I just started playing and it seems like every enemy ship is really hard to destroy. I can't see their status so I can't tell how much I've damaged them, but the combat seems to take forever. Is there some way to see how much the enemy is damaged? I hit the target button and nothing happens, and the place where I'm supposed to see the enemy status has other information in it.

Do I need to use a joystick? The mouse control feels really floaty and I seem to have trouble aiming properly.

Until you can afford some upgrades combat is a little tough. Be sure to download the manual and reference guide.

The "Examine Target" screen on your ship's MFD (activated by pressing 'E') should be what you need. This screen should display your current target's condition, including shield strength and hull condition--it should have a top-down outline of your target's hull with yellow/amber lines representing shield strength. Be sure to lock onto your target with 'L' to avoid accidentally targeting other ships. I've always used a joystick or a gamepad. My Xbox360 gamepad for Windows works pretty well, but a joystick is nice because you have a free left hand to hit keyboard commands.

You start off with a poorly equipped Tarsus. You need to start doing some easy missions from the mission computer and maybe a few trade runs (food from agricultural worlds to mining bases, certain mining products to agricultural worlds).

Once you get a few credits you can start to purchase upgrades for your ship.

@Zeether,

The other posters are correct. You need to upgrade your Tarsus pronto if you want to work as a mercenary.

Buy an afterburner and a mass driver as soon as you can. They will even out the odds for you. Do a couple of trade runs around the starting system and avoid fighting for the mean time.

Once you upgrade to the best radar, you have ITTS which will show you where to aim your guns to get a direct hit.

I just finished this game a few months ago with only a M$ keyboard as my controls. I was pretty surprised that I shot down the probe the second time I flew the mission.

You need to upgrade your ship to a fully armed Centurion to play the plot missions.

I would even go so far as to say that you should start the game by instantly selling your missile launcher and laser and buying two mass drivers. Some people like to go with two meson blasters, but I don't like how slowly my shields regenerate with such a huge energy drain. A direct hit with two mass drivers will do significant damage to a Talon (which is what you'll mostly be fighting at this point in the game).

Your shots in this game travel SLOW; slower than in just about any other space combat sim I've ever played. That means you either need to lead your shots or only fire when the enemy is running directly toward or away from you. Once you get a radar with ITTS, leading shots gets a lot easier (they are quite expensive, though).

Generally 10 HS Missiles will suffice for the maximum 3 patrol missions in Troy sector. Multiple guns are too hard on the energy reserve to be truly effective until you get the engine upgrade.

To each his own; I'd rather shoot my enemies down with guns :) Decent tracking missiles (NOT dumbfires) do make combat a lot easier.

As it has been said, Mass Drivers are good since they don't drain too much energy, do decent damage and have decent range:.
Afterburners, as mentioned, are another must buy, given that even slightly tapping the 'burner key is usually enough to screw with the enemy shot calculations, although you have to keep in mind that a) they will cause you to slide around and b) they drain your weapons capacitors.
One last thing to consider, although one has to be a good shot to use them effectively, are Proton Torpedoes: they act like dumbfire missiles and can only be fired from a dedicated launcher, but deal a lot of damage and are cheap, and if your dogfight turns into a knifefight, they are pretty great at quickly killing any fighter that is too close for comfort.

Oh, yeah, I used to do that all the time! Since the base Talon AI so often turns directly towards or away from you, a single proton torpedo (which is designed to take out enemy capital ships) is usually a one-shot kill...if you can get it to hit. And yes, they are cheap as dirt too since they have no guidance.

I like to take patrol missions with good pay outs and load up my hold with goods to sell around system. You can make quite a bit of money in Troy before you even leave. I like to get up at least 75,000-100,000 credits before I leave Troy.

I also prefer to start the plot missions once I have a fully loaded out Centurion with a 100k or so in reserve.

The best strategy is to do multiple things at once. Take a patrol mission and then a bounty mission that is on your patrol route. Buy some commodities to sell when you end your missions as well. You can build up credits pretty quickly that way.

I concur with Tarm: don't sell your laser; buy a second one! While mass drivers can be good, their projectile velocity is somewhat poor, and range is nowhere near as good as lasers. Since you'll have little energy to spare, you're better off spraying space with lasers (and only spending 1,000 credits to do it) than buying mass drivers.

I liked lasers so much that in my last go around I had a Centurion armed with four lasers round about till I got half-way through the plot missions. There's a lot of options when your guns draw so little energy that you can afterburn pretty well constantly.


Also, while selling one's missile launcher seems to make sense at first, you're better off keeping it, as it's a relatively expensive piece of hardware, and you only need two missiles hitting the same aspect to kill a Talon. Sell the dumbfire missiles and get heatseekers, then you have the extra punch you really need, especially if you're facing more than one enemy.

Of course, if you do keep your missile launcher you don't have seed money to buy an afterburner. A simple scout mission can gtet you that much, though, and anyway an afterburner is of limited usefulness until you have an engine upgrade.

It has been quite some time since I last played the game but I remember not even using missiles at the start of the game. They were expensive kit and expensive to replenish if they had tracking, when I get the game again I will be selling the missile launcher right off the bat, can't really remember the upgrades though so I can't give recommendations on them.

...

It is getting hard to hold out for the expansion. Such a fine game but I resolved not to buy it until it was complete >_< I'm betting I'm going to fail especially since I started on freespace 2 last night so pulled out my joystick which is now staring at me.

Missiles saved me from a reload now and then and they also made missions faster. Yeah I didn't make as much money as I would have if I hadn't used missiles but it certainly added to the fun factor and lessened my stress level.

I'm in the same boat as you. Trying to hold out until the expansion gets here but I'm not sure if I can. :P
And I'm to lazy to try getting my CD version with expansion to work on a Vista 64 system.

You can probably just add the RF.TRE file on your CD to GOG's image if you really want to play it. It's really not that hard to get Privateer working in DOSBox, though, frankly. Certainly it's a lot easier than it was in actual DOS. ;)