well i have something to say.... One Be thankful im nit flaming this "Freelancer coulda been better" thread, yes it really could of been something... And Two, have you never set a waypoint, put it into "click and drag" mode, pushed F2 and left it? Practically flies itself.... Just no through Suns..
Lot was left out but we got good foundations for a great game, and it seems its up to us to correct Microsofts mistake....

"Lets settle this like men... with guns" Killzone

As far as i was aware it had a autopilot on F2 F3 for docking and getting to places


It can sometimes avoid planets and suns by going around them


sometimes...

Hmmm...

F2/F3 works for me 99% of the time. Astroidfields, Planets, Suns, anything.

Edited by - Nickless on 06-09-2003 01:16:52

all I can say is it popped me into a sun the first time I tried it.

I've had the normal autopilot, from one waypoint to the next, but when was the last time it went from New Tokyo to Leeds for you? Or from Manhattan to Omicron Theta?

One click, no stopping until the end or the first lane disruption or attack.

I gather you missed the point. Lots of "go to" autopilot, but not the traditional, no real time passes (e.g. in Privateer or Wing Commander, hit autopilot and you don't have to sit and watch the screen as the ship flies there, you get to skip the time taken).

Lots of mods out there either speed up the travel speed or whatever, but the codes in the game allow for the ships to track "best route" through jump holes (not just jump gates), to click on a "go to" and have it start at waypoint one and end at waypoint 30 unless there is a disruption, and don't require you to stay awake watching the scenery inbetween.

Unless there is a patch I missed that changes the way F2/Go To button works.

Feel free to flame away. I'm a litigator in real life and used to it.

i went in between suns in sigma 17 (from the theta jump hole to sigma 13 jump hole. i went around 1 and while i was goin around it i went into another sun atmosphere. i tell ya. IT SUCKS!!!

May the force be with you, for me, to poop on.

You guys really need to relax...
"One Be thankful im nit flaming this "Freelancer coulda been better" thread"

There's really no call for flaming people who are just expressing their opinions. Dire Wolf has every right in the world to his opinion, and contrary to the apparent belief here, it is NOT actually mandatory for his opinion to match yours.

He didn't even flame the game - he just expressed some valid points about it. If this is how you behave about something so minor, I'd really hate to see how you act if someone DOES say bad things about the game - which, by the way, everybody is entitled to do.

Killzone, learn to treat people with respect.

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I appreciate the feedback and response to my comments, which are aimed at the issues I see that have kept Freelancer from longer gameplay life (which is important, people like it, but they quit playing it, which means that they sell their used copies instead of keeping them around).

The game has a lot going for it, especially its easy access for modding, glorious graphics and lots of well done sub-systems.

But most of the posts I read about "gee, I wish this was different about Freelancer" went to things like "I want to own a base" or "I want to fly a battleship" sorts of things. A couple "gee, can't we have a FPS [first person shooter module mixed in here too" threads too.

Most of those things would push Freelancer into areas that don't fit the kind of game that it is. There are a couple-three space station sims, and from the old Star Trek on you have battleship sims of one sort or another, but Freelancer is more of a Privateer sort of game, intentionally so.

It is a step backwards in some ways. The thrusters don't really have enough difference between them (heck, I'm now hunting Nomads with my Order Thruster -- never have had any reason to buy anything more expensive). The ships all have the same top speed, close to the same acceleration ... The guns don't have the real difference in feeling that they had in Privateer -- not to mention, the "my gun takes damage, it no longer fires like it did when perfect" isn't implemented.

But those nits are easily picked and are something I suspect were part of Microsoft prepping the game for wider release.

But the game's biggest problem is that it sucks down time like nobody's business just doing routine things. Lets say you decide to rescue your Blood Dragon affiliation before it gets too negative (since there is no Blood Dragon fixer -- a unique measuring point). Well, you can just sit outside of the Liberty Rogue base and blast them all day long, with perhaps a trip through Gain territory to calm down the Brits from the side effects of getting the Corsairs happy with you.

Just time the short jaunt from Nomad hunts back to the Blood Dragon base so you can do some missions to make them happier. Compare that to killing Baal in LOD Diablo II or a Bloody Hills run. How many could you do in the same time? Now Freelancer is prettier, but ...

I admit, I haven't done much recently in games (though my published game credits go back to 1974 or so). But there is so much promise in the Privateer game engine.

And a lot of room to look at what would make a difference to "beer and pretzels" players (to use an old phrase).

Bottom line, I understand the point that the Rogers brothers were trying to make with their transit system. Similar to what they did with the Darkening where they didn't want people to be able to jump if there were any hostiles near the jump point.

But crying out loud, I'm not playing the game so that I can appreciate the length of the experience.

/////////////////

A Sequel would be easy, especially since they gave up on the "Nomads destroyed the Earth" thread.

1. Use the 17 missions that they dropped out of the set to find the 13 that made the cut.

2. Use the built in code to streamline the play experience for players once they've reached higher levels. A real autopilot, chained jump points, a real radar in the hud, etc.

3. Find an excuse to level the characters out. The easiest is that when the character hits level 34-38 (somewhere in there), he gets a contact from J. offering him a mission -- a trip down the warp lane back towards Earth. Then it is a series of adventures in a new set of systems, some human, some not, with level 10 equipment the new level 1.

Some things could make it easier. Ship frames rather than ships (i.e. light figher, transport, heavy fighter, heavy transport frames, just upgrade the parts), the rest of the neural net add-ons that the finished game decomissoned, etc.

Not that there isn't a lot you could do with reprising the Liberty campaign -- especially if you assume a flood of Nomad technology that results in improved ships and such all around. A nice cut scene intro would handle it, then Juni drops by with just another mission. That would make a nice standard expansion pack that extends playability and provides more missions.

That would be easy, even if Microsoft drops the project, if they just release the raw material on the missing missions, it would be easy to put together a campaign.

Would be nice to see total sales numbers, current projects for lead team members, etc.

Anyway, i thought I skipped "Freelancer needs Joystick support" or a similar thread and focused on something it really needs -- a "real" classic style autopilot and similar controls and time compression.

Woah, hey calm down LethalLarry! I was just saying that he should be happy I didnt flame him for his opinions, which looking at this site in detail, a lot of people could have! I mean he has a valid point, the autopiolt sytem is worse than the spelling mistakes I made in my last reply...
Heh, seems I got myself in deep this time... errr If I did offend or insult or whatever with that little comment, Im sorry. Well id best go now..........

"Lets settle this like men... with guns" Killzone

No problem.

BTW, I see people modding the top speed for travel purposes all the time, I'm wondering why they haven't been able to enable the autopilot stuff.

I appreciate game designer quirks (like the guys at Blizzard that believe in PKing as an essential part of the game), but I'm really hoping for a sequel.

I did like the game.



Dire Wolf
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Sorry about the tone of my reply, but I've gotten used to people on this forum displaying a n appalling amount of intolerance to others... I've been subjected to that on numerous occasions over nothing any more inflammatory than Dire Wolf's comments... I'd had the impression that you were doing it, too, and wanted to voice up over it. I'm sorry if I misunderstood.

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Ok, the key in using F2/F3 is to actually target something before hitting the apropriate key. Otherwise it doesn't work.
Lets say you're in Sigma 17, Atka researchcenter and want to go to Omicron Theta, the jumphole is on the other side of the system. Target the jumphole and hit F2, the autopilot will steer you around the suns.
If it doesn't, the game is screwed up.

does this so called flaming include me?

(man i need anger management)

May the force be with you, for me, to poop on.

Not that I am aware of...

Yes, absolutely everything I post, including this, is spam.
Bite me.