It's not that noone has thought of it...plenty of people have thought of it...But noone knows how to add animation to models, so all parts of a model are static except for weapons. If you added a mech, it would just be a giant box flying around space, there would be no animation of any kind. It has been talked about that we could turn its head into a weapon so it could pivot, but that would look a bit silly and the "head" could then be mounted on other ships unless you use the goods.ini trick which tends to throw errors to the Freelancer console.

... Aaaaand the freelancer enigne wouldn't work on some of the cooler setups for them

Hmmmm.......

What if....

The actual model of the ship is the body of the robot, which would probably resemble a box. Then, you simply utilize the 20 or so classes that freelancer has to restrict certain "heads" and "legs" and other armaments to certain classes of robots. Thus, when you buy aa "Destoyer X-01" robot, you can mount up to 3 different heads on it, legs, and arms, along with other optional things, like missile launchers on the "shoulders". Then if you wanted to upgrade your arm you just sell it and replace it with a different one. Legs could be engines or thrusters, but that is up to the robot designer. Likewise, heads could be required to launch if you want, but you should be able to launch even without a head, arms, and legs because the actual control room would be in the body. But again, that is up to the mod designer.

I see a new mod in here.... Somebody should get a mod team together for this.

Edited by - Blackhole on 5/16/2006 12:32:28 AM

I have all the parts of a mech sitting on my comp right now, actually. Just haven't had time to finish it and release it, and the guy who sent it to me doesn't know enough to do it himself.

And, I think I might be able to animate things. More on this when I'm done testing. It won't be state-driven animation- just static, looping stuff. But I think it can be done.

That, my friend, would be sweet

Edited by - Blackhole2001 on 10/16/2005 10:47:19 AM

Hmm I was Thinking the same thing on that a few months ago, just never had the time to implement it. The Way I was thinking was duping the game into thinking thery were turrets, that never had any firing or properties they just moved the only static part would be the actual torso. then in that way one could actualy get the different parts to move about. Ie the arms would move ect the legs would rotate independent of the torso ect.

IE: k im using crud ASCII so Bear with me.


............. O < Head A seperate "gun" think in terms of a special weapon
.........(0)TTT(0) < Arm Seperate Gun Entity (think in terms of the Battle ship)
..........A. TT A
..........V.HHH V < legs and torso would be again a seperate "gun" that moves
............ll ll
............ll ll

There the torso would be the "ship" that way one could dup the rest of the parts into being arms and legs. now when I say think interms of the battle ship I meant the turret, it has two pivot points the barrel and the base. Im working on how this works .... but then at the end of the day make a whole bunch of models and you could make it so that one could customize ones ride ... grin....

oh also make sure that the arm entity has another point for HP_weapon ect

I hope some one actualy understands what I'm getting at here.

So, would the arms be the guns? the head actually wouldn't have to move. The cockpit could be either in the head or torso. It'd be WAY cooler if it were the head and the windows looked like eyes...but then you wouldn't be able to see in cockpit veiw...
Maybe there is some way of making the inside different from the outside? It's like that with battleships.

Anyways, it would be tiny and painfully maneuverable. That would make of for only having 2 guns.

Although, if the cockpit were in the torso, the head could be the turret. There could be a turret on its back as well, and on the feet. That would add a few guns.
Also, shouldn't this be in the modding sforum?

hi folks, I'm new to the forum too, and I did post something in another forum, but to date no one appears interested so I've deleted it.

However, I've played Freelancer ever since it's release and I've noticed several things, e.g: Holman outpost, Glasgow Outpost plus other outpost of that design, if one views them from different angles, the upper portion resembles a head, the windows appears as eyes, the lower portion appears to resemble the the rear section of a Wasp / Hornet, the centre section being the wings from the front / rear view, whilst the side view the upper and mid section looks like a tank, the end ports resembling wheels.

My question is could it not be possible to modify these outposts as some form of Mech. ?

Edited by - phileditin on 5/17/2006 8:35:42 AM

maniaks.... =))

The whole modular idea of head, legs, arms aounds great and all, but if they're listed as weapons won't they showup on the HUD while in flight? (that just seems odd to me) Also what would one do with mines? (not that I used them much anyway) Although IF this does work, why not also apply the idea to normal ships. Buy a separate cockpit, wing, engine, fin, fueselage, et cetera. My other qusetion is how fast will these things go? Giving them cruise engines and thrusters just seems odd. Also they should probably be able to strafe more quickly than other ships.

Hey people im back and some of the ideas are great, id love to see them in action. It would totaly change freelancer. Keep up the good work. Oh and with the cruise and thrusters thing, please tell me u have seen something like gundam wing, where they have thrusters on the back. I would sure love a gundam on freelancer

Edited by - J Wildy on 6/4/2006 2:45:16 PM

is this page for newbies, because i have just read this page and didn't undstand much of it.

Eh, you gotta love ( or been hooked by) either Battletech or the Gundam saga- with Armored Core a real close third-then it all makes a bit more sense. Got mine by all three, so I'd love to see something like this- IF it could be made to work..

Maybe by basing it on a Capital ship framework? Then, you could have a turret on a turret( for example) for a weapon mounted on an arm

Btw- Armored core,imo, most closely matches the format due to the fact that you can modify your machine how you want it- i.e, head,torso,legs, etc- but what I know of coding could be stuffed into a flea with lotsa room for, say, the Deathstar.....