Sounds like a mod. Never seen any such thing in the FL game myself.

Good to hear someone talk about Neaural Net... Well my friend... You see the Freelancer that we play is not quite the original Freelancer the developers envisioned. There were lots of other things that were to be "added" to Freelancer. They were even thinking of making a really massive multiplayer online add-on to Freelancer. The thing is , while Freelancer was being developed, there were lots of internal strugles between Digital Anvil and Microsoft. Microsoft wanted less in game, Digital Anvil wanted more. Chris Roberts the one that started it all, known for the Wing Commander series, left the company cause of this divergences. So basically its this.. Neural Net is one of the things they wanted in the game. In fact you have some features of Neaural Net inside, but most of them didnt get in game.

the original concept was to POSSIBLY give you the option to pilot the ship in combat
but with the afore mentioned struggles resignations and time what we have is almost a different game

Here is the text i found on Lancer News.com
"Freelancer Ship Control
It's amazing, but understandable, the amount of misconception about controlling ships in Freelancer that goes around these days. Here we squash some of the rumors and attempt to explain to the limits of our ability exactly how this thing works.



Mouse Control?
This is probably the main thing people have problems with. Yes, Freelancer's primary control method will be through the use of the mouse. Yes, you can use a joystick. No, it won't be better than using a mouse.

If you've played a multiplayer space sim, you've undoubtedly noticed by now that most dogfights end up with two players flying circles around each other trying to get into each other's turn radius. While a select few might enjoy this, it's safe to say most of us don't. This is where Freelancer comes in.

All basic navigation and flight control is done through the ship's onboard computer, called the Neuronet. For instance, getting on a ship's tail and following will require only that you click on the ship to select it, and then click on the "follow" Neuronet icon. Then, depending on the quality of the Neuronet, your ship will match the target's speed and velocity, and track it. Doing this will free up the actual task of flying the ship, and will let the player concentrate on firing the guns at the target's engines, shields, weapons, or any other important section.

Note that this *doesn't* mean that the player won't be able to control the ship directly. Small adjustments to the velocity and course can be made while still letting the Neuronet pilot, or, if preferred, complete control of the ship's direction can be taken by pressing down and holding the Control key.

Of course, this won't allow you to concentrate as much on taking down the enemy ship, so Neuronet control will probably be more desirable.



So, what is the pilot's role?
People have also expressed worries on whether the use of a Neuronet will take away any need for tactics and strategies, and most importantly, gameplay.

It won't.

The player will still have to decide what strategies to use against an enemy ship, when to evade, follow, adjust velocity, etc. The player also completely controls the guns and armament. Moving the cursor across the huds moves the guns. You will still have to do all of the targetting of various ship subsystems, and aiming. Tracking and firing on a moving target's shield generator at high velocity while performing complex maneuvers sounds like much more fun that flying in circles.

Many people have compared their understanding of the flight system to that of an RTS. This is just plain wrong, and if you've read through the above, you'll clearly see why. "

This is what I was refering about.

i use the goddamn mouse cause the nueronet sucks balls.

it stops u too far from the tradelanes of any other thing and it does not use the thrusters
and if u r following some1 and they r using the thrusters the nueronet will wait until they r far enough away then charge up the cruise engines then catch up and fall behind again.
i hate it!

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

Umm, wolf. That is not quite what they are talking about. From what I read you *were* going to beable to just select an enemy ship and more or less let the computer fly your ship into postion behind it and make sure you stay there. This would be interesting to see happen, esspecially if you were able to program your computer with your own custom evasive manuvers. But thanks to microsoft we have exactly what they said the game wouldn't be, flying in cirlces trying to shoot each other.

~ DaVoid, Expert Star Diver

Its a shame microsoft where able to get their meet hook in to this wonderful game. The neural net is good and is a very importent part of the game. It allows you to review your mission goals infomation about anthing and everything and where you stand with other factions, while traveling to way points to take out pesky rouges. God bless the neural net!

I think Microsoft did us a favor by cutting back the Neural net. Would you want to go into autopilot in a dogfight? Flying arround and dodging is half the fun! The rest is just clicking on the ship to fire! If I wanted clicking, I'll play minesweeper. Plus, what if you're on the defensive? I dobt there would have been an "Evade" maneuver, and you would have lacked the practice and ended up being blown out of the stars. --- RR16

Whoever came up with "Mission Commision" should be lined up and shot