What features…

Kinda like asking…. here’s the candy store xar… now what do you like best… lol…

Im gonna go with a more “recent” approach here LS… due to having worked on this stuff in XLR for a few weeks now…

Swapable Engines/Power
8 way Strafe & roll
Multicruise capabilty… (I call em sublight drives now…)
Biogens, repair turrets, ID tags & cloaks (from Flak hook)

And for the 'ol “classics”

Looting
Upgrades & Addons… hmm… for ground craft as well…
The targeting system… maybe a little more “refined”… or like the “original” one featured in promos for Freelancer

Now for some “of the top of my head” ideas…

DeusX Type “personal” upgrades… bio implants ect… athetics mainly…
A Writeable “log” - Like in Morrowind/NWN
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Type Ai… that goes about its buisness based on a pool of actions/reactions data for the ground based stuff.
hehehe… PysX or havok Physics… hmm…

Think i’ll shutup now… before i give LS a migrane 8-)

… features from FL …

Maybe random crashes for strange reasons?

I doubt it’s possible, but it would entirely rock to be able to enable multiple players to crew one ship / station. Perhaps via some sort of “trade” type invitation, and only when docked so the others would need to keep their ship on that planet. Could be perhaps up to the number of turrets on the ship (few fighters have turrets, but they usually face aft, which makes them impractical in fights … unless there’s a designated gunner). Failing that, perhaps the ability to cycle through all one’s own turret views -handy for mining or when on autopilot in a big trader / cap ship.

While we’re on that, how about system owners being able to cycle through base, weapons platform, and observation satellites? Would that be a pain -would spawns need to be triggered with each switch?

Also one thing that usually ends up becoming a player favorite is skin-able / customizable UI elements. Helps personalize the experience a bit more, plus gets the players even more involved with yet another item to share amongst themselves. Shouldn’t affect gameplay if its only the interface looks that change. Usually some things we end up not using, getting in the way while performing our usual routines. While other things we wish were more available or arranged in a certain way.
Does sound like a bit o’ extra work though, but you asked Can get ideas searching “custom UI WOW” Few years back when I played, there were at least 4 different implementations.

Oh, it’s not a vital aspect or anything, but I always thought it would look better if there were strafe thruster hardpoints, for side / up / down / back, which actually fired when that specific strafe was used. Just adds a little more immersion.

Not sure how involved you’re planning the FPS portion, but it might be cool to have missions which involved both Space flight and ground based objectives. Find hidden base X, hack past the docking entrance, secure data / item, escape and deliver said item to Mister Blah on Planet BlahBlah. Fly to dig site, go spelunking in cave to find ruins, mine to recover X for later use in assembling X equipment. All sorts’a possibilities, and perhaps it could open the way for player submitted missions,

Har. Don’t get me started, I could go on for hours

autoturrets/guns who shot at the enemy automatically (or after a NPC/player is marked as a target)
For instance, as a trader you could try to flee while your turrets are distracting your enemy.
Maybe even….like in FS2, a targeting weapon. The fighters can launch it at enemy ships and the battleship (or whatever) fires at those then. Maybe BS weapon projectile is very slow so it can be evaded easily by fighters but deals great damage, so nice to have against other capital ships.

autobuy

nice mining system (for instance, see Shattered Worlds mod for this feature, they have IMHO implented the best mining system in Freelancer)

Different classes, not only heavy, very heavy and light fighters

lootable wrecks would be ofc also a nice to have.

Maybe quite dangerous zones were very worthy wrecks are located in

…. extend FL…

Wanted to send a mail since a long while, but …
… now i found my note and even while some things have been mentioned already:

a) game interface
I personally like a nice interface like the one of Freelancer with nice screens
(to mod with different styles as done by BigBalls 4 WTS) and ‘people’ on the bases etc
or as in WingCommander.
That’s a big lag of X3 (i now only the 1st version) or some of the freeware / open source games in know.

Maybe you even could switch the appearance of equipment / cockpits depending on the mounted equipment (ie. scanner).
Say a basic scanners gives a view like the Freelancer contact list and a more advanced version like
the WIngCommander 3d radar.

b) variety
A very nice thing of FL is the ‘weaponsmoddb.ini’.
I’d wish we had additional parameters in those like
– percentage of damage passing through shield
– chance of damage passing through shield
– damage done 2 specific HP or equipment type
– damage duration [‘corrosive damage’]
So you could setup - say - a Breen gun,
which renders the energy system of a shielded ship useless for 30 seconds
or a Species 8472 gun, which has a 80% chance 2 bypass Borg shields or
a Federation phaser, which always 20% damage to a shielded Cardassian target or ……

And such a feature would also be nice for
scanners + cloaks / stealth devices like maybe
– scanner type + a modifier file which gives the chance to detect a type of a cloaked / stealthy ship
– minimum scan range as range your scanner will detect everything
– maximum scan range as range your scanner will detect nothing
– range 2 detect jump effects (like below)
and between maybe decreasing by range or just 50% chance
– xtra value 4 chance to detect small solars (like maybe wrecks or jumpholes …)
similar for armors + weapons and
additional values for every engines (possibly different engines for cruise and normal flight)
— cruise speed
— max. time 4 using cruise
— recharge time 4 cruise
and maybe a possibility 2 have kind of jump drive with
— jumpdrive charge time
— max. jump range (-say maybe 10 or 20 k and only within a system)
— recharge time 4 jumpdirve
— a special jump (or maybe also 4 cruise) modifier 2 detect a jumping/cruising ship (engine type - scanner type)
and maybe for weapons.
— turn / rotate rates for resolute ones
— precision settings with
— minimum range as range the weapon is 100% accurate
— maximum range as range the weapon is - say - 10% accurate

c) sectional shields
(front / after / left / right / up / down)
including possibility 2 transfer energy between
and also energy transfer between shields - weapons - engines - thrusters

d) enhancements for weapons, ships, other equipment
— by player [‘skill’]
–- by ship [‘upgrade’]

e) automated ‘help’ for the players
–- navigation computer
— target computer (giving possibility of setting some guns / turrets on auto fire)
— others (maybe helping 2 distribute power between shields - weapons - engines - thrusters)
with certain optimization settings 2 setup by player / delay etc.
Say on a simple device you can just set main energy priority on advanced units you can set

• say - main energy priority on weapons, if shield is below 40% it’s switches 2 shields,
  if shield is on 20% everything goes to thruster + engines.

f) player owned solars + player-player docking
To keep the things, the players have 2 do open, i think player owned + controllable solars
would be a nice idea, including minefields, scanner arrays, weapon platforms, …
Maybe the bases should have possibilities like
– storing weapons / ammo / money for other faction / clan members
– selling / trading / buying equipment + commodities there
– establishing ‘factories’, which can
----- process a bunch of commodities + money + maybe energy to ammo / weapons / a ship / mines …
– do research to gain access 2 additional weapons on that location 4 sale
or giving the possibility to produce that stuff in those ‘factories’
– planetary defense

g) more complex + different missions
maybe to earn special equipment or info
needed to accomplish part 2 of the mission

h) easy conversion of Freelancer stuff to work with your GE stuff

Perhaps one more view toggle, some games support it, I think Unreal Tournament had it for one weapon. Say 1 supported mobile cam per player if they have the equipment. This would likely include more advanced missiles, drones, or non-destructive mine. Sort of falls in line with the multi-turret thing, but would include a check to see if a player had equipment supporting this cam type, and it was deployed.

As a spin-off, the above cam type could be tied to a toggle-able display element. Think… your snazzy Lexus SUV with the video rear-view / gps-map / stereo. It turns on only when you’re in reverse, then reverts to the gps map. So for missiles, etc, only when they’re fired.

QQ back to reading chapters

Hey, Lancer, any chance of some screenshots? I’d like to see what it looks like so far…