kingmakeress

kingmakeress

Commodore
With all these great Wing Commander remakes going on and motivated by the recent thread about the Gemini sector by @Wedge009 , I thought I should add some ideas about Privateer. To avoid a potentially very long post, I have split them in categories with a brief explanation for each idea. As a general rule, but by no means a rigid one, I have tried to extend existing game mechanics or add ones which were considered or implemented but dropped during development.

Ships:
  • I really love the Centurion, but I believe it is slightly overpowered with its four guns and two missile/torpedo launchers. So maybe Orion should get besides her strong shields a unique attack advantage. Maybe a scaled down/early gun cooler to be able to fire more blasts from the heavier guns, say at 1.2 or 1.5 times the original fire rate. I really like the ionic pulse cannon, despite its slow travelling bolts, so I would like to find a use for it. @Bandit LOAF you are the Orion expert, so thoughts are welcome.
  • Adding a stormfire cannon would be fun, especially for the Orion which can carry additional rounds compared to the Centurion as it has more internal space. So mounting a stormfire in the single external fore hardpoint of Orion with a considerable number of rounds would make sense in the context of Orion being a mercenary gunship. Ok, Talons may well evade it and maybe Dralthis to some extent, but everything else .. After all why waste stormfire rounds on Talons?
  • Additionally, there can be a third, more advanced and considerably more expensive repair droid which can actually manufacture a small number of rounds for stormfire when not busy repairing the ship. Maybe in Righteous Fire, but I could also see that in Privateer. Also the player should have the necessary material aboard, perhaps iron or tungsten and gems. So there is an additional incentive for visiting the numerous mining bases scattered throughout Gemini.
  • As for Galaxy, well not my favorite ship. Even for Ultimate (is that a pun on Ultima?) sugar runs I use Orion and just use afterburners to get past militia patrols in Humboldt. I guess it is ok for merchants, but remotely controlling the upper and lower turrets, at least partially, from the cockpit would offset to some extent its size and lack of agility. It is not a fighting ship, but it should stand a chance against four or five Talons.
  • There may be modifications reducing the radar cross section of the player's ship, roughly equivalent to an ECM pack 3.5.
  • Inspired from Peleus, there may be radar jamming devices used by capital ships giving to the player static up to 20% of the time. There may be smaller such devices used by larger ships like the Galaxy or the Orion giving static 10% of the time.

Space opponents:
  • Ok (former!) Governor Menesch sold myriads of Talons to pirates and retros, but why not some of these Gladius too? Or maybe some Broadswords used as pirate semi-capital or scout or coordination ships along with some Galaxies in the same role, after all we have seen the Black Rhombus.
  • Also it would make sense that the retros occasionally fly Orions and Centurions as heavier fighters, after all they are in the open market.
  • Miggs flying a Talon? No. I mean I doubt he can efficiently fly a Centurion, but at least for prestige he and his associates should fly ones.
  • Also Miggs should have more friends with him, hoping to intimidate Brownhair, though I doubt be really wants the artifact.
  • For immersion reasons, some of the pirate, militia, and Confederation crafts should be randomly damaged indicating a tough patrol.
  • In the Fariss and Humboldt quadrants in particular, the player could randomly meet pirates doing business with dirty cops, so Brownhair has to eliminate ships of both factions. These can be plot missions alternativenly.

Missions:
  • In addition to system patrol missions, there should be system wipe missions aiming at eliminating all hostilities. These should be more likely to appear in smaller systems either closer to the Gemini frontier or to pirate bases.
  • Defend base missions? Why not also an obliterate base one? Captain Goodin may well pay you to devastate a pirate base, giving strong vibes of the final Venice mission. After all, they are many of them in Fariss and in Humboldt quadrants, so one can be chosen at random. For this you will need at least five proton torpedoes and strong guns, ie ionic pulse cannons or plasma guns.
  • Turrets on asteroids around pirate bases armed with lasers or mass drivers. It would make perfect sense, especially in conjunction with the above.

Maps and navigation:
  • As the player flies in the various systems, the hidden points and the asteroids are marked in Brownhair's star charts. This would give a sense of accomplishment to the player.
  • If the player buys the entire star map pack, then the maps for the quadrants other then one the player currently is may contain random errors.
  • If the player lands on a pirate base, then it is marked on their star maps. In subsequent militia or Confederation contraband check, these altered maps will show up and the player is marked as a pirate by that particular patrol as if they were carrying contraband.
  • On pirate bases, random fixers may sell treasure maps which may or may not be hoaxes.
  • Alternatively these fixers may offer random upgrades to the player's ship. Some may be temporary e.g. a Mace missile or thrust enhancement, whereas other may be permanent but not game changing e.g. tweaking the power generator to give 5% or 10% more energy.

Please feel free to add ideas and/or discuss the above.
 
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I am replaying Privateer these days and I just finished the mission where I have to take Lynch's cousin to the Romulus mining base. Probably it is obvious, but the Confederation patrol intercepting the player is most likely working for Lynch, because which cops carry out a death sentence by themselves? (Ok, maybe stupid question with all these things going on in the world these days). Still, shouldn't there be a mechanic to count them as mercenaries or pirates? Alternatively, Captain Goodin may use this fact to give an additional incentive to talk to Admiral Terrell and if this happens, then these corrupt pilots are recorded as such in the player's record.

Additionally, when the player talks to a bartender the first time after this mission, they could get a note from Lynch that this is not over. That would utilize the existing bar mechanic.
 
To add some complexity to an unreasonably easy plot mission, the player should tractor Garrovick in. Back in Rygannon the player will be informed by Taryn Cross that Garrovick keeps babbling nonsense, adding to the suspense this mission tries to build.
 
Hey, I really like your ideas. I was working on "Privateer: Reimagined" which is actually fully playable almost end to end. There are a lot of missing details and I kind of lost steam. Maybe I'll get back to it soon. If/when I do I'll incorporate some of your ideas.

Thank you for sharing.
 
Glitch253 said:
If/when I do I'll incorporate some of your ideas.
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Sure, by all means feel free to! I have put all the above in a document I actively maintain, at least until it reaches a satisfactory state.

Glitch253 said:
Hey, I really like your ideas. I was working on "Privateer: Reimagined" which is actually fully playable almost end to end. There are a lot of missing details and I kind of lost steam. Maybe I'll get back to it soon. If/when I do I'll incorporate some of your ideas.

Thank you for sharing.
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You are most welcome!
 
More possible points to consider for the game to make the player explore the universe a bit utilizing existing game mechanics:
  • Lynn Murphy refuses to hire the player if they have a low number of kills (say less that fifty, but Kilrathi kills may count more).
  • Taryn Cross does the same if the player has not enough experience eg having not flown through a hidden nav point, not having defeated enemies in an asteroid field, or not having visited a remote base, for instance Olympus or Erewhon.
Moreover, I tried playing Privateer and Righteous Fire while listening to music scores of other Wing Commander games. I think the Wing Commander IV music (I found a youtube list some years ago) fits the tone of both games, especially the latter as the player operates at the fringe of the Terran space much like the Border Worlds. In fact, I am willing to bet that a sizable portion of the Gemini citizenry falls under Captain Paulsen's "definition" of "subhumans".
 
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Also do we know how much cold or warm the bases are? Given that most fixers are wearing a jacket and a sweater, I would be willing to bet it is somewhat cold, especially in the mining bases which are crude in every aspect. Probably New Detroit, New Constantinople, and Oxford are the exceptions to that. I am not sure about Perry, it would make sense to be somewhat cold for fuel efficiency.
 
In Crab-12 it is best to fly from nav point 1 to 3 through 2. Especially in the Righteous Fire plot missions that makes your life easier.
 
I just noticed that in Righteous Fire you can use the secret compartment to carry contraband, but not legal goods. Strange. A bug?
 
There was an odd event in Righteous Fire. On the return leg of meeting the Monte's informant I took an attack mission against Retros which coincidentally was at the nav point where a group of scripted unknowns was waiting for me. The mission Retros and the scripted unknowns started cooperating by attacking me when I was tailing one of them, an implicit evidence that unknowns are flown by Retros. I have happened to fly against Kilrathi and hostile mercenaries as well as against pirates and hostile mercenaries and I have not seen such a cooperation.
 
criticalmass said:
It's so much fun reading your exploits and ideas, after roughly 30 years of playing Privateer. By all means, go on.
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Vielen Dank! These days I am replaying Privateer and Righteous Fire, so I post often about these. Especially since I am trying to do things I haven't done like visiting every single base and looking for odd and/or lucrative trade routes.
 
It seems that in the CD version of Righteous Fire blowing up Uhler (or Uhlie!) after completing the mission does not alter the outcome, Captain Goodin still congratulates you 🫣🫣

Sorry @Bandit LOAF!
 
Admiral Terral is to Admiral Terrel what Joseph Khumelo is to Joseph Khumalo. From the CD version of Righteous Fire.

rf_terral_20260925.jpg
 
Too bad Gaea does not have a commodity exchange marketplace, it would be fun to discover odd artifacts there ooor to fly in some PlayThing issues 😈😈
 
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When I landed at Valkyrie before jumping to Eden, I saw that that the system patrol missions invariably took the supposedly secret jump point into account and moreover there were attack or scour missions about it specifically treating it as an ordinary jump point. From an in-universe perspective some possible explanations are the following:
  • The locals know and just don't care to report it. Especially since Gaea is one of the closest agricultural bases, Valkyrie may well depend on it.
  • The Retros have become so powerful (and careless I might add) to just let their strength be known locally.
 
Maybe I am thinking of Dune or Elite here, but in order to make the Galaxy more attractive to merchants, it can be equipped with a second, exclusive, and naturally more expensive droid with can extract ore from asteroids tractored in. Then just fly to any refinery and pick up the cash!
 
more playable ships would be good. Demon, Phantom, Wraith, Clydesdale, Free trader, Belleau wood and such or just see.
Black lance like pirates group,
 
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