Independents Mod

Independents Mod
Type: Conversion Mod
Current Version: v0.3 beta
Website: http://www.indy.ice-worlds.com/
Forums: http://www.forum.ice-worlds.com/

About the Mod
Independents is a conversion mod for Freelancer set in an original universe. The mod aims to make a more immersive experience by providing more contrast and variety than vanilla Freelancer did.

The mod is also lends itself more to encouraging teamwork by separating out rolls so that players can specialise more and complement each other when flying together.

The current version, dubbed the Alaska Prototype, is set up for the purpose of testing ships, equipment, combat, and the basic economy of the mod. Play is confined to the Alaska system, which has been set up specifically for testing with space for three of the mod’s primary factions and areas of varying levels of combat between them.

Combat
Combat in Independents can be fairly fast paced since weapons are a lot more lethal but with increased sensor ranges there is more tactical manoeuvring to get into a good firing position before combat really starts, epically for the starships.

Ships are not balanced so the biggest is best. In fact the smallest ships, fighters can be a real pain for larger ships that lack weapons to deal with them. Ships and weapons are fairly roll specific in Independents. There may be a best ship or best loadout for a particular job, but there is no best ship and no best loadout.

Trade
Trading is a rather risky occupation in Independents. With high commodity prices and larger trading ships it is very easy to spend every last credit on cargo, leaving nothing to spare in case of death. Of course some credits can be put aside, but that means buying less cargo or buying lower price cargo, both usually resulting in less profit.

There are also quite a few factors to consider when trading. Decisions have to be made whether to upgrade to a larger ship, carry more expensive cargo, or pay for a bribe with another faction to buy from them. Ship speed should also be considered as most starship don’t have cruise capability and have to trudge along at impulse speed.

Again, the goal is to not have a one-size-fits-all solution to trading. In safe space a fast ship might be best, on more dangerous routes having some self defence might be preferable to speed. A large starship might be able to carry more, on the other hand spaceships are usually faster and can dock anywhere.

Important Changes
Ranges: Sensor and combat ranges have been increased. Sensors have a maximum range of 10k. Ship sensors can be bought allowing for a customized choice based on detection range, scanning range, and sensor size. As far as combat ranges go, fighters still fight in about the same 1-2k combat range, but large starships can engage at much longer ranges.

Ship Types: Instead of the vanilla Freelancer ship types, which were based on ship size, Independents divides ships more by roll. Combat ship types include: fighters, corvettes, frigates, destroyers, and cruisers. Non combat ship types are: salvage, sloop, brigantine, barquentine, and freighter. (See Spacecraft of Independents for more info)

Ship Drag: All ships have much lower drag values than in vanilla Freelancer. As a result ships slide a lot more. So much that more manoeuvrable ships, such as frigates and small starships can end up flying backwards quite easily.

Fuel: Reactors in Independents have almost no energy regeneration. Once a ship runs out of energy it will have to limp home at significantly reduced speeds. This will add another factor to consider when selecting a ship and gives otherwise underpowered ships a niche as long range explorers.

Commodity Prices: Prices for trade commodities increase at an exponential rate while profits increase linearly. Low end commodities therefore have a much better profit per credit rate while high end commodities have a better profit per volume.

Alaska Prototype
The first released version of the mod, the Alaska Prototype Project is a prototype to for testing the ships and basic equipment for both combat and economic balancing. Much of the new universe is incomplete and so the Alaska system has been set up for this testing.

The prototype takes place in the Alaska system in which three of the four main factions are present and hostile to each other. Generic prototype weapons are shared by all factions for testing.

The Goal of the testing is to refine balancing before faction specific weapons are created and trade routes set up across multiple systems.

Getting Started

Getting the mod
Independents Downloads

Clients only require the Base Mod.

Servers require both the Base Mod and one of the Server Files downloads.

Installation
The base mod and server files can be activated with Freelancer Mod Manager. It doesn’t matter which order they are activated/deactivated in. If replacing an earlier version of the mod though, it is a good idea to deactivate it before extracting the new version.

Saved single player games may cause crashes on starup. Try moving or deleting single player games if you experience crashes (saved games are located in: Documents\My Games\Freelancer\Accts\SinglePlayer).

Test Server
Name: Iceworlds Independents
Address: 99.226.2.125
Server Rules

A small test server is running for anyone who would like to try out the mod. Since it is a test server free credits and rep changes can be provided upon request.

Please report any bugs encountered.
General feedback is very much welcome.

Videos
Independents Fighter Promo on Youtube

Independents Starship Promo on Youtube

I’m quite glad this has caught a few of your eyes. It’s too bad that giving Why485 a heads up didn’t spawn a massive viral marketing campaign ;D.

Why485, it actually didn’t occur to me you would actually try the mod and so before I made this announcement I made a few changes. Therefore, you might have a different version of the mod from what I have on the server.

As for the server, it appears that Vista’s error reporting got in the way of IFSO from restarting the server. The error reporting is now disabled and the server is running again. Sorry for that oversight.

Why458’s visibility changes really are excellent. In fact I’ve just finished updating the mod to include a lot of his changes.

The mod is now on version 0.2 beta (Download v0.2 beta).

The visibility is lower than Why485’s settings but there is also a link to files with his original settings (Download Why485’s visibility settings). I suggest downloading visibility changes from this link because of other changes to solararch.ini that are not included in Why485’s download.

Change list

• Added in most of the visibility changes by Why485 (ship and station visibility is lower than Why485’s setting by default)

• Quick docking at all stations (have to be within 200m of the docking point, about where the cut scene normally starts)

• Fixed capital ship railgun projectile effect

• Fixed bad loadout with one of the NPC ships

• Slight increase to cruise speed (350m/s now)

Asteroid visibility is unchanged from vanilla Freelancer.

Another update if finished. The mod is now on version 0.3 beta

As part of this update the visibility addon that Why485 did is now an option during activation. There is also an option to enable quick docking on a server due to many comments about how difficult is can be to dock (this has been enabled on the test server).

The Federation starships get a small makeover with a few new weapons and some small improvements to their turret coverage.