The short version is to find the single player level requirements and change the mission based ones to money based, then to follow steps 4 and 5 above...that's assuming that you can find the level reqs...

Apparently, most of you don't care, but I'm gonna keep you updated anyway...

I just edited the market_ships.ini and changed the class lvl of every ship to 0 that was availble at each base (rather than changing every ship for every base, which is pointless if you can't buy it there anyway)

what I need to do now is the same thing for equipment...I'm guessing that this is covered in the market_misc.ini, but I'm having trouble deciphering the values since there's no on/off value that I can tell...can anyone else help me with this one?

We do care but your first post was made around 5 PM CET. Give us some time to experimentate on this

ok, the market_misc.ini does contain the info on the weapons and shields and such, problem is, it could take hours to change all the values due to the enormous amount of equipment per base...so unless some of you can come up with a program to autoedit the values in the file, I'm gonna have to put this on hold...cuz I'm not wasting that much time to make equipment available...we'd be better off finding a way to change the level reqs...or at least hacking a savegame to change the lvl. The ships work tho!

D8alus, no offense but you're barking up the wrong tree.

What you do is edit the mission inis, all 14 of them. Find the trigger, then bypass the middle bits and point the beginning trigger to the end trigger.

Now find all the points where jumpholes are unlocked in all the inis and copy those lines to the final trigger of the first mission, mission 1a.

There! Now where a story mission *should* be all you'll get is a mildly disconcerting beep!

BTW, if you just shorten mission 1a, you start the game in sigma 13 (or whereever the dead freeport was) along with king and the patrol escorts - roughly 70 kliks away.

And no, they don't do anything - they sit there and play dumb while you're stuck somewhere in the borderworlds with a poxy starflier. The equivalent of an elite n00b being met by a pack of thargons on his first jump.

heh, this is my first try to change a game and I don't read code (even ini) that well yet. I was just following logical steps..I never said they were short...however, my idea would work...even if it's not worth the effort to do it :p

Are you talking about the triggers in the mission ini's? I can't make heads or tails of those...

How about if someone takes a Save Game from after then end of the Single Player story... which leaves you back on Manhattan with a reasonable rep.

Jettison all the cool gear and buys a Starflier... save again.

This would give you a save game with no more story missions and most Buy restrictions removed...

The save game MOD that lets you start with level 50 and 5 thousands credits for the demo will work in the full game. There is no story line in SP and all equipment is there. Only one problem, you must enable the jumpgates in order to get out of Liberty space....

I would rather do that the other way were you must gain money to get levels, feels cheesy to buy a Justice III level gun right off the bat....

Anyone making a mod for Dynamic Economy? It would be cool to have amounts of goods prices go down as they fill up, slowly return to normal after a while. Problem with that is you can buy infinite amounts of goods and sell infinite amount. The game does not keep track of quantity bought and sold. Any way to 'limit' goods for sale and amount willing to buy from you?

I manage to make the goods numbers prices to vary randomly so not to guarantee a profit every time. This only gets changed randomly from a nominal value BETWEEN game plays, right now you must quit then next time it starts it randomizes the prices, but still are static. Maybe it would be possible to write a code to change it on the fly...it is a start, I hardly know any programming.

I want to do this with all the scripted patrols of pirates and police randomized scripts. I make up somthing like 30 and have them semi-randomly get picked when starting a game...or leaving a planet, or star system,,,just ideas to make it more dynamic. Funny to have a Corsair show up rarely right when you take off from Manhattan with you little Starfighter!

Edited by - Xerx on 11-03-2003 01:00:57

Well, i made this mod work. Changed the market_ships.ini, market_misc.ini with the excel (of course, i didnt want to change 12.000 !!!! values manually), initialworld.ini, freelancer.ini and modified so that i can buy the starflier at manhattan). And it works. It took about 20 mins... If anyone wants it... well post here and ill ... hmmm i'll send it to TLR for download or to you.

I've put my INI modifications on hold at the moment as I'm disassembling and sifting through freelancer.exe and content.dll's code trying to find the damned Cruise speed limit. While I'm there, I'm going to look at the mission control area and see if it's feasible to allow support for additional fan-made post-SP-mission campaigns. Ie., a campaign based in the edgeworlds, the ongoing tensions between the Corsairs and the Outcasts. Which I think would r00l.

Back to the topic, though. Content.dll is where the missions are handled. It is where levelling up is handled. It is where the game's static market is handled.

It is where, I suspect, the cloak and a whole host of other stuff, like random missions, are handled.

The idea about going back to Manhattan, dumping your cash and starting from scratch after mission 13 is a good one.

To get this done properly, m13.ini should be edited so that your final faction ranks are reset to default, your cash stripped off down to 500 and your rank dropped to zero.

To tell the truth, I can easily do this at the moment as I'm 70% there already, plus I have access to the RAW (uncompressed, unscrambled) Player data in save games using a debugger.

Yes, you guessed it, the savegame data is yet another variant of the INI files. Same layout even.

Blub.

Well then, you woudnt mind telling us what debugger you're using, would you?

I DID IT! I made the Single Player Campaign Mission dissapear! D8lus, I did what Stone-D said. I just added the end statement Act_ChangeState=SUCCEED in the right places where the mission would start and it by passes the whole mission. I had to do this for each one. I finished the first two part mission 1a and 1b.

What happens is you start with whatever ship you wish to script in, I left the Starfighter, but with no extra stuff to make it more fun to buy your loadout (or just leave the default loadout). The game will start out on Manhattan with your ship at level 2 with 500 cash. That is it. Your alignment has only one with Liberty Police the rest are neutral to you (pirates may attack you, threashold can be set whatever using default). Go fly and do what ever you want.

Just place the 14 mission scripts in place of the M**.ini files in folders Missions. I used HCL Bini decompressor. Do not use wordpad to save changes!

This cool, I can even make my own new mission if I want! Just study the scripting for a while 12 hours and I can see alot of possibilities.

Anyway I have the first two M1a and M1b scripts done. The rest will be faster now I know how it works. You will start out with a Starflier with either a normal loadout if you select or as I have it, no equipment. Just 500$ and try to make a run to make money...remember the start of Privateer the original? You have no shields or thrusters..makes it fun.

You also level up as normal and unlocks the gates as you progress up. The levels are money goals to reach. This is sweet. You do not need to connect to the Net or set up a server/client crap to play the Multplayer Universe in Single Player mode!


Yeah! I am next going to work on 'extra' equipment like it was in Privateer. Want tractor beam? You will have to buy one, diffent Color, Friend or Foe Scanners upgrades, armor upgrades. Also, a Simulated Dynamic Economy, and more custom made random missions includind cargo runs! This script is easy to use, though alot of typing.

Where can I upload this Single Player No Missions MOD to? This site Lancers Reactor?

Edited by - Xerx on 11-03-2003 16:40:27

Well done, Xerx!

Did you try as I said and 'forget' to edit one of the missions? Amusing, eh?

One additional you may want to do, but it takes ages - go through all the missions and find references to script-generated bases and wormholes (if they exist in there or somewhere else, haven't looked that closely yet) and unlock them all.

Me, I was juggling 4 different mod ideas last night, now that's gone up to seven.

Yes, thier certainly is script created bases and worholes, and secret areas. That can made to be permenate.

During the first mission, when you are to destroy the Liberty Rouges Base, it is generated during the mission script, then it is meant to be blown-up.

A person could cut and paste the script so that the base and generated pirates stay there, you can make it immortal or vulnerable to attack. If you are playing a pirate, Liberty Pirate Base may be nice spot to help shake off pursuit.

To be able to land on base and pick a faction for it, I would have to script in rooms and a ship (Starflier is not for sale anywhere) for my very hard start Flying Coffin Striped Down Starflier that you get at the start; trade up to a real Starflier.

I am trying to make it much harder to get going but be able to pick path good or bad or merchant or whatever.

Since I am not the greatest in C++ Vb6 my random cargo mission and cargo scripted missions are just a pile of 20-30 missions which get picked randomly. I am trying to get the FL program to pick the mission for me while the game is running.

Also, for the dynamic Ecomony, calculates some random numbers around nominal values. Alot of these missions could have generated random cargo runs by simple formulas and algorythms. Example random pick two location for a random cargo run for a certain amount, place the parameters between min and max diatance to travel and base the reward for the run linearly. Place random accord to probabilty of space traveling through for some above average pirate incounters in relation to your level for a decent challenge without being too little or too hard.