Someone has probably thought of this, but when your hauling contraband in Privateer and the Militia/Confed say that their going to scan you for contraband, I usually dump my cargo and then when they say that I'm clear, tractor it in. Does anyone else have any other ideas for getting past contraband searches without fighting???
Privateer idea
- Thread starter Proton
- Start date
Another way to avoid detection of your cargo is to simply switch back and forth between your forward view and the turret view. Once they begin to tell you to maintain course, imediately switch to your rear turret view (if ship has one) then back again, they will repeat over and over as you do this. 
RFBurns
RFBurns
Heck, I drive a Centurion. I usually just blow right
past 'em a la Dukes of Hazzard.
-- Brian P.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Thats the spirit!! Anyone notice that when they chase you, they always manage to stay about 4 to 5,000 cliks away, just out of range of weapons fire, even tho they could easily overtake any of the player ships! Even the Steltek pod, as it chases you all over, stays just out of range of gun fire! Weird.
RFBurns
To get them to become enemies (militia/confed/mercs) just load up with some contraband and let em scan you. After about 3 or 4 times of that, they become hostile. But when I start a new game, after reaching to enough credits and buy a Centurion, I run off to the Kilrathi sectors and start blowing away Kilrathi. I try to stay away from missions that require taking on pirates so that I become friends with pirates, mercs, confed and militia! Then the only real enemies you run into are the Retros, unless you take on a mission that jacks up the kill score against pirates or mercs. If you want to make the Kilrathi your friends, just start blowing away militia or confed ships, then both the Kilrathi and pirates become your friends! Makes it easy when you go out to find that abandoned base with the Steltek gun!
RFBurns
RFBurns
I never got to finish the game (Got a new computer with Win95, and couldn't run it anymore), but when I did, I basically made enemies of everybody but militia and Confed. I was mostly a cargo hauler, though, used a Galaxy most of the time. Cargo hauling brings up the cash quick. But when I was working for the girl, can't remember her name right off, and got caught hauling contraband, I just ran. Never had to kill any militia, and was just fine afterward.
I agree. I also found that legitimate cargo for the
merchant's guild is a profitable way to travel. For me,
more profitable than smuggling, which is strange.
Just a question -- there was a great deal of demand
for radioactive ore on New Detroit. But no one seemed
to know why. I surmise it was for a secret military
project -- the T-bomb, perhaps? Or for another black
op that either didn't work out, or we simply never heard
of?
Anyone know?
Respectfully,
Brian P.
I never bothered with much contraband. In fact, I never really bothered with much cargo full stop. I found it was more profitable to invest the money in my ship, then go for the more expensive bounty hunts/patrols offered by the various guilds. If you are a member of both guilds, between them and the free database you can usually snag a couple of good missions. From memory, I could often pull in 10-30,000 creds per trip.
As for killing things, pirates, retros and kilrathi were all fair game ... I played the game to fight and besides, you tended to get good bounties for these guys. I tended to steer clear of killing Confed if I could help it, there's no profit in it.
In those few missions where you HAVE to carry kontraband, I generally had a Centurian by then, so I just hit the burners and left them in my dust.
My tips for building a fighting machine :
1. Invest heavily in your Tarsus first. Buy the best weapons/shields/afterburners you can. A fully upgraded Tarsus is actually a reasonable killing machine. This allows you to go for more expensive bounties.
2. Get the Centurian as soon as possible. Don't skimp on your Tarsus in the meantime, but don't delay or waste money on the Galaxy or Orion. Once you can afford a Centurian with two lasers and a med shield upgrade, go for it.
3. The best weapon, bar the Tachyon, is actually the LASER. It has rapid fire and best damage/energy ratio. You can save money on a weapon powerplant while you save for your tachyons.
As for killing things, pirates, retros and kilrathi were all fair game ... I played the game to fight and besides, you tended to get good bounties for these guys. I tended to steer clear of killing Confed if I could help it, there's no profit in it.
In those few missions where you HAVE to carry kontraband, I generally had a Centurian by then, so I just hit the burners and left them in my dust.
My tips for building a fighting machine :
1. Invest heavily in your Tarsus first. Buy the best weapons/shields/afterburners you can. A fully upgraded Tarsus is actually a reasonable killing machine. This allows you to go for more expensive bounties.
2. Get the Centurian as soon as possible. Don't skimp on your Tarsus in the meantime, but don't delay or waste money on the Galaxy or Orion. Once you can afford a Centurian with two lasers and a med shield upgrade, go for it.
3. The best weapon, bar the Tachyon, is actually the LASER. It has rapid fire and best damage/energy ratio. You can save money on a weapon powerplant while you save for your tachyons.
Centurion guns
Indeed! 2 tacyons and 2 lasers on front of that Centurion can reak havoc on enemies! With the lasers rapid fire and fairly weak energy drain, combining with the tacyons gives them whackers a fight they will never forget! My Centurion boasts 6 tacyons all around, but they drain power like a vacume cleaner! Once I got the Steltek gun level 2, I got rid of the tacyons and just put lasers on the remaining 3 mounts. Slaughter house!!
RFBurns
Indeed! 2 tacyons and 2 lasers on front of that Centurion can reak havoc on enemies! With the lasers rapid fire and fairly weak energy drain, combining with the tacyons gives them whackers a fight they will never forget! My Centurion boasts 6 tacyons all around, but they drain power like a vacume cleaner! Once I got the Steltek gun level 2, I got rid of the tacyons and just put lasers on the remaining 3 mounts. Slaughter house!!
RFBurns
Re: Centurion guns
What about the fusion cannons in RF? Have you found those
to be worth their (HUGE!) price?
For myself, I found that they really didn't do much more
than tachyons, so I stuck with tachyons. Also, fusion
cannons are
amazingly expensive to repair. Has anyone had a different
experience?
Also, are they related to the fission cannons that the
Dragons carry in WCIV?
[Edited by pendell on 02-21-2001 at 18:24]
What about the fusion cannons in RF? Have you found those
to be worth their (HUGE!) price?
For myself, I found that they really didn't do much more
than tachyons, so I stuck with tachyons. Also, fusion
cannons are
amazingly expensive to repair. Has anyone had a different
experience?
Also, are they related to the fission cannons that the
Dragons carry in WCIV?
[Edited by pendell on 02-21-2001 at 18:24]
Probably the Fusion cannon on a Dragon may be a boasted upgraded gun based on the Fusion guns in Privateer RF. Remember those Fusion cannons on board the Dragon can charge up compared to the "fixed" charge in Privateer RF.
In RF, I loaded up 2 Fusion cannons on the inner hard points and 2 tacyons on the outer and 2 Fusion cannons on the tail. With the gun cooler and boosted engine upgrade level 4, and keeping level 3 shields, you had plenty of juice for those sticky situations!
RFBurns
In RF, I loaded up 2 Fusion cannons on the inner hard points and 2 tacyons on the outer and 2 Fusion cannons on the tail. With the gun cooler and boosted engine upgrade level 4, and keeping level 3 shields, you had plenty of juice for those sticky situations!
RFBurns
Re: Re: Centurion guns
Well, technically Fusion and Fission are entirely different processes, one involving the splitting of atoms and the other the joining. So no, it is difficult to see how the two weapons are 'related' other then the fact that they are designed to throw large amounts of energy at enemy ships.
There was some talk that the fusion cannon is actually based on the Steltek cannon (based primarily on the fact that the program code for the two weapons is identical). I think the end result was that such a link is possible, but not proveable either way. (heh heh let's see if we can resurrect that old argument).
Anyhoo, I personally found the fusion guns to be slightly better than the tachyon, but not worth their enormous pricetag. So, while I would upgrade eventually, they were always the last thing on my shopping list - something to be purchased when I had oodles of spare cash. My personal feeling was to go with four of them, because I always liked to keep all my guns the same. That way I didn't have to worry about different timing and speeds of different guns and could pick my shots a little better. The Centurians fully upgraded powerplant COULD handle 4 Fusions, but only just - you had to be a bit more carefull with your shots. Basically they rewarded accurate shooting - each hit does more damage, but each miss is costly.
Well, technically Fusion and Fission are entirely different processes, one involving the splitting of atoms and the other the joining. So no, it is difficult to see how the two weapons are 'related' other then the fact that they are designed to throw large amounts of energy at enemy ships.
There was some talk that the fusion cannon is actually based on the Steltek cannon (based primarily on the fact that the program code for the two weapons is identical). I think the end result was that such a link is possible, but not proveable either way. (heh heh let's see if we can resurrect that old argument
).Anyhoo, I personally found the fusion guns to be slightly better than the tachyon, but not worth their enormous pricetag. So, while I would upgrade eventually, they were always the last thing on my shopping list - something to be purchased when I had oodles of spare cash. My personal feeling was to go with four of them, because I always liked to keep all my guns the same. That way I didn't have to worry about different timing and speeds of different guns and could pick my shots a little better. The Centurians fully upgraded powerplant COULD handle 4 Fusions, but only just - you had to be a bit more carefull with your shots. Basically they rewarded accurate shooting - each hit does more damage, but each miss is costly.
Fusion guns vs Steltek guns
Well the fusion cannon is well below the power (damage point) rating of even a level 1 Steltek gun. The level 1 Steltek gun boasts a 12cm damage rating while the Fusion cannon is only 6.7cm damage. Both level 1 Steltek gun and the Fusion cannon draws about the same amount of energy drain. The Steltek level 2 gun boasts a damage rating of 19cm! Yet that gun draws the same amount of energy drain or just a tad more than the level 1 gun does, and the level 2 gun fires more rapidly and faster. Its possible that the Fusion gun is somewhat based on that level 1 Steltek gun, but is still far below the damage potential of the actuall level 1 Steltek gun. Origin's reasons for that was to simply give the player a replacement gun that would come close to the total power of the single level 2 Steltek gun that was stolen by the Retros. Only problem with that, is that you have to stack 4 Fusion guns to come slightly higher the damage rating of a single level 2 Steltek gun, but you get 4 times the energy drain! Not a very good trade off IMO. That Fusion gun should have had at least the potential of a level 1 Steltek gun as far as energy drain and maybe a bit less than the damage points (ie: 9 or 10cm).
The Fusion cannon has less damage points than the Plasma gun! But costs tons more! Then you dont even get the gun back at the end of the game!!!
All that work for nothing! Oh well, it was a fun game tho! Still play it often!
RFBurns
Well the fusion cannon is well below the power (damage point) rating of even a level 1 Steltek gun. The level 1 Steltek gun boasts a 12cm damage rating while the Fusion cannon is only 6.7cm damage. Both level 1 Steltek gun and the Fusion cannon draws about the same amount of energy drain. The Steltek level 2 gun boasts a damage rating of 19cm! Yet that gun draws the same amount of energy drain or just a tad more than the level 1 gun does, and the level 2 gun fires more rapidly and faster. Its possible that the Fusion gun is somewhat based on that level 1 Steltek gun, but is still far below the damage potential of the actuall level 1 Steltek gun. Origin's reasons for that was to simply give the player a replacement gun that would come close to the total power of the single level 2 Steltek gun that was stolen by the Retros. Only problem with that, is that you have to stack 4 Fusion guns to come slightly higher the damage rating of a single level 2 Steltek gun, but you get 4 times the energy drain! Not a very good trade off IMO. That Fusion gun should have had at least the potential of a level 1 Steltek gun as far as energy drain and maybe a bit less than the damage points (ie: 9 or 10cm).
The Fusion cannon has less damage points than the Plasma gun! But costs tons more! Then you dont even get the gun back at the end of the game!!!
All that work for nothing! Oh well, it was a fun game tho! Still play it often! RFBurns
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
If RF started with the ability to buy guns that were the same as the Steltek cannon, there would be very little motivation for your character to spend the entire game trying to get his gun back.