I bought Privateer from GOG a few days after its release and I've been enjoying it thus far. However, I've hit a very frustrating part as of late.

I traded in my Tarsus for an Orion, since it can take lots of damage. Of course I had to buy the ship upgrades from scratch again, but I had enough cash on hand to get some decent modules (level 2 shields and engine upgrades, tachyon cannons, afterburner, tungston armor, repair droid).

After a few missions however, it seemed like the game's difficulty curve suddenly skyrocketed. Whereas before it was common for me to face off against only one or two Talons by pirates or Retros, I'm suddenly being bounced by THREE TO FIVE of the ships on a regular basis. It doesn't seem to matter what system I'm in either. Better ship or no, I often get overwhelmed by such numbers with the upgrades I currently have. One time the game was rendered downright unplayable without cheats, as I discovered that four bounty hunter vessels decided to camp a planet I had landed on. Every time I'd launch, the same ships would be there waiting for me and force me back down. I literally threw up my hands in exasperation and quit after barely surviving a nasty furball with four Retro ships, only to be savaged by four Kilrathi vessels in the next sector.

Any advice on what I should do? Does the game purposely ramp up the difficulty like this? Is it advisable for me to wait until I have enough for high-end upgrades before purchasing the Orion?

Get two missile launchers. When combat start launch two missiles at one ship with as little time between them as you can manage, repeat until there's not many Talons left, kill the remaining with guns. Try to time it so that the missiles will chase it because then there's a good chance that both will hit the rear of the ship.
Heat seekers should do but if you have the economy for it use IR.
I actually like HS more than IR. HS tend to more often hit the rear of the enemy ship so two HS at a Talon is usually enough.

If you for some reason don't have two missile launchers you should fire a missile at a enemy, ideally when he's flying away from you to get him in the rear and then stick to him like glue using afterburners hitting him in the back. Repeat on the next enemy.

Or you can fire a couple missiles at several enemies at the start of the combat to distract them while you concentrate on killing one enemy with guns.

Edit: Get used to being outnumbered because you always are in WC games. ;) Luckily the enemy AI sucks at using that advantage so if you concentrate on one enemy at a time you generally don't have that hard a time.

You don't have to fight every annoying Pirate/Retro/Kilrathi patrol you encounter. If your engine upgrades are one level above your shield generators you can fly indefinitely with afterburners and simply outrun them, or at least make it to the jumppoint.

Kill counts FTW! :D

As long as you're not facing mission-related enemies or Retros, if you broadcast the #3 message enough times, they'll eventually go non-hostile. It takes quite a few broadcasts, though.

@Never,

Privateer's game balancing algorithm ramps up the number of opponents and the weapons they have when you upgrade your ship. Upgrading guns usually brings up the difficulty level. Try going back to your saved game before you upgraded. Get upgrades with lower level guns such as Meson Blasters.

I also believe that upgrading your shields also ramps up the difficulty level. Make sure that your engine is good enough to support your shields and guns. I usually use a higher level engine with a lower level shield generator, i.e., level 3 engine with level 2 shield gen.

The Orion is a good enough ship but you need to manage your upgrades properly because the difficulty level will quickly ramp up with the "right" upgrades. With the right upgrade path, you can avoid the 1v3 or 1v4 battles before you are ready...

I can confirm that shield upgrades also affect difficulty. After I went to level 3 shields, the standard Pirate flight went from 2 to 3 ships.

My advice would be to stick with an upgraded Taurus until you can afford the Centurion. It actually doesn't take long to put the cash together. A neat way of building up cash quickly is to stay in the Troy system, join the Mercenaries Guild and then go looking for the "Fly 5 nav points for 6000 credits" type missions. If you can find multiple (you can fly up to 3 missions at one), you can get massive profit for a single run. IE, 3 x 5 nav points (the important thing is that they are actually the SAME nav points) with, say, 6k for one, 7k for the next and 5k for the last. So flying to 5 nav points would net you 18k. I maxed out a Centurion pretty quickly doing this. :)

Thanks for the replies.

Good to know that the difficulty scales with the ship. I think I'll go back and be a bit more methodical with my upgrades. Fortunately I kept a save file of my upgraded Tarsus.

Suppose I do NOT revert to an older save but instead sell-off my higher upgrades and replace them with lesser upgrades. Does difficulty scale back downward if you downgrade your ship?

Yup, that's also what I'm doing. Works out pretty good I'd say.

I was also wondering about the correlation of ship/system upgrades and the appearance of enemies though. Therefore, some good information in here.


Heck, it's been a long time since I've played Privateer for the first time. x-D
Hasn't lost anything of its greatness though. I really enjoy it!

I experienced this too, but I don't know if it was because of the new ship or if it was just a very violent area. When I arrived Palan, I bought the Orion, bought the extras I could afford, took a new mission, died. Took off without a mission, died. Kept the bucket and upgraded it some more instead, died. Took off with the bucket without doing anythig with it whatsoever, and, that's right, I DIED! No matter what I do or do not, when I launch the ship, there's a mob waiting for me, a good handful of hunters, no less, who just won't go down after a few missiles. I've tried to outrun them with both ships, but I get killed no matter what. So I don't know if it's the ship, the delivery I just made, or the place. I'm staying far away from there until I can afford one of the better ships.

Late in the story there is a bunch of mission where you have to destroy a huge force of hunters blockading Palan. Maybe the blockade is active from the beginning and not triggered to appear when you've advanced that far into the story.

That could be, that it's triggered whenever you reach the planet.

Thanks! :)

Yeah, that is the case. The Palan missions start properly when you go visit the merc Lyn on the refinery in the Palan system after having completed the Oxford missions. Having a maxed out Centurion, I just outran the blockade and went straight to Palan not knowing any better. Monkhouse then tells you he isn't going anywhere until the blockade is lifted and that you should go to Basra where there is a group forming to take out the blockade.

So you've made the mistaking of going to the wrong planet - one of the few in the game that is defended 100% of the time by some of the toughest opponents in the game. :)

That explains it, then. Of all the planets to go, I picked that one. xD

I tried to buy the Orion somewhere else, and no angry mob waited to slaughter me this time. ;)