SERIOUS FREELANCER Definiciencies that no one seems to care

Fri Jul 11, 2003 5:52 pm by elite37

Hello - been playing the game for a few weeks now and despite the many things Freelancer does right there are a LOT of things that are done WRONG:

1) Why do all the ships have the SAME MAX SPEEDS??? This is COMPLETELY unacceptable and ridiculous!

2) Why are the space fights so friggin UN-REALISTIC??? The enemies shields get depleted and do not regenerate? Their hulls dont get repaired and I can use nano-bots and shield batteries? This makes it seem like a kid's game. They should have made space fights a lot more brutal and more rewarding. Killing someone should be as hard as it is to kill you, other than them having an AI control the ship, which is where your skill comes in. Right now you win through the fact that the enemies ships SUCK and dont even recharge shields!

3) Why couldn't they learn from Tachyon and implement a more realistic space flying with the ship able to rotate like in tachyon? Using the mouse makes it seem like 2-d fighting not 3-d. Tachyon was an amazing game with *PERFECT* joystick/keyboard inferface and should have been copied.

4) The game is BUGGY like hell! I am running Win2K, Geforce 4 Ti4400, latest drivers and updates. The game CRASHES HARD if I try to exit, I have to use alt-tap to cycle thru apps to exit and then kill it with task manager for the computer not to hang. Also various sound/graphics glitches sprinkled throughout the game: Unacceptable!

I am an old school space sim player, played original Elite, wing commanders, privateer, terminus, Tachyon.. I gotta say that Tachyon was one awesome game as far as space fights/control goes. The tachyon space combat was amazing, the story and space travel was too restricted. If only we could take the best of tachyon and port it into the freelancer universe - it would be one hell of a game! Tachyon was right on with ship diversity and balance. Freelancer falls flat on its face with its child-like ship balance system. Same max speed for ships is COMPLETELY unacceptable it really ticks me off! Anyone else feel the same way?

Fri Jul 11, 2003 6:01 pm by Pinger

Yes like everyone else that thought the same when the game was released in april, but have moved on to enjoy the online experience.

if you just bought the game and have a returns period then return it if not bin the game and move on, if not play and enjoy.

Fri Jul 11, 2003 6:05 pm by Puke Barwalker

In two months or so of playing with Freelancer off and on, it has crashed precisely ONE time. Not buggy on my machine.

p.s. Look through the old posts and you'll find a lot of people caref about the deficiencies!

Juni: "Trent, we've got to go faster!"

Fri Jul 11, 2003 6:10 pm by Fear Factor

*Yawn* Old stuff. Must. Not. Fall. Asleep.

Return the game to the shop and get a new space sim, if it bothers you that much. The people you see here are fans who stuck with the game despite all those "flaws", if you can call them flaws at all, or even BECAUSE of them!

Fri Jul 11, 2003 6:44 pm by NukeIt

Only crashed once...and that was because my ISP bombed.

Otherwise...FL is not a traditional space sim, it's more like a shooter with spacecraft. If it's a true "old-school" simulator you want, you want another game. Simple as that.

Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless

Fri Jul 11, 2003 7:09 pm by Imagine

I'm just hoping that some good mod will address the realism...

And God said,
E=mC²
And there was light.

Edited by - Imagine on 11-07-2003 20:09:24

Fri Jul 11, 2003 7:23 pm by Frobozz

I read in an interview that some FL elements were inspired by Tachyon.

I agree (& most here concur) about the lack of a Joystick option.
Whether you like sticks or not, the OPTION shoulda been there.

Anyone who's played Tachyon knows just what you're talking about.
I DL'ed the StarLancer demo & promptly uninstalled it... spoiled by Slide.

FL isn't perfect, but for a MS product... could be worse. Much worse.
It'll grow on you. I'm waiting for FreeSpace III, maybe the genre needs a boost.

The bugs, no, I think you've got some issues. FL just has a sound card bug, AFAIK.

"Got anything for me?" - Trent, A.K.A. 'Mr. Eloquent'

Fri Jul 11, 2003 7:27 pm by Smeghead

Elite37, I suggest you try the Rebalance MOD that should address some of the issues you are complaining about.

As far as I know there have only been a few space sims with newtonian flight models, Tachyon had a partial one, the two I-War games were newtonian and the now cancelled Babylon 5 game also was.

Most games have a simplified flight model. Like yourself I have played Elite, Wing Commanders 1,2,3,4 and Prophecy, Freespace 1 and 2, Space Rangers, Tachyon and other sims.

The Rebalance mod has varying top speeds as well as allowing you to buy uprated powerplants, sensors and so on. There are battleship killing missions, enemy ships shields recharge as well as a lot of other features.

Fri Jul 11, 2003 10:20 pm by Nickless V2

Definiciencies What's that word?

ERROR

Fri Jul 11, 2003 11:57 pm by Sirius

I posted a thread just like this. Why don't you reply to a post, rather than give us some OLD news

Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:48 am by Godlike Entity

ok first thing...if you dont like the game why come to a fansite and rant about it, its not like we can do anything about it, and yes there are definatly similar threads so try and find one (using forum search) before just posting another one. Last some of the replys to this thread are clearly meaningless, you should reply only if you thing you can add something intelligent to the discussion (I dont mean to sound all high and mighty, I guess I'm just a little pissed off right now...:/)

Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:48 am by Djay

i don't proclaim to be any kind of expect on the matter but, in regards to the max speed issue?!?!, if you are on a planet then atmospheres/gravity would be why bigger object move slower or require bigger engines to maintain a speed compared to say.. a jet, this is also true for all other objects on earth (yes, no maybe???)...

anyway... if you are in space there in no atmosphere/gravity/people playing freelancer online (ermm.. yes), thus there is no resistance to the object you are trying to move, but it would take move effort to actually start a bigger object moving and smaller amount of effort to maker a smaller object move (acceleration)... but maintaining a top-speed is relative to how much fuel the engine burns...

i might be completely wrong here... so no flaming

Is it the new Elite?

Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:51 am by Djay

the unmodded game has never crashed on my WinXP pro, P4 2ghz, 640MB, Geforce 4 128MB beast of a commodore 64, whoops... i mean PC

Is it the new Elite?

Sat Jul 12, 2003 12:59 am by Djay

call me a crap gamer (doubtful as i've been a hardcore games player for over 15 years), but being able to collect nanobots and shield generators is bloody handy after a battle, and i'm sometimes thankfull when i can tractor them up, i put it down to the AI pilots are spending too much time trying to kill me than worrying about repairing their ship...

i'm sure you will have had the occasion when an AI pilot zooms out of range, well maybe that would have been a good time for them to concentrate on ship repair, but this would on happen with AI pilots over level 15..???

Is it the new Elite?

Sat Jul 12, 2003 1:07 am by Djay

and another thing.... LOL

on the joystick/real fight dynamics front... knowing Microsoft (bless 'em), i would of thought that they would demanded FL to be very accessible to softcore gamers, making the control method very simple, i have been used to invert mouse controls on FPS, for ages and it took me a while to get used to the mouse moving the ship the wrong way (or, indeed the right way)... but i now play all mousey games in non-invert control... strange!!!

adding joystick control, may have also confused(?) newbies when trying to crapple with a joystick and press buttons at the same time, we have all been spoilt with PSX gamepads, mouse and keyboard seems more natural to me when playing this type of game (as it did with Frontier)

Is it the new Elite?

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