spiritplumber
Spaceman
If you're OK with hacking the game, why not give the Drayman some turrets? *angelic smile*
The Oxford missions
- Thread starter fwadman
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"TO ANYONE WHO CAN CONSISTENTLY KILL A DEMON IN LESS THAN A FEW MINUTES REAL TIME: How the heck do you do it? In what ship? What weapons? What strategy? I would *really* like to know."
I did kill them. As soon as you finish the last one, though, another 5 respawn. I was never able to prevent the second five from blowing up the cargo ship.
To kill them, I was using a Centurion with reactor level 5 and shield level 4, and 4 lasers. (Yes, I find lasers to be the best weapon, for me anyways. Check the thread I started called "energy consumption question" for the details.) And I needed auto-tracking on all four mounts. I say "I needed" it, because I'm sure some players are so skillfull as to be able to lead a target manually just right. Not me. I NEEDED autotracking. I also had all the engine upgrades, like afterburner and maneuvering jets and all that. And FOF missiles I find a lot more effective than heatseakers; but not in that oxford mission much, as the attacking demons seem to have ECM.
I did kill them. As soon as you finish the last one, though, another 5 respawn. I was never able to prevent the second five from blowing up the cargo ship.
To kill them, I was using a Centurion with reactor level 5 and shield level 4, and 4 lasers. (Yes, I find lasers to be the best weapon, for me anyways. Check the thread I started called "energy consumption question" for the details.) And I needed auto-tracking on all four mounts. I say "I needed" it, because I'm sure some players are so skillfull as to be able to lead a target manually just right. Not me. I NEEDED autotracking. I also had all the engine upgrades, like afterburner and maneuvering jets and all that. And FOF missiles I find a lot more effective than heatseakers; but not in that oxford mission much, as the attacking demons seem to have ECM.
Yeah, I managed that *once* as well. But all kills were by ramming them. And this was actually with the Demon. I find that I'm not fast / agile enough to ram them on purpose with the Centurion.dan_w said:
I consider autotracking a cheat. It wasn't in the original, so I won't use it... might as well hack the stats, IMO.
No kidding! Draymans are turkeys sitting in space waiting to be shot. In one mission I hit one accidentally and it turned into an enemy, and I was just flying around slowly trying to say "I'm sorry" and the poor thing was trying to shoot at me but was rather pitiable. One wonders by what loophole in the laws of natural selection do they manage to exist, if I was able to kill 3 kilrathi capital ships with my 4 lasers alone, I can hardly imagine what I could do to a defenseless Drayman. The only reason I did not give it turrets was that I wasn't sure how to do it, or where to put them. But let me tell you, the demons looked cute, stuck in space, screaming "This is NOT good!".
You need auto-tracking. That said, even if I kill these things the mission ends (3rd oxford mission) because while I go after one of the hunters, the other is shooting up the drayman. They don't attack me and as other have mentioned, I can't lock anything by pressing H.dan_w said:
So far my best strategy is load up on missles and sit next to the drayman, not too close though, and just use afterburner to move around it. The escort mission, while usually those are hard for me, went by without any problems. Why this drayman doesn't move during the fight is beyond me.
spiritplumber
Spaceman
I had put turrets on Draymans 
not sure what happened to that... OK I went overboard (six) but 2 or 3 is reasonable I would think. I was thinking up-down-back.
not sure what happened to that... OK I went overboard (six) but 2 or 3 is reasonable I would think. I was thinking up-down-back.homer400 said:
Well, that can be solved quite easily by killing half a dozen of them before taking the mission ;-). That's what I did (not that it's helping much).
The drayman moves plenty for me! I tried a new tactic - I wanted to play turret for the drayman, just lying still right on top of it. No go. It kept moving. I tried a bit further away, but it kept moving.
Ok, so then I figured I could speed-match it and use "shelton slide" to play turret. No go, however, because the drayman doesn't fly in a straight line. It just flies all over the freaking place. Now *that's* just plain dumb. I would've thought it would make a bee-line for Oxford!
The most depressing thing is that even if I by some miracle kill the 3 hunters, 5 more appear! How the heck am I supposed to take out 5 when I cannot even do three! Plus the drayman is bound to have suffered at least *some* damage already. Sigh.
Btw, while lying still in my ship, I noticed that those Demons turn hella fast! Are they really flying the same Demons that we can buy? They seem to have insane accelerations!
Are you serious???dan_w said:
I did read the other thread on this - and commented on what I believe is a flaw in your formula, which skews your results towards low-powered weapons (such as the laser).
Anyway, since I'm completely stuck on Oxford mission 3, I decided I'd give these fancy lasers of yours a try. Now I cannot even kill a talon! Seriously, that's now as difficult as a demon was before, which for me makes it pretty close to impossible (without ramming or missiles, anyway).
You must have a completely different strategy than I, because lasers simply don't work for me. When *I* shoot at an opponent, I can often get one shot in, but the milisecond that shot hits (often even before that), the opponent banks hard in a random direction. This makes the subsequent "trail" of shots miss. For that reason, I need to maximize the damage of each individual shot (with some limits on total power drain).
^^^ Ah, I did try torpedoes on the demons, but they move to fast. If you can afford it, use Tachyons. I can kill one of the first Demons in about a minute, but later they get smarter and use circular patterns to f'k with auto-targetting!... If only it was my job to destroy the drayman.
There is a speed matching button (F9) I think, but my had limited luck with that, I think it only works like the shelton slide too.
The other thing that I try to do is hire wingmen in Oxford (I have about 400K right now with a fully loaded cent
) but still lose the mission. ROAR!
Yeah no kidding, I figure that is either the game being able to make precise decisions and not waste momentum, or it cheats a tiny bit and just accelerates to 3000kph for a second.fyodor said:
There is a speed matching button (F9) I think, but my had limited luck with that, I think it only works like the shelton slide too.
The other thing that I try to do is hire wingmen in Oxford (I have about 400K right now with a fully loaded cent
) but still lose the mission. ROAR!fyodor said:
Are you using auto-tracking with the lasers? Yes my laser strategy IS different: I try to get a continuous stream. Talons turn into fireballs in about 1 second of dead on lasering. Bigger ships take 2 seconds. Capital ships about 30 seconds. Usually kilrathis come at me making circles with their noses, I move straight towards them. At some point they suddenly stop making circles and face me straight. I press the mouse button at the moment they break the circling to face me straight, and by the time they start shooting, my laser stream begins hitting it. By the time his blasts are about to reach me I bank, and just hear the explosion.
spiritplumber said:I had put turrets on Draymans
I would have thought that a good number. Draymans can have up to what, level 8 reactor? So by what logic would they NOT have 6 turrets?
Uh, maybe the shape is not conducive... How about 4?
- One at the top front and tilted forward.
- Two at the top back, tilted back and outwards.
- One more centered at the bottom.
Or maybe two at the front, one at the back and one at the bottom, so as to divide the sphere like the vertices of a tetrahedron?
spiritplumber
Spaceman
the way I had them was two top, two bottom, one front one back.
http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/wcu-code.zip
http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/wcu-data.zip
http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/wcu-code.zip
http://www.spiritplumber.com/priv_remake/wcu-data.zip
No, I'm not using auto-tracking. Je refuse!dan_w said:
Yes, I used this strategy in the original to great effect. I can't seem to get it to work here, though. Even when I appear to be dead-on target, 80% of my shots don't hit. Also, opponents seem to react quicker and even with a rapidly firing weapon like the laser, only about 2 hits are scored in a stream before they turn away.
It's easier with retros - and talons to some extent. Demons, however, are virtually impossible to deal with this way for me. I only get one shot in with e.g. tachyons and no more than two with the laser.
fyodor said:
Off-topic nitpick: Shouldn't it be "J'refuse!"?
Off-topic nitpick #2: That brings up a thought. Does anybody know if there's a translation of Emile Zola's "J'Accuse" floating around on the net anywhere? Just curious.
Off-topic babbling #3: I'm listening to a MIDI of the "Peanuts" theme, and for some reason it just seems like it should be music for Priv somewhere. But where?
spiritplumber said:
Hmmm... actually, perhaps the game needs light, medium, and heavy turrets to make the difference between light capships like the Drayman and capships like warships - perhaps one, two, or three weapons?
If the turrets have no autotracking, then 6 on a Drayman is fine - just make the warships more impressive, and/or lower the damage soak capacity of the Drayman.
As far as the Drayman, I'd think that logically, the most important criteria would be as close to full spherical gun coverage as possible - perhaps a couple narrow cones without gun coverage, but your goal in a Drayman is to head right for your next jump point (or local friendlies) as "fast" as you can - minimize exposure.
Think strategically - what would make you want a Drayman instead of a real capship - price? cargo? legality? speed? upgrades? Can you upgrade real capships as well (i.e. the military ships with better engineers and supply officers are more powerful than others) - similar to the Border-related Wing Commander game.
Starblazer
Spaceman
Greetings All,
I, myself, can hardly get a shot in going head to head, the damn ships are doing manuvers that should make the pilot either throw up or become jelly on the bulkhead! I tend to wait until they are heading away from me, then they tend to go in a straight line and I lean on the fire button putting 4 or 5 shots into them and they go boom. (Please bear in mind I am using a Demon w/4 lasers w/auto-tracking, I can hardly hit a whole lot without, but thats just me).
I haven't seem to have much of a problem blowing up pirates or retros, did the third Roman Lynch mission where you have to take on 3 or 4 Demons and didn't have a problem with them....on the 4th mission now, most likely will have trouble with Oxford missions. Will let you know my results.
Anyhow, mebey if you caught them as they fly away from you, that might help.
Sorry I can't offer much help....and yes I am in 1.0 and I haven't altered anything (don't know how anyway, and my Repair System still dosen't seem to work...oh, well...
Good Luck! ;>
Starblazer
I, myself, can hardly get a shot in going head to head, the damn ships are doing manuvers that should make the pilot either throw up or become jelly on the bulkhead! I tend to wait until they are heading away from me, then they tend to go in a straight line and I lean on the fire button putting 4 or 5 shots into them and they go boom. (Please bear in mind I am using a Demon w/4 lasers w/auto-tracking, I can hardly hit a whole lot without, but thats just me).
I haven't seem to have much of a problem blowing up pirates or retros, did the third Roman Lynch mission where you have to take on 3 or 4 Demons and didn't have a problem with them....on the 4th mission now, most likely will have trouble with Oxford missions. Will let you know my results.
Anyhow, mebey if you caught them as they fly away from you, that might help.
Sorry I can't offer much help....and yes I am in 1.0 and I haven't altered anything (don't know how anyway, and my Repair System still dosen't seem to work...oh, well...
Good Luck! ;>
Starblazer
I was able to beat the game and enjoyed it immensly. As stated multiple times before it all came down to the Auto-Tracking for your guns that is sold at Perry Naval Base. I tried numerous times to defeat the missions with Demon class ships involved and found it impossible for my skills without the auto-tracking. Once I did upgrade the guns (tachyons) I was able to beat the Oxford missions. Unfortunately this made the rest of the game incredibly trivial skill wise. Talons take mere seconds to kill when all you have to do is get them on the screen and pull the trigger. The only difficult spots I had after Oxford were when you get mobbed by Dralthi in the exploration missions and that is simply because you can't turn, target, and kill fast enough. It came to the point where I stopped buying missiles (my saving grace up till Oxford).
I'm not sure what it is but those Demons pull maneuvers I didn't know were possible in the Vegastrike physics heh heh. I suggest removing the auto-tracking as it trivializes the game and kills the skill requirement and heavily downgrade the AI Demons.
All in all, I though the remake was very close to the original Privateer and I'm glad someone took the time and imagination to bring this great game back to life in such great detail. Awesome job!!...looking forward to any updates or changes the developers add into the remake. 1 question though...are there plans of adding Righteous Fire expansion to it?
I'm not sure what it is but those Demons pull maneuvers I didn't know were possible in the Vegastrike physics heh heh. I suggest removing the auto-tracking as it trivializes the game and kills the skill requirement and heavily downgrade the AI Demons.
All in all, I though the remake was very close to the original Privateer and I'm glad someone took the time and imagination to bring this great game back to life in such great detail. Awesome job!!...looking forward to any updates or changes the developers add into the remake. 1 question though...are there plans of adding Righteous Fire expansion to it?
Well, there is no softare company here. There are a few guys in college. There a few more who tested this thing and/or created artwork, ripped stats and media from the original, etc.dan_w said:
If I had to guess I'd say the average age of the entire team is in the low- to mid-20s.
Neither Privateer Remake nor the Vegastrike engine "cheat". AI ships do not accelerate faster than their flyable counterparts. AI ships do not turn faster than their flyable counterparts. AI ships do not have super-weapons.
All of the ship performance data is in the .csv file.
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