Privateer: Ascii Sector

Thanks for all the replies about Kilrathi names. As it doesn't really seem as if a list of "common" Kilrathi names exist that I can use for generating random names, I'll just change the text for those particular non-plot missions to read "kill a rogue Kilrathi", while still having "kill the Pirate John Doe" for human targets.

Anyway, I've completed the collission effects, but before I continue work on bases, there's one more thing I want to add to the flight engine: ejected pilots. I had pretty much forgotten about them, since I haven't programmed the non-plot missions for which they'll be used (you have to deliver ejected pilots to a base and I haven't done the missions involving landing on bases). Ejected pilots should be fairly easy to implement (I can re-use most of my cargo containers code), so it should only take a day or two. I'm making a small change to how they function in the original Privateer, where all ejected pilots became slaves when tractor beam'ed onboard your ship. In Ascii Sector, only ejected pilots from hostile ships will become slaves. Friendly (or neutral) pilots will become passengers on your ship that you can deliver to a base. Some will give you a small monetary reward for saving them, but all will make the faction they belong to more friendly towards you. So, in essence, if merchants are hostile towards you, you can go search for a merchant under attack by pirates, send him appeasing messages until he becomes friendly towards you, and when he is blown up by the pirates, scoop him on board your ship and deliver him to a base. He'll then spread the word about your heroics and your standing among merchants will be improved significantly.
 
I'm back to working on bases and I've completed the layout of the first space station: Loye Naval Base.

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The bar

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The shipyard


This is what the station looks like from space, by the way:
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The basic programming for the shipyard terminal computer is done. This is where you buy/sell stuff and repair your ship. To finish it up I need to draw the look and component layouts of the other ships available to the player (right now I've only done the one ship in the pictures below -- I hope you can tell which ship it is!).

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The log-on screen for the terminal. As I won't have mission computers, I decided to use the 'palm activation' for the shipyard computer instead.

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A completely stripped ship.

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A fully loaded ship.

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When you move the mouse cursor over the ship's components, you get information about it.

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Damaged components are color coded to provide an overview of your ship's condition.
 
Two more ships done!

I'd just like to point out that these pictures may be slightly squished vertically, as the window that I change to for making a screenshot hasn't got the same aspect ratio as the full screen. I've made these ships as a compromise between the window and full screen, so they look fairly reasonable in both versions (some computers I've tried the game on also had a vertically squished aspect ratio in full screen).

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The last two 'fighters' (size 1 ships) are done. The one you probably won't recognize is a Ulysses -- a merchant ship with a larger cargo hold than the Galaxy.

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Now only two 'capital' ships remain: the Nexus and the Pegasus.
 
I've completed the layouts for the last two ships, Pegasus and Nexus:


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I think I'll continue work on non-plot missions next. This includes a random mission generator, mission updater (removes expired missions and missions that have been accepted by simulated other privateers and merchants, and adds new missions to the mission computers based on your ratings), mission computers and fixers that offer you private missions (based on your reputation).
 
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