                    The Secrets of Privateer, Revealed!

            Contents of this file:
            I.      Disclaimer
            II.     Software Required
            III.    Backup
            IV.     Files
            V.      Boosting the Fusion Cannon
            VI.     Better missiles
            VII.    Improving the Centurion
            VIII.   Go away, Asteroids!
            IX.     Modifying your current player ship
            X.      Changing guns
            XI.     Cargo expansions, more money.
            XII.    Getting a Pay Raise
            XIII.   Where am I?
            XIV.    Changing ECM Level
            XV.     Tracking your Foe
            XVI.    Upgrading your shields
            XVII.   Class 7 Engines for Centurion
            XVIII.  You're Bad!


This file will provide you with the information you need to do the
following: Reclaim your Steltek guns after Righteous Fire; Change your
Centurion's gun, engine, shield, targetting, ECM and cargo loadout;
modify the specs for any gun in Privateer/RF to create a super gun;
increase the destructive power of missiles; modify the performance
characteristics of the Centurion with higher speeds and better armor;
increase the amount you're paid for missions, and get rid of those
frustrating asteroid fields!

I. DISCLAIMER:

This author assumes absolutely no responsibility for the decisions made
by those who read this text. Any decision to alter software is up to
the reader. The author also makes no guarantees regarding accuracy of
this material, nor will he assume any liabilities incurred by its
implementation.

Privateer and Righteous Fire are copyrighted publications of Origin
Software. The information presented in this document is not intended to
aid anyone in pirating, stealing, or duplicating the software. SUCH ACTS
ARE ILLEGAL!

BE WARNED that if you hack on your game:
(1) You will receive no sympathy (much less support) from Origin. This
is as it should be.
(2) You may corrupt the files and the game will then not run or will run
unpredictably.
(3) You can easily ruin the fun of playing the game, due to lack of
serious competition.

YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN!

Last word: The information contained herein should not be attempted if
you are not familiar with hexadecimal and files. You run a very serious
risk of clobbering your game and being forced to reload it.

II. SOFTWARE REQUIRED:

Don't even attempt this unless you have a Binary or Hex Editor,
preferably one that also displays ASCII! There are some good ones out
there, some better than others. PC Tools and Norton come with one. There
are good shareware programs, too, although you must remember that the
TRE files we're talking about run 3+ meg, and some editors won't handle
that much. The best one I've seen lately is "EDDY" (c) by John Scofield.
Look for a copy in Ziffnet, GO ZNT:TIPS. For a $25 registration fee,
it's a great value.

If your only desire is to give yourself extra money, all Steltek
weapons, or change your name, think about grabbing a copy of PRSHIP by
Tina Verras. It's in Lib 9 (Space Combat) of the Flight Sim forum on
Compuserve, it's menu-driven, and you can avoid the tedious
bit-twiddling we're going to do here. Note, however, that if your SAV or
PRS file has any missions in it, the pre-packaged Privateer patch
programs have a hard time recognizing that, and will possibly corrupt
your game. Only use them with "clean" files (no missions).

III. BACKUP:

Seriously, you're going to be doing nasty stuff to the data files. Make
backup copies of the files in their original condition before you do
anything. Trust me, it will be the easiest way to put everything back if
you screw it up. The two most important files are going to be
OBJECTS.TRE and (if you have Righteous Fire) PRSO.TRE. Copy any SAV or
PRS files you're planning to hack to different file names. Back 'em up!


IV. FILES:

We will talk here first about modifying the Privateer weapons. Later we
will take a quick look at .SAV and .PRS files (your saved game-state
files). Fortunately for us, Privateer contains all the critical goodies
in data files. In the original Privateer, the big one is OBJECTS.TRE.
The data in this file is the same from game to game. It has the profiles
for several varieties of Talons, all the Kilrathi and Confed ships, plus
the basic profile of the ships you will be purchasing.

For Righteous Fire, the OBJECTS file is augmented by PRSO.TRE. This has
a few changes in the enemy ships (including the Retro Guardian ships),
copies of the Steltek and the new Fusion Cannon.


**************
V. BOOSTING THE FUSION CANNON:

Of course, you can do this procedure with any of the Privateer guns. I
chose the Fusion cannon for several reasons: (1) You can buy more of 'em
and repair the ones you have (unlike the Steltek); (2) The other guys
don't have any. (That's right! If you boost, say, the Particle Cannon,
then every Retro ship you run into is going to have the same super-gun
you do. Not pretty! But then, we Privateers are known for living
dangerously, no?) You can do the same thing with the Plasma gun, if
that's your thing. But beware - other ships carry 'em!

Make a backup copy of your PRSO.TRE file (just type
COPY PRSO.TRE PRSO.BKP if nothing else). If you're modifying one of the
original Privateer weapons, back up OBJECTS.TRE.

Pull it into your Hex editor. For fusion cannon, you want to search for
the string "ZAPPTYPEZAPPER". It's quite a ways down in the file, after
the "IFF" and "TYPE" records. The Hex pattern will be like this for the
Fusion weapon:

D6 01 00 46 05 00 66 03 00 00 80 00 00 00 0B 00 42
^^ ^^    ^^ ^^                ^^          ^^    ^^
Abuse    Velocity            Refire     Energy  Damage
                             Delay      Usage   Potential

The basic bit layout is the same for all the main guns in Privateer (see
table, below). Note, however, that the program reads each hex-word in
reverse byte order. For example, when calculating the Velocity, above,
calculate it as "05 46" instead of as it's shown.

I played with some alternate values and discovered several things.
First, a refire delay that's too much lower than the "4C" of the laser
will result in an almost uncontrollable stream of fire. I tried to
stretch the muzzle velocity of the cannon to 10,000 mps (attempting to
increase the range), and it wouldn't even fire. The key is MODERATION.
If you change the bit pattern as I show it here, you'll end up with an
amazing weapon that can blast Retros in one shot and take out a Kamekh
destroyer in one good strafing pass:


D6 05 00 E0 06 00 66 03 00 00 3C 00 00 00 04 00 C0
^^ ^^    ^^ ^^                ^^          ^^    ^^
Abuse    Velocity           Refire      Energy  Damage


My own (rough) estimates on the stats for your modified Fusion cannon
are these:
              Steltek       Fusion Cannon   Boosted Fusion
              -----------   -------------   -------------
Range       : 5000 m.       4400 m.         4800 m.
Velocity    : 1175 mps      1350 mps        1760 mps
Refire delay: .37 sec       .5 sec          .2 sec
Energy usage: 8 Gj          20 Gj           4 Gj
Damage      : 19 cm         6.6 cm          30 cm !!
Abuse Limit : Very high     High            Very high

If you have class 5 engines/class 5 shields, you will drain your energy
stores before reaching your full per-minute rate of fire if you're using
the Steltek. With the Super Gun, you can keep up your rate of fire for
as long as it takes to hit your target. My own Centurion has Class 7
engines and Class 6 shields. With 4 Boosted Fusion Guns, I barely see my
energy meter flicker.

For your own edification, here are the byte records for all Privateer
weapons, lined up for ease of review.


Laser           72 01 00 78 05 00 66 03 00 00 4c 00 00 00 04 00 14
Mass Driver     7c 01 00 4c 04 00 66 03 00 00 59 00 00 00 05 00 1a
Meson Blast     86 01 00 14 05 00 66 03 00 00 66 00 00 00 08 00 20
Neutron         c2 01 00 c0 03 00 66 03 00 00 a6 00 00 00 10 00 3e
Particle        90 01 00 e8 03 00 66 03 00 00 80 00 00 00 0b 00 2b
Ionic           ae 01 00 b0 04 00 66 03 00 00 99 00 00 00 0f 00 36
Tachyon         d6 01 00 e2 04 00 66 03 00 00 66 00 00 00 08 00 32
Plasma          f4 01 00 ac 03 00 66 03 00 00 b8 00 00 00 13 00 48
Fusion          d6 01 00 46 05 00 66 03 00 00 80 00 00 00 0b 00 42
Steltek         f0 55 00 97 04 00 66 03 00 00 73 00 00 00 13 00 64
                ^^ ^^    ^^ ^^                ^^          ^^    ^^
                Abuse    Velocity            Refire     Energy  Damage
                Limit                        Delay      Usage

Last word on reality: In the real world, the laws of physics are
incontrovertible. To gain higher hitting power for your gun should
require greater energy resources. Thankfully, it's our game universe and
we can do anything we want. Follow your own conscience on this one.

VI. BETTER MISSILES:

Most of the time, an FF or IR missile will blast a Talon pretty hard.
But if you're like me, you've turned pirate after finishing the game
and everyone in Gemini is your enemy. You need some emergency firepower
against the Kamekhs, Demons, Paradigms and Broadswords you're running
into.

Since only Gothri and Broadswords carry FF missiles, you should be
fairly safe in modifying that type. Here's how to increase the damage a
single missile can do:

Search for the string MSSLTYPEFRNDFOE. All the missile profiles are at
the end of OBJECTS.TRE. (RF uses the same file) This table shows
you the byte alignment for the missiles, and the Photon Torps:

Torps       00 b0 04 03 00 00 00 c8 00 05
DF Misl     45 e8 03 08 00 00 00 82 00 01
HS Misl        20 03 09 00 b8 0b a0 00 02
FF Misl     00 84 03 08 00 88 13 af 00 04
IR Misl     43 52 03 09 00 a0 0f af 00 03
                                 ^^ ^^
                                 Damage value

To boost the damage potential of the FF missile from 17.5 cm to 25.5,
change the "af" value (175) to "ff" (255). This slight increase will
allow you to bring down a Gothri's shields, but it might still not be
noticeable against a Kamekh or Paradigm. Use the 2 bits to the right for
additional increases - but beware that anything over a value of 50
(i.e., "ff 01") is unneeded, and will cause you problems of your own if
you don't boost your ECM values as shown below.


VII. IMPROVING THE CENTURION'S SPEED, MANEUVERABILITY, AND ARMOR:

The Centurion is probably the best heavy fighter in Gemini, but it can
be improved. If you want the maneuverability of a Talon and the armor
protection of an Orion, here's what you do. (Note! Some Hunters fly
Centurions. Their ships will have the same specs as you create here.
You've been warned!)

If you're playing Righteous Fire, do this in PRSO.TRE. If you're still
in Privateer, use OBJECTS.TRE. Note that RF will not read the Centurion
specs out of OBJECTS.TRE!

Search for the string "GUIDSHIP". Each type of ship has a "GUIDSHIP"
record used as a template for performance of all ships of that type. The
GUIDSHIP record is followed by the ARMR record for that ship. A stock
Centurion will have the following byte pattern:

First line:
00 20 00 f4 01 00 00 f4 01 00 00 9e 00 00 00 a8 00
         ^^ ^^       ^^ ^^       ^^          ^^
         Accel       Speed      Pitch       Roll

2nd line:
00 00 a0 00 00 00 e8 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 28
      ^^          ^^ ^^
     Yaw          Afterburner speed


Be very careful with the values here. The Yaw value is always the Pitch
value + 2, and the Roll value is always Pitch + 10. If you jack these up
too high, it will be hard to control your ship in a dogfight. I found
that an all-around increase of 10 was almost too much. Try boosting from
5-8 and see how it feels.

Speeds can be troublesome too. If you set your top speed over 700,
you're liable to do more ramming in combat than shooting (be prepared to
spend money repairing your armor). My own Centurion has an Accel value
of e8 03 (1,000), a top speed of 80 02 (650, or 750 with the thrust
enhancers), and an afterburner speed of d0 07 (2,000+) for quick
getaways. I tweaked my pitch/roll/yaw numbers by about 5 on all counts,
which gives me excellent response. This is one to play with - your own
joystick might be more/less sensitive than mine.

Just under the GUIDSHIP record, you will see one for "Centurion ARMR"
(or whatever ship you're modifying). The byte pattern for the stock
armor is:

00 00 00 0a 7d 00 7d 00 af 00 7d 00 01 00 2a
            ^^    ^^    ^^    ^^
           Left  Right  Fore  Aft

"7d" is 125, "af" is 175 cm. I changed all my armor specs to "fa" (250).
You can go higher if you want, but 250 is pretty thick (Remember, the
Orion has 480 in front, in case you're feeling timid <grin>). Use the
byte to the right of the existing value - to change 125 to 380, turn '7d
00' into '7d 01', etc.


VIII. GO AWAY, ASTEROIDS!

New players have one common complaint: they hate the asteroids. Veteran
players have gotten used to the flying rocks, but in moments of painful
honesty will admit that they still detest the things. My least favorite
thing to do is jump to another system at 750 kps and land square in the
middle of hurtling boulders.

Well, no more! If you're in Privateer, back up your PRIVATER.EXE file.
If you're playing Righteous Fire, back up PRSO.EXE. Now pull it into
your editor. Search for the word "ASTEROID".

It would be helpful to have an ASCII side on your editor. Edit it on the
ASCII side, it's easier.

Find the string:      ASTEROID ASTRTYPE ASTROID1 ASTROID2
Replace it with:      ASTEROID TRSHTYPE BODYPRT1 BODYPRT2

Be *very* careful that you do not put a SPACE between each word. The
hex value of a space is 20, and there should be "00" between each of
these on the binary side of your screen. You can also substitute other
kinds of floating objects for the flying debris, such as explosions and
drones (Look for "EXPLTYPE"). Have fun playing with this one. Note that,
when you're in a former asteroid field, you still cannot use Autopilot
until you're clear of where the game thinks the asteroids are.

**********************
IX. MODIFYING YOUR CURRENT PLAYER SHIP

Let's take a look at your SAV and PRS files. You can build a ship beyond
anything allowed by the game this way. Let's see how we can go about
building a Centurion with Class 7 engines & shields, class 4 ECM (*no*
missile locks), a cargo expansion (yep!) and all Stelteks (if my boosted
Fusion guns didn't impress you for some reason).


X. CHANGING GUNS, EVEN STELTEKS:

Were you disgusted after Righteous Fire was over? All that work for a
pat on the back, and you still didn't get your precious Steltek gun
back? Have hope! There is a way! If you don't wish to try out the Super
Gun I've shown you, try this:

Load your PRS file into the hex editor. Search for the "WEAPGUNS"
record. It will have a byte lineup something like this, if you're using
Fusion cannon, with a rear turret (I've broken the byte record in 2
lines. They should be considered contiguous.) The gun positions are
number 1-4 for the wings, and 5-8 for the rear turrets. You should never
add new guns. You would be wise to only replace existing guns with this
procedure!

                      08 01
Gun type code ========^^ ^^======= Gun mounting position (01 - 08)

This is the hex profile of my own Centurion's WEAPGUNS record, with one
rear turret:

57 45 41 50 47 55 4e 53 00 00 00 18 08 07 00 00 08 05 00 00 (cont'd -->)
                                     ^  ^        ^  ^
                                    Guns #7 and 5 are rear turret.
                                    '08' is a Fusion cannon.
(---> Line cont'd:)
08 01 00 00 08 02 00 00 08 03 00 00 08 04
 ^  ^        ^  ^        ^  ^        ^  ^
out port    in port      in starbd.  out starbd.

The exact Gun Type Codes for various guns are:

            Neutron = '00'
            Meson   = '01'
            Ionic   = '02'
            Mass D. = '03'
            Particle= '04'
            Laser   = '05'
            Plasma  = '06'
            Tachyon = '07'
            Fusion  = '08' (*)
            Plasma  = '06'
            Steltek = '09'

(* Note: In original Privateer, '08' was Unboosted Steltek weapon.)

To change your fusion cannon out for Stelteks in the above example,
change the occurences of Type '08' to '09'.

If you don't have a rear turret, the bytes for gun position 5 through 8
will not be in the file. (The Centurion with one turret will only have
rear ports 5 & 7. The Galaxy with 2 turrets will have all 4 turret
spots.) Note that Privateer/RF uses a variable-length record format, so
some of the above bytes will be missing completely if you do not have a
turret.

That's all there is to that one. Save your file, start the game, and go
into the Ship Dealer. Select "Sell". If you don't see your guns, and the
graphic of your ship has the odd lumps of dark grey/green on the wings,
you have your Stelteks back!

XI. CARGO EXPANSIONS & MORE MONEY

The Centurion wasn't designed for hauling large cargo loads. If you want
to do that, you can use my instructions in the first part of this text
to soup up a Galaxy (you could, in fact, make it the equivalent or
superior to a Centurion if you desired. Just be wary of Hunters flying
other Galaxies - they will be your equal.)

However, once I turned pirate I became disgusted with the pathetic cargo
space. I couldn't even salvage appreciable amounts of debris from
destroyed merchants before I was full! Just a small expansion would have
been nice!

This is an easy one. Load your .PRS or .SAV file into your editor. Near
the bottom of the file, look for the record called CCRGI. It will have a
byte pattern like this:

00 00 00 08 14 3a 0c 00 32 00 00 00
            ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^       ^^ ^^
            Credits       Secret   Cargo
                          compart. expansion

If you don't have the secret compartment and don't want to play through
Privateer to get one, change the next-to-the-last byte to '01'. If you
want your Centurion to have an extra 25 units of cargo space, change the
last byte to '01'.

The other 4 bytes I show as "Credits" are your cash total. Be sure you
know your hex before changing this one - it's an 8-bit value, read right
to left. (I.e., my '14 3a 0c 00' means this player has '00 0c 3a 14', or
801,300 credits).


XII. GETTING A PAY RAISE:

You can basically give your bank account any amount of money you desire,
but perhaps this leaves a bad taste in your mouth? You want to cheat,
but not that flagrantly? Would you feel better if you could just change
the amount of money a mission pays? Here's how:

Accept 1-3 missions. Save your game and pull your SAV or PRS file into
your editor. You will see some mission text,  which ends with something
like, "X Corp pays 6689 credits". That's just talk, it means nothing.
Right after that, the file will show a "PAYS". On the binary side, the
hex pattern for the word "PAYS" and its associated bits is:

        50 41 59 53 00 00 00 04 21 1a
         P  A  Y  S             ^^ ^^ Mission payment

Remember, the bytes are reversed, so "21 1a" would be "1a 21", or 6689.
Go to it. Drag out your hex calculator and figure out what you want to
be paid for this mission. With only 2 bytes to play with, your pay
ceiling per mission is 65,535 credits ("ff ff"). Still, not a bad days'
pay.


XIII. WHERE AM I?

A bit of trivia: Each base in Privateer/RF has a hex value, and they're
numbered in alphabetical order starting with Achilles (00), Anapolis
(01), etc, through Wickerton (3a) and Derelict (Remember him? 3b). The
location byte is the 43rd byte of your SAV/PRS file. Change it and you
change the location of your ship.


XIV. CHANGING YOUR ECM LEVEL:

When you purchase the ECM upgrades, they come in 25% increments for
preventing missile locks. Even at level 3 (75%), you will find yourself
under pressure at times from large groups of enemies firing HS or IR
missiles. If you've tampered with the missile's destructive power as I
showed you earlier, you will definitely want to tweak your ECM.

Towards the end of your SAV/PRS file, look for the string 'ECMS'. It
will be followed by these bytes:

45 43 4d 53 00 00 00 01 4b
 E  C  M  S             ^^ ECM Level 3

The ECM Level byte is the percentage that missiles will NOT lock on to
you. The value 4b (Level 3) is 75%. The value 64 would be 100%, and
prevent *ALL* missile locks. If you have hacked on the damage value for
FF missiles, you might want this, or you can set it at 80% (hex 50) or
90% (hex 5a), or whatever other value you choose. Personally, I use hex
60 (96%), and I still get locks once in awhile. Note that when you go to
the ship dealer and select "sell", your ECM will still show up as Level
3 since there isn't anything higher available in the game.

XV. TRACKING YOUR FOE

To change the targetting scanner on your ship, look for the string
TARGETNG. It is immediately followed by one byte which indicates which
scanner you currently own:

            Iris Mk I       3c
                 Mk II      3d
                 Mk III     3e

          Hunter Aw6        3f
                 Aw6i       40
                 Infinity   41

            B&S  Tripwire   42
                 Eye        43
                 Omni       44


XVI. UPGRADING YOUR SHIELDS:

Search your PRS or SAV file for the "SHIELDS" record. It is a 2-byte
record:

        Class 1   00 5a
        Class 2   00 5b
        Class 3   00 5c
        Class 4   00 5d
        Class 5   00 5e
        Class 6   00 65
        Class 7   00 66


XVII. CLASS 7 ENGINES FOR CENTURION:

In Privateer, you may only upgrade your Centurion legally to Class 3
shields & engines. In Righteous Fire, you may go as high as Class 4.

Using the following method, you may upgrade your Centurion or Galaxy to
Class 5 in Privateer (the highest available) or Class 7 in Righteous
Fire.

Please note the variable record lengths for the engine classes. If you
are upgrading your Centurion to Class 5, 6, or 7 in Righteous Fire, it
is HIGHLY recommended that you have Class 4 Engines already. The length
of the ENERGY record varies, and this will insure that your byte count
is correct.

After making the necessary changes, your engine will come damaged with a
1-2+ million credit repair bill. This is because the level of engine
you've selected is not allowed on your ship. See the section on
changing your bank balance above. "Repair" it and you're OK.

Look for the ENERINFO and ENERGY records towards the tail of the SAV/PRS
file. You want the bytes following "ENERGY":

          ENERGY
Class 1   00 00 01 02 04 01 05 01
Class 2   00 00 01 02 03 01 04 01 05 01
Class 3   00 00 01 02 03 01 04 01 05 01 06 02
Class 4   00 00 01 02 02 01 03 01 04 01 05 01 06 02
Class 5   00 00 01 02 02 02 03 01 04 01 05 01 06 02
Class 6   00 00 01 02 02 03 03 01 04 01 05 01 06 02
Class 7   00 00 01 02 02 04 03 01 04 01 05 01 06 02



*************
XVIII. YOU'RE BAD!

If you've patiently gone through all the hacks I've shown you here, you
will end up with a ship that is virtually invincible. You can become a
pirate with impunity, blasting and plundering your way through Gemini at
will. You don't have to do all the hacks, of course, and if you're like
me you'll find that after the first dozen missions, it would be nice to
have some competition. That's why I'm going back to the start, I'm
buying a quaint little Tarsus (the "Flying Winnebago") or an Orion ("The
Flying Garbage Scow") and starting all over with a Meson Blaster and a
missile launcher.

If you have other ideas or discoveries on Privateer/Righteous Fire,
please feel free to E-mail me. I'd like to keep this file updated and
available in the Space Combat Lib, Flight Sim Forum of Compuserve, so
we can share with our fellow Privateers and get the most enjoyment out
of this wonderful game until Privateer 2 comes along (hopefully) this
fall... even if all we ever get from Admiral Terrell is a lousy pat on
the back <grin>.


Marc "The Swede" Fisher
70711,3177


