Original Freelancer Playthrough
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Good episode!
i enjoyed the moment you discovered the advantages of “Z” or engine kill. if you use your booster or “thruster” your momentum is alot faster
It helps in times where your too out-numbered too… you fly backwards at full thruster pace and because the enemy trys to evade your fire, you out pace them
Thats also why you couldnt hit that rogue chasing you when you discovered it.
It has uses when your attacking too… but i dont want to spoil all your fun of discovery…Oh yeah, i think the “T” key is select nearest enemy target in the standard controls.
Anyways, Really enjoying your (and re-living my) first moments of freelancer.
Keep going
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iFirez wrote:
EPISODE 3 is out!Before i go, what ship do you guys think is best to buy after the basic ship you start with?
I think I went with the Patriot after the Starflier, and a Defender after that.
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I dont think your ship choice matters that much at this stage, but go for something that can mount higher level weapons…
in the video you couldnt mount that weapon you were trying to buy, because the slot you unmounted your gun from was only a level or “Class” 2 slot.
The level that any weapon slot can take is shown on it’s slot while you are viewing the equipment dealertop tip - Junkers modify their own weapons… this makes them better than if you just buy them
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Actually, about weapons. You’ve already noted that the Starbeams are worse than just about all the others you’ve found, level-to-level. That’s because Starbeams are “civilian” weapons. Most other weapons like the Justices, Lavabeams, etc. are faction weapons. They are better overall than civilian weaponry, with the differences between different factions amounting to tradeoffs. Some factions will have a higher range but lower damage, others higher damage but more power consumption, etc.
Generally, if you can time your shots right, higher damage weapons will be best. The range differences or speed differences don’t make that much of an impact on your actual performance. As a new player, avoid the low refire (2.00, 3.33) weapons, because they tend to be less forgiving. If you miss, you’re out of a big chunk of energy and have fewer chances to get back on track. 8.33 and similar give you more chances to touch the enemy, even if each shot does less damage. You may also want to avoid heavy power consumption weapons until you’re more familiar with energy management.
Personally, I’d also suggest you get into a heavy fighter like the Defender. It sucks compared to other HFs, but it’s better than LFs for all but the most agile of players. Just ramp up whichever ship you’re flying whenever you feel like you’re getting pounced on too much. Remember to upgrade your thrusters and shields as well.
As for flying, one important technique to master is engine kill thrust. In EK, the engines don’t work, as you’ve noticed, so by some magical property you’ll slow down after a while. This makes you a sitting duck. To avoid this, tap the thruster every once in a while, particularly when changing directions. The thruster does not reactivate the engines, so you’ll keep drifting when you let go of it. However, it can provide a quick burst of acceleration that throws the enemies’ aim off.
I’m really enjoying those videos. Keep it up!
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Patriot. I don’t like the Defender.
But if you want to have one, don’t buy the Patriot before.About weapons: I think the low-range-low-energy (e.g. the Molly’s Dublin Dusters, the Kusari’s Scramblers) or low-range-high-damage (e.g. the Outcast’s Pyros) are the best, but you can’t get then that early in the game.
Edit: You could try the Xenos’ weapons though. They have class 2 to 6 weapons I think, just kill some of them.
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Thanks for all the tips guys. New ship in Episode 5 tomorrow.
But for now EPISODE 4 is up.I die
I just get overrun…you’ll see what I mean… I need to get better at this game quick! HAHA!I will try to implement and learn from all the information you guys have written for me in this weekends play session (Episode 9 onwards) but for now contuinuing on from Last weekends play session.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvSz25JgVyk
EDIT: Sorry about some of the audio sync problems, it isn’t like that on my video file on my computer - I blame youtube on this one. It seems to get better after 8 minutes or so…
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I know you havent played again since I think you said up to episode 9?
But I have to comment on Ep 5.
On the left side of you screen at the equipment dealer, it tells you what the maximum weapon class of the slot is. You’ll see on the starflier that it has the first two slots as Class 2, and the third slot as Class 3. That’s why you could never buy class 3 weapons, as you always had the class 3 slot filled when you tried to buy em.
Also, try and keep your guns homogenous. Mixing weapon velocities will mess with the aim.
Also, Someone’s probably mentioned it, but ONLY fire when you have a shot. That means only fire when you can see the crosshair.
Also, I know someone has said this, but to reiterate, USE YOUR THRUSTER. Not for travel, it’s for combat. Ever notice how sometimes, your target outruns you? Thruster.
Also, next ship you buy, go to Battleship next to Norfolk Shipyard. It has the Defender Heavy Fighter. Take a look at it.
Also, now that you’ve discovered Missiles, Q is the default missile key. It will fire all equipped missiles.
I’ve also noticed that you seem to use the interface alot…
F2 is go to
F3 is Dock
F4 is FormationIIRC, H and G are battery and nanobot
Shift+W activates cruise
Hit Escape to get out of Go To when you’re near a combat area.
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I was going to comment, but Sizer’s summed it up quite nicely.
My only additional tip is about missiles. You’ll have noticed there were 3 level 1 missiles. Yours, the Stalker, is the guided missile. There’s also the Eraser, which is the shield killer, and the Javelin, which is the unguided missile.
If I’m not mistaken, all levels have new unguided and guided missiles, but only certain ones have shield killer missiles. Unguided missiles are the strongest, but have weak tracking. Guided missiles are weaker but move better and will lock on more often. Shield killers behave in between and will nearly only do shield damage, but most of the time kill shields in just one blow.
I think at your level, missiles might be a little of a bad idea. First, they’re rather pricy. 30 credits might not seem like much, but if you consume 30 missiles in a fight that’s nearly 1,000 off your bank account. Second, you don’t practice your aiming. Missiles can become a crutch very easily, even though they have disadvantages, especially in MP. If you want to improve your skills, you should try to avoid using missiles at least until you’re a bit more familiar with things like aiming and energy management, which missiles don’t require quite as much. Then you can learn missile-specific stuff like timing.
And yes, it might be annoying, but learn the shortcuts. You’ll really benefit from them. You can also avoid losing time in a lot of cutscenes by pressing Esc repeatedly. Similarly, you don’t have to hit dock from 10k away. People do something called “speed docking”, which just involves actually flying to the target manually, lining up with the docking bay by yourself and hitting dock there. In things like tradelanes, that just means recognizing the direction you want to go in, getting close to that ring and hitting dock there. If you do the whole thing in cruise, you can quickly save time, since the autopilot tends to cut it off early.
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When turning to face something that’s offscreen, get your crosshairs right to the edge of the screen for maximum turn rate.
Switching targets is inefficient, pick one and stick with it till it’s down, move on, etc.
I envy you for being able to play through SP without knowing the whole script word for word. ^_^
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Woah, thanks for all that info guys, really useful. Yeah i’ve got 3 more episodes already recorded and ready to be uploaded (well 2 now… Episode 7 on Saturday and Episode 8 on Sunday). I’ll be recording more either tomorrow or Sunday so come monday i’ll be talking about and hopefully utilizing all the stuff you guys have taught me.
I usually start games by using the UI because i don’t know the hotkeys yet but i’ll try to learn the keys for Freelancer quickly.
I’m sorry if my noobish ways with the game infuriate people, but i’m still trying to learn and i’m sure after a few more play sessions i’ll be much better at it. Just need to get out of my old ways.
Thanks again guys and EPISODE 6 is out now.
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I don’t know for others, but I don’t feel infuriated by your ways. It’s actually rather fun to see somebody new to Freelancer, reminds you of how you were when you started. Most of the people around here are old guard with all that comes with it
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Sizer wrote:
A agree with FF 100%. I remember how horrid I was when I started playing. You’ll pick it up quickly enough, and that’s when you’ll really start having fun.Yeah, it happened to me too. This is one though game to catch! As soon as you will understand how and why you will enjoy it more.
Since I have no time to watch those 23:50 minutes I can’t advice you anything. Sorry. I can just say that when I first played Freelancer I just went on with the story. I just used the best gun I could find, and the best fighter I could buy. About missions (between storyline missions): I just did the one with best reward, since I’m experienced with simulators. -
Another few comments from your latest video:
-Missiles add velocity to whatever speed you’re going. This means that going towards your target increases your missile’s speed while going away decreases it. Obviously, it is much harder to evade a fast missile than it is a slow one, thus you should avoid firing missiles when moving backwards with e-kill. Your best bet would be to tap the thrusters a bit to move forwards without disengaging e-kill, then fire the missiles.
-Missiles have a blast radius. This usually is good for you because it means what would be a near miss for a normal gun will explode and do splash damage to your target. However, “missile spamming” is discouraged because of this, since when your first missile strikes, its blast will damage the missile following it, starting a chain reaction that ends up destroying a lot of missiles without them ever damaging your target. You can have more than one missile airborne (yeah, bad term, I know, spaceborn maybe?
), but space them out enough for them not to chain detonate, otherwise they’ll be doubly expensive.-Feel free to explore. You’ve been staying near Manhattan and wondering whether you can go somewhere else; the game is built so you can explore. If it doesn’t want you to go somewhere, it’ll lock the place down, for instance simply denying you jump gate access.
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Exploration: Look for red crosses x at the navmap. Those are wrecks you can loot, which might contain goods or weapons or maybe even drugs.
Hint: The badlands might be a good place to start looking for them, they are dangerous so some ships might get lost there.
You need to shoot at them in order to let them drop their stuff. In the singleplayer you can only load a wrecks once in the game. Of course except if you die after you looted it but before you were able to save.Oh, and FLHack/the single-player console from adoxa are great additions for the single-player:
http://adoxa.110mb.com/freelancer/index.htmlI am not sure if they can used with old savegames, even though I think so, maybe someone here can answer the question? If you want to be sure simple copy the freelancer/my games folder in My Documents.
Those tools allow things like having multiple ships and so on.
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FLHack also has a very high chance of breaking the SP storyline - don’t use them with that.
Plus, I’m of the opinion that most games should be enjoyed in their purest form at least once.
