a neat craft to fly. Could never get used to using the 360 degree turrets, though, especially after spending so much time with the other ships.

The one I'm surprised is getting any love at all is the lowly Tarsus...

Oh how I wished for a turret auto-fire/gunnery crew! I just found I never used turrets apart from tractoring equipment in. As soon as you start flying in a straight line, it's game over...

Massive props for finishing the game in a Tarsus, danr! I think I played through with each of the other craft at least. Although I am guilty of exploiting the asteroid field bug/cheat. I'm a bad person for it, I know.

I seem to recall seeing hacks around the place where you could fly other craft, like the Dralthi, Stiletto etc. etc. No new cockpits, of course, but did anyone try this? Would love to see how much more manoeuvrable some of those military craft were! I certainly remember Dralthi being a complete bitch to try and bullseye in the Tarsus... My mind was completely blown a few months ago when I read the article here about the Strike Commander/Privateer development. Imagine those cockpits in glorious full 3D! Ah well. Livin' in the past.

You know, when Star Citizen (hereafter SC) is released, we'll no longer be 'out in the cold' so to speak. No more lowly Space Combat Sim underdogs. I'm going to miss these non-glory days.

Not really.

 

[Quarto]

It's clear the Centurion is supposed to be the best flyable ship in the game, but surely that's not the same as it being your favorite. I chose the Galaxy in the poll because it was the ship I enjoyed flying the most, I probably did better in the Centurion, but it wasn't the same. Something I still love about Privateer is the break from flying fighters, it's exciting to be Captain of a freighter/small capship, as we hadn't done that before this game.

Yeah... in any other game, I don't usually choose the best fighter in the game as my favourite. But with Privateer, it's difficult - because unlike the other games, where you just fly whatever they let you, here you choose what you fly.

That said, I did always plan to switch to the Galaxy after finishing the main story. Sadly, Privateer's key failure was that there was no point playing after that...

 

[capi3101]

Yeah, when I switched to the Galaxy, it was after I'd finished the story in Righteous Fire and Lynch had wiped my rep with the pirates - which meant I was able to get in good with them (and everybody else except the Retros and Cats). Game was pretty damn boring at that point.

 

[-danr-]

I always found RF to be a fun time to switch to the Galaxy, as the available upgrades are improved.

 

[Lorien]

My vote's for the Galaxy, though I usually switch to the Centurion for the story missions. The giant profile just made it a little too fragile for some fights. Ironically, I usually survived better in the Tarsus because it's quite narrow to the front. Still, I really did enjoy tooling around as a freighter pilot, saving up my money to buy a completely upgraded Centurion and tackle the story.

 

[cff]

- The constant Gothri in Asteroids encounters - where you simply can't fight on and have no choice but to afterburn through the rocks.

Oh, I think you have much to learn about rock flying... I've had no problems at all dogfighting in there, sometimes even luring a tailing enemy into a rock.

 

[capi3101]

For this reason I always switch to Orion for the ES missions from Rygannon. Makes sense for three reasons:

- The constant Asteroid encounters.
- The constant Gothri encounters.
- The constant Gothri in Asteroids encounters - where you simply can't fight on and have no choice but to afterburn through the rocks.

I generally use the ImRec trick with the Rygannon missions - lock onto a target, go gunning after another while lobbing ImRecs at the one you've got locked in. That's why I almost never flew the Orion when I played through the campaign. Killing Gothri in rocks is quite doable, you just have to be smart about it.

I can see the Orion being an effective craft for those missions, though...there are actually fairly few situations where it's actually necessary to kill off the Cats, and as far as running away is concerned, having a ship with as strong of shields as you can get helps (and that's definitely the Orion). Might have to try that the next time around.

 

[Starkey]

Ramming pirates with the Orion... Good times

 

[Ijuin]

My counter for the Orion - lousy visibility and only one launcher. Decent ship, though, definitely a must if you like/need really strong shields.

Yup, the single missile launcher was the Orion's biggest drawback IMO. Missiles in Privateer (except for the unguided Proton Torpedoes) are so weak compared to shield/armor strength that you really need to launch them in pairs when fighting anything heavier than Talons. The speed and extra shields/armor were great, but to get them you had to sacrifice firepower relative to the other ships, which meant that you had to spend more time taking a pounding while waiting for your weapons to kill the enemies, which partially negated the benefit of having the extra shields and armor in the first place.

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

I agree, the single launcher really is what holds the Orion back. On the other hand, for its price tag, it's really good. A single Plasma Gun costs more than the ship! Of course, the low price tag is somewhat put into perspective because all the upgrades you can buy really are expensive. Probably still cheaper than a fully equipped Centurion though. I never found a use for the Galaxy for me personally. Due to the lack of radar, the turrets were more or less completely useless to me and the cargo hold was almost too big, often the commodities ran out before my cargo hold. But it sure looked great.

I always went with the Centurion but I liked it because there were (non flyable) ships that had advantages over it in terms of speed and maneuverability and were well armed as well. So it was not a super-fighter.

I wonder whether the lack of radar in the turrets and the lack of automated turret fire was a conscious design choice or more or less an oversight.

 

[-danr-]

I wonder whether the lack of radar in the turrets and the lack of automated turret fire was a conscious design choice or more or less an oversight.

I've often wondered that, especially about the turret's missing scanner. We know it was technically possible to include a scanner dish in the turrets, and even have them auto-fire as we'd seen both already in WC2.

I only really use turrets for tractor beam purposes, so the Orion does me just fine.

What would have been REALLY cool (are you listening, Mr. Roberts?) would have been to have the option to hire gunnery crew at spaceports: the more you pay, the better a gunner you get.

Oh, I think you have much to learn about rock flying... I've had no problems at all dogfighting in there, sometimes even luring a tailing enemy into a rock.

I think you're right, I always found rock fighting hardest of all in Privateer. I much prefer the WC1 asteroids, they don't seem to follow you so much. I blame this thread entirely, but I've started another Privateer playthrough (must be at least the 25th time now, but it's been a year since last time).