SpaceSimCentral

Privateer: Ascii Sector is a 100% free space combat/exploration/trading game for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Just like in the original privateer you start with a basic ship and a little bit of credits. Now you start your life as a Privateer in which you can do a wide variety of missions, trade goods and commodities to earn enough money to upgrade your ship or buy a new one. Combat can be done both in space and on the ground.Using the Privateer: Ascii Sector quest language, you can create your own stories in the Ascii Sector universe, or have fun with other players' stories. This privateer style game is different since it uses ' Ascii graphics'. There is 16 different colors used to create the environments. Now if you look past the graphics and into the gameplay the designer 'Christian Knudsen' does a great job on the features and gameplay. Here is a few screenshots of the game in action:Give the game a try and let us know what you think about it and if you write some player made content please let us know and post it to the forums. I will be giving Ascii Sector some play time and I will tell you about my experiences with the game. And in reading in the Ascii Sector forums you will soon be able to move about your ship and you could still be attacked while doing so, sounds great!Checkout the the Privateer: Ascii Sector website and download your version of the game. Also give your support and leave some comments to the author in his forums about Ascii Sector.-D1-

I will have to give this a try soon. Like the fact it is a multi platform game and hey you don't need to have a very expensive rig to display ascii graphics

There has been a big update that happened to Ascii Sector in the form of v0.5.0, it introduced some new features (like walking around your ship) and some fixes. Go and checkout and download Ascii Sector here: http://www.asciisector.net/download/Even though you have seen the graphics here is a video of gameplay in action (doesn't include latest features): Here is a list of the recent changes:
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5.0.3 Changes- Fixed bug with items dropped from killed characters.- Fixed bug that would ban you from the last base you were on, when you killed a character on your ship (and a witness saw it).5.0.2 Changes- Fixed bug that wouldn't place your wingman correctly when taking off from a base.- Fixed minor bug on Munroe that would sometimes place characters in illegal areas (for example behind the bar).- When you target an ejected pilot, the screen will now display the pilot's faction along with the name.5.0.1 Changes- Fixed quest scripting bug.5.0 Changes- Fixed bug with the gems commodity event.- Fixed bug with SHIFT+'N' that would mess up the destination MFD or even crash the game.- Fixed a couple of graphical bugs with the Quine.- Fixed bug that caused new missions to not always be added to the end of your mission list.- Fixed bug that had mission status messages always tell you that the mission was completed even if it was expired or failed.- Fixed but that made it possible to send messages to cargo containers and ejected pilots.- Fixed bug that may have been responsible for many of the crashes related to playing the music.- Fixed various other potential game crashing bugs.- Time no longer passes when using the Quine or computers.- You can now access your Quine while in Combat Mode and while walking around on a ship in space, but you won't be able to save the game.- When you save an ejected pilot and take him/her to a base, you'll now also receive a random amount of credits (beyond having your standing with the pilot's faction increased).- The Drayman can now carry 1350 units of cargo (2025 with cargo expansion). It can no longer use an afterburner, though.- When you jettison cargo, you can now specify precisely how much cargo to dump.- The various ships now carry different amounts of jump fuel.- Added one new system and base.- You can now walk around on your own ship, both while flying in space and landed at a base.

Wow this is completely sick, what a great find. Amazed by the level of detail here on a ASCII game. Just great.

Here is the latest update to Ascii Sector:I also think I read somewhere that Christian Knudsen will probably include ship boarding This privateer game has so much more than the original. I would love to see someone port this game and put todays graphics engine on it.
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- Fixed bug with captives reappearing on your ship if you save the game after delivering the captive to the prison base and then reload the game. - Fixed bug with placement of characters inside the shooting range on Manurhin. - Fixed bug with missing jump point from Cheops to Cassandra. - Fixed bug when loading a game from the Quine while using a computer terminal. - Fixed bug when loading a game from the Quine while in Combat Mode. - Fixed bug with mission description lines appearing in dialogue if checking missions in your Quine during a dialogue. - When entering your ship, the game now checks that there aren't any items lying at odd places as a leftover from a previous bug. Any odd items will be moved to the "closet" on the ship. - Disabled the use of the MIDI music files, as they may have been responsible for a lot of random crashes (only the OGG music files work now). - Added sound effect for taking credits. - Added mouse wheel support for a bunch of interfaces. - Updated manual.

That's right a new release of your favorite Ascii Privateer GameVersion 0.5.2
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- Fixed bug that would lock the door to your hotel room if you walked on and off your ship.- Various code changes in my continued effort to squash crashes due to SDL music playback.- Added anti-cheat measures.- Added a margin of "nothingness" around the walkable area on a base so that something at the edge of the area won't be hidden beneath the boxes with various information at the edge of the screen.- When on a base, you can now move the viewable area outside the view of your character, both while looking around and when aiming.- If you're critically wounded, you now also lose health while flying in space, so you can bleed to death while flying your ship.- If you have a repair droid, it will gradually clean up any blood on your ship from, uhm, "accidents".- Confeds and militia now detect corpses on your ship, fine you and attack.- All commodity events will now have a news item posted in your Quine5000 when they end.- Ships will now send an apologetic message if they hit or destroy a friendly ship.- When in Combat Mode, the game will now show you how much time you've used, as well as how much time an action takes.- Added Brilliance and Ultimate drugs to manipulate time usage when in Combat Mode (can currently only be acquired by stunning or killing a character that is carrying Brilliance or Ultimate).- Added quicksave (F8).

Ascii Sector has been updated (24 May) again and here is some of the fixes and additions added:v0.5.3
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- The game now makes sure that you aren't standing on top of somebody when you exit your ship.- If you are unable to exit Combat Mode, but then enter your ship and exit Combat Mode here, when you exit outside again you will automatically be back in Combat Mode.- Gun turrets are now part of your ship's layout and you have to walk to them to use them.- Added Turret AI Controller and Turret Energy Capacitor for purchase in the shipyard.- F1 now toggles the AI of your current turret on/off. F2-F3 toggles the AI of the rear, starboard and port turrets on/off.- Added a 12x12 fontset and resolution settings in the options menu.
v0.5.3.1
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- A couple of turret AI bug fixes.- Made the turret AI less overpowered.

Don't forget to give Ascii Sector a try and tell us what you think. Go and get it here: http://www.asciisector.net/

Chris Knudsen has been busy working on Ascii Sector this month and fixing and adding new things to this very good Privateer game.
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- Fixed bug with the gems commodity event.- Fixed bug with SHIFT+'N' that would mess up the destination MFD or even crash the game.- Fixed a couple of graphical bugs with the Quine.- Fixed bug that caused new missions to not always be added to the end of your mission list.- Fixed bug that had mission status messages always tell you that the mission was completed even if it was expired or failed.- Fixed but that made it possible to send messages to cargo containers and ejected pilots.- Fixed bug that may have been responsible for many of the crashes related to playing the music.- Fixed various other potential game crashing bugs.- Time no longer passes when using the Quine or computers.- You can now access your Quine while in Combat Mode and while walking around on a ship in space, but you won't be able to save the game.- When you save an ejected pilot and take him/her to a base, you'll now also receive a random amount of credits (beyond having your standing with the pilot's faction increased).- The Drayman can now carry 1350 units of cargo (2025 with cargo expansion). It can no longer use an afterburner, though.- When you jettison cargo, you can now specify precisely how much cargo to dump.- The various ships now carry different amounts of jump fuel.- Added one new system and base.- You can now walk around on your own ship, both while flying in space and landed at a base.

Here is a small list of fixes in this latest update to Ascii Sector
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- Fixed bug with "rescue ejected pilot" fixer mission.- Fixed bug with the saving of smoke information.- Fixed bug with using the mouse scroll wheel in the commodity exchange when showing the price grahps.- Fixed bug with turrets that could potentially crash the game.

Are there any graphic sets for ASCII Sector?

CaptainKal wrote:
Are there any graphic sets for ASCII Sector?
Not that I know of. The developer created a very good Privateer remake but with Ascii graphic character sets. I know his version does a lot more than Privateer or any other privateer clone I have seen. I just don't have time to play much with it to use his mission creator. But the author is good about answering questions on his forums so feel free to ask about the Ascii graphics sets.

OK. I gave it a try, and.... I THINK IT IS GREAT . Mind you I am not into rogue games (especially with ASCII graphics), but the game is VERY absorving and "has this one more mission" quality. Too bad I do not have a spare couple of millions to turn it into a current generation game.

Christian Knudsen was released an update to this great game:Ascii Sector v0.5.4
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- Fixed bug with messages from Pirate and Retro capital ships.- Fixed bug with the local price graph if all former prices are 0.- Fixed bug with characters other than Police Officers not getting equipped with weapons.- Fixed bug with placement of characters on an illegal spot on Novy Norilsk.- Fixed bug with Turret AIs and Energy Capacitors being carried over when buying a new ship.- Fixed the selling price of Turret Energy Capacitors on a capital ship.- Fixed bug with dying while in Combat Mode in space.- Fixed bug with offences sometimes carrying over from an old player character to a new one.- Made a few code optimizations to the autopilot to increase the speed.- Your wingman no longer appears in space if you kill him on the ground.- Wingmen are now hired for a period of time and offer to extend the time when it expires.- 'T' now cycles through all the ships in range of your radar, even if they are outside your current view.- Various shield balancing.- Added Level 1 Shield Strength information about the various ships in the manual.- Made the cheap scanners quicker at identifying a target.- Added a "Resume" option to the main menu to resume the last savegame.- The launching and part of the landing animations are now skippable with ESC.- The Quine5000 now shows information about the saved games.- Increased the speed of the page up, page down, home and end shortcut keys in the computer terminal screens.- Added four more angles for moving your ship and aiming.- Redid the shooting and missile firing procedures for correct rotation of gun and missile hardpoints.- Added Repair NanoBots that can repair external components (armor, guns and launchers).- NPCs walk around with a bit more purpose now.- Innocent victims will now sometimes call for help, sometimes alerting nearby NPCs.- Added five new systems.- Added four new bases.
As always download here: http://www.asciisector.net/download/

CaptainKal wrote:
OK. I gave it a try, and.... I THINK IT IS GREAT . Mind you I am not into rogue games (especially with ASCII graphics), but the game is VERY absorving and "has this one more mission" quality. Too bad I do not have a spare couple of millions to turn it into a current generation game.
Christian (developer) went with the ascii graphics because he wanted to focus on features and content which this game has a lot of. You should see what is coming in v 0.6.0. I would love to see this game get a face lift because it would do quiet well I would think. But can't complain really because he gives it away. So everyone if you can look past the ascii graphics Ascii Sector is definitely worth a few hours of your time to try it out.

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Christian (developer) went with the ascii graphics because he wanted to focus on features and content which this game has a lot of. You should see what is coming in v 0.6.0. I would love to see this game get a face lift because it would do quiet well I would think. But can't complain really because he gives it away. So everyone if you can look past the ascii graphics Ascii Sector is definitely worth a few hours of your time to try it out.
I like the overall presentation. And two hours are not enough.

More updates for this great game, check them out. And if you do make some missions for Ascii Sector please upload them here.Update v0.5.4.2
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- Fixed decimal bug when scooping cargo.- Fixed bug with NPCs freezing and becoming immobile (again!).- Fixed inconsistency when calculating the value of your current ship and extras when buying a new ship.- Added music playback log file (mlog.txt) to help in finding cause of music playback crash.- The upper right display now automatically switches to the destination view when your target is destroyed or goes outside range of your radar.- Added Disabler Missiles, EMP Torpedoes and energy/power readings for targets and the player (the light blue square in the center). Disabling ships will be used for boarding in v0.6.
Update v0.5.4.1
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- Fixed bug with hand grenade killings resulting in excessive counts of murder.- Fixed bug with cargo space left on your ship.- Fixed bug with NPCs yelling for help even if you didn't attack them but just targeted them.- Fixed bug with Bellamy not showing up as a Pirate Base in the Quine.- Fixed bug with the current system name on the nav computer during autopilot.- Fixed bug (I hope) with characters whose path has been blocked sometimes becoming completely immobile.- Removed debugging info when targeting a ship when flying a capital ship.

New update to the great game Ascii Sector that is working towards the v0.6 release.Update v0.5.4.3
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- Fixed bug with time left on your wingman not being decreased while sleeping.- Fixed bug with EMP Torpedoes not being selected when launching.- Fixed bug with the ads in the equipment shop.- Fixed bug that in some instances could have you fly into a missile you'd just fired.- Fixed bug with marked nav points being carried over from one quest to another.- Fixed bug with no message box when a quest mission is completed or failed.- Fixed bug with random placement of quest template ships.- Added separate slots for mission cargo.

Holy OMG Darkone!Finally got around to installing and playing a bit of Privateer Ascii and, and, and it's shades of Megatraveller 2!Good Fun

Update v0.5.4.4 Released
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- Fixed serious bug with cargo transport missions.- Fixed bug with name of ejected wingman.- Fixed bug with scrolling names in the upper right display.

Songbird wrote:
Holy OMG Darkone!Finally got around to installing and playing a bit of Privateer Ascii and, and, and it's shades of Megatraveller 2!Good Fun
This is a hidden gem and definitely worth a look. Yes it doesn't have flashy graphics but has plenty of content and the v0.6.0 release is going to be huge