New "Freelancer Rebalance Mod" by Michael D.

Mon Apr 21, 2003 5:14 pm by Michael Dan

Ok, here is my new mod which came out after thorough testing of the SP campaign. It's dedicated to improve and change the experience and fun players had in this game. I always had the feeling that the player in SP campaign has been robbed of the best stuff to try out, great ships and weapons that were unreacheable in normal game. So I built this mod with the intention to ofer a better and enriched experience to the FL PLayer in campaign. I know that are lots of other moders out there that are doing a great job improving FL gameplay and feelling and I'm glad about it. Their work really inspired me, thanx THX, Reynen, Rapid, and of course HCl whos advices make this mod possible(and his UTF editor of course!). Keep it up. I didn;t release the mod before because my net Upload connection was broken and I could'nt atach files to my email

. It was ready about 2 weeks ago.
The mod is available in the download sections, please tell me what u think and if U encounter some bugs or get stuck somewhere, I'll appreciate some feedback.

v0.5e features:
-finally some major changes: encounters heavily modified, and varied, Battleships, cruisers and gunboats added to random encounters.
-added Batteships, Cruisers and Gunboats as patrols in Liberty, Bretonia and Kusari main systems(credits and thanx go for Nepilum for his excelent tutorial)
-added the posibility to buy ships engines and display your own in equipment room, also I've added three general upgrades for engines with their infocard description.
-added the posibility to buy ships powerplants and display your own, added three general upgrade powerplants for light, heavy and very heavy fighters, these work for freighters too.
-scanners and advanced scanners are now buyable at the equipment shop, and so are the tractor beams.
-when u scan a ship now u can see all it's real equips, type of engines, scanners, powerplants and tractor beams(if any).
-u can now buy armor upgrades!!! 4 armor upgrades available, coded from 1 to 4, first adds 25% more armor, second 50%, third 75% and 4th 100%(doubles the armor of a ship)*,
they also have infocard name and characteristics built in.
*these are not displayed anywhere, but work, u can only see them at equipment dealer and with F7 in flight, internal equipment section!
-the mod has support for the Slave1 Firespray Assault Fighter from Porsche, all u have to do is copy the slave1 directory from his BobbaFett_Slave1.flmod ziped file to the FL /data/ships directory.
It's configuration and behavior is altered to match a VHF. The armor, maneuvrability and cargo space have been lowered, check the infocard for details.
The ship is buyable from Calif. Minor, BS Essex, BS Nagumo and Freeport 9.

v06b:
-fixed the crashes on trade lane docking and planet leaving in New Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and other Rheinland, systems, also fixed crashes near Yanagi depot in Sigma 13.
-added Powerplant upgrade MKIV and Engine upgrade MkIV, these are very powerful and expensive pieces of hardware.
you can find them in the Border Worlds at the same places the Eagle and Titan are buyable, and on Planet Toledo/BS Osiris
-make it possible to add missiles to a weapon slot, usually slot1, in adition to mounting them to cruise disruptor/torpedo slots.
-added suport, infocard, new engine and engine sounds for the Dodonna/Blissex Awing. It's buyable on Calif minor, BS Hood and Freeport 9,
and it's coming in standard package with 2 Raphaels and 2 Slingshot Missile launchers. I recommend mounting a pulse or particle turret to round up the loadout.
-please download the slave1/awing ship pack and copy the directories awing and slave1 form the archive to Freelancer\data\ships directory(this IS REQUIRED for the mod to work properly)
-maked buyable the missing equipment like the Order VHF engine and powerplant.
-the power and armor upgrades now ocuppy more space in cargo hold, namely 5, 10, 15 and 20 for each superior class. so there is a price to pay other than the cash, for the top performance they offer.
-colision damage doubled to make it more realistic.
-cruise speed set to 500. (recommend u buy the Awing, Banshee or Tie Defender from BS Hood to win the race mission).
-xwing has new engine color making it look more loke in the movies, also elite shield mount and balanced maneuvrability.
-thrusters consume more fuel with each advanced version, very long thrusting it's no longer possible.
-incorporated engine trail mod into mine for better visual effects.

v06b3grrssk:
-added Grssk 1.05 mod with the new system and jumpholes connection troughout the universe. also unlocked most of them from mission 2(that's why the name of the mod changed).
and now a list of my addons:
-added powerplants to looting&random drops. also added special weapons at high levels to random drops
-added escape pods to loot&random drops, u can now sell the bad guys to the police!
-included Cylon Heavy Fighter with a 4/2 weapon config, a new missile launcher and new infocard. It's buyable at pitssburg.
-rhino freighter now buyable at BS Missouri.
-reduced fuel consumption on high level thrusters, the heavy and advanced models. also slightly reduced on all others.
-weapons effects on right shield are more visible(10% more) and shields offer more protection against a the right type of weapon(graviton against laser, pulse and photon weaps,
positron against neutron and tachyon weapons and molecular against plasma and particle weapons).
-encounters with BS and Cruisers added within border and edge worlds, those are now piloted by pirates like corsairs, red hessians and outcasts!
-HUGE battles between Outcasts, Corsairs and Red hessians flying fleets of combined BS's, Cruisers and Gunboats have been reported near planet Malta, Freeport 9, Ruiz Base, Leon base, Freeport 5, and Planet Crete!!!!
-blood dragons also fly kusary gunboats, cruisers and destroyers.
-thats a hidden key on awing and firespray that'll make u go at a a super speed(trade lane like)...just an easter egg.

v06b4grrssk:
-fixed crashes after mission 01b and mission 2, and the jump gate back to new york crash, by removing the aditional jumpholes in NW system...the others remained in place
-added support for Slayn&Korpil Bwing, with infocard, weapons loadout(8/2 gunsturrets) and engine sounds, please install it in the same way, as a Bwing directory in \data\ships. its buyable in Planet Crete, Ruiz base and Frankfurt.

v06c:
-added Starviper Colonial fighter with infocard, engine sound and a 4/1/2 weapon config
-added Starfury (both ship are from Hostile Universe mod) with 6/0/1 weapons, infocard and engine.
-both ships are buyable at Planet Los Angeles and Battleship Suffolk in New London, credits for these ships go for Griskard and Kurgan, from Hostile Unverse mod team.
-added heavy tractor beam with better range(2500 m) and scanner MKIII with 7000 scan range/3500 cargo scan range. Included them to random drops as well.
-reverted to my mod only due to requests, and kept only some jumpholes/connections from Grssks mod.

Edited by - Michael Dan on 12-05-2003 22:09:24

Edited by - Michael Dan on 14-05-2003 10:00:30

Mon Apr 21, 2003 6:15 pm by Colonel Chris

Very nice mod! This is what I've been waiting for. No huge, annoying changes, just intelligent re-balancing. Keep working, this is the right way. Perhaps you should talk to Xerx and Thundercleese. They are working on a similar re-balancing mod and your work seems to be "compatible". Joining your work could result in a real kick-ass-mod.

Here's a thread about Thunders ideas:
http://www.lancersreactor.com/t/forum/t ... ing&M=True

And here's his website:
http://www.damnrecursion.com/fl/mod_index.shtml

Mon Apr 21, 2003 6:33 pm by RaDiAtIoN

This is cool I gonna test it. Downloaded it and installed it via FLMM but that way didn't work. So gonna have to do it the hard way ...

"To know the light, you must see the dark."

Mon Apr 21, 2003 9:09 pm by Michael Dan

For Radiation: make a separate copy of the Freelancer instaled directory and copy the file there, in the Data folder. If this is not working try to reinstall Freelancer, erase all save games and do the same as above. This should do the trick...

first of all thanks for the comments guys...those in "comments" section. I have already made a thread in Fl Editing Mod Anouncement Forum(wich is here by the way

). See you all there. I'm very pleased that a lot of people enjoyed it, I didn't expect it but it feels very nice....I have plans for better versions as wel as a FlMM version...as soon as I figure out the XML scripts...it will take some time, but it'l be done.
For Tinman, the freighters have a slightly better handling, but I didn't include more weaps because i thought there were alredy enough, 8 of them just seems enough. Anyway the freighters HAVE more firepower, just try to mount some Advanced Starbeam Turrets(very RAPID fire) and u'll see what I mean. Or the Tanto turrets from Blood Dragons later in the game!
And everybody please check out the Banshee/Valkirye or the Falcon/Eagle as they look Awesome with the weapons on wingtips. Actually the Banshee looks like a Klingon BOP(Bird of prey) and the Valkyirie looks like a WWII Focke Wulf 190, which belonged to the Germans!
The Freighters will be addresed in the next versions...not huge stuff but something less noticeable...slightly increased handling, maybe a cruise disruptor for mounting missiles...increased scanner range, certainly more reactor power, for high level weapons. We'll see. Your ideas here will be appreciated.

2nd Lieutenant Michael Dan.
Freeport 5 Zoners Base, ship:Titan

, allies: Corsairs, worst enemy:Red Hessians..

Mon Apr 21, 2003 9:47 pm by Colonel Chris

In fact working with FLMM scripts is easier than you might think.

Upsides:
- your mod remains compatible with other mods
- makes teamwork easier when working on same files
- if you can read the XML files, you can understand where and what changes will be made
- small file size

Downsides:
- takes more time to write than simple editing in original files
- no loop or advanced filter functions (UPDATE... WHERE...)
- no editor yet, you have to use html editors or notepad

Mon Apr 21, 2003 9:53 pm by Ghoost

I test your mod today and one the first look it's looks like a great update of the normal Gameplayer,...

I hope you add in a new version - that the new Weapons-Classes and Energy-Class show'n in when you are @ the Ship Dealer,... it's make it easy to get a overview,...

Thanks alot

Mon Apr 21, 2003 10:52 pm by IGx89

Just to let you know guys, you can make an auto-installing mod archive without making a XML script (or just a small one with author/description data). Please read FLMM's documentation (Help\How Do I) for much more info.

This mod WILL NOT work with FLMM as it is. Michael zipped this up with non-standard directory structure. If you extract it into FLMM's \mods folder, it will look like this: "\mods\flrebalancemod\equipment" (etc...). IT SHOULD BE "\mods\flrebalance\data\equipment". Read FLMM's documentation for more info.

I put requested features into FLMM; no-one has requested advanced search/replace methods, Chris, so that's why they aren't there!

I will be adding automatic dll resource methods to FLMM in a couple weeks, and after that I will probably make a tool to automate making mod scripts.

Tue Apr 22, 2003 12:27 am by reynen

Hey Mich:

First off, nice job.

Second you need to clean up some of my files that you used. For instance you have the capital shields from my mod but don't have any capital ships.

Also some of the items still are referencing the ID's of my DLL's which you don't have. This could cause problems later on.

ALso in the random mission which the ships, you forgot the change some of the HP for the bases, they are still set at 3,000,000. Using the regular weapons in your mod they are almost impossible to destroy.

Other then that looks good.

Just have a small request....since you did use some of my files and some of the concepts, just a small note about where you got your ideas and resources from in a credit portion would be nice...thanks.

Part of the Freelancer SDK Team
http://www.homebs.com/flsdk/
Tutorials, Utilties, Mods, and much more.

Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:42 am by fangmans

Okey. What I doing wrong? I start your modded version of FL and find myself in Omacron Major with a mission to dock at planet Toledo. The only problem I have is that there is nothing in the system except three suns. Am I missing something or have I been struck with a huge case of the dumba**?

The Fangman

Tue Apr 22, 2003 3:43 am by mallrentacop

First off,
Excellent work to u and Reynen for hi contributions. I like the SLIGHT mod u have given. My buddy and I used to talk about how the game univers was off kilter: like we determined that the Kusari Navy could have been defeated by two Rhineland hvy fighters lol, and stuff like that. Now the game (so far, just started) seems more viable. Not to mention tha fact that flying my lite fighter might be as well! Question tho' u state that all LF's are now 5/1 config but my patriot isn't. U did mean 5 guns 1 turret right or am I confused??
Thx 4 the info

Tue Apr 22, 2003 4:31 am by RaDiAtIoN

Thanks IGx89. Now I can get the mod to work with FLMM. It doesn't have to be the hard way after all.

"To know the light, you must see the dark."

Tue Apr 22, 2003 6:59 am by Phr00t

Hey, I am loving this new mod! And props to Reynen for his contributions, he deserves some credit.

I *love* the new missions to destroy different bases of sorts. I haven't seen any 'base' kills yet or battleship kills, but I've only taken one weapons platform killing mission :-)

I love the new speeds, and the whole 'balancing' scheme of things, it makes it so much more fun.

I was in a dogfight with some Lane Hackers, and I just hit an enemy with a Stalker missle, and then I ran into them... and then it instantly spit me back into windows. Freelancer was still 'running' but I couldn't switch to it, and it eventually became not responding... =( First 'crash' i've experienced with your mod.

Anyhoo, suggestions:

1) I haven't played too much with the new mission payments, so maybe this is already fixed: But the missles/mines/countermeasures are kinda expensive...? Maybe reduce their prices for em like 30%ish? I DUNNO, if you think they are fine, they most likely are.

2) Are you planning on 'adding' anything like weapons or ships?

3) Are you planning on extending the leveling limit and adding any weapons and ships for those levels? :-)

4) How about adding the TIE or other cool ships in from mods, balancing them into their class among the game?

I feel like I just want to keep playing with this new mod. Keep up the great work, this mod is great combined with the OpenSP v1.1

Anyhoo, don't mess with it much, because it is really good the way it is :-)

Possibly just add onto it, and just fix bugs... I guess thats my suggestion.

Tue Apr 22, 2003 10:41 am by Shaitan

Hi, great work

but I'm having some problems installing the MOD. I''m following your instructions but some changes don't work while others do. The speed changes are working but I can't mount the missiles on cruise disrutor/torpedo hardpoint. And the weapon configuration changes (5/1 for LF, 7/1 for HF) doesn't seem to work. Am I missing something?

Thanx for your help and keep on modding

Tue Apr 22, 2003 11:26 am by Michael Dan

Reynen, I have already mentioned U at the orginal post and I will do it again: thanx, u deserve the credit for some of the ideas. But don't forget that I helped u with some info in your mod as well, like the shield rescalling and the weapons loadouts on some fighters, so I think the credits are reciprocal. The reason because some of your setting are in my files it's because I instaled and tested your mod for a couple of weeks and without FLMM, so when I switched back to my mod files some files i did'nt use remained from the your mod instalation. Anyway I had begun the work on my mod from the day I bought Freelancer and saw the weapon and ships mod for the demo version. That's probably before u begun work on yours and certainly before u released verision 1.4. So you see I could not borow too much from your mod. I will clean up the mess in the next upload, rest asured.
To you and the others thnx again and i will try to improve based on sugestion as the time will allow it...

Tue Apr 22, 2003 11:53 am by Michael Dan

Ok, some more answers after readed all the posts

:
-mallrentacop, I also said there are exception, like the Banshee which I consider to be the "heaviest" of the light fighters with a 6/1 weapon config AND the Patriot which will be the lightest with 4 weapons and the posibility to mount a missile launcher. There are other exceptions like the Piranha as it has 2 turrets, one firing backwards and one only forward, so it takes 2 to to cover the entire arc, got it? This LF becomes available after the mission to escort the convoy to Station Willard, and since it has more guns, and energy levels, maybe u consider to upgrade to it.
Fangman, i don't know what u are doing wrong but perhaps u should erase all the
saves and try again. If this does not work, try reinstalling the mod...or even the entire game.
Phr00t, thanks for your post and apreciation, about the missiles/cms prices I am thinking about actually increasing them, because the player can make more money in the missions, so there must be something to spent the money on! The TIEs are already here, one in California system other on Mactan and the third in Dublin. And they're balanced too, the T/F has 4/1 weaps config, the T/I 6/1 and the Defender 8/1. Extending the level limit...hmm, this is probably not worthy, because the mod its generaly oriented to SP campaign, but maybe I'll bring more high level weapons down, and maybe some pirates with'em too, what do U say?! Already the corsairs and mollys are flying elite ships at lower levels, others are to come...
Also in the new version U should check out the gaians and hogosha as they will fly capital ships at higher levels. but remember to take the adequate tools with you or you'll be blown to dust('like my ship and my milion credits that by the way you still owe me!"

Micheal D.

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