Privateer: Wing Commander Universe (Priv:WCU) is a mod for the Open Source VegaStrike game. It is patterned after the 1994 Privateer game set in Chris Robert's Wing Commander universe.

While Priv:WCU aims to include a faithful representation of the orginal Privateer campaign, it also aims to give the player access to the wider Wing Commander Universe and not just the Gemini sector of the original game.

Similarly, the aim is to include and allow the purchase of ships not available for purchase in the original Privateer game. The rationale is that if a ship is seen flying around in the wider Wing Commander Universe, it should be available for purchase -- at the right price (which may include doing someone a personal favour).

It should be noted that Privateer: Wing Commander Universe is basically a rebranded version of Privateer: Parallel Universe.

I (ermo) am under the impression that I have the blessing of the former maintainer (who goes by the nick 'Chuck Starchaser') to continue the development of his baby. Sadly, the SVN repository of Privateer: Parallel Universe and its development forum appears to be lost to the bit gods.

If you want to participate in the Priv:WCU development discussion, check out the development thread on the Vega Strike forums:

http://forums.vega-strike.org/viewtopic.php?p=133438#p133438

Priv:WCU is developed on top of the latest stable git branch version of the VegaStrike engine. It is not presently in a state suitable for end-users.

It is worth noting that Priv:WCU is developed and tested primarily on Linux.

Priv:WCU is not currently tested under Windows, but the VegaStrike engine should now be running on Windows.

Instructions on how to fetch and compile the newest VegaStrike engine can be found here:

https://github.com/vegastrike/Vega-Strike-Engine-Source#compiling-vegastrike

The Priv:WCU codebase has been ported to py3. Python-3.4 and up is supported since the 0.8.x branch of the Vega-Strike-Engine-Source project.

Python-2.7 is no longer supported.

Create a bin/ directory in the root Priv:WCU folder and create symbolic links to the vegastrike-engine and vegasettings binaries respectively.

On my system, it looks like this:

ermo@dante:~/repos/privateer_wcu/bin [master* +0 ~1 -0 !]
$ ls -l
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ermo ermo 48 Aug 18 18:14 vegasettings -> ../../Vega-Strike-Engine-Source/bin/vegasettings
lrwxrwxrwx 1 ermo ermo 53 Aug 18 18:14 vegastrike-engine -> ../../Vega-Strike-Engine-Source/bin/vegastrike-engine

To start Priv:WCU in development mode, navigate to the Priv:WCU folder and type bin/vegastrike-engine -D./ <ENTER>

To change the Priv:WCU configuration options, navigate to the Priv:WCU folder and type bin/vegasettings --target ./ <ENTER>

I humbly ask that you do not fork this project (Priv:WCU) to make competing projects until such time as it is clear that I (ermo) am no longer making any attempt to update it. You are however welcome to fork the project if the intent is to contribute content or bugfixes. :)

Please use only https://github.com/pwcu/privateer_wcu as the fork origin.

Privateer: Wing Comander Universe has its roots in the Privateer: Parallel Universe mod (which itself is a continuation of the Privateer Remake project, the history of which is too long to include here), but also includes content from the Privateer: Gemini Gold mod (as close to a 1:1 remake of the original Privateer on the VegaStrike engine as one is likely to get) and the Wing Commander Universe project, which itself spawned the Privateer Remake project.

Wing Commander: Universe can be found at http://wcu.solsector.net/

Privateer: Gemini Gold can be found at http://privateer.sourceforge.net/

Confused yet?

• Chuck Starchaser (Privateer: Parallel Universe lead)
• John Cordell (Privateer: Gemini Gold lead)
• DMJC (Wing Commander: Universe lead)
• (to be filled in as I learn more about the long history this project)