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FreeLancer
RubberEagle
What's a rubber eagle used for, anyway?
in Zocalo v2.0
As you might, or migh not, know, FreeLancer has finally gone gold :)
For those of you who have no idea what FreeLancer is: it's somekind of an in-official sequel to the privateer games.
Now i had the opportunity to play the game very extensively and i thought i'd share some of my experience here.
First, the controlscheme. FreeLancer is a mouse only game, no joystick support.. [i]"What? A Space-Sim with no Joystick support? That sucks" [/i]- Yeah, i thought that too when i first heard about it. But after i played for a few minutes, i nearly forgot i was playing with the mouse. The Guys at Digital Anvil obviously have put much thought and time into the interface, and [b]it's really fun to fly with the mouse [/b](you actually fly with the targeting reticle, and move the reticle with the mouse. contrary to the joystick games (and first person shooters) the reticle isn't fixed to the center of the screen, and the guns all have a firing arc.(There are also turrets that can be rotate 180 degrees).
Your ships also have the ability to "strafe" (but only left or right, no up and down, sorry), they have a (weak) reverse thrust, and you can hit the "engine-kill". That will allow you to drift with your current speed in the same direction, while you can turn your ship without affecting your flight vector.
The Universe is nearly 100% interactive (when i say "nearly", i mean that you can't blow up starbases or Planets). There are about 48 systems, and in each system there are multiple objects like planets or space stations (or capships) that you can dock with.
If you've landed, you can go to a [b]bar[/b] and listen to rumors, bribe somebody so your reputation with a certain faction goes up (yes, there are lot's of factions, like a police and navy of each region, corporations and criminals, and everything you do will influence your reputation with a faction. if you shoot a criminal then your rep with the police and the "legal"-corporation goes up, if you shoot the police, the "good"-guys will like you a bit less, but your reputation with the criminals will rise a bit). You can also get jobs in the bar.
Then there's the[b] comodities dealer[/b]. Here you can get everything from Oxygen to Hullplating (what you get and the price of it depends where you are), everything that's not equiptment for your ship.
You'll get that at the [b]Equipment dealer[/b]. You can get Guns (FreeLancer has lots of guns, about every major faction has it own guns, and there are different types of them like Tachyon or Pulse guns), missile launchers, Mine-droppers (some of them with seeking abilites), countermeasures, Torpedos and Cruise Disruptors (I'll come to those a bit later). you'll only get the weapons that the faction that owns the base you're on uses (and only if your ship supports them and your reputation with them is good enough). But you'll get all the ammo everywhere.
You can also upgrade your shields, and there are tons of different shields, with everyshield having a guntype they are best against, and one that's very effective against it. There's also the oportunity to upgrade your thruster (afterburner).
lastly, you can buy Shield Cells and Nano-bots, that can be used to repair the ship in a combat situation. (just press the corresponding key, and your shields will be boosted or your hull repaired).
On some stations you can also buy ships. Each ship has a different hull rating, different hard-points (they use a rating too, you can't mount a level 5 gun on a level 4 hard-point) for weapons and shields, a different ammount of cargo space, and can hold a different ammount of shield cells/nano bots (too much 'different' in that sentence).
in space, you have a contact list in your hud that can filter what it shows, like only important stuff, all ships, all stations, all dropped cargo (that you can tractor in, provided you have enough free cargo space), or ALL contacts.
Traveling between systems is done via artificially built jump gates, or jump holes. the latter are natural phenomenons, usually somewhere in a dangerous zone like a nebula, gas cloud or asteroid field, and are frequently used by criminals.
To make travel faster in a system, there are so called "Trade-lanes" they are so to say the high-ways of the freelancer universe, you can go about 20 times the speed of your standard engine in them.
To reach stations that have no tradelanes near them (like pirate bases...), your ship is equiped with the cruise engine. With the cruise engine your ship goes 3 times as fast, but you can't use your weapons (that includes mines). Now if you want to destroy a ship, and it engages it's cruise engines, what do you do? right, you fire your Cruise Disruptors. A cruise disruptor is a missile that doesn't do much damage, but it's incredibly fast and will disable the cruise engines of the ship it hits (but only for a few seconds).
You can scan ships and see what cargo they have, what guns they have mounted and so forth (is very usefull when you're a pirate). you can also hail ships and they'll tell you where they come from and where they are going to (provided they don't hate you and aren't in a fight).
An other useful tool is the Map. you can open the map and it will show you all the items in the current system that you have discovered. It will show you stations, planets, jump gates, jump holes, asteroid fields, nebulas etc... you can zoom in, you can get additional info on each object (if you have landed on a base it will show you all the stuff it sells, and a little history of the station). You can plot flight routes, there's the "plot shortest course" feature, it even works between star systems, you just have to follow the nav-points.
The map can show you mineable zones (yep, you can mine in asteroid fields for minerals and similar stuff), it can show you Patrol-paths (if you follow the paths, they will often lead you to hidden jump holes or pirate stations), and it can also display a star-chart with all the systems you've been to (and you can zoom to any system from there).
Also, Freelancer shows you for every good in your cargo hold where you can sell it to what price (water will have a high price on a desert planet, but on a water planet...), that's very helpfull when you want to be a trader.
something i haven't adressed yet: there are about 28 different flyable ships. That includes freighters, light fighters, heavy fighters and very heavy fighters.
Freighters of course have big cargo holds, but aren't really maneuverable.
Light fighters are highly maneuverable, but don't have much weapons and armor.
The single-player campaign is very linear, but very well done. everything is done in-game, even the character stuff, but the animations are just gorgeus.
Multiplayer is just great. On every server there is a consistent universe. If you log onto a server for the first time, you have to create a profile. You'll start with a crappy ship and get some money, log off, and when you log on again, you start where you stopped before. (save games are on the server to prevent cheating). The theoretical player limit should be something like 128 players per server.
Players can form groups that share all the info about the universe, the reputation with the factions, and the income from missions.
You can trade cargo, weapons and money between players, wich opens up the possibility of having a group of people, that specialize on freighters hiring a fighter escort for a risky cargo run ;)
The graphics look fine, many people wouldn't call it mind-blowing, but i think they look great (and the game is very scale-able, it runs from a PII 300 with a TNT2 upwards).
The sound is incredible. You'll hear random chatter from other ships while you are flying (like stations asking ships coming into their area what they want there, or police scanning ships for contraband).
The AI is also very good.
In the core-systems, it's very easy, ships will fly more straight, and the AI will be more predictable. But the farther you go outward to the border-worlds, the harder and more agressive the AI will get.
All in all the game is very refined (you realize the time that DA has taken in making the game), and lots of fun to play :)
If you have questions, just ask ;)[I][/I]
For those of you who have no idea what FreeLancer is: it's somekind of an in-official sequel to the privateer games.
Now i had the opportunity to play the game very extensively and i thought i'd share some of my experience here.
First, the controlscheme. FreeLancer is a mouse only game, no joystick support.. [i]"What? A Space-Sim with no Joystick support? That sucks" [/i]- Yeah, i thought that too when i first heard about it. But after i played for a few minutes, i nearly forgot i was playing with the mouse. The Guys at Digital Anvil obviously have put much thought and time into the interface, and [b]it's really fun to fly with the mouse [/b](you actually fly with the targeting reticle, and move the reticle with the mouse. contrary to the joystick games (and first person shooters) the reticle isn't fixed to the center of the screen, and the guns all have a firing arc.(There are also turrets that can be rotate 180 degrees).
Your ships also have the ability to "strafe" (but only left or right, no up and down, sorry), they have a (weak) reverse thrust, and you can hit the "engine-kill". That will allow you to drift with your current speed in the same direction, while you can turn your ship without affecting your flight vector.
The Universe is nearly 100% interactive (when i say "nearly", i mean that you can't blow up starbases or Planets). There are about 48 systems, and in each system there are multiple objects like planets or space stations (or capships) that you can dock with.
If you've landed, you can go to a [b]bar[/b] and listen to rumors, bribe somebody so your reputation with a certain faction goes up (yes, there are lot's of factions, like a police and navy of each region, corporations and criminals, and everything you do will influence your reputation with a faction. if you shoot a criminal then your rep with the police and the "legal"-corporation goes up, if you shoot the police, the "good"-guys will like you a bit less, but your reputation with the criminals will rise a bit). You can also get jobs in the bar.
Then there's the[b] comodities dealer[/b]. Here you can get everything from Oxygen to Hullplating (what you get and the price of it depends where you are), everything that's not equiptment for your ship.
You'll get that at the [b]Equipment dealer[/b]. You can get Guns (FreeLancer has lots of guns, about every major faction has it own guns, and there are different types of them like Tachyon or Pulse guns), missile launchers, Mine-droppers (some of them with seeking abilites), countermeasures, Torpedos and Cruise Disruptors (I'll come to those a bit later). you'll only get the weapons that the faction that owns the base you're on uses (and only if your ship supports them and your reputation with them is good enough). But you'll get all the ammo everywhere.
You can also upgrade your shields, and there are tons of different shields, with everyshield having a guntype they are best against, and one that's very effective against it. There's also the oportunity to upgrade your thruster (afterburner).
lastly, you can buy Shield Cells and Nano-bots, that can be used to repair the ship in a combat situation. (just press the corresponding key, and your shields will be boosted or your hull repaired).
On some stations you can also buy ships. Each ship has a different hull rating, different hard-points (they use a rating too, you can't mount a level 5 gun on a level 4 hard-point) for weapons and shields, a different ammount of cargo space, and can hold a different ammount of shield cells/nano bots (too much 'different' in that sentence).
in space, you have a contact list in your hud that can filter what it shows, like only important stuff, all ships, all stations, all dropped cargo (that you can tractor in, provided you have enough free cargo space), or ALL contacts.
Traveling between systems is done via artificially built jump gates, or jump holes. the latter are natural phenomenons, usually somewhere in a dangerous zone like a nebula, gas cloud or asteroid field, and are frequently used by criminals.
To make travel faster in a system, there are so called "Trade-lanes" they are so to say the high-ways of the freelancer universe, you can go about 20 times the speed of your standard engine in them.
To reach stations that have no tradelanes near them (like pirate bases...), your ship is equiped with the cruise engine. With the cruise engine your ship goes 3 times as fast, but you can't use your weapons (that includes mines). Now if you want to destroy a ship, and it engages it's cruise engines, what do you do? right, you fire your Cruise Disruptors. A cruise disruptor is a missile that doesn't do much damage, but it's incredibly fast and will disable the cruise engines of the ship it hits (but only for a few seconds).
You can scan ships and see what cargo they have, what guns they have mounted and so forth (is very usefull when you're a pirate). you can also hail ships and they'll tell you where they come from and where they are going to (provided they don't hate you and aren't in a fight).
An other useful tool is the Map. you can open the map and it will show you all the items in the current system that you have discovered. It will show you stations, planets, jump gates, jump holes, asteroid fields, nebulas etc... you can zoom in, you can get additional info on each object (if you have landed on a base it will show you all the stuff it sells, and a little history of the station). You can plot flight routes, there's the "plot shortest course" feature, it even works between star systems, you just have to follow the nav-points.
The map can show you mineable zones (yep, you can mine in asteroid fields for minerals and similar stuff), it can show you Patrol-paths (if you follow the paths, they will often lead you to hidden jump holes or pirate stations), and it can also display a star-chart with all the systems you've been to (and you can zoom to any system from there).
Also, Freelancer shows you for every good in your cargo hold where you can sell it to what price (water will have a high price on a desert planet, but on a water planet...), that's very helpfull when you want to be a trader.
something i haven't adressed yet: there are about 28 different flyable ships. That includes freighters, light fighters, heavy fighters and very heavy fighters.
Freighters of course have big cargo holds, but aren't really maneuverable.
Light fighters are highly maneuverable, but don't have much weapons and armor.
The single-player campaign is very linear, but very well done. everything is done in-game, even the character stuff, but the animations are just gorgeus.
Multiplayer is just great. On every server there is a consistent universe. If you log onto a server for the first time, you have to create a profile. You'll start with a crappy ship and get some money, log off, and when you log on again, you start where you stopped before. (save games are on the server to prevent cheating). The theoretical player limit should be something like 128 players per server.
Players can form groups that share all the info about the universe, the reputation with the factions, and the income from missions.
You can trade cargo, weapons and money between players, wich opens up the possibility of having a group of people, that specialize on freighters hiring a fighter escort for a risky cargo run ;)
The graphics look fine, many people wouldn't call it mind-blowing, but i think they look great (and the game is very scale-able, it runs from a PII 300 with a TNT2 upwards).
The sound is incredible. You'll hear random chatter from other ships while you are flying (like stations asking ships coming into their area what they want there, or police scanning ships for contraband).
The AI is also very good.
In the core-systems, it's very easy, ships will fly more straight, and the AI will be more predictable. But the farther you go outward to the border-worlds, the harder and more agressive the AI will get.
All in all the game is very refined (you realize the time that DA has taken in making the game), and lots of fun to play :)
If you have questions, just ask ;)[I][/I]
Comments
On every base you get missions from the faction that owns the base.. on a pirate base you will get missions agains the bounty hunters or police (or sometimes other pirates), on police station against terrorist groups, on corporate stations against criminals that bother them the most....
Worf
Something i forgot to mention earlier: the voice-cast is reallincredibly good, it includes actors like John Rhys-Davis and George Takei ;)
ohh...theres an idea...GTA: 2200 :D
[B]What about in multiplayer? can you still land and walk around? can you change how you look...and...can you have shootouts while doing so?
Worf [/B][/QUOTE]
Maybe i should elaborate on that a bit more:
You can't walk around in SP either, you click on the icon of the bar and get a cutscene where you enter the bar, and the same with the shops...
you can do everything in Multiplayer that you can do in single-player, except for the campaign missions. That don't exist.
So Multiplayer is much more than just a frag-fest or something. It's more like an MMORPG, but without the monthly fees ;).
Btw, what i think i haven't said either, everyone who has the game can make his own server (if there will be a stand-alone server-install to download I don't know).
Hm.. I think the comparison to GTA is one of the best i've heard so far.. (though Freelancer has more depth to it, you could describe it as something like GTA in space)
Though i would call the singleplayer portion "Deus Ex" in space (due to the much stronger woven storyline portion than in GTA)
Worf
[QUOTE]Now if you want to destroy a ship, and it engages it's cruise engines, what do you do? right, you fire your Cruise Disruptors. A cruise disruptor is a missile that doesn't do much damage, but it's incredibly fast and will disable the cruise engines of the ship it hits (but only for a few seconds).[/QUOTE]
That is a complete rip off of the LDSi missiles from independence war / I-war 2.
[B]I dunno, i'm still skeptical about the lack of joystick support, although bridge commander came out alright..
That is a complete rip off of the LDSi missiles from independence war / I-war 2. [/B][/QUOTE]
It might be that they copied it, or it might be that they came up with it too (if you have big systems, you need a faster drive-system. if you have a faster drive system, you need the means to prevent someone from using it)
You can try the control scheme with the demo that's supposed to come out at the time the game hits stores..
[B]It might be that they copied it, or it might be that they came up with it too (if you have big systems, you need a faster drive-system. if you have a faster drive system, you need the means to prevent someone from using it)
You can try the control scheme with the demo that's supposed to come out at the time the game hits stores.. [/B][/QUOTE]
I just hope its better than its predicessor Starlancer, I was so excited for Starlancer when it came out, and it just plain sucked.
[B]I just hope its better than its predicessor Starlancer, I was so excited for Starlancer when it came out, and it just plain sucked. [/B][/QUOTE]
Actually, FreeLancer is only marginally the successor to StarLancer. The only connection to StarLancer is that it plays 800 Years after the events in starlancer.
While StarLancer was developed by Warthog, FreeLancer is directly developed by Digital Anvil.
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen7.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen7_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
This is a shot from a landing cinematic in a hollowed out asteroid. (every base has a unique look btw)
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen14.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen14_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
Here we are in a debris field at the center of Liberty (one of the 4 major nations in FL), in the lower right of the pic you can see Planet Manhatten.
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen16.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen16_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
This is in a starsystem that's entirely clouded by some sort of... clouds ;) (they are animated)
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen20.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen20_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
This shot is for those of you who by now wanted to say something like "flying from third person sucks". Well, here's the cockpit-view ;)
Also, you can see me firing some guns, and in the lower right you can see my weapons list. the weapons and contact lists can be minimezed, if you feel they obstruct your view to much. (also, every ship has a different cockpit)
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen24.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen24_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
Here I'm trying to get to a tradelane fast (I'm currently engaging the cruise engines). I'm heading for the lowering, because that one goes in the direction i want, and the upper one would go in the opposite direction (that's marked by the red and green lights)
Also, you can see that i pissed someone off, as there are lot's of red contacts (and that he pissed me off, and thus lost his ship and his cargo (white contacts))
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen29.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen29_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
Here you can see one of the many different space stations.
The domes are actually bio-domes in wich food is grown.
In the far right you can see a tradelane beeing activated
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen30.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen30_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
just me doing some rading at a depot ;)
[url=http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen33.jpg][img]http://members.tripod.de/timothyhasek/fl/screen33_sm.jpg[/img][/url]
That's a Kusari Battleship (Kusari is another nation, the other 2 not mention until here are Rhineland and Bretonia). as you can see, lot's of polys on this one.
It might not look like Doom3 or Unreal2, but it's definitely looking very sweet, and is imho the best looking space sim out there :)
How moddable is it?
Worf
what should be modable(incomplete list):
ship models
sounds
music
ship stats
prices of goods
weapons
a maybe is the possibility to add aditional ships, not just replace current ones
what seems to be impossible is to add new missions :-/ (I've been told that the missions are actually been hardcoded in the exe, though i find that hard to believe)
but there are legions of starlancer/wingcommander modders waiting to get their hands on the game, so i'm quite sure that there will be tools very soon available ;)
p.s.: what i don't know about: the universe itself (position of starsystems, what starsystem has what connections to other starsystems, location of object in a starsystem)
Worf
[B]Here we are in a debris field at the center of Liberty (one of the 4 major nations in FL), in the lower right of the pic you can see Planet Manhatten.
[/B][/QUOTE]
Thats close to where Sanfam lives.
[B]I was thinking a b5 mod would be fun...especially with the game's multiplayer capability.
[/B][/QUOTE]
i was expecting something like this ;)
actually, i don't think that the game is good for a B5 mod...
one of the reasons i say that is, that guns aren't fixed, they are like turrets in other games, the follow the crosshaire/pointer for a certain degree... that could produce some funny effects on a starfury or another fighter...
but no matter if it's estethically right to make a b5 mod for freelancer, it still would be a massive undertaking... (i don't want to sound discurraging, just want to make it clear upfront ;) )
once FL is out, the best place for editing info will be [url]www.lancersreactor.com[/url] . People that hang out there include HCl(who did a lot of research and programming for the StarLancer editing tools, and huge amount of tools and engine-tuning for most of the WC games), and of course me ;)
Worf
[B]
actually, i don't think that the game is good for a B5 mod... [/B][/QUOTE]
Let me elaborate a bit on that...
What i actually meant by that is a real total conversion, not just making B5 models, souds or other stuff, but new missions, and changing the whole look to B5.
(I'm actually planning myself to release a hyperion for FreeLancer, as soon as we get some tools ;) )
[B]The Demo is out on FilePlanet (Exclusive until monday, then it will be on other servers too) [/B][/QUOTE]
do you know what the graphics card ReQ's for it are? I've got to get a new vid card.
I know people have played the game without problems on a P2 300MHz with a TNT2.
btw: There have been errors with the "copyright" system that Fileplanet uses, as far as i know...
If you have problems installing it, you might want to wait until monday and download it from another location then...