Ok, I've tested this mod(beta 2.03 throughout almost all SP campaign an there are some things I must say: first of all Reynen I'm glad U finally listened and modified the shields in the manner me and a few other people adviced U, scalling them from lvl 1 to 10 and for each class separatedly.The cruise speed is now set very correct at 450, there are no collision problems or in-mission cutscene bugs. And that class 'Medium Fighter" which appears on infocards it's VERY cool, nice work . with specific MF shields too. It's also good that the missons offer u more and varied rewards, maybe too much but it;s ok. Anyway I was using the trade route between Leeds and Cambridge with a freighter carrying Optronics from Leeds and Diamonds on my way back and maked 400000 credits in two runs...pretty cool, isn;t it?
The loadout of npc has been improved, and this is good up to some point, but I think there are too many Devastator guns on fighters, especialy later in Kusari the Blood Dragons and Kusari Naval Forces have 10 Devastators in adition to their normal loadout! Also the cannons on some fighters are not in the right position, like King's fighter in first mission, that's because those RunningLight hardpoints where u put them have diferent orientations like up or down or even backward. Some UTF editor work should be done here, like adding real HP for weapons with the right orientation and Axis, Min, Max and position caracteristics. Other thing is that those weapons mounted on RunningLights can fire also backwards, giving an unfair advantage for those npc's, practically you are unde fire all the time...of course that is making them very hard to fight, especialy in large numbers.
I didn't test BS's too much cause i think they're pretty useless, too big and sluggish. I prefer to see instead Gunboats, Cruisers or new models of fighters.

For those having trouble in mission 3, the escort of the convoy or protection Station Willard u should know this is because of the loadouts of the fighters, having 10 Devastators each and firing them in all directions, they will make short work on the Transports, Battleship Harmony or Walker's Cruisers. Unfortunately the HP of those ships(Liberty cruiser, Liberty BS or Transports) has not been scaled yet, so the only solution now is to 'cheat', as is to find the line in loadouts.ini which says MSN03_Nomad_Rheinland_Bomber and to erase all lines that look like this: equip = fc_lwb_gun01_mark01, HpRunningLight01
equip = fc_lwb_gun01_mark01,HpRunningLight02, and so on, and this one: nickname = MSN03_Nomad_Rheinland_Heavy_Fighter and MSN03_Nomad_Rheinland_Heavy_Fighter Leader and do the same thing.
Other problem is that the Valkyries are scaled at 250000 HP health, thats half of a Liberty Dreadnought Hp's and thats why thy are so hard to kill, giving them enough time to destroy a cruiser or two or even the battleship. Before that there is no major problem, except than the NPC's will kick your @ss, especially if one encounters lets say a waring party of Junkers, Mollys, Corsairs and Bounty Hunters, like U'll surely meet in New London, near Southampton Shipyard, and they will alll target U as soon as they see U, it's easy to picture what will hapen...it taken about 5 secs, and BOOM...no more Trent...

If you somehow do get players to dock with player owned battleships, i can already predict 2 major bugs.

1.) Since when you undock from a regular battleship, the ships go out fine, but imagine what would happen if the player owned BS was flying and a player tried to undock from it. Massive pinball effect?

2.) If a player owned battleship died while there were players in it, there would be a massive crash. You also cant have movable docking rings to follow the battleship.

Dont want to get everyone's hopes down because i want this feture as much as anyone else here, but these are some bugs we should consider fixing if the docking is put into this mod. Just thought i'd share.

Michael:

Thanks for the feedback, I will adjust the NPC loadout and damage again. I think I upped it just a little too far, but that's why this is a beta

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Tutorials, Utilties, Mods, and much more.

Just confiming Dan. In that escort mission he is right in that there is no way to protect it. I have played that mission more than twice and exactly after Juni's message for help, roughly around 15 to 20 seconds the lead transport will be destroyed. Last time, when the Cruise speed was higher there was a way to protect them which was I would break formation first so that the enemies would target me since I would be the nearest target but now since the cruise speed is slower we end up in the middle of them as how it should be. . Don't know how to fix this simply because its a paradox. For me the damage dealt by the enemies are ok so I won't be offering advice to lower them but instead maybe increase the transport's armour? But if you do that then it would be tougher than a BS. . Therein lies a problem.

Secondly, the first few mission where you discovered the Rogue base, somehow the weapon platforms have almost zero armour. Which means one more shot and its destroyed. Well it happens to me everytime I am in that mission so I need more people to confirm this. Don't know if its just me.

Thirdly here's how I play my game. I don't do trade runs, I just play the game for the story and I would hold out doing some of the official missions just to get money but not by much. I would continue to use my Startracker untill the mission BEFORE you meet Juni at California minor but after the first mission, I immediately buy a level 10 medium shield with order thruster and an advanced countermeasure. To me, this is adequate and I could kill Rogues left and right without worry. Then I would buy a Dagger (I like light fighters) before meeting Juni at California minor. I would sell all my Justice guns and buy 4 eliminators. That's it. So my load would be 4 eliminators, advanced countermeasure dropper, level 10 medium fighter shields and Order thruster. With this load I could kill Rogues without problem and not worry about my shields. This is only tested untill the escort mission. Heh, since I can't pass that in beta2.3.

Lastly, there is a way to beat BS in PvP using fighters but needs 2 people. One of them continuously rams the BS so that it gets thrown around and therefore can't fire properly while the other guy shoots without worry. Heh. good eh?

Waah i want the server back up.

I hate it when i have nothing to do on a saturday afternoon.

Reynen,

Just a quick note. Sorry I did not log back in after one of the server crashes yesterday, but here in Australia it was coming up on saturday night and I had to work all night. I was actually typing just such a message when it did crash.

I hope the testing went well and will catch you on your server some time soon.

Lastly, gotta love your continued dedication to this project. Thanks again.

Tarrax

Sorry about the server being down, I am testing beta 4 out. Decided to work on it Making very good progress so far Alot of changes going in.

BTW someone mentioned cloaking to me, has anyone figured out how to add cloaking to the game yet? Or at least give me some advice on it and I'll see if I can figure it out for you all.

Have a happy easter

Part of the Freelancer SDK Team
http://www.homebs.com/flsdk/
Tutorials, Utilties, Mods, and much more.

Maybe if possible could you list most of these "major changes"?

Happy Easter Everyone!

Reynen, I think you should be aware of a problem I was going to tell you about yesterday. Currently with the battleships the weapons tend to intersect at a point less than 100 or 200 meters away from the ship. Once they intersect they spread out in a way that shooting at anything further than the intersect point is useless. Right now I think this is because of the fact that they aren't actual battleship weapons. I've used bs mods in the past that used the real battleship turrets and I had no problems shooting things down at range.

And it isn't a very happy easter this year.

Khaos:

Sorry your not having a good easter Well you should be happy in known I am completely redoing BS weapons in beta 4. Here are a few screenshots of what I have in store for you guys.









Part of the Freelancer SDK Team
http://www.homebs.com/flsdk/
Tutorials, Utilties, Mods, and much more.

Edited by - Reynen on 21-04-2003 03:47:30

Oooh Oooh Ooh i want the liberty Cruiser.

The nomad Battleship looks like it could get owned by my Valkyrie

Hi all, thanks for the speedy reply Reynen, I will be trying your suggestions for loadout today, and will let you know how I get on
and as iMax said " I want the cruiser " its looking good

Happy Easter to you all..

hello im new to the site, iv downloaded the mod and it all works fine exept that i cant buy the battleships. Iv gone to the Battleship Mississippi and California Minor. but there is no option to buy a battleship from the dealer. plz help because i realy want a battleship.

i r happy homer

Wow, those Pics look great Reynen!! Keep up the great work, and enjoy your easter!!!!