Ok so I beat the Oxford missions, went to the commodity exchange and saw the Drayman for sale, but I didn't have the cash. So I went out made a bunch of cash, came back and its gone! Did I miss out on it? is it a one shot deal? I will be bumed if I did

Yeah, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Dilloh, what's the connection between Oxford and Drayman's?
If I were to think of conditions for unlocking the Drayman, I'd make it that you

a) Are a member of the Merchants' Guild
b) Are NOT a member of the Mercenaries' Guild
c) Have enough money to buy it.
d) Are at +100 with merchants

Reason for (b) is partly about my theory about the MG's not liking one another, but also to force the player to choose: Be a merchant and nothing more, and you can buy a Drayman; or be a mercenary and NOT a merchant, and you can buy a Demon; but you can't resign memberships so you can either get a Demon early in the game, or a Drayman later in the game, but not both, sort of thing.

I like the idea Chuck, though wouldn't most factions have to be mutually exclusive if that was implemented? For example, if you were you shouldn't be able to stop patrolling an area for a bounty mission. If you were a member of the confeds you couldn't hop in a Galaxy to deliver wood to Oxford.

I never said that; you could join both guilds, if you want. I would, since I don't care for either
the Demon or the Drayman.

I only suggested that by joining one guild exclusively, you'd get access to that guild's exclusive ship.

Now, you could even do this:
a) Join merchants only
b) save $
c) buy a drayman
d) join the mercenaries guild

The only thing you cannot do now is buy Demons.

But then again, maybe we could have it that when you go below -10 with the merchants, your
merchants guild membership is revoked. In that case, you'd be able to join the mercenaries guild
and buy demons.

So you go merchant till you have a drayman, then become a pirate, then become good again, and
finally you join the mercenaries guild and can buy demon escorts for your drayman.

Hmm, it seems i misread your post, sorry.

Great idea, chuck. I do find one thing irritating, though:This process is essentially exploiting an issue with the poorly designed faction relations system. To me, it just feels completely unnatural, and falls into the category of "doing things in a game that one would probably never conceive of in real life." If someone's lifelong goal is to be a merchant, they're not going to turn pirate just to get some escorts. Especially not if those escorts are coming from the Mercs, if your idea about the animosity between them is correct.

As an alternative, what if a way to add in paid pilots was added? I know VS supports hiring temporary wingmen, and that ships tractored and launched from a large ship are always friendly to the ship that launches them. Just go one step beyond this, and allow the player to permanently hire on wingmen from the Merchant's guild.

But what about getting the demon? Easy: some hired pilots come with ships (expensive!), some don't (cheap!). Those who come with ships might be carrying a Demon with them. Seek out a few of those buggers, and you're set.

And all without breaking character.

Very true; I had a bad feeling about that. Simplest solution, though, is to forget about finding a way for the player to own Draymans AND Demons, since that's what I first thought would be the whole point of exclusive memberships. I was just trying too hard to overemphasize a point to Onyx, as he seemed to perceive I was curtailing player freedom too much. I think having mutually exclusive ship unlockings would be a good thing, though; would increase differentiation of merchant versus mercenary play styles, and add replay value.

That idea is good; but demons would be a contradiction with the animosity background, if allowed. The fact they own a demon means they are committed mercenaries, and they get jobs from their guild; and wouldn't work for merchants guild vessels. At least it should be very rare.

The Drayman becomes available by completing the last Oxford mission - after that, it's rare to get. It randomly appears at New Detroit, so one should check the planet's ship dealer regularly. Despite of that, there is always the chance to hack yourself a ship if you missed it.

I can recall a discussion of creating a "shipyard" where you can buy all ships as soon as they have been unlocked, maybe worth pursuing.
All good points, but:
a) I don't know yet how to lock ships except of in a campaign progress
b) Since we've made the DraymanCVL the "special" ship of the MG, we can add the standard Drayman more frequently.
...and can only be recured by paying a fee.Another suggestion: Let's create a campaign branching into several parts:
a) Pirate => Unlocks Talon, Sparrowhawk, allows to buy contraband, unlocks tractor beam
b) Merchant => Unlocks all Merchant Variants, allows access to the Merchant's Guild, unlocks cargo-related equipment
c) Mercs => Unlocks Demon, Fireblade, etc, allows access to the Merchenaries Guild
d) Militia/Confed => Unlocks Militia/Confed ships, unlocks sophisticated guns and shields
e) Kilrathi => Unlocks cat ships + cloak
I know this'd restrict the freedom in Privateer, but on the other hand branches would add some spice to the game. Trying to get everything maxed out is way not as cool as trying to live with the few things you have...
Problem here, the engine wipes out all other ships after saving and loading. And the AI is way too dumb; multiple wingmen tend to attack each other.

Agreed, 100%.

I was thinking the same thing, but sadly didn't specify what I was also thinking: The pilots for hire are displaced. They have no allegiance, or they're working for the Merchant's Guild. How they got the Demon is inconsequential.

But does it really restrict freedom?

It really only restricts certain aspects of PR/PU that were added in by the VS engine. In the original Privateer, you could only own one ship at a time. That meant you had to buy one ship suited specifically to your personal preferences. With the VS engine, we can buy our Demon for bounty missions and a Drayman for merchant missions, and just flip-flop back and forth depending on our mood.

Personally, I take one approach to the game when I play it. I pick the style of play I'm aiming for, and stick with it -- whether that's a BH, Merch, Pirate, whatever. Having a fleet of ships is somewhat pointless for me.

But again, this is personal opinion.

As for a specific comment on the a-e points, I think it's a good idea. Only thing I see as potentially "wrong" is the fact that only pirates get the tractor beam. I'd say replace the tractor beam with an option to "unlock" hidden bases or something like that.

Just my 2 cents worth

I think having a fleet is one of things that most excited me about this version of the game. I think players should have the option to own whatever ship they want. if theat means all of em, then all of em. I like the ideas you guys have thrown out. Take path Y to earn X ship sound very cool. Although I think that all ships should be avalible even if they are very very very rare. Reading some other post I heard you can just tracktor beam in whatever ship you want if you got a large enough vessel though, this true?

Just a side note I would love to have a Raptor from WC1 that and the Dragon from WC4 are my all time favorite ships, well confed ships, I love the Cat ships from WC1, they just looked cooler then in any other versions imo

I know you can do it in VS, and I assume it can be done in PR/PU.

The believability of the action, though, is questionable. At least the "I captured this ship and now it's pilot fights for me" aspect is.

It was just an idea, I didn't think too far while writing this.
Chuck, are those babies in the WCU ship pack?
which fits the whole discussion about how Burrows is capable of flying a capship all alone, who steers the turrets, and where the fXXX is the repair droid walking around?!?

Some things will never be explained

Everything is in the shippack, duplicate and triplicate. Now, whether the meshes in the shippack are any good, that's a different question. Most likely not. I'll take a look at what's there, raptor-wise. The Dragon advanced fighter should NOT be in-game, though; unless we have Black Lance attacking us or something. They only existed in 2673, hundreds of light years south from Gemini; and they were never heard of again after Blair unraveled the Black Lance conspiracy. Furthermore, they were far ahead of Confed technology in 2673, so it would break canon down to dust to have a civilian flying a Dragon in Gemini in 2669. Might as well have Nephilim ships too, if we did that.

Even having a Raptor I get butterflies in the stomach thinking about how to explain that... It is precisely during this time that Blair is assigned to the TCS Victory, a "bucket of bolts" indeed; she's a Ranger class carrier; a pre-war carrier, from before the time of the Tiger's Claw, 50 fighters versus 115 I think it was for the Claw... that's sent to the front because Confeds are running out of ships. For half the story in Heart of the Tiger, the Victory is flying around short of fighters. That's how bad the situation is around this time. What would a military fighter be doing around Gemini? Well, there's Perry, and there should be a few ships around Perry, but a privateer flying a military ship?! The confies would probably expropriate it if you actually owned it legally...

And then there's the old issue of balance: In Privateer we see mostly civilian ships, which shouldn't be able to scratch the paint of a military fighter. A military fighter costs about 50 million credits. Suppose you could find and old, used Raptor on sale. Would it be 5 million credits? Don't forget that by this time the Landreich have been buying every old ship they can get off the Confeds, so I doubt the price could ever reach that low. And then you'd be pretty much invincible in Gemini, flying a Raptor; which doesn't make gameplay too interesting or challenging.

But the question has come up already: How is it that we can fight kilrathi Dralthis in civilian ships? There's a bit of an inconsistency there, indeed; but one way to explain it would be that the kat pilots that are sent to Gemini are the scum of the lowliest clans, flying 2nd hand Dralthi VII's. The Dralthi VII we see in Privateer is basically a Dralthi II with a jump drive added. Presumably the jump drive takes enough upgrade space to make the Dralthi have to use the lowliest of shields and stuff.

I agree, I just ment it was one of my favorite ships, along with the Raptor.



There is always the black market, and corruption even amoung the top brass, sell a few ships for some quick cash to the highest private bidder? why not lol.

Maybe; but it would still be mightily expensive compared with anything civilian.

Well said, i couldn't agree more.

What we've considered before, and is still in the back-burner, is to have Burrows get a contract to fly a few missions off a carrier into Kilrah. That would solve several problems:
a) He wouldn't "own" the Raptor or whatever ship; it's Confed property, so money is not an issue.
b) You'd be flying missions against real kat fighters, so balance is restored.
c) No need to explain why a military ship is running around loose in Gemini when the confies are so desperately short.
d) Most players don't so much want to "own" every model of ship, as to experience them. Flying off a carrier, you could experience several military ships, without having to buy them, before getting back to privateering.

EDIT:
Additionally, participating in a military campaign would completely change the character of the game; though Burrows could still be the same smart alleck and be treated differently by navy pilots who know he's a privateer; with pros and cons.. Might be fertile ground for personal stories and whatnot. Regimented life, like in the WC games, but with a bit of leniency towards Burrows... Your Wing Commander often needs to resort to bribery to get you to do things the military way, but you might prove that your ways are better than the military ways, sometimes. All kinds of possibilities. Knowing that you'll be back to civilian life soon, some officers might feel more relaxed about talking about things they wouldn't talk about to other officers. Things they know about the Belisarius Group, perhaps? And once you're back from the campaign, a lot of pilots give you personal missions to deliver things to friends and family. Many, many possibilities.

Sorry, I had missed this. Splendid idea.
I only have one concern, again, about unlocking military ships. Perhaps the reward of the Confed campaign could simply be the honor of being given officer status and be sent to Kilrah aboard a carrier. Not much of a reward, in real world terms, but what players want being a good challenge and the chance to fly military craft, a lot of players would choose this route anyways.
And in the militia campaign, perhaps you'd get to fly a Cutter for them...

Another way to introduce Confed ships is perhaps this:

Confed has to transport them places. Lets say some are in route to Perry but that shipment didn't make it.

I like the idea of military missions though.

I understand the issue of "the war is going bad for confed, they need all this ships they got" my question is this: Why did they retire the Scimitar if they needed all they ships they could get? Did they just phase them out by stop mkaing them, and use the old ones in non-essential areas off the front line? Or did they pull them off the flightline completely? if so, What happened to them?

I do agree that giving a Raptor to civilians would unbalance the game. There has to be a happy medium though.

It was mentioned in my other post about ideas that the reason the Kilrathi space in Gemini was taken so easily was due to the many astriod fields and the inability to move Capital ships through there. What if the Cats wanted to make a push into gemini for whatever reason by using many medium sized ships and fighters. this could introduce some interesting military missions. You could get missions to fight them back out once agian. just an idea.

Well, I don't know exactly what happened to the scimitars, but the Landreich still have theirs around even years after the Privateer timeline. I would imagine that no official 'retirement' of a ship class is ever done that involves mothballing thousands of units at once. Probably, official retirement is the last stage of a process that begins by noticing that a given ship class features more unit losses than other classes in the same category, some brainstorming as to why, and how to correct the deficiencies, and if the problem is tracked to being a fundamental design problem that can be cured with a band-aid, then they first stop the production of the ship, and allow the number of fielded units diminish naturally until the number of units left is not too big, then retire the remaining by hopefully selling them to the Landreich, or to Border Worlds, or to Firekka, or to local militias if they want them.

Now, if a ship proves to be REALLY bad, then they might get rid of them in large numbers. Presumably that's what happened to the talon.

That's a good idea, the kat incursions into Gemini. Perhaps that could be used as an introduction, preceding a carrier-based campaign into Kilrah, giving Burrows a chance to get familiar with flying military fighters while flying relatively easy missions. We know that corvette sized ships, like the Kamekh, do get through the asteroid fields.

I did not get the point exactly why civilians shouldn't participate within military campaigns.

First of all, there's enough evidence that things like that happen, talking about Goodin hiring Burrows to "clean up the back rows", or sending him out to kill Khal (I didn't swallow the pill that Goodin didn't know about Khal).

Second, I see good reason for the confederation offering their ships, or at least their obsolete ships. Playing the WC games one gets the impression that the feds are always low on pilots: They tend to send out recovery patrols to save their pilots; besides that nobody would LIKE to participate in a war where you can easily get blown up. To me, Earth vs. Kilrah is not like USA vs. Afghanistan where you just "go to the war" and nuke everything without even being touched. It's a bad situation, and even if your whole people or species is on the verge of being annihilated humans tend to avoid dying sooner then they'd like to. Another fact, you're not being recruited, but you can enlist yourself. I'm therefor assuming that there are more ships then pilots.

Third, the fact that Menesch is selling old confed ships indicates that he got those ships from another source... I mean he didn't steal them from a carrier, did he? If I understood the storyline correctly, Talons never were civilian ships, but they became civilian ships via the black market.

And fourth, even today military tech reaches the civilian market, like airplane motors, or think of Jeeps, or even arms. Since shipguns and equipment are freely for sale in Gemini, it's just a matter of finding an adequate ship. So why not sell some ships you got in stock as long as you make sure that the guy buying them is worth your trust. And therefor, you complete some missions to impress somebody at the military who wants to do you a favor.

So I fianlly got a Drayman (started over) anyway I put a tractor beam on it. I can tractor in Demons, Talons and Gladius with no problems. Tarsus's and Dralthi just wont tractor in( haven't tried much more then that though. I pretty much got this thing to see what Kiltrathi ships are like to fly. I kinda think the whole tractoring in a ship is pretty cheap I would much rather earn these ships. anyway whats the deal? is my cargo hold to small? i jacked it up to like 5250 with cargo expansions and its empty when I tried it just wont tractor them in.

You mean civilian ships? Well, there has to be a reason why the Confed spend 50 M credits per fighter. If civilian ships selling for 0.5 M with all upgrades on are anywhere comparable to military fighters, the confies are paying 100 times as much as they need to... Doesn't seem right, being that their formost problem is budgetary.


You're right; that contradicts my theory. On the other hand, the problem we're dealing with is that WC itself is in self-contradiction. At some point or other we have to break the vicious loop. The question is where. Either we contradict canon by making military fighters cost 1 Million or so, or we contradict canon by making civilian ship prices a lot higher, or we contradict canon by removing instances where civilian ships overcome military ships with impunity, like the Khal mission... Frankly, none of these options are real options. The only other possibility is to retcon: to explain the inconsistencies somehow, like I tried to explain how the Dralthis (and Gothris) that we see in Priv might be severely weakened by the integration of a jump drive, and how the pilots might be catnip addicts on death row. Kahl is a bit more difficult to deal with, that being a Kamekh. But we could still find a way of explaining, like "kamekh's are rather big as corvettes go, and have terrible times maneuvering in asteroid fields, plus they have the back-side blind spot...
Here's one more:
The Kamekh's we see in Privateer look different than the ones in WC, but no designations are given. For all we know, the Priv Kamekh's could be obsolete, pre-war ships. And you might ask, "would the commander of the 6th fleet be riding an obsolete ship?". I say "no problem": We don't really know anything about this Khal guy. "6th Fleet" means nothing, as the kats are in the habit of changing their fleet numbers around. Kahl could very well be the commander of the lowliest scum fleet of the lowest clan. His deal with Menesch was probably personal, and for personal gain. I would venture that his clan was getting obsolete salthis from the next clan up, and figured they'd sell them for catnip. Pure speculation, but we just don't know; so we can't rule out Kahl's khamek being a bucket of bolts.


I have to concede this point: Confeds are indeed shorter of pilots than of ships. To use my own example, when the Victory finally gets its fighter complement complemented, only half as many pilots as fighters arrive. And the confies had started accelerating graduations even as far back as 2667 (End Run). However, the story (in End Run) goes that the lack of training in new pilots is also speeding up the ship-losses; so there's a self-regulating mechanism in place that prevents the shortage disparity between pilots and ships growing too wide.


Small correction: Menesch *used to* sell Talons to pirates and retros. That was while he was Governor. Then he was impeached on corruption charges, and he escaped and went into hiding. Monte said that "some time ago" Menesch came back from hiding to renew his business and that he made a deal between the retros and the kats. There's a lot we can deduce or induce from those statements:
1) Some time ago was probably the previous year, 2668. Why? The Armistice; the "False Peace" that would cause a lot of ships to be retired. It would have been an opportunity he couldn't pass.
2) Which means he was probably hiding for a few years prior to 2668.
3) Which means he was governor possibly in early 2660's or before.
4) Somebody else must have filled the void while he was hiding. Possibly Lynch. Possibly others.
5) Why does he make an exclusive deal with retros? Why doesn't he sell salthi's to pirates? Why does he make a deal with the kats? Probably because he can't get back the deal he used to have with Confed Decomissionings. Probably because whoever took over his business doesn't like retros, so the retros are in dire need of a supplier. So... Retros and kats it is...
Conclusion: Menesch does NOT sell Talons in 2669.

In answer to your question, there's no need for "another source". The only source we know of for illegally sold confed ships is a corrupt Confed Decommissionings department. No "black market", except as may exist after re-sale, by pirates or retros.


Doesn't sound quite right to me. Jeeps were not combat vehicles. The closest we've seen to combat vehicles being sold to the public would be the HumVee's, not sure if I'm spelling it right. Well, I heard of someone who bought an old tank. Maybe some millionaire somewhere in the world owns a jet fighter. But I would expect such things to happen very exceptionally. And however much your military friend may trust you, he or she needs someone above to authorize such a sale.
Finally, one could argue that Gemini being such a lawless place, things could be different there. But the hard fact we face here is that we don't see military fighters in private hands in Privateer or RF, and I think this is the final nail on the coffin of any doubts.
Talons... Yes BUT, we know what the story with Talons is. They were all retired for being crappy ships; they went to Decomissionings to be scrapped, but Decomissionings had been selling them instead, to Menesch originally, later to someone else who took Menesch's place.

EDIT:
And we can guess why Decommissionings gets to be so corrupt and the rest of the Confed military seem to look the other way: The civilian government are completely and utterly useless and clueless, or, more likely, allied with the kats. Well, we know of at least one Senator who was a spy for the kats... What was her name now? Morley? No...
Anyways, the Confed Military are forced to work secretly on new weapons and projects, and to find financing for them from sources other than the official budget.
Now, could Decomissionings be selling Scimitars, Raptors and whatever besides Talon's? Possible, but unlikely. Those are GOOD ships, if a bit old; and the Landreich are buying as many as they can, and paying a lot more than most civilians can afford, I'm sure.

EDIT2:
And quite probably it IS Lynch who took over Menesch's business. Consider:
1) Lynch offers you a bounty for killing Menesch. Thus, for some unexplained reason, they are enemies.
2) Lynch's big asset on NewDet is Bronte, a food corporation. NewDet is not an agri planet, so Bronte are importers. In RF, the Retros have laid siege to NewDet, preventing food imports... Looks like Menesch used the retros to kick Lynch out of NewDet...
3) Lynch IS in the arms business, as evidenced by the mission he sends you on, to Siva, Rikel.
4) And he does have some deal with pirates, as evidenced by his association with Tayla.

Ergo, Lynch has been selling Talons to pirates in Menesch's absence. He wasn't selling any to the Retros, probably, which explains how Menesch hammers a deal with the Retros easily. Lynch doesn't let Menesch back into his old deal between Decomissionings and the pirates, so Menesch decides to use the retros to attack Lynch's interests. Lynch had probably already spent too much financing Bronte's siege of Rondell, and loses the war with Menesch, and ends up having to go into hiding at a mine.

Might Interceptors come into this? Stilettos?



I read somewhere (Fleet Tactics i think) that all the pilot hated the Stiletto. Sure, it's weapons are light, it's shields are light and it is not the most maneuverable ship in the universe but it is fast and that is something you can use.



This would be served off a Carrier? If your fighting an invasion like that your not gonna go back to Perry to rearm. But why would they invade? According to my understanding from reading around the reason nobody fought to control Gemini was because all the mines had been depleted of minerals. Maybe, say, introduce some mining method that meant that Gemini was back on the scene with it's wealth of minerals. Also, you could (to bump Gemini up further) just 'discover' some new systems.



Now THIS i like. Unlocking military ships, i don't think so, but this i love. You could fly all the ships you want and get to see places. Chuck you summed it up in your next post. Experiencing the ships, while you are flying REAL Confed fighter against REAL kilrathi fighters. Maybe a cap ship?



This all comes down to experience. If you were watching AI fight sure. But Burrows is supposed to be this VERY great pilot. If the Centurion can't stack up against say, a Stiletto, then why then play Tayla's mission. You can't run from them as the shoot your as to the great Davey Jones. We talked about this before. If i'm a green horn that has just has just received my ship, am i going to stack up agaist and experienced pilot on a civilian ship? The pilot in Gemini are not that hot.

Stilettos are pretty useless, as military ships go. Let me turn this around: If military fighters are 100 times as expensive as civilian ones, they should be at least 10 times as good, wouldn't you say? So, if your theory is right, perhaps we should strive to rebalance the game so that they are 10 times as good, and then let's see if it's true that Burrows is that good. Or should we also cripple the militia's AI to implement their being such bad pilots? What's the solution you are proposing?