Hi Pinback,

It can be tricky getting FL to work sometimes. Best approach is to completely uninstall, and make sure to remove all data from <My Documents>My GamesFreelancer folder, do a completely clean install, and then apply any mods.

Also with Vista/Win7/Win8 remember to disable 3D sound as this causes problems with some modern audio hardware, and if you're not using a widescreen monitor you will need to alter the HudShift.ini file under DATAINTERFACE under you installation folder. I will have to pull my finger out and get thses niggles sorted out....

That is an issue with some mods.  What to do is make a couple of sub-folders (one for each mod you use (under XP the folder is "My DocumentsMy GamesFreelancerAcctsSinglePlayer" - make your sub-folders there and name them in such a way you won't mix them up, for example, one called "Mostly Harmless" and one called, "Vanilla").

With those folders in place, delete all files in the singleplayer folder itself (or move them to the folder for the mod) then start up the game.  Remember to get the autosave and restart files.  If the game doesn't detect them there it creates appropriate ones for the mod currently being run.

Each time you wish to play a different mod (or the vanilla install of Freelancer), you MUST remember to move the files around or you'll get the crash to desktop after the splash screen.  Freelancer in general tends to read the save files while the splash screen's up and if it comes across one with data that doesn't match the ingame universe, it has trouble coping and crashes to the desktop without explanation.

What Gun said. If you use FLMM to apply the mods, it will sort this out for you in most cases.

Agreed - FLMM does actually do this automatically for most mods, but it doesn't seem to do this for "Mostly Harmless" at the moment.  It's easy enough to do manually though.

Hehehe, it works on my machine 😀 (Classic developer's response)

Obviously I've missed something somewhere... another bug to hunt down.

It may be to do with the version of FLMM rather than the mod itself - I'm currently using 1.3 because it's compatible with the widest variety of Mods.

Even so, it's always handy for people to know of solutions to minor issues like this.

I have tried a re install Freelancer on the XP computer but it had the same results as above.

Will look at cleaning out all of the freelancer folders from the c drive and then doing the re install.

As I said, make sure that the save folder is empty.  When you install Freelancer it automatically creates the restart.fl file, so make sure that's not in the folder when you start the mod.

Out of interest, does Freelancer itself (without the mostly harmless mod) crash to desktop upon installation, or is it just the mod?

Thanks for picking this up Gun - most appreciated.

 

Out of interest, does Freelancer itself (without the mostly harmless mod) crash to desktop upon installation, or is it just the mod?

I installed the mod which installed itself into FLMM then started the mod which showed the Elite Harmless screen then it crashed.

It was then that I noticed that Freelancer had stop working, not had a chance to get back to it at the moment and it will probable be the weekend before I have chance to look at reinstalling the game.

OK, what to do is what I suggested - navigate to the save game folder ( "My DocumentsMy GamesFreelancerAcctsSinglePlayer" ), delete all files from in there, then try launching the game again.

OK, what to do is what I suggested - navigate to the save game folder ( "My DocumentsMy GamesFreelancerAcctsSinglePlayer" ), delete all files from in there, then try launching the game again.

I don't seem to have that file in "my documents" the only one in their is the mod files, in less it is in with these ones.

OK, launch Freelancer to start with (no mods), and it should create that folder then.  If you want, start a new game, then quit right away.  (this should also add in the "autosave.fl" file.)

Once that's done, shift the files out of the folder as I said above, use FLMM to activate the "Mostly Harmless" mod, and it should run perfectly (with luck...)

I remember the first time I tried to apply a total conversion mod (The Void, I think it was) - took me 6 attempts before I completely sussed out all the niggles involved in applying FL mods. It's not extremely difficult, but at the same time, it's not always straightforward if you are unfamiliar with the process.

Now I have a copy of a clean FL installation backed up to save having to re-install every time I mess it up.

I just not being able to get Freelancer to run, I have uninstalled and installed it a number of time as well as uninstalling  FLMM  with no effect.

My only guess is that their maybe some thing wrong with the disk.

If Freelancer itself isn't working then it does sound like a bad install.

I'm sure that Amazon will likely still have copies of the game still going relatively cheaply if you want to try a different disc.  I'm sure there are dubious websites & hosts out there with downloadable copies, but I wouldn't trust them a bit.

Silly question, but are DirectX8 + 9 installed correctly on the machine?

You can try installing directX off the installation folder that is on the Freelancer disk -  you may find you have one of the dlls missing....

Never thought about about the DX as the other games are still working.

Will have a look.

Well, finally I can get back to some 3D modelling this weekend, after several false starts due to work and family stuff.

Gotta get those rotating stations done!

I have to admit that I've been having fun with this during the time the Discovery UK server's been down, but I do have to say it's extremely tricky to make any kind of funds early on - the fastest method being completing missions, which is in itself no easy task as you'll spend most of your time trying to inflict any hull damage on the enemies at all.

I've done a bit of poking around and it seems as if there's not really much reason for players to upgrade to haulage ships at all in terms of the actual price lists.  Mind you, I probably have been spoiled with the Discovery Mod's massively profitable traderoutes...

I have to admit that I've been having fun with this during the time the Discovery UK server's been down, but I do have to say it's extremely tricky to make any kind of funds early on - the fastest method being completing missions, which is in itself no easy task as you'll spend most of your time trying to inflict any hull damage on the enemies at all.

 

I've done a bit of poking around and it seems as if there's not really much reason for players to upgrade to haulage ships at all in terms of the actual price lists.  Mind you, I probably have been spoiled with the Discovery Mod's massively profitable traderoutes...

Cargo capacities and commodity prices are all inherited from the original Elite - which perhaps does not work so well in Freelancer - this aspect as well as general game balancing will be looked at for the next version. I remember from the original Elite that it was not easy to make big money fast.

The balancing can wait for now as it'll be likely a substantial amount of time before people make enough funds to be able to afford the larger haulage ships.  I did kind of "cheat" and used Freelancer Companion to bring up the price lists.

It does seem a bit odd to me that computers fetched a much higher profit than alien items though.  Such a pity it's (almost certainly) not possible to encode bar NPCs to purchase things at boosted rates.  (like the BBS in Frontier and FFE)

The quickest way I've found to build up some cash is to trade between Quitiri (buy computers, sell furs) and Isinor (buy furs, sell computers) in the Zaonce system until you have upgraded the starting ship (Adder) with the best shields, best engine, power plant, scanner and get a beam laser, ecm and plenty of missiles and do the easiest missions possible. I have found that the destroy installation missions are the simplest, if you know the trick to them, which I will now share:

Get to about 3km from the things you need to destroy and stand off attack from there, creep towards them slowly until your laser is in range - you will be out of range of their defenses, if you have to destroy any ships in the area as well, after destroying the installation/missile platforms, head towards the nav point for the enemy ships to appear, then take them out.

When you start completing missions, the money soon starts rolling in and you can get bigger and more powerful ships step-by-step. I did the following

Adder (light fighter)

Sidewinder (small fighter)

Viper Mk I (medium fighter)

then straight to a Cobra Mk III (very heavy fighter)

Making sure I had enough cash to upgrade shields, engine and power plant when getting a new ship.

Don't worry - I've already upgraded to the Cobra - I've had plenty of time during the Discovery UK server downtime - it was actually the base kill missions that I used to raise funds quickest.