Progress Update

Right. I expect that there will be stuff like that most places except for unexplored or enemy-controlled territory.
 
Pffff, wussies. Getting lost in space is a good lesson for ya.

Don't take stupid risks and save often. I reather like some realism so long as it's not frustrating or detracts from the game.
 
Okay - seems I have some questions to answer. :D I apologize for my absence, I've been inexcusably lazy.
We are not remaking Privateer in this engine. There's really no point. John Cordell of Gemini Gold has that well in hand.
Right now there are 2 main writers and almost a half-dozen mission writers. The problem is that the Mission writers can't really do their work till we have a system in place to allow them to sufficently script out the missions. Once that happens, I expect the missions to flood in. The Main Writers are Sylvester and Hammerhead, with assistance from BradMick and myself. The story is in the progress of being written. The basic idea is something I came up with, but I don't know how much of it will remain in there - we have to make sure it works.
As for being stranded - you will almost never be able to be completely stranded. Every human-inhabited system has at least one fuel depot (think the asteroid bases in WC3 - basically a futuristic gas station) most inhabited systems have more than a dozen. They're scattered all over - outer rims near asteroid field jump points, inner systems in orbit arround moons. If you do happen to get yourself fuel-lessly stranded in a uninhabited system - you can always steal the fuel. Not particuarly ethical, sure, but neither are most privateers. I'm going to venture a guess and say that it's going to take a lot of effort, over a long period of time, to get to a point where you're stranded with no options. It's never going to "just happen". Even in Kilrathi space you can disable kilrathi tankers and take thier cargo. Sure, you'll have to fight through a basic fighter screen, but hey - that's your punishment for getting you pioneer ass stranded in cat space in the first place.
Anyhow, I hope this answers your questions.
 
Howard Day said:
Okay - seems I have some questions to answer. :D I apologize for my absence, I've been inexcusably lazy.
We are not remaking Privateer in this engine. There's really no point. John Cordell of Gemini Gold has that well in hand.
Right now there are 2 main writers and almost a half-dozen mission writers. The problem is that the Mission writers can't really do their work till we have a system in place to allow them to sufficently script out the missions. Once that happens, I expect the missions to flood in. The Main Writers are Sylvester and Hammerhead, with assistance from BradMick and myself. The story is in the progress of being written. The basic idea is something I came up with, but I don't know how much of it will remain in there - we have to make sure it works.
As for being stranded - you will almost never be able to be completely stranded. Every human-inhabited system has at least one fuel depot (think the asteroid bases in WC3 - basically a futuristic gas station) most inhabited systems have more than a dozen. They're scattered all over - outer rims near asteroid field jump points, inner systems in orbit arround moons. If you do happen to get yourself fuel-lessly stranded in a uninhabited system - you can always steal the fuel. Not particuarly ethical, sure, but neither are most privateers. I'm going to venture a guess and say that it's going to take a lot of effort, over a long period of time, to get to a point where you're stranded with no options. It's never going to "just happen". Even in Kilrathi space you can disable kilrathi tankers and take thier cargo. Sure, you'll have to fight through a basic fighter screen, but hey - that's your punishment for getting you pioneer ass stranded in cat space in the first place.
Anyhow, I hope this answers your questions.


Instead of stealing, will it be possible to radio a "friendly" tanker to get refueled for a fee ? (like those mid mission refuels in wc2 but you have to pay?... granted that one is nearby of course)
 
Well, it's a thought - but I don't know how we'd define "friendly". Maybe they're just randomly moving mobile diligents that just fly around. I don't know - this is something new, something that may potentially unbalance what we already have. I'll have to talk to the others about it, but it's certainly intriguing.
 
Howard Day said:
Well, it's a thought - but I don't know how we'd define "friendly". Maybe they're just randomly moving mobile diligents that just fly around. I don't know - this is something new, something that may potentially unbalance what we already have. I'll have to talk to the others about it, but it's certainly intriguing.
Well there could be specific trade routes for fuel (ex: from refinery to "gas station" )which you would need to be near. So for a particular system or tow it's basically a mobile gas station. But it would have a proper ingame explanation and route it takes.

Or even you could possibly get unrefined fuel for a performance hit if you get intouch with a drayman in it's way to a refinery. (or even blackmarket gas for a performance boost that ups the posibility of jumpcore damage Like purple gas in canada is only supposed to be for certain things and is technically supposed to be illegal to use in cars for example)
 
Sonic TH said:
Well I was thinking more if your jump drive got destroyed, fuel wouldn't help you there, only a shipyard.

How about and inter-system "tow truck"... Whenever that happened to me in Privateer, I was usually surrounded by enemied anyway, and didn't have enough credits to repair most of the damage. So it was pretty much a reload-saved-game situation anyway whether or not I could have made it back to port.
 
I kind of like the idea of being able to buy cargo off travelling vessels :p it should be substantially more expensive than at port though.
 
Well, there are already trade routes like you mentioned, AD - that stuff has been planned for a while. The problem with it and the idea you presented is that those trade-routes are mostly straight-line paths. The almost certainly don't go through unexplored systems, where you'd run down without access to a fuel depot. If you want to hire a fuel tanker and it's fuel, you can do it - but you will need to defend it from attackers and predators. As for the towtruck thing...I don't see how it could be all that useful. If your Jumpdrive is blown, you're pretty much SOL. If you're lucky, you can limp back to port and buy another one - but if youget stranded out in the kilrathi systems...man, you're kitty litter. One the very plus side - the jump drive is extremely well protected in the ship - if you loose it, chances are you're dead anyway.
 
I would expect that there would be virtually NO friendlies around if you are going into unexplored systems--they're unexplored, after all, not simply uncivilized, but barely even mapped at all. And finding anything but the relatively rare smuggler's base or Confed advance depot in Kilrathi space would be unlikely too--it should be mostly kats there who will shoot you if your reputation with them is low.
 
Well like I said I like the idea of being SOL in deep space, without risk it'd be pointless. Believe it or not some people don't want it easy, like in Elite for example.

When I played privateer I always got my jump drive shot up when I was jumping in confed space. They had a heavy and 3 swords at every jump. Most of the time I might be jumping into a middle system with bases but no shipyard. So I'd have to self destruct and reload but oh well.

Maybe an easier idea would be just to have the option to buy SPARE parts and store them in the hold. If you had an advanced repair droid it could replace the destroyed parts and you'd be good to go.

Anyway I hope there are alot of ES missions in this game, that was some of the most fun in privateer.
 
Yeah, it wouldn't be easy to get out of that situation - but it could be done. As for the spare parts idea....I kinda of like it. It would be interesting to see how it fits - if it fits - but that could definately be cool. Bit of a life saver, too.
 
This makes me think, what if you could deliver jump-drives and other equipment? Probably with an increased chance of pirates(cause they need all the weapons they can get) and a higher pay.
 
Hmmm of course the trade-off is that the spare parts would take up hold space, and unless you have the Advanced Repair Droid, you could only mount them when you land.

BTW: Will there be any place where you can land and refuel but NOT buy missiles? If so, then it might be nice to be able to carry missiles in this manner as well, with the limitation that you can only mount them (and thus make them usable in flight) when you are landed/docked.
 
Personally, I think that resupplying from equipment in the hold is starting towards veering off into fanboyism, which for a project that has the goal of staying true to the spirit of Privateer is not all that great an option, IMO.
 
Death said:
Personally, I think that resupplying from equipment in the hold is starting towards veering off into fanboyism, which for a project that has the goal of staying true to the spirit of Privateer is not all that great an option, IMO.
How so? I don't know why you think this smacks of "fanboyism". I may be missing something here. I generally see fanboyism as the desire to manipulate the subject universe to create something that is utterly ridiculous - Another 40KM long superweapon comes out of nowhere, everyone has cloaks and 8 steltek guns, the player can load 40 missiles...Landriech have well-painted Red/Blue/White Ships (Yeah, my bad on that one)...Human/Kilrathi Love-Child!, etc. The ability to carry some spare parts is not even close to being in this league.
Flying without spare parts would seem to be the less logical solution. If we did implement a system like this - the focus would probably be on some sort of "general spares" commodity. Sort of like a spare tire. if you're forced to use them (and repair droids aren't as good as trained mechanics) you'll probably only get one shot out of them. Jump drive busted, no way out? Rig a quicky repair job and hope you can get to the next system.

Now, on second read, if you're refering to the desire to carry replacement missiles on board to replace your expended ones....that is most certainly not going to happen. That would completely destroy any "location-based" stress. Any time you're out on the outer systems - and you blow all your missiles on the kilrathi raiders or whatever you're getting attacked by - you can not and should not have the security of knowing that you have another missiles load in the cargo hold. You should have to fight your way to a friendly base, and resupply like everyone else. We cannot afford to make the player feel special - at least not at first. The only time that should happen is after the player has earned it, after a decently lengthy gameplay experience.

I absolutely agree that some ideas sound great in the brainstorming stages, but fall utterly flat on their faces when actually implemented. This may be one of those bad ideas. But until we've tested it, given it a shot, we just won't know. Besides - this gameplay mechanic affects a reletively small portion of the game: If you're stranded without a shipyard in system and If you don't have any other recourse - this may come into play. If you bought the spares in the first place.

When we decided we were going to base this off of Privateer, we most certainly did not decide we were not going to add anything the original game didn't have. This is not going to be a WC1 skin for Privateer. That's simply not the purpose. I know some people may like that and some people may not. All I can give you is my personal promise that if something doesn't fit into the base Privateer gameplay, or sucks, or makes no sense, it will be removed from the game. No matter how much I or anyone else thinks it would be cool. Most of this will be determined by the playable demo, whenever it comes out. We'll be relying on you guys to tell us what rocks (if anything) and what sucks.

Anyhow, I hope I've cleared some of that up.
 
I was referring to both missiles and gear, actually. I realize Pioneer isn't "a WC1 skin for Privateer", I just am leery in general of adding new functionality that has no basis in WCdom.

If the parts used for repairs would result in equipment that would only go for a little bit then break (like a 1-2 jump repair on a jump drive), though, that's fine (not that you need my permission for anything :p ). I'm glad to hear missile reloads are out of the question, though.
 
Back
Top