SpaceSimCentral

I'm a veteran of the old Elite and Frontier days, and I've been following Pioneer for a couple of months now. I must say I'm fascinated! Because of the game itself and the enthusiasm of its developers and fans. Thanks a lot guys!What I like most is that I can travel through the galaxy, discover and visit strange worlds (like in Noctis), without having to fight off pirates. I'm not sure what the developers have in mind in that respect, but I do hope they don't turn it into a fighting game and would like to ask that the currently peaceful playing mode stays, as a configuration parameter at least (just like Ad Astra lets you turn pirate attacks on or off).I don't mind a little fighting now and then, and (to preserve the role-playing spirit) it's ok that I start getting hunted once I turn myself against pirates (or other factions). But it should be possible to lead a simple and peaceful life as an explorer - possibly with opportunities to find valuables in newly discovered systems to fund my trips.What I found frustrating when I played the Frontiers was that I was hunted by pirates in too many systems. You arrive, you set your autopilot to a planet somewhere in a system, you set your stardreamer - and then pirates slow you down. It's not that they shoot me down - I can evade them or kill them unless they are too strong - it just takes time to deal with them. And very often it's not only one pirate between the point of arrival and the destination: when you killed or outran the first pirate, the next one appeared, and then the next one, ... This alone prevented me from enjoying the Frontier games as much as they deserve it (as I saw from AAR's and screenshots of others). Which brings me to my question for the other Frontier veterans: Is there a way to play the Frontier games without having to fight against pirates all the time? A cheat? I tried to fly in other directions, not towards planets or stations, for a while before I set course to my real destination, but this didn't help. Sooner or later they discovered me. And interrupted my stardreamer progress.

There is one way to avoid pirates (at least most of the time). Buy a Falcon or Opsprey. These ships are fast enough to out run most things. The only downside is that they are not so hot at exploring though.I do however have an alternative, but you might not like it. In the Amiga version there was a hack which you added to the startup of the Frontier floppy disk.Look on the Aminet for two files called FrntTrn.lha & FrntTrn2.lha or click these links[url]http://aminet.net/game/patch/FrntTrn.lha[/url] second one was a bug fix for some later versions of Frontier, so best to try both. These trainers give you the ability to mod the ship stats (amongst other things) in the game, for example you could give a Panther Clipper the same jump range as an Eagle or give it the same thruster rating as a missile (60g). With thrusters that powerful, nothing will ever bother you again..........But do you have a real Amiga?Perhaps someone made a trainer for the PC version, but I am unaware of it, sorry.The downside is you need an actual floppy disk version of Frontier and an Amiga. UAE wont cut it unless you can find someone who has created an ADF of a modded floppy disk with the trainerEDIT: Good news! I just found some handy PC Frontier hacks here http://www.sharoma.com/frontierverse/programs.htm

There are pirates in Pioneer. They're just not very effective. In fact, I've yet to see one.By the time we've got the universe properly populated, it's likely that pirates won't be an issue in safe systems, or in distant, unexplored systems. Basically, if you stay clear of the dodgier parts of town you'll be fine.

Perhaps pirates could only decide to attack when you are holding valuable cargo. I always hated in frontier that all pirates were willing to risk their lives trying to kill you for absolutely no reward!

Yep, in games usually if you have pirates or escort missions the attackers will show no respect for their own life. Luckily, here we have a chance to do better!

needs only little to let them appear in the next system you jump to brian...but back to the original question or more what you can do to evade them in FE2.chicken out is not my part i remeber well, when i startet to play FE2, it was horrible, wherever i went with my rotten eagle, some pirates was waiting for me.my experience in fighting was 0, no below 0.yu can evade with a very fast ship yes.or "chicken out" by using the stardreamer if you have a less fast one, as the osprey (is there space for anything else as the pilot?).means, you accelerate in a chosen direction, do it until he's on the rim of the scanner, then engage the stardreamer at 2x, keep this for a while.after you can try 3x, perhaps it works, if he's to close he will overhaul you else you have a real chance.that will take a long time to arrive, because more then 3x isn't possible to use to evade.the reason is DB cheated (again), the AI (or any tracker) uses less frames in the same time as you, this comes to full effect only on higher settings, so double and triple can work.just think of the weird behave of the courier (courier missile "bug", better cheat), after it's fired a missile it immediatly wen't to full time acceleration, and there is no chance to follow that beast in short time, it takes a little while. yes i even "lost" them sometimes, the rat has landed before i catched it.however that's why you can't evade usually in FE2, i never tried a falcon or a osprey i have to say, dear geraldine, never in all the years.likewise you prefere the sidie, i love my conny , well actualy i guess it's the classic cobra3, i was about to do some reconnaissance missions on high gravity planets. the conny is to lame for this, other ships slightly to small to stand all the attackers, to have absolutely no shields is rediculous.there is what? a trainer for a miggy fe2?i have to try it, immediatly!erm, yes there exist two versions of something similar for the PC version.trainer i'm not sure, but you can alter all the ship specs, i.e. free the courier from it's "fixed" hyperdrive.set missiles as much as you like and all this.think i find them, ah yes on (steve, if i ever need a link, i always open your site, thanks man)oh, i see a very familiar name behind them, tom morton here's the win98 exe ship_editor.zipwhile one has to be aware in this way, all the ships have the new specs.wherefore a hack of the saved game will bring the advantage only to you.if you like to have a hacked ship (PC frontier) and you can't do that, send me a mail with the savegame attached, i will see what i can do. even when i run a mac, but this i can handle, i guess.there would be some "beginners missions" hacked savegames i made, where you been "rewarded" with a hacked ship if you accomplish the "mission" target.but actually i can't find it anymore...nothing hard, only some jobs where you can select from, like make a successful delivery to alpha centauri and get a specced up ship if you reach it (or not, you get the ship from the start, but you will have to try at least, because you are already in the system, time left is very limited for this one as example, but it's possible).for certain jobs you would need the "wormhole bug" present, the needed replacement file is included (depends on the version you run)there is also the "cheap" cargo jettison bug you can try in every version i found out, just load some whatever cargo and click under the jettison button as if there would be another one, each click "frees" one tonne of cargo. that allows you to have a shielded super eagle i.e.personally i didn't like that much, because it's too easy, a little hack, some extra cargo or thrust ok, but endless tonnes cargo space in a eagle? i don't know.so don't expect to much of the "beginners missions" (if they come to daylight ever again), the ships are moderate hacked.got it!http://spacesimcentral.com/downloads/Frontier_PC_v1.01/FE2%20utilities%20collection.zipit includes all the nice tweaking things, liketomms ship editor,save game editor (needs a little experince in hacking), arisata, a modified ross154,my "missions",a few manuals,a viewer and converter for the .grf files (for screenshots made, when you press asterisk),the wormhole patch, wormhole calculator,and the random flight plan generator, for those who like to have a prescripted route to follow. 8-)and not to forgethttp://sharoma.com/frontierverse/here you get most info & files you ever need in FE2 in one place.

Quote:
Yep, in games usually if you have pirates or escort missions the attackers will show no respect for their own life. Luckily, here we have a chance to do better!
why should they care for their lifes? to be easy on you?i neither care for mine, not in the game nor in reality!that's a pirate man, not a chicken!well, i guess the biggest reward is you sent him to nirvana.pirates don't need to be rewarded, the live this sort of life because thy wan't to be FREE!free from authority, free from a obulus to a king, free because perhaps they would be else incarcerated or simply have no other goal in life left.that's the rewardno, i never made it past college age,have phun!A Scout is always prepared... with matches and lighter fluid.

Very nice, guys! Thanks for the advice and the links, I'm going to try to edit my ship - let's see how it goes.On the downside, there doesn't seem to be a way to get rid of the pirate attacks completely? Like I said, most of them are a nuisance rather than really dangerous, and I can handle them. The issue is that it's time-consuming. I don't see any benefit in being slowed down when I'm stardreaming at 5x to my destination. And much too often, it happens not only once. Isn't there a stealth or cloaking device? Or a hack which replaces the procedure triggered when they detect me by something that makes them ignore me?I agree that it's not a simple thing to decide how Pioneer should deal with this issue. Too many conflicting interests among the community, I bet . And I myself don't necessarily favour the radical method to switch off pirate attacks completely (although I would appreciate it if the option were there - Ad Astra shows it's doable). It's the frequency I don't like in the Frontier games. That certain regions are pirate-infested (especially the ones with promising targets for pirates) is only fair. Likewise that pirates focus on "promising" targets, not on explorer, who aren't really interested in the developed regions and are unlikely to have valuable cargo (except the occasional alien artifact maybe). And why shouldn't the number of pirate attacks oscillate with time, simulating the fact that the "empire" will deal with pirates more intensively once they've become a real threat for the economy, and relax (if only for cost reasons) when the trade routes have become safer again - this would happen in the background, of course, invisibly to players (or could be influenced by players for all I care, as long I don't have to do something about these guys unless I want to ).Just a few ideas, and you may or may not agree (and I have no idea how difficult it would be to implement them).

greywolf wrote:
On the downside, there doesn't seem to be a way to get rid of the pirate attacks completely?

But of course there is delete data/modules/Pirates.lua - it's the script that controls pirate ships. Many aspects of Pioneer are done as lua modules like this.

Luomu: I wasn't expressing myself clearly enough, I apologize. When I said "get rid of pirate attacks completely", I meant the Frontier games, not Pioneer - where I still haven't been attacked by a pirate, luckily. Nevertheless, it's good to know that disabling the pirates lua would resolve that issue in Pioneer, should it become one.

I've seen one pirate, who destroyed me in seconds, I've not seen one since. It would be cool if you could be boarded and have them take your cargo without attacking. ie they say 'be boarded or we shoot'. or they could take your ship and leave you in an escape pod! Pipedreams though. Would mean docking ships.

Systems around Sol provide high paying work and no piracy.The milk run triangle between Bernard's Star (with Robots) to Sol, then jumping to Ross 154 and picking up Animal Skins to sell to Bernard's Star is good for $$. You may only occasionally run into pirates in Ross 154. I always travel back to the core systems when I feel like a break.When I had an ill defended Gecko and no money out at Lave/Diso/Leesti and I was saving up money for an Asp and subsequent travel inward to Earth, I'd save the game right before I jumped systems, then jump. Bringing up system nav would show me how much 'traffic' was waiting for me - if there was too much I'd reload and jump again until the coast was clear and I could zoom in with a clean run. Travelling in on >>>> stardream instead of >>>>> stardreamer can help too, seems to make it harder for pirates to get a trace on you (moreso on the amiga version that PC)... Doing it at >>>> also means the 3 ships appear all at once instead of one at a time which saves time (all the smaller ships come in 3s) because you can line one up and destroy it, and then line the next ship up (it'll be a couple of 100km away) and go again. haters be haters, but I always use autopilot once I've got a lock on a ship to bring me into range. If I'm flying a ship with crew (ie not just me) then I hit pause once the ship is in view and lock on target and switch to autopilot (heck I'm paying for this crew, you think one of them could run scan & targ while I'm on helm & weapons). So in the scenario above if you've got a ship 200km away (actually anything over 22km) you can always do a 'blink crossing' by which I mean: targ the ship, switch to autopilot, then hit >>>>>, you will be 3-4km away from the ship and coming around to bear on the enemy... Shake and bake that a few times and the busy pirate systems don't take as long.----Potsmoke, is there a way to get the Game Save Editor for Frontier working in Windows 7????? Or does the Game Save Editor work out of DOS?? I can't get it to load : ( Also, can you change the date of the game in your save file say from Dec 2023 to Jan 2023 in the save file????? This could be a loophole to avoid drive failure and allow me to manually jump in ASP from Sol to the further out systems and avoid drive failure.