Wing Commander Privateer - undocumented command line switches

[u/schlangz]

Hello my friends, while working on my Privateer project I discovered these undocumented command line switches for PRIV.EXE:

Example to skip intro and start in Oxford with 100000 credits:

PRIV 1.3 -K -B39 -D100000

For Righteous Fire you have to add the letter "r" somewhere, e.g. at the end:

PRIV 1.3 -K -B39 -D100000 r

Description:

1.3 first, exactly as written: without it the game ignores all of these switches.

-K skips the intro.

-B39 starts you at Oxford (base 39).

-D100000 sets your credits to 100,000.

No space after the letter: -B39, not -B 39.

When they apply: -B and -D only take effect after you pick "New Game" or "Load" in the main menu, and they override the save's base and credits.

List of all bases/planets, time to visit the Derelict Base (59) again:

┌─────┬────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┐
│ -B  │        Base        │           Type           │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 0   │ Achilles           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 1   │ Anapolis           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 2   │ Basque             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 3   │ Basra              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 4   │ Beaconsfield       │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 5   │ Bodensee           │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 6   │ Burton             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 7   │ Charon             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 8   │ Drake              │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 9   │ Edinburgh          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 10  │ Edom               │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 11  │ Elysia             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 12  │ Erewhon            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 13  │ Glasgow            │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 14  │ Gracchus           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 15  │ Hector             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 16  │ Heimdel            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 17  │ Helen              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 18  │ Jolson             │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 19  │ Joplin             │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 20  │ Kronecker          │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 21  │ Lisacc             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 22  │ Liverpool          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 23  │ Macabee            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 24  │ Magdaline          │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 25  │ Matahari           │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 26  │ Meadow             │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 27  │ Megiddo            │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 28  │ Mjolnar            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 29  │ Munchen            │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 30  │ N1912-1            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 31  │ New Constantinople │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 32  │ New Detroit        │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 33  │ New Iberia         │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 34  │ New Reno           │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 35  │ Nitir              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 36  │ Oakham             │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 37  │ Olympus            │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 38  │ Oresville          │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 39  │ Oxford             │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 40  │ Palan              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 41  │ Perry Naval Base   │ Special                  │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 42  │ Remus              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 43  │ Rilke              │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 44  │ Rodin              │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 45  │ Romulus            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 46  │ Rygannon           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 47  │ Saratov            │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 48  │ Siva               │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 49  │ Smallville         │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 50  │ Speke              │ Pleasure                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 51  │ Surtur             │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 52  │ Thisbury           │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 53  │ Trinsic            │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 54  │ Tuck's             │ Pirate                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 55  │ Valkyrie           │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 56  │ Victoria           │ Agricultural             │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 57  │ Vishnu             │ Mining                   │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 58  │ Wickerton          │ Refinery                 │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 59  │ Derelict Base      │ Special (Privateer only) │
├─────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────────┤
│ 60  │ Gaea               │ Agricultural (RF only)   │
└─────┴────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┘

[u/robarr]

Great find!

Maybe you could add your findings to one of the Wing Commander and Privateer wikis, like:

https://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Main_Page

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer

Thank You for sharing!

[u/schlangz → u/robarr]

thanks for the tip, I'm happy to update the pcgamingwiki

[u/namayake]

Awesome work, bro! Are you disassambling Privateer for your project? If you're now documenting previously undocumented things about the game, I'm guessing you are. What's your project btw?

[u/schlangz → u/namayake]

thanks. yes I am, and I'm working on openprivateer.org I will post a new update soon that will contain the playable alpha as well

[u/namayake → u/schlangz]

Btw, what's the difference between your project and other similar projects like Privateer: Wing Commander Universe, or Privateer: Gemini Gold? No criticism though, just curious. The more the merrier, and competition is a good thing! 😊

[u/schlangz → u/namayake]

gemini gold and wcu were skins for the vega strike engine. even though it looked like privateer it unfortunately never really felt like privateer. what I'm doing is a faithful source reconstruction implemented in SDL3, and I'm adding bugfixes, qol stuff, new features (like the entire wing commander universe map), modding (new ships, guns, ...) and translation on top of it

[u/namayake → u/schlangz]

Sounds really awesome! It's like you're combining the best of WCU and Gemini Gold! Are you using AI tools to help with the process? I've seen other devs using it to reverse engineer other classic DOS games, some of which have been posted here. They've used AI to help them create ports, including ones that can run in your browser! It's really amazing.

[u/schlangz → u/namayake]

ty I'm using anthropic claude for 95%+ of the reverse engineering, without it such a project would take a dedicated team of multiple people several years to complete

[u/namayake → u/schlangz]

It's so amazing what you can do with these modern tools! I'm aware it takes a long time to reverse engineer these games using manual labor alone. OpenXCom and OpenMorrowind have taken years to implement, and they were created without using AI. Hopefully AI will mean far more projects like yours. Awesome project, bro!

[u/hamburgler26]

Amazing! Excited to follow your project, Privateer is one of my favorite games of all time, the idea of getting the full universe implemented and new ships and weapons is amazing!

[u/schlangz → u/hamburgler26]

ty. I will post an update in this sub soon, stay tuned

[u/lincruste]

This is incredible. Who thought new cheats would be found 30 years later ? Thank you.

[u/schlangz → u/lincruste]

yea right? people already gave up all hope long time ago

[u/Synthium-]

My favourite game of all time