Privateer: Ascii Sector

It's been too long since I've played Privateer to help with the various comm messages (your listings seem to be complete from what I do recall, however), but the Retros, IIRC, have no neutral or friendly comms. They're always hostile to you, if my memory isn't failing me.
 
Okay, I've got the basic set-up for communication with other ships working and I've been harassing some Kilrathi and becoming friendly with some pirates. :D

However, I'm not entirely sure which messages should do what. For example, when a Kilrathi ship is neutral towards you, these messages can be sent:

1: Pass without interference.
2: I'm continuing on course.
3: It is good to see such warriors.
4: Here kitty, kitty, kitty.

It's fairly obvious that #4 is meant to provoke the Kilrathi and #3 is meant to appease. But what about #1 and #2? They seem to be fairly neutral and therefore I've made them not have an effect on the Kilrathi's attitude, but I seem to remember that all non-provoking messages in the original Privateer had an appeasing effect. Or am I just remembering incorrectly?
 
Primary work on communication in space is done for now:

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I was originally planning to work on turrets next, but I think I'll make a basic AI, since I need the computer controlled ships be able to shoot guns and fire missiles for some of the communication (like the taunting "Yeah, you're nailed pal!", when you're hit by enemy fire).

While working on communication, I changed the procedure for landing on planets and bases. Originally, you just had to fly into the planet or base and you'd land. Now you can fly across a planet or base (and fire guns and missiles across it), so that it in a sense it is in the background. When you get close enough, you get the "Entering automatic landing zone." message and can then send a "Requesting automatic landing." message to them. Just like when jumping, your ship will be immobile and beyond your control for a short moment before it lands on the planet/base.
 
It's fairly obvious that #4 is meant to provoke the Kilrathi and #3 is meant to appease. But what about #1 and #2? They seem to be fairly neutral and therefore I've made them not have an effect on the Kilrathi's attitude, but I seem to remember that all non-provoking messages in the original Privateer had an appeasing effect. Or am I just remembering incorrectly?

I don't recall exactly, but having one hostile, one friendly and two neutral comm messages is probably fine for the purposes of your project. There was something about message 3 being the only appeasing one, but that might have just been a Secrets of the WC Universe thing.
 
I don't recall exactly, but having one hostile, one friendly and two neutral comm messages is probably fine for the purposes of your project. There was something about message 3 being the only appeasing one, but that might have just been a Secrets of the WC Universe thing.

Looking over the possible messages again, it actually makes sense having message #3 always being the appeasing one, as the messages I were most unsure about are in the 'friendly' category and I've programmed the messages in such a way that you can't make an already friendly ship even more friendly by continuing to send appeasing messages -- sending appeasing messages only works when turning a hostile neutral, or a neutral friendly. So that certainly simplifies things a bit... :)
 
On the issue of most fighters having only one gun--does this mean that they can only use one gun at a time, or that they can only possess one gun? For example, could you mount a laser and a neutron and switch between them inflight?
 
Bandit LOAF: Message 3 appeasing and 4 taunting I can understand, but how does 1 and 2 add to the current state? If a ship is neutral towards you, how does it become more neutral? Doesn't 1 and 2 just not have an effect?

Maybe it's in the way I've programmed ships' attitudes: I've just given each ship an attitude rating where -120 to -20 is hostile, -19 to 19 is neutral, and 20 to 120 is friendly. Sending an appeasing message will increase this rating (most of the time), whereas sending a taunting message will of course decrease it. I can't see how I can make 1 and 2 add to the current state, without moving towards the friendly or hostile state?

Anyway, how about message #1 you can send to a hostile Kilrathi ("We can avoid a fight.") -- isn't that appeasing?


ljuin: The way I've made it now is that you can just have 1 gun on a fighter (not counting guns on turrets!). I might add some kind of mechanism for you to have more guns and being able to switch between them (maybe having a period of time where you can't fire a gun, while the other gun is activated), but for now you can only have 1 gun on a fighter. I know this seems odd compared to the original Privateer, but I feel that it fits with the Ascii nature of the game. However, I might chance this based on feedback from the demo...
 
I was planning on working on a basic AI, but then I caught the flu and my feverish brain can't handle the logical thinking required for that... :D

So, I decided to work on something a little easier: the layout of the five systems for the demo and their bases. The result is as follows:



New Beijing:
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Nav 1: Guamao (Mining)
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Nav 5: Andingmen (Mining)
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Nav 6: New Beijing
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Nav 7: Xidan (Refinery)
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Loye:
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Nav 2: Loye Naval Base
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Nav 4: Pyrdion (Pleasure)
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Nav 6: Basin (Agricultural)
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Vortex Prime:
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Nav 3: Hooper's Hope (Mining)
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Vichy:
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Nav 3: Manurhin (Agricultural)
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Nav 4: Sediver (Agricultural)
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TC-101:
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Nav 1: Munroe (Pirate Base)
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I'm not completely satisfied with the look of the mining/pirate bases. I feel they're too red, so I'll probably play around with those some more.
 
I really like how everything looks. Is it just me, or does New Beijing have a smoggy, "New Detroit" style look to it?

I'm also amused by the fact that there really is a "Munroe" pirate base now. :)
 
Thanks guys! :)

Howard Day: Originally I had just planned on using a single image for all mining bases, agricultural planets and pleasure planets (like in the original Privateer), but I quickly discovered that it wouldn't be that much extra work to make unique looks for each base and planet.

Dougly: It's definitely not just you... New Beijing is a smoggy, industrial planet very much like New Detroit. And yeah, the name "Munroe" stuck in my mind and somehow seemed really appropriate for a pirate base, so I used it. If you've got any more good names, don't hesitate to throw 'em my way! :D


EDIT:
I've changed the colors of the mining/pirate bases slightly, so they aren't so red:

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Better?
 
If you've got any more good names, don't hesitate to throw 'em my way!

A few names that could be used:

~Akwende (it seems rather strange that we haven't seen any planets or stars named after her, given that she invented the jump drive)

~Bastille (could be used for a prison base, maybe, even though there were none of those in the original Privateer)

~New Macau (pleasure base)

~Point Hope (agriculture)

~Gretta's World (agriculture)

~Bounty (pirate)

~Liberty (pirate)

~Jakub's Gasp (pirate)

~Keystone Station, or even just "Keystone" (New Constantinople style starbase)

Also, I really like the new look you've put together for the mining/pirate bases.
 
More names :

Atlantis (pleasure)

Seche (agricultural)

Ceres (agricultural)

Lomonosov (scientific - like Oxford)

Nexus (industrial - like New Detroit)

The Hole (pirate)

Enclave (pirate)

Freeport (refinery)

Gesell (refinery)

Arsinoe (mining)

Cadmilus (mining)

good work so far ! :)
 
Lomonosov? ok :)
Michurin (agricultural)
Mendeleev (refinery)
Stahanov (mining) - that's actually a little too far, but anyway :)
 
Wow, those are all really great names, guys! I've copy-pasted them all to a file I'll save for when I start working on laying out the full four Quadrants of the Ascii Sector. I'm sure I'll be using most of them, especially the russian ones, as russians are one of the six major ethnic groups that will be present in the sector (the others are japanese, germans, italians, french and americans). These etnic groups decide what the names of the randomly generated characters at bases and planets will be.
 
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