Do yourself a favour: stay out of the Spoiler Forum until you have flown the campaign on your own for the first time and gotten to level 38. You can always start a new campaign later and try to beat the game quickly, or in a Starflier, or whatever. But there is only one first time so take your time, explore, try different ships or weapon types, try to find secret wrecks, try trading, pirating, looting, mining etc. pp. And don't worry about Juni, she'll wait forever if need be.

And when you have reached level 38 on your own, come back here. I think we have a nice array of propositions how you can have lots of fun in repeat runs of the campaign.

P.S.: Tarsus in Rygannon?! That's five dozen bogies in a single mission ...

P.P.S.: Am at my main computer now, so here's some more info. The Sybex Strategy Guide on the Microsoft Freelancer website contains a lot of helpful info, including tips from the game designers. As far as I remember it does not contain any spoilers. As regards ship progression: stick to light fighters all the way if you want it easy, use heavy fighters if you want a bit more challenge (and a lot more fun).

Edited by - Sherlog on 21-08-2003 19:48:47

Cool, Sherlog - I didn't know you were a Privateer ace too. I never really tried to play it in anything other than the Centurion (why oh why is the FL Centurion so boring-looking and inferior to all the VHFs?) Although, after our FL runs, I might have to cobble together a DOS system and take a Tarsus or Galaxy out there...

--

Ah yes, Privateer. I was not an ace by any means but I enjoyed the game immensely. Bought it two times over the years, lost the CD two times, just like DOTT (Day of the Tentacle). I guess I could download it from the net now, as it is abandonware.

I must say that each of the Privateer ships had a very distinctive feel to it but the Freelancer ships don't. In Freelancer you have 3 kinds of ships but only very few ships are distinctive enough to have a tiny bit of an own character - offhand I can name only Patriot, Dagger and Drake, plus perhaps Defender. The other ships are more or less interchangeable; the stats vary a bit, the looks vary a bit more. I guess the Drake comes closest to the real Centurion, or the Dagger if you give it higher-class weapon slots, a better powerplant, and slap some Tungsten armour on it.

Also, the Freelancer campaign missions were wate^Wtuned so that you can fly them in pretty much any ship of the appropriate level, be it a light fighter, a heavy fighter or a freighter. Of course, you have proven that the campaign missions can be flown in any ship of any level.

BTW, when I bought Privateer for the second time I went for an FLDQ-like flying start: sold lasers, bought torp launcher + torps and the rest of the money was spent on membership in one of the guilds (their missions paid 10k and more IIRC). Then I booked three missions along the same route and was steenkin rich after just one flight. I guess even back then I didn't like the wimpy lasers very much.

If DA were to release a Privateer-like game based on the Freelancer engine I'd snap it up pronto.

I see a mod opportunity...

Think of it, FL total conversion to the Privateer campaign! It could work! A group of modders (or an individual with a lot of time on his/her hands) could build the Gemini Sector, model all the ships in, and mod the weapons in too. They could be hardcore and let only the Tarsus, Orion, Galaxy, and Centurion avalible, or put a FL spin on it with all (or some) ships availible and/or added weapon hardpoints. At the very least mod Privateer ships into FL with the beefing up. (Please don't tell me to do it myself as I just don't have the time or skills)

It would kick @$$ and I'm forwarding this to the mod forum.

-----------------------------------------------------------
My conviction is like an arrow in flight, your life will only last until it reaches you.

--7--

Get you're self an Eagle ASAP.

The Titan Flies Like A Cow
"They're talking from here..." - Freddy Mercury '86

Well, the FL Humpback certainly has a distinct feel... And so does the Rhino, though it's not that different from the rest of the freighters.

And yup, I did the same sort of get-rich-quick schemes in Privateer. You started with a missile launcher and the $40,000 scanner model - better to cash those in for the cheap torpedo launcher, better engine (powerplant), and Meson Blasters. I loved stacking up the missions, taking jobs from three different employers to visit the same series of waypoints, and was sorely disappointed when FL turned out not to allow that.

Believe me, I've played through the Privateer campaign at least as many times as I have the FL one. I've certainly considered a Privateer mod for FL, but it really would be much more work than I'd want to do. I'd settle for being able to fly the Privateer Centurion in Sirius. Oh, and the other thing I miss terribly from Privateer is the collision damage. Nothing was sweeter than taking your big tank of a Centurion and just ramming it through those paper-thin Retro Talons.

--


Edited by - T-hawk on 22-08-2003 19:15:14

I'll wait it out then. Knowing Juni will wait, I feel much more relaxed about the money issues.

The only really hard mission in a Tarsus is the waves of bounty hunters. You have to run into an asteroid field and let them beat themselves to death.

The key to the rest is to kill the gaian types every chance you get and *not* take missions against pirates except when forced to by the plot. You can end up with everyone but the Kilrathi and anti-techs showing up as friendlies unless the plot dictates otherwise.

/////////////

Couple-three other notes.

Winning in a Galaxy takes some doing, it is a bigger target. Too bad the turrents don't work like Freelancer turrents or the Galaxy gunship would be feared the universe over.

Beating the drone is easier than the bounty hunters.

The CD version puts you up against a centurion with 4 fusion cannon instead of 4 green guns in the last battle and is actually harder.

I always wanted to be able to fly a bounty-hunter demon for a few missions. And, always wanted the second expansion where you get the green gun back -- which never got done.

I miss Privateer-style run cargo and base defense missions. It really holds up well, even now. The combat model was great.

I also liked the various nav/hud computers -- they sure made a difference.

Freelancer almost seems like a step backwards in many ways, though I'm enjoying it. I'm glad to hear that I don't need to worry about keeping tightly on track vis a vis the plot and ships.

One last thing.

How does one find a wreck? I got a clue on one, but #/alpha leaves a huge amount of space to search. I don't understand how anyone does it.




Dire Wolf
http://adrr.com/wing
http://adrr.com/story

Wrecks will show up as red crosses on your nav map if you get near enough (probably about 10km, give or take a few). If you have sector coordinates for a wreck then you have to fly a scanning pattern over the sector so that the gap between runs is less than the wreck scanning range.

However, normally you don't get wreck coordinates unless you consult spoiler lists or programs like LancerThing. What happens more often is that you find a red cross on your nav map because you came near to a wreck during a mission or while scouting. In that case you can select the red cross on the nav map and have your ship fly directly to it. Also, after a while you get a feel for where wrecks could be located, so if you are in one of the systems off the beaten track you may fly a scanning loop around a jumphole in order to see if there is anything, or things like that.

Well, I'm in a Cavalier, so you can tell I've already encountered some plot twists.

I've taken the advice not to worry to heart. This isn't P2 where every ship is available at every stop ....

Well, on with the game, I'll check back later. Looks like Microsoft did an excellent job of quality control on the single player game.

Too bad they didn't have time to do the joystick and had to stick with "we planned to not have a joy stick and don't want to implement one because it illustrates flight control issues too well" sort of thing. I played WC1-III on the mouse, only got a joystick for Privateer, and -- of course -- noticed that the mouse still worked in the stations <g>




Dire Wolf
http://adrr.com/wing
http://adrr.com/story