Mhmm, what do you mean with 'level 7'? You are level 7 during mission 4 (where you run from Liberty); mission 7 is where you leave Bretonia behind you and at that time you are level 12. Which one do you mean?

Whichever it is, I think you'll enjoy it more to fly the missions again instead of loading somebody else's savegame. Now you know way more than when you flew the missions for the first time, and so it will be much easier. You may also want to try new things, different approaches.

If you wish I can post the necessary info so that you can fly all story missions back to back without having to freelance or loot wrecks between missions. You just have to carry the right cargo during story missions, or know what to buy at the end so that you level up immediately. In takes only about 3 hours to get you ready for leaving Bretonia again ...

Cant you use one of the autosaves?

Yes it would of been leaving Bretonia and going into that Asain looking Galaxy. Yeah if you could post what I have to do that would cut back on my time. That would so totally rock. I dont feel like flying around wasting time to level up if I dont have to lol. I am surprised there is not an edit you can do to level up where you need to...So you can just skip to all those points really fast lol.

Okay, here is how to get to Bretonia and then out of it in about 3 hours. This is taken from a post I made on Usenet a while ago and I do not know if it will render well here ... The plan is from a run where I wanted to beat the game as fast as possible without flying any ships I don't like (Piranha, Barracuda), and so I opted for taking a few freelance missions and getting to fly the superb Drake instead of the Bounty Hunter ships (which have larger cargo size and would make it possible to avoid freelancing altogether).

I have included the stuff for the missions after Bretonia as well because it is only a couple sentences anyway.

~~~

As everybody knows, the Freelancer campaign is structured such that after flying a story mission you get a bit of free time for freelancing. During this free time you have to increase your net worth by a certain amount, compared to your net worth at the time you completed the previous story mission. This is different from free play (multiplayer games) where your rank is determined by comparing your net worth to a table of fixed values.

Note: the net worth is calculated as the sum of cash plus resale value of equipment (30% of purchase price for weapons/shields/thrusters, %80 for ships, 100% for ammo) plus nominal value of any cargo.

Consequently, if you buy equipment/ship ugrades during the free time you slow down your progress a bit, and you progress faster if you defer the purchase until you have met the requirement for the next level (story mission) and received the level-up message. But there is also a way to shorten the time between missions rather drastically, to mere seconds in most cases. Looting shipwrecks can be faster than freelancing, but not _that_ fast.

The key to the super-fast progress are two key principles: exploit the H-fuel quirk and/or have the game underestimate your true worth at the end of a mission so that you get a requirement that is lower than your actual worth (or at least lower than it would otherwise have been).

H-fuel quirk: I do not know how this works or why it works, but work it does. Fill your hold with H-fuel after completing mission 1 or mission 2, and you level up. Yes, it's that easy. (Note: this quirk is quite probably not related to H-fuel per se but I discovered it in connection with trading H-fuel, hence the name.)

Net worth underestimation: the game values cargo at its nominal price for net worth calculation but the goods may actually fetch a much higher price at your current location. For example, the nominal value for optronics is $210 but in Leeds the stuff fetches $980. So if you happen to have 13 units optronics in your hold at the end of mission 4 then the game will underestimate your worth by 13 * ($980 - $210) = $10010 and you can level up by simply selling the stuff. If you forgot to bring optronics then you can even buy some right there in Leeds, before you go to the chat with Tobias that concludes mission 4.

I was curious as to how this works out in practice - how fast I could go through the campaign this way, and whether I would have sufficient funds for decent equipment. So I made a plan and tried it out. It worked surprisingly well: I had to take only three freelance missions (2 out of Kyushu and 1 out of Kyoto) and completed the campaign in just 06:31 hours. Funds where a bit on the slim side during the first couple of missions but later the money was quite sufficient ($95000 at Bruchsal during mission 10 - more than enough for a sixpack of Lugers and a hold full of H-fuel).

So here's THE PLAN.

Mission 1
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(1a) Before launching to this mission: sell all nanobots and shield batteries, buy & equip a third Justice Mk 1 (not necessary but it is more fun that way) and from the rest of the money buy pharmaceuticals (10 units).

(1b) On Pittsburgh, sell the pharmaceuticals and fill your hold with boron.

(1c) Mission 1 ends in space near Pittsburgh; do not land on Pittsburgh but go immediately to Fort Bush. There, sell the Boron (plus any loot you collected) and fill your hold with H-fuel. Stare in wonder at the level-up message you receive, but don't take too long because Juni is waiting for you on planet Manhattan.

Mission 2
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(2a) On Manhattan, sell the H-fuel and the three Justice Mk I. Buy the Patriot (remember to transfer the new shield back to the dealer and mount the one you got from your old ship; it is the same model). Buy & equip four Lavablade Mk III.

(2b) At the end of the mission you are on Battleship Missouri. Sell loot, if any, and fill hold with H-fuel. Launch, follow Juni's directions.

Mission 3
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(3a) If you wish you can make a detour to Willard and buy the class 3 graviton shield before landing on California Minor and accepting the mission; this takes just a few minutes and the funds should allow it. OTOH the mission will take you to Willard anyway after only one battle, so the detour is only necessary if you cannot fight the first battle with your class 1 shield without losing money on shield batteries or ship repairs.

(3b) When you land on Willard after the first part of the mission, buy the class 3 graviton shield and sell some of the H-fuel in your hold in order to make room for the H-fuel you are going to loot from the Rheinland gunboats.

(3c) At the end of the mission you are near Willard. Dock with Willard and sell at least 16 units H-fuel in one single transaction (2 times 8 won't work). (Note: it seems that simply _buying_ 16 H-fuel does the trick as well, in which case you could empty your cargo hold during (3b) and have more room for loot. I have not tried this yet.)

Mission 4
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(4a) This is a judgement call. You can make a really nice profit - $420 per unit - if you make a detour to Fort Bush en route to Manhattan and fill your hold with optronics. OTOH you could save a few minutes by going directly to Manhattan and filling your hold with H-fuel which you can sell on Mactan at a profit of $156 per unit (as I wrote earlier, you can buy the optronics needed for leveling up in Leeds itself). I went via Fort Bush.

(4b) After the end of the mission (you are in Leeds then), sell 13 optronics from your hold in order to level up. Switch your Patriot for the Cavalier which has a better powerplant and more cargo space (remember to transfer the Cavalier's new shield back to the dealer before concluding the purchase, as you already have such a shield). Fill hold with optronics and embark for Cambridge.

Mission 5
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(5a) In Cambridge, sell optronics & fill hold with diamonds.

(5b) The mission ends in Leeds. Sell diamonds, close trade interface to get level-up message.

Mission 6
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(6a) Still in Leeds, fill hold with mining machinery. Sell Lavablades and equip Skyrails (one pair class 4s and one pair class 5s). Head for Dublin.

(6b) In the Dublin system, you may want to pick up a class 5 shield at Battleship Essex before going to the Hood (where you can sell sell the mining machinery). OTOH this is only a positron shield so you may want to defer the purchase until you are on Shinkaku station where they sell graviton ones. There aren't any real battles before Shinkaku anyway.

(6c) After flying the race, fill your hold with gold at the Hood. This will be sold on Planet New Tokyo at a profit of $782 per unit and the game will underestimate our worth by $680 per unit ($20400 total for the cargo space of the Cavalier). I think this deal provides the best balance between profit on one hand and shortening the time before mission 8 on the other.

Mission 6 ends in Leeds and there is no free time before mission 7.

Mission 7
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(7a) You may want to pick up the class 5 graviton shield at Shinkaku station when you dock there during the mission. Graviton shields are actually one class better than their class designation suggests and this shield is good enough to last all the way to the Osiris. Shinkaku also sells the Adv. Thruster, so you may want to buy one unless you already have a Heavy Thruster (you need a good thruster in later missions, especially for liberating the Nomad powercell).

(7b) After the mission ends in Kyushu, earn $15600 quickly. Very probably you'll need to fly two missions anyway (especially as the cargo hold is full and you cannot pick up lucrative loot like silver), so choose your missions accordingly. Read the fine print of the mission text; you can blast a Large Space Station out of the sky and be back on the planet in three to four minutes (without even engaging in combat with other fighters) if the target is nearby. Choose your missions such that you drift towards planet New Tokyo.

(7c) When you are no more than $20400 away from the next mission requirement, go to Planet New Tokyo; this is on the way to Shinagawa anyway so the only extra time lost is one landing & take-off. Sell the gold to level up. Buy the Drake (but remember to transfer the new, inferior shield back to the dealer) and fill your hold with light arms. Proceed to Shinagawa and mission 8.

Mission 8
~~~~~~~~~
After mission 8 ends in Kyoto, sell the light arms. You will still be $12850 short of the next level requirement but the missions there are very lucrative so you need to fly only one.

There is no free time after mission 9 but you can still earn a little money on the side during mission 10, by shipping light arms from planet New Berlin to Bruchsal base and filling your hold with H-fuel at Bruchsal (don't forget to to pick up the 6 Lugers for the Anubis, if you prefer these guns). You can sell the H-fuel a few minutes later at Buffalo Base in the New York system, for a profit of $354 per unit.

Edited by - Sherlog on 31-05-2003 02:29:08

Edited by - Sherlog on 31-05-2003 02:36:07

Some additional points -

If you buy a Dromedary after mission 5, you can hold enough cargo to go the entire rest of the game without doing any freelance missions. (Take some H-Fuel on the way to Mactan for extra cash.) Tip - to land on Mactan to get the ship, first go to Freeport 4 in Magellan, and accept any mission; while you're on the mission the Outcasts won't attack you and won't trigger the Hackers to go hostile, so you can land on Mactan.

With the Dromedary, I was able to afford 120 units of gold at the Hood to take to New Tokyo, and a full 275 units of light arms from New Tokyo to Kyoto. Both leveled me immediately without flying any missions.

With the Drom also comes another cargo opportunity. You buy gold from the Hood at the start of Mission 6, but probably can't afford to fill your hold. In the second part of that mission you can loot some H-Fuel from Rheinland ships; the mission takes you to Leeds where you can sell the H-Fuel and then buy some Mining Machinery on Leeds to take to Shinkaku for $200 profit.

The Drom is surprisingly able to fight through the SP campaign missions; the level-6 graviton freighter shield is a good 25% stronger than the HF shield and it's available on Kyoto. And because turrets 2 through 5 fire forwards, the Drom effectively gets seven gun slots, even more than the HFs.

--

Another good profit run, especially with the Drom, is to make a side trip from Kyoto to Ainu before mission 8, and load up on Cardamine for $479 each to sell on New Berlin for $1329. HUGE profit. Doesn't help you in the campaign, but gives you a ton of extra money for later.

You can also fill your hold with Cardamine after you wind up on Buffalo. (Make sure to save some cash to buy batteries and nanobots at the Osiris and Toledo since they don't have dealers to sell the commodity.) After the game ends, you'll be on Manhattan, and you can sell the Cardamine for $300 profit.

I did the Piranha/Barracuda thing that I mentioned in the earlier message and this reduced the overhead to 2 extra tradelane hops and 2 extra landings (Fort Bush for getting optronics, New Tokyo for selling the Dublin gold and getting the Barracuda). Cash was a bit tight at times and during missions 8 through 10 my Barracuda was equipped with 4 x Lavablade Mk III and 2 x Magma Hammer Mk I (two of the Lavablades were loot from mission 4); but this was not because of cash shortage but because getting better guns would have taken quite a while.

Total time played: 05:52 h.

It would have been quite as fast to loot the cardamine shipwreck in California after mission 3 and trade H-fuel from Manhattan to Mactan during mission 4 (and then buy the level-up optronics in Leeds before going to Tobias), but I wanted to solve this without looting shipwrecks.

Just to update this thread with the new discoveries from the FLDQ runs:

To level up instantly on New Tokyo between missions 7 and 8 : either sell at least 33 Gold in one transaction or 21 Diamonds in one transaction. To do this with Diamonds, you need to plan ahead; when you sell the Diamonds from Cambridge on Leeds to level up before mission 6, then buy them back.

35-cargo ships can of course do the all-Gold route. 30-cargo ships can do 21 Diamonds, or this advanced method: sell 17 Gold, then buy 17 H-Fuel, then sell 13 Diamonds in one transaction. Not sure of the math for the 25-cargo Patriot but if someone wants, I'll work it out.


To level up instantly on Kyoto between missions 8 and 9 , you need to sell 39 Light Arms in one transaction. The Barracuda can hold this much cargo (although affording the 'Cuda and the light arms on New Tokyo can be a stretch); any other fighter available at this point will have to fly some freelance missions.


The "H-Fuel quirk" used in the above leveling methods works like this: if the total value of the transaction is greater than the current remaining requirement to advance to the next level, you level up. Even though the profit (local price minus nominal) generated by selling 33 Gold on New Tokyo is only $22407, the total value of the transaction is $36432 which is more than the $36000 requirement. The advanced technique first sells some Gold and then buys H-Fuel, which both increase your networth and lower the requirement, then 13 Diamonds times $1650 exceed that requirement and you level.

Edited by - T-hawk on 16-08-2003 18:31:08

Hehe, you guys, go write a walk through or something. These insane long posts bore me

The problem with buying the Dromedary is that unless you have modded the game, you are not allowed to buy the Dromedary when you reach Mactan--it requires that you be Level 10 before you can purchase it. However, if you do acquire the Dromedary at this stage, then it is powerful enough to finish the game in, as it can mount three Level 6 guns and five Level 5-6 turrets. I reccommend using the third gun slot for a Catapult missile launcher to make up for the lack of a torpedo launcher.