Can this be done? Start the story mode with any ship and equipment and money?

Pascal05 wrote:
TwoCables

Its been a while since I did this, but I was never satisfied with what the game gives for rewards. I built my mod to essentially play the vanilla game, with benefits. I modified the Starflier to reflect what an orgamization like LSF should give to a pilot, I gave the Starflier access to the cruise disrupter mount, that is already there, just not active. I increased the nanobot and battery capacity,v because they are worth $200, not because you need them. I actually did a lot of little thing to just make the game fair, money-wise. To me, “Free” Lancer was all about me paying to fight for someone else, not very fair. I don’t mind earning my keep, but Juni has you working for nothing.

I modified the Starflier through loadouts.ini and shipsarch.ini. You can use the Microsoft Notepad, or any text editor. I use
FreeLancer INI Edotor to view the files, because it also provides a kind of index of the file structure… To modify the loadout, you have to find your ship, which is the very first section, called nickname = msn_playerloadout. Here you can place all the equipment you need into here. Now, if you want your ship to look like your choice, you also have to alter the following section called nickname = msn_playerloadout_faux, otherwise when you meet King, your ship will look like the stock Starflier.

If you change the nanobots and shield battery count use the shiparch.ini.

In all of this, you will need the codes for each piece of equipment. If you are familiar with the old IONCross Ship Editor, the code are in the text data files. There are a lot of them.

Pascal05

I can’t use Notepad or any text editor because all I get are random symbols - until I save the file using Tinyfish Freelancer Ini Editor.

Anyway, up until my latest posts, I got as far as editing loadouts.ini under nickname msn_playerloadout in order to get my preferred ship, equipment and cargo. What I didn’t know though was that ‘faux’ will change which ship is shown when meeting King out in space. Do you know which one will change which ship is shown in the Equipment Room when meeting Juni? That’d be kinda fun (I’d do some testing at the moment, but I’m currently busy). I’ll post again if I can get around to testing this - I mean, if I figure it out.

robocop wrote:
doesn’t adoxa offer an eagle package as a new player in story mode on his site…?
Yeah, he does. Here it is: http://adoxa.altervista.org/freelancer/dl.php?f=eaglemsn.zip

That’s not really what I want though. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try. Below is what I am trying to accomplish, and I have already been successful with some very minor exceptions:

When I finish the story mode in retail Freelancer, I keep playing until I reach a point where I have done everything that there is to do (I can explain what that means in greater detail if you want)… When I reach that point, I sometimes feel like starting the story mode again and I usually wish that I could start with absolutely everything that I just finished working hard to obtain - and the stuff I have and the ship that I have can be different every time I reach that point where I feel that I’ve done everything that can be done. I mean, I reach a point where the only thing left to do is to keep making more and more money. How boring! All hidden wrecks are looted, I have all the best weapons, all of the Nomad weapons, I have the best of everything - and I’ve mapped absolutely every single system and every single base and every single jump hole. So why not start the story mode again?

I achieved exactly what I wanted, but it’s not perfectly identical to what I had envisioned. What I am doing presently is, I start the story mode over and I wait until I get to accept Juni’s offer. Then I accept her offer, exit the game, and then I edit this first game save so that I have everything that I worked so hard to obtain. Then I load the game up and launch to space to meet King.

What I was hoping for was that I could just click New Game and then not have to worry about inserting all of my money and my ship and its equipment and its cargo later. I was even hoping to see my ship and its equipment in the Equipment Room when meeting Juni in there. I was also hoping to see my ship and its equipment when meeting King out in space, but I learned how to do that recently (except, I haven’t actually tried it yet). I still don’t know how to change which ship is displayed in the Equipment Room when meeting Juni in there. I don’t want my ship with its default loadout either. I want Juni to be offering me my ship with MY stuff on it. hehe

It’s not a huge deal though; that’s really more just for a bit more realism or something. What I have achieved so far is so good enough for me that I’m almost about to say, “Nah… I think I’ll just keep doing it this way. It’s incredibly easy.” I mean, once the battle begins after meeting King in space, my goal is met 100% anyway: I have my ship and all my stuff and all of my money - I have everything that I previously worked very hard to obtain.

I will keep working on this though. It looks like Sky-Blazer’s guide might get me there, if I want to do all that work. My way is very easy though:

First, before starting a new game, I edit “Restart.fl” so that I have all of my money. I am aware that if Restart.fl isn’t in the save games folder, then a new one is generated using newplayer.fl in the EXE folder. So, I’m aware that I would have to change that one if Restart.fl didn’t exist for some reason.

Then, I edit two files: m01a.ini and loadouts.ini. In m01a.ini, I change “Act_SetShipAndLoadout = ge_fighter, msn_playerloadout” to be “Act_SetShipAndLoadout = ge_fighter6, msn_playerloadout” (so, I simply change ge_fighter over to ge_fighter6). I found that if I don’t edit that line, then I won’t have my ship, not even immediately after meeting King - when the battle begins. Instead, it will be the Starflier outfitted as best as possible with 3 of my guns.

In loadouts.ini, I change the loadout for “nickname = msn_playerloadout”. I don’t change “archetype = ge_fighter” to be something like “archetype = 2702011459” for the Eagle. That doesn’t work as well. So instead, I use “ge_fighter06”. Underneath that, I just copy/paste everything that I have for equipment and cargo (copied from my most recent save, which is almost always just Auto Save because I use bases or jump gates or jump holes to save instead of using the in-game menu).

Editing “msn_playerloadout_faux” in the loadouts.ini file doesn’t affect which ship is shown when I meet King, but it DOES affect that ship’s loadout. Like, I made both “msn_playerloadout” and “msn_playerloadout_faux” identical including changing “ge_fighter” over to “ge_fighter06”, and I could see that the 3 gun mounts had my Nomad Energy Cannons (and whatever else will fit on that ship, like a Countermeasure dropper, mine dropper and I think even a Cruise Disruptor launcher).

corpse wrote:
Didn`t you ever want to play the MP part of freelancer ?
Its the bit you skipping over, going back to the start again, shame that the servers are low in players now…

I learned a long time ago that I personally need to avoid MP for any video game. I just don’t know how to play well with others. I get too competitive, and I end up taking things very personally and I end up getting too serious. In short, I don’t know how to just relax and have fun like everyone else.

I also wouldn’t be very good at the RP aspect.

adoxa wrote:

1. How to get my Eagle and its equipment and cargo to be the ship that Juni offers, meaning that it’s in the Equipment Room with us. That would be cool.

This is done (I believe) via [c]rtcprop_civ_fighter[/c] in [c]DATA\SHIPS\rtc_shiparch.ini[/c] (replace [c]starflier[/c] with [c]vheavy_fighter[/c]). It also uses [c]msn_playerloadout[/c].

Oh, so does this mean that I could get it to be the Eagle, but it would have to be its default loadout?

adoxa wrote:
No, it means carry on as you have been doing, modifying [c]msn_playerloadout[/c] to what you have.

Oh, loadouts.ini, not m01a.ini. I confused myself. I somehow convinced myself that it uses it from m01a.ini in the mrp_accept nickname. I apologize for that.

Now, when you use this to set yourself up with any money, ship and weapons, can you also set yourself up with any cargo as well - including extra weapons and whatnot?

Also, when you set yourself up with anything you want and any ship, does it work in such a way where if you click New Game, you still get the opening movie of Freeport 7, you still get to meet Juni in the bar and you still get to meet her in the Equipment Room? If so, then is your selected ship the ship that Juni offers you in the Equipment Room?

When you fly out to meet King, is it your ship and its weapons?

Or, is it just like Freelancer Discovery? Meaning, no story mode?

I know. I thought that I demonstrated that a few times. lol Regardless, that’s not what I was asking in that last post.

Do you see what I was asking now?

P1p3r wrote:
Yes. What you want is to play through the story mode with your chosen load out. Is this correct?

That being the case, there is a file in your saved game folder called Restart.fl. Whatever you have in that file is what Juni gives you. This is what is waiting for you in the equipment room.

For the sandbox mode, you simply need to set your mission to at least 41 in your saved game file. That alone will put you in no story mode.

She gives you the Debug Ship?