On the regard of powerplants and upgrades I've got a very sneaking feeling that there will be an expansion coming out in the next month or 2 for Freelancer that will likely include:
- Cloaking upgrades for ships
- 2 or 3 new catagories of weapons
- Powerplant Upgrades
- Radar Upgrades
- Radar Jamming
- A Continueing Storyline (Let's hope!)
...and who knows what else. Here's why I make that statement. In browseing through the resource files for the game , it's DLL's, the INI files, etc etc... there are TONS of different categories of equipment , upgrades, and who knows what else that actually DO exist in the game resource files and were created. They just aren't implemented in game for some reason, most likely something having to do with a combination of balance and game release schedule.
If you dig hard enough you'll find tons of equipment, upgrades, and ship addons that are IN the game resource files and have been fully created. Most of them actually function in game if you can
hack them in yourself. The only real issue is that the Ships themselves haven't been programmed by default to accept them (even tho there probably ARE hardpoints for cloaking devices, radar jammers, and the like.. we just don't know the hardpoint names).
I'd consider it a REAL BIG waste by Digital Anvil / MicroSquish if they had all these finished (but unpolished / balanced) items in the game to be taken advantage of.. but never did get implemented. Heck even just a PATCH could be issued to activate and make use of all this stuff.
It just seems more Microsoft's speed to make you buy it in an expansion tho.