SpaceSimCentral

Been trying out the High-Definition stuff and sometimes it's not good to have an ancient low-spec system. Textures look great, but you can guess what the framerate is like.Still, it's not an issue most people will have.

Been trying out the High-Definition stuff and sometimes it's not good to have an ancient low-spec system. Textures look great, but you can guess what the framerate is like.Still, it's not an issue most people will have. Oh dear, perhaps I should bundle the HD stuff as an optional add-on.

Like I said, it's not an issue most people would have - I just tend to systems so-old that visitors look for the coal hatch...

I've tried out removing the beam weapons and replacing them with laser bolts instead. I've also slowed their velocity to fit in with the game engine, down from 10000m/s to 1000m/s. I have to say it makes the combat game play more satisfying and enjoyable. I know it's a departure from a pure ELITE weapon type, but I think gameplay is more important than strictly sticking to the ideal of the original game. The beam weapons simply are not suited to the freelancer game engine. If I could disable the auto-aim, then they could work. But auto-aim is part of the core game engine and cannot be disabled. I will upload a new video later this week demonstrating the changes.

Next phase of development is now well underway.Main addition is that of asteroid fields, mine fields and hazardous gas pockets in nebulae.Weapons have been altered as well, beam weapons are now gone as they simply do not work well in the FL game engine. More re-organisation of weapon classes is required, to allow both missiles and energy bomb launchers on the same ship.I may do an incremental release once this point is reached - it will mean saved games will no longer work (because of the weapons re-organisation)Next step is then add pirate bases hidden away in the asteroid and mine fields.Once that is completed, I can then add pirate patrols and tradelane attacks.All in all, it should add quite a lot of extra 'dimension' into the mod.

It's been a little while since your last update, although it does seem as if I'm the only person who's currently playing this.I'm guessing from your recent posts you've been busy with the E:D beta.

Work has been absolutely insane this past 9 months and I have been suffering from developer burn-out, so I have not done anything much with the mod since the last update. I have made a start on asteroid fields, and on the weapons changes - but nothing anywhere near ready for another release. I have also been playing a lot of Elite: Dangerous. I do intend to get back to work on the mod during this Autumn, I have not forgotten about it, and there is still much I want to do with it. Unfortunately I cannot give you any kind of estimates at this time as I am still extremely busy, and will be until at least the middle of October - However, I am very determined to get more done on the mod as soon as I have enough dev energy to do so!  There is one aspect that I could do with some help on, if anyone knows of someone with the skills and the desire - and that is I'd like to have some updated texturing done on the ships - I'd like to do this myself, but I haven't the time to learn re-engineering the models in 3DS, and the models I have are already compiled into the freelancer format, decompiling them for 3DS and so on breaks many things and I've run out of patience trying to get things to work.What I'd like is to push the texturing to the limit of the engine so I can have many variants of the same ship, but with different skins - and I really want snakeskin paint jobs for each of the ships.For each ship I'd like a standard commercial paint job, snakeskin, pirate themed, police themed and military themed, prefereable two versions of each - one for HD, and one for standard (for those with lower spec machines) So if you know anyone who'd be into it, or can perhaps point me to getting the models (it's griff's ship set from Oolite) in a more standard native format (like 3DS) - that'd be grand  One thing I will definitely be looking at from the graphics point of view is producing two strands of the mod - one HD and one standard.

I do recall one of the things you'd planned on implementing was patrol paths. I've no idea on if it would work with such a large mod, but I believe "Freelancer Explorer" (a GUI-driven mod editor) has the ability to place patrol paths.

Hehehe, adding patrol paths manually to 170+ systems is not really going to be a viable option. I will be developing a number of algorithms to generate paths programatically, also to add police and miltary patrols further out as well - currently I only have a patrols running around stations. There will be tradelane attacks as part of pirate patrols as well. Another obstacle to overcome is getting pirate patrols to work properly in multiplayer - apparently there is a bug in the standard game which causes problems, but there is a fix. Gotta get asteroid fields done first though, but I may need to rework the way I've done everything else first as creating the asteroid fields files is proving a bit tricky - but I will find a way.

No worries.If I ever get myself a decent connection setup (rather than the 3G dongle) then I'll probably put a server up for running multi.

Just as an update, I now have "proper" broadband and will be attempting to host a server on a daily basis between noon and 11pm daily (UK time) until further notice. Comments & suggestions from players should go to my forums[/url] Here's hoping we see some activity.

Cool

Just a small update here.Server should now be running most of the time.

OK, so after 10 months of crazy stuff happening with work and developer burn-out, I now have some time set aside to start back on Freelancer: Mostly Harmless. First order of business is the weapons overhaul, which I may have mentioned before. The 'Beam' weapoins systems do not really 'fit' properly into the Freelancer game engine, so these will be replaced with laser cannons - energy projectiles (like the vanilla game). I am also hoping to add a few more choices for weapons, including ballistic weapons (multi-cannons, auto cannons and big cannons) which will require ammunition, which in turn will take up cargo space. Also more powerful energy weapons (plasma accellerator) which will deal big damage, but will be slow moving and use large amounts of energy to fire, possibly will add a form of plasma weapon which can home in on slow moving targets - but I will need to test this thouroughly to make sure it's not totally OP and not totally useless either. I also intend to introduce more variety on missiles; In addition to the current homing missiles, which are really torpedoes (will stay as they are - perhaps a few tweaks), I intend to add a smaller class of 'dumbfire' missiles, large magazine size, rapid fire, short-ish range and low-ish damage, intended to be more effective against hull than shields. Also expect ship hardpoints to be increased, for example, the Cobra Mk III will now get 4 gun/missile hard points (in addition to the missile launcher and energy bomb torpedo launcher), I want loads more pew-pew! I am getting rid of the quirium cascade mine (it's just too OP) and replacing this with a selection of smaller mines more suitable to the game engine.

Nice one Stormprooter :good: look forward to seeing what the results are.

Nice update there Stormprooter, very nice indeed! :girlcrazy: I think you were right to lose the Q Mine. Yes its fun but as you said a bit OP. Perhaps nukes instead for big damage torps like there was in Elite II and III?

Nice update there Stormprooter, very nice indeed! :girlcrazy: I think you were right to lose the Q Mine. Yes its fun but as you said a bit OP. Perhaps nukes instead for big damage torps like there was in Elite II and III? Currently I have the 'Energy Bomb' which is implemented as a large lumbering dumbfire torpedo - I may change this to a homing torpedo - still slow and lumbering, but will not need to get so close to it's target before exploding. The main issue with the energy bomb at the moment is the stupidly large damage radius it has, if you fire it and it explodes while you are in 1km of the explosion, it'll take you out as well as your target :roulette: , just like a nuke Much tweaking will be needed to get the balances right....

Early development update video - weapons overhaul 

Awesome stuff Stormprooter.

The all new Energy Bomb - just a short video showing WIP test.