[Freelancer Mod News]New demo of Freelancer: The Nomad Legacy released!

Thanks for playing. Let’s answer questions.

• So I bought a new engine for my ship and then it turned out my power plant can’t handle it, so I had to durdle with donkey speed.

That’s why in the lastcutscene of mission 1 Alaric says “BUY POWERPLANT”.
I don’t know how avoid this issue. Only by changing of UI, but I can’t.

After failing a bar mission multiple times, I had to abort it because it was too impossible for me on hard difficulty.

I don’t know what I can say. This version of mod is 50% easier than 2017 version.

The auto-drive system did crash me right into a weapon platform.
I almost did end up in the atmosphere of a planet

That’s FL’s issue. Enhanced speed limits cause this problems. So… autopilot is dangerous in my mod.

I flew back to a previous solar system, only to find out the STRONGER enemies are there

This mod have alternative game balance. That’s why some NPC have autolevel, some NPC is fixed. Pirates in “dangerous” systems is fixed.

Suggestions & bugs:

Thank you, I’ll take a look on this list.

When ambushed by pirates, there was an EngSub without a russian VO. Known?

Yes, we know this issue.

Balance: First mines the enemies are using are FAR too overpowered, IMHO. A single mine did destroy 75% of the hull of my starflier, and that’s with an armor upgrade. (That was on hard, however)

Rheinland mines has big shield damage. Current balance is based on 2 mines per faction and quantity of mines per ship. May be I can do this better. But later.

• Critical: Generic “destroy base” missions couldn’t be completed, not possible to damage the base (usual gun equipment, can submit savegame)

That’s ok. This is advanced missions. You need to attack “vulnerable points” of base and crack way to center of this base. Look at this old example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BYO3Oga9uU

• Balance: Basic tractor beam sucks WAY too much. It it impossible to ever collect life-saving nanobots or shield batts during a fight.

This tractor beam already improved. Tractor in 2017 version was a lot slower. How to avoid: just buy better tractor.

• Balance: I think there should be anti-shield weapons for every projectile speed. If you do not want to code additional ones, you could simply put the speed of other weapons to the same level. This goes directly with the point above, when I was facing overpowered ships, I often barely took down their shields, and even damaging the hull was a huge task already. Having had anti-shield weapons for my ship might have helped a lot on this.

Interesting. But I’ll think about it later. I already implement generic anti-shield guns. In 2017 version that’s gun was not exist and situation was worse. For this moment - premature optimization (sorry, don’t know how to tell it on english).

• Consider to include FLHack and very, very short doc about it, such as that it allows saving in space. If you do not want to include the tool, I especially liked the ability to save in space, and personally, that the game doesn’t pause on alt tab, so I can surf the web or stuff or chat while cruising.

I have special .exe-file with possibility of play game in window mode without freezing of the game. But this is not implemented in demo version. I can. But it’s very dangerous on alt-tab.
Save in space - just use console. Open console, enter “save” command and you saved in space. Do not do this inside storyline mission.

• Weird to have shield batts dropped, but they cannot be bought.

Yes, I forgot that. In 2017 version batts not exist. In this version it’s returned back, but I forgot about shop.

About other question - I’ll try to fix it later. Main balance problems - for this problems I don’t want to fix this, because I can fix it my entire life. For this moment balance will stable. Current objective - complete main work on this mod. I already make balance changes and balance become better. Not perfect. But this is not easy job, because - you already see it - this is not just “level 1 > level 2”, this is really huge balance system. For this moment - that’s enough.

• How long did you work on it so far?

Very long. May be starts from 2011 or 2012…

• Any ETA on next demo or test release?

Real life and slow speed of my voice actors destroyed my plans… I don’t know how answer this question.
Anyway - your activity really motivated me to continue my work.

• Will the old systems be visitable?

No. Old system isn’t supported.

• Is the drake better than the Stiletto?

Stiletto - Standart (level 2) Rheinland Fighter
Drake - Advanced (level 3) Kusari Interceptor
Drake is better, because can mount advanced and nomad guns. And elite shield+internal equipment. Stiletto supports only standart guns and advanced shield+internal equpment.

• I suppose there is no way (FLHack?) to replace mission requirement by money requirement (past mission 3)?

Ohhh… you are about “just play in mod without story”?

Sorry for bad english.

P.S. about balance fixes. Sorry for ultimate answers. But we have a lot job to do. This is fine tuning. Now we need to do main content.

The question I still have is how did you keep the strafe feature with the roll feature? I

Oh, sorry, forgot about it.

That’s easy. But only by ini edition. This is content from my initial keymap.ini:

[KeyCmd]
nickname = USER_MANEUVER_SLIDE_EVADE_LEFT
ids_name = 1956
ids_info = 3228
state = keydown, keyup
key = "A"

[KeyCmd]
nickname = USER_MANEUVER_SLIDE_EVADE_RIGHT
ids_name = 1957
ids_info = 3229
state = keydown, keyup
key = "D"

[KeyCmd]
nickname = USER_Z_ROTATE
ids_name = 1463
ids_info = 3300
state = keydown, keyup
key = "A"

[KeyCmd]
nickname = USER_Z_UNROTATE
ids_name = 1464
ids_info = 3301
state = keydown, keyup
key = "D"

Just 2 keys with same default keyboard buttons.

After story mission 3, yes, because the readme says that anything further in story won’t work. There is still that one side mission though.

Everything after mission 3 is only with russian version and without dialogs. Mission 4 now in progress.

If you are short on time…have you tried recruiting modders, maybe here or at the global FL discord server?

In development of my mod I has one problem… no one can help me. Yes, I have support in hacks (thanks for everyone, who helped with it), but no one can help me create my sirius, create new cutscenes and complete my story mission. And I don’t want cooperate with foreign people, because it cause many problems with language. Sorry, talking on english already burns my brain. Development will destroy it… Only one way is possible - help me with translation. And implement sounds without me - this is IMPORTANT. Implementing of english sounds required too many time from me, but this is really usual work.

Nanobots should be more in line in price

Secret: in first version I wanted to remove nanobots.

• Hornviper MK III has the same energy usage as MK II, at the very least in the tooltip.

This is FEATURE. Sorry, but game balance - this is my job. You tried only demo version of my mod and don’t know about all planned and partially IMPLEMENTED features.

So. My guns system. This is not just “level 1 > level 2 > level 3”.

We have a Horviper. This gun has a 4 version:
Hornviper Mk.I - basic gun
Hornviper Mk.II - standart gun, 2x damage, 2x power
Hornviper Mk.III - advanced gun, 3x damage, 2x power, SELF-DESTRUCTION
Hornviper [Nomad] - advanced gun, 2x damage, 0.5x power

Mk.III gun has enabled “damage per fire” feature. You’ll lost percent of gun hull after each fire. But you can avoid this feature. Find - you can’t BUY, you need FIND it - special rheinland weapon cooler. This cooler will disable overheat on all your Hornvipers and Flamecurses. But you can mount cooler only for ONE faction. You need to choose faction and find required cooler for your guns.
This feature already implemented and working.

Nomad-edition of guns. You can craft “nomad-edition” of HornViper. This gun will have purple fx and minimal power requirements. For craft of this gun you need:

• buy blueprints
• buy gun components
• find and get nomad energy
• buy special craft gun for selected weapon
• fire on special factory for this gun
  Feature working, we did plugin, but feature still not implemented in game world.

This my weapon system. Craft energy-efficient guns or get maximum power for guns of ONE selected faction.

About everything else. Thank you for interest in my project. Thank you for founded bugs. I’ll try fix something of that. But you need to have limits in your interest. I don’t want to change balance. Thank you for readme, but I`ll decide myself, what I want to write in my readme. For example - bases in random mission. Descriptions will come in mission 5. You can learn everything already in game. This better. And I don’t want to allow players to use FL Hack. Mod already have console. May be I need to create some descriptions for this console.

Just a joke: I am the boss here

I hope you are not upset by these words. Sorry. You too motivated to change everything. And don’t know, how this system works.

For example. Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWuCPik4EuM
You can find this something, what you can skip without properly translation. And this is about trading missions too.

Yup, that’s exactly what I have but I only rotate, no slide left/right. Verified against a fixed object in space.

Don’t forget. This is DEFAULT keymap. Real keymap always overrided in your “My Documents” folder. For take changes you need to remove overrided file or make changes inside it.

Do you got the texts ready? I can see if I can find someone online for this.

Not all texts allowable to edit. But I can improve this work. This discussion already completed in discord.

About feedback. Don’t worry about feedback as is. Main problem - this is really “demo”. And you can’t see full picture. And we already find my mistake - I forget to reupload the mod with actual edition.