SpaceSimCentral

Freelancer had slide?? To think I played through the whole game without realizing it. More a statement about their tutorial (or lack of one) than anything.

Ah wait, you mean the engine kill? Almost forgot about that, scratch the last post. The freelancer & Tachyon slides are somewhat different though, no?

Shant wrote:
Ah wait, you mean the engine kill? Almost forgot about that, scratch the last post. The freelancer & Tachyon slides are somewhat different though, no?
Yes, "engine kill" and "slide" produce identical motion. The only difference is that the Freelancer version is a more convenient toggle... just do it once at the beginning of combat and slide your way through the battle using the [after]burner for bursts of speed. Yeah, Freelancer gets tough toward the end if you don't learn to slide.. you probably figured that out! With a little practice and a more difficult mod, you'll quickly see that you can do much tougher missions in a lesser ship. Try a Rhino just for fun... the larger cargo hold makes it easier to earn credits.I agree that sliding should be in the tutorial. There are signs of some kind of struggle between Chris Roberts and Microsoft: the repetitive bar dialog, the fact that the single-player story doesn't last long enough for you to get to a high enough rank to buy the ships that you see at the ship dealer, and the lack of a more advanced tutorial are just some of the clues. The Freelancer engine is a nearly perfect space sim engine, but little content was built for it. These game companies don't make their games mod-able for the fans, they do it so that it is easier for themselves to make sequels and add-on packs. But no more content for the brilliant Freelancer engine. :(I know I have mentioned Crossfire a couple of times... this reminds me of another feature. The AI in Freelancer is the best I have seen, and you don't even see it working at its best during the official game. For example, one of the favorite ways of improving your Rep with almost all factions is by killing Xenos. Everybody hates the Xenos, so hang around near one of their bases and kill 50 or so and everybody else will like you. Kill too many and the authorities will like you so much that the Outcasts and Corsairs start to dislike you again.However, if you try that approach in Crossfire, the Xenos quickly learn that you are an ace and they scurry away when they see you coming... whimpering that they do not want to die while they do it! One of the bar rumors points out that they are too pathetic to bother killing. And, when you fight the more experienced AI aces, they run once their shields and hull are down, which makes it hard to actually get a "kill" without a cruise disruptor. They also duck and recharge their shields when you knock them down too quickly, which can make it much more difficult to take out a Very Heavy Fighter (Eagle, Sabre, Titan). It would be nearly impossible without sliding.Oh, I almost forgot... there was a point in Crossfire where some suspicious neutral ships were kind of checking me out. I was stopped for some reason, and they slowly circled me and came to a dead stop, too. The instant that I targeted one of them, all four turned red and blew me out of the sky.I had to laugh... I thought that was pretty cool AI work!

Wow...I don't recall seeing anything like that! Gotta stop lagging and install one of these mods before I lose the feel of how to play Freelancer. I'm a controller person and it doesn't take very long at all before the gameplay is 'no longer in my fingers', so to speak. Tell me, in Freelancer, after you kill the engines, you continue flying in one direction. But can you turn while you travel in that direction, the way you can in Tachyon?

Shant wrote:
in Freelancer, after you kill the engines, you continue flying in one direction. But can you turn while you travel in that direction, the way you can in Tachyon?
Yep, that's the point of the maneuver. You don't do Immelmans or barrel rolls in a star fighter... you do slides and flip backwards while firing forward (it's faster than turning at high speed) and fly in loops around a capital ship while keeping your guns facing the target. Most decent space sims have some way to do it.The first ship I ever saw sliding like that was a Kilrathi in Wing Commander (an early Chris Roberts game). They were tough to hit until I learned to slide myself.Tip: If you use "Go To" to autopilot to a waypoint, you won't be able to slide until you cancel from autopilot mode (Esc), even if you get knocked out of cruise speed by a cruise disruptor. You're still in "Go To" mode until you cancel. There is no visual indication... you just don't slide. That took me a few minutes to figure out -- while pressing frantically on the "Z" key trying to get the slide to work. :)I'm playing BigDaddy Storyline (FL mod) now. The AI has been cranked up to a comically high level. If you try to run from pirates, half of them cruise past you so that you run right into them while trying to escape the rest. They also turn off their engines and shields and lurk near wrecks -- undetectable to your scanners. You think you are safe as you slowly approach the wreck to grab the loot and then, suddenly, two wings of pirates appear on your scanner; all shooting at you from close range!It's pretty bad-ass. In fact, it is so tough that it is hard even with double-strength guns.Here's another Freelancer tip: If you highlight your Countermeasures in the weapons section of your HUD, they don't fire along with the rest of your guns. Instead, they fire automatically every time the ship's computer detects a missile locking on to you. It's a huge help in a big fray. It also increases your chances of being able to escape using cruise drive.Yeah, try the mods. They aren't the same as an official expansion pack, but they show off some of the excellent features of the Freelancer game engine - including some features that you don't even see while playing the plain vanilla game.

Bullwinkle wrote:
The Freelancer engine is a nearly perfect space sim engine, but little content was built for it. These game companies don't make their games mod-able for the fans, they do it so that it is easier for themselves to make sequels and add-on packs. But no more content for the brilliant Freelancer engine.
This is the reason why i ask so many devs whether modding will be available in the game. Because I think it is almost essential now, since most game developers don't give you 50-100hrs of SP story gameplay and story is really non-existent in MP games. This is why games like Freelancer and Freespace 2 have stood the test of time and are style widely played today. Yes there is no official modding tools for these games but the devs left the door open for the players to customize the game more. I would have to agree the AI in Freelancer is some of the best I have played with. Personally FL could be around forever if they would just update the gfx engine ever few years and tweak some settings. Let you community build all the content for you.