Today we release the 4th update for Discovery Freelancer 4.86. This release has taken somewhat longer than hoped largely due to my tardiness at completing aspects of the work.
As always, thank you to all of the development team, in particular Aeternus and Xoria for their work on fixing many bugs in models, systems and the economy. This update is massive and this update is double the size of the last update.
We expect to make one more minor update in the 4.86 series to fix any issues that show up but most of the development team's attention has now turned to 4.87. We have picked a release date and although I am not ready to share this publicly we will do everything possible to meet this date.
What's changed?
Many many model and system bugs have been fixed. Although we probably have not found all of the NPC bugs that result in crashes we think we've found and fixed most of them.
The ship equipment system has changed. All equipment including externally mounted guns uses cargo space. Some ships have been given slightly more cargo space to accommodate this. This change allows us to balance ships, guns and new equipment types in unique ways.
The shield system has been modified to support the mounting of hyperspace jumpdrives, hyperspace survey modules, docking modules in specialist shield slots. Cloaking devices are mountable in the countermeasure slots. Note that although various types of module can be mounted in these slots, your ship might not be able to use the equipment if its power plant is too small.
Player built and controlled bases are now available. These can be built anywhere by anybody and players can control their diplomacy based on ship names. A warning though, they require a lot of effort to maintain as they need crew, spare parts and fuel to survive. Space is dangerous. More info: here and here.
Cloaking devices, jumpdrives and survey modules are manufactured and buyable from player bases. These three modules need fuel to operate and in general the better the module the more fuel it requires. The largest jumpdrive requires fuel ships to supply the jumping ship as it is charging its drive. Also this equipment has a small but non-zero probability of being destroyed on ship death. It is important to maintain good a relationship with a faction who can supply your ship with replacement units.
The mobile docking module software has been disabled in this update as it is buggy. We expect to fix this within the next month. Docking modules can be manufactured but they can't be used for now.
Almost all planets have been given a slow spin and all suns now have a layered deathzone. There is 2km of low damage, then you die quite quickly.
The jump hole between Connecticut and New York has been removed. To get to Connecticut, dock at a base, remove all of your cargo, type /conn and undock. To return from Connecticut, dock, type /return and undock. Thanks to MadHunter for writing this plugin.
Faction reputations and empathy settings having been updated to better reflect the storyline and fix issues reported by players.
NPC-missions have been updated to make the NPC ships fly smarter and provide something of a more realistic challenge.
The installer has been updated to support non-English Freelancer copies and the Cyrillic patch for Windows 7 is included by default.
The full list of changes is in the post below and the readme when you install the game.
As always, these changes are tentative and if they don't work, are not balanced well or have other problems we will change the changes until we find a better balance.
How to install?
If you have NOT DOWNLOADED AND INSTALLED Discovery Freelancer 4.86 then CLICK ME
Please read the instructions and download and install it. You can not upgrade an existing 4.85 installation.
If the automatic update does not work, the update can be downloaded manually from here. Unzip the contents of this directory inside your Discovery Freelancer installation.
If you are a server operator and are not in contact with other Discovery server operators, please post in the Other Servers section of this forum to obtain help or go to http://the-starport.net.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
We've had a little technical issue. If you had trouble upgrading in the last 10 minutes, wait for 5 minutes and try again. If you still have trouble, quit Freelancer and run the dsupdate.exe program in your Discovery Freelancer directory.
Proud member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
- Installer updated to support non-English Freelancer copies.
- Infocard updates for objects, NPCs and IDs.
- Tweaked the capital ship AI so the mission capital ships won't stick in a tight formation throughout the mission. They will break and attack individually in missions only, periodically doing some mild evasive maneuvers too.
- Updated to include Cyrillic patch for windows 7.
- Corrected a hardpoint issue with a prop object. Seems a vanilla glitch.
- Corrected an invalid lootcrate appearance. Probably a typo.
- Updated a few internal infocards - these are the names assigned to ship hardpoints on the ship interface. IE "Freighter Shield Class10" is now "Battleship Shield". Mainly done to prevent a lot of confusion when the lesser shield hardpoints ...
- Added and changed the dock cam and launch cam for the Bret Battleship - the old positions were horrible.
- Minor adjustment to the encounters, and removing an unused encounter template that's never going to be used (Kusari capital ships - Exiles do not use battleship patrols).
- Adjusted fighter loadouts: Reduced the amount of countermeasures in the ships hold. A lot of ships had 20 basic countermeasures, reduced to 4 to prevent clutter in space. NPCs don't tend to use these anyway.
- Adjustments to the Kusari capital ship encounters to include the battlecruiser.
- Rebalanced Slaves profit margins.
- Fixed a few light hardpoints and recentered some other hardpoints on lane nodes. Should improve functionality of the Sirian lane, and visual of the gallic lane.
- Partial for ticket 224 - Created a lot of NPC ship templates and loadouts, for all factions that have gunboats and bigger capital ships. Moved all capital ship loadouts to the loadouds_special file. Also moved some loadouts for battleships.
- Small fix to the Tridente package file. It was missing docklight mounts.
- Bugfix to a vanilla model's shiparch entry (shieldlink) - bug found using Cannon's scanning utility.
- Rebalanced Artifacts & Cardamine profits.
- Switched the infocard names for the 2 Planet Lyons docking rings, which were accidentally reversed.
- Fixing a few misaligned hardpoints.
- Slightly moved engine hardpoint to improve how the engine effect displays.
- Slightly tweaked asteroid field asteroid spawning locations to correct FLSpew errors about creating a roid that already existed, or deleting one that does not exist.
- Fix for Corsair Ossies drop no loot. Missiongrinders are unhappy. Changed the _NL version to the player version for the NPC ship instance.
- BS in Rousillion should be redemption, not Valor. Swapped out the object archetype and loadout to the Redemption. Tested in openSP, no issues found.
- TLAGsnet adjusted. GRP has TLAGSNET in Burgundy and Dauphine.
- Texture issue in the Uruz model. Also recentered the model and recreated the SUR after centering. Tested in openSP, no issues found.
- SUR adjustment after the model was altered (and recentered as a result). Centering issue, no resize was done.
- Bugfix to the Anki. Also sorted out some texture issues and compressed the texture files into a single file for the entire line - no need to have the same textures across 3 seperate files. Also ensured these texture names are un...
- Fixed a spelling bug to the vanilla Valkyrie infocard.
- Docking fixture on Toulouse didn't have it's reputation set. Fixed.
- Eliminated the location rumors for the Shetland, where you can buy it's location. The Shetland no longer exists as that object.
- Adjusted ship inventory of Beauvais - removed junker vessels from the EFL base and added some Gallic Civvy ones.
- Changed TLagsnet entry for GRP from Provence to Auvergne. Provence doesn't have gates or lanes. Auvergne has both.
- Corrected a faulty texture reference for the "Green Water" planet.
- Changes to Dabadorou station NPC population.
- Fixing several root mesh name collisions - this should for example fix the Touketsu appearing as a Mastodon.
- Corrections to the Hellfire Legion system and bases therein, supplied by Taneru. Mostly deals with the NPC entries for that faction, which were a bit of a mess.
- Corrected several issues with missing hardpoints being assigned equipment.
- Fix for Pachyderme docking lights not oriented properly.
- Rheinland battleship default loadout light hardpoint issue. Fixed one hardpoint missing a light assigned to it. Also changed the hardpoint orientation.
- Synth foods would like to be able to run missions from the bases they primarily use: Stuttgart and Los Angeles. Added them to the mission roster for those bases, although the missions won't be very high level.
- Converted the jump drive and docking modules into mountable equipment for fighter/elite shield types 1 and 2. These shield hardpoints have been added to various ship types.
- Added Bretonia cockpits.
- Fixed invalid rep settings.
- Removed addition '.' character.
- Nicknames to lower case to stop the new scanner bitching.
- order ided ships powerplant reduced to 81% when mounting corsair guns ( to avoid tizona fighters)
- corrected wrong engine on GMS SHF
- Corrected hitbox for the Fearless after reports that it was not working properly.
- Rebalanced Gallic passenger prices.
- Docking, jump and survey modules become equipment types mounted on shield hardpoints
- Ticket 736: Some weapon platforms in the lanes in Dauphine and Languedoc. Removed some of those, relocated others. Platforms are probably unneeded now that the lanes themselves have adequate turret defenses.
- Fixed a silly bug with an OC dread guarding the Cayman O47 hole - it had a "weapon platform" loadout. Set it to a proper one.
- Fixed Gallic luxury liner docking issues.
- Small adjustment to Hamburg: The second Frankfurt hole was outside the Wedel roidfield. Corrected this by extending the roidfield.
- Shield perimiter fix, part 1. Model shield hardpoints added so that radius bubbles can cover the entire model.
- Reverted technerf to 0.91 from 1.0 for all allies guns. Updated MM and Reaver technerf based on most recent information and ruling.
- Additional huge shield geometry defined. This is specifically for the Barge, so it can be nova'd.
- Synth Foods ID: Added sale point at Los Angeles.
- Toplita NPC population (junker) was using LSF uniforms. Corrected.
- Sancerre: Scrap field overlapping trade lane, exclusion zone adjusted.
- Miningmod tweak: Helium3 price at South Shields halved, additional high buy point added at Southampton. Reason: Pirates robbing folk in Tau 31 and selling at South Shields at full price, undesired behaviour.
- Sancerre mining base component misalignment fixed.
- Massive update to virtually all system files. File structures sorted for easier future editing. Light sources tied to their owning suns, they were not on the star in many cases. All planets given a weak rotation and tilt.
- Changed Good Sell/Bad Buy to 1.1 for all Jump Drive and Survey Modules so they don't show up in the list of commodities purchased at the base in the F9 window. It was as annoying as it was useless.
- Fixed Kusari Big Dragon infocard xml errors
- Removed KNF bribe from Planet New Paris. Removed GRN bribes everywhere. Whoops, forgot that my template didn't distinguish GRN from any other faction when mbases entries were initially created.
- Fixed Saint Paul Base F9 infocard
- Fixed a loadout issue involving the council BS gun.
- Removed name change certificates from sale. Ticket 730.
- Gallic docking rings and mooring fixtures aligned to planets.
- Solar deathzones made into dual layer
- Planets given a spin for visual ambience.
- General economy price adjustments
- Moved Sigma 59 to Sigma 17 jump hole 3k east to eliminate trade path shortcuts thru S59
- Removed the "civilian pilot" demand for lawfuls. It was causing navies to demand them from unallied players.
- Corrected 2 non-unique zone nicknames causing crashes in Leeds
- Texture fix to the Renzu liner. Also removed an obsolete and problem creating MAT reference from it's shiparch entry.
- Paladin model, minor corruption fix and hardpoint fix.
- Adjusted Freiburg area - moved the base out of the way from the Stuttgart/Koeln lanes.
- Fixed some issues in Tau44 with base components and NPC names not being GRN
- AI Drone hitbox replaced
- All planets given a spin
- All suns given a layered deathzone - 2K of low damage, then you die quite quickly
- Factions that have capital ships have those equipped with an NPC loadout, for both missions and capital ship patrols
- Adjusted mission logic. Bigger reward missions are now available for daring players who enjoy fighting capital NPCs
- Adjusted capital ship pilot logic. They won't hold back with their primaries and solaris anymore. They will also break formation in missions, engaging individually. Should make them more challenging
- Reduced hitbox complexity of capital ship/station turrets and several high-poly capital ships, to help combat lag
- Tweaked the texturing of the Renzu fighter line. It had some conflicts with legacy textures
- Lightsources (for pimpship and NPC ship package design): Expanded all colors to have all types (strobe, big lights, small lights etc).
- Fixed some issues with the Marauder model being off-center
- Adjusted Pelican ship package - lights weren't all being applied
- Adjusted Sirian jump gate docking sequence to prevent big transports from getting stuck on them
- Corrected exclusion zone around the Frankfurt hole in Dresden
- Corrected exclusion zone around Helgoland in Sigma 13
- Applied some heavier defenses to Omega 5, on both sides. Cruiser defense near the bases, and gunboat patrols in the Hammen hole
- Increased exclusion zone size around Newgate after reports that transports would sometimes undock into the mines. Also put a banner exclusion for that zone, so mines don't appear to be there and then disappear
- Adjusted NPC spawning around Newgate to prevent NPCs from getting stuck.
- Fixed a misaligned component for the Maquis base in Rousillion
- Loadout adjustments to a lot of NPCs. This should fix SPEW errors referring to items not being found, and reduce clutter in space.
- Removed Conneticut/NY jumphole. Transfer will be handled by a hook plugin.
- Many changes to the Frankfurt system. Should hopefully make that more pleasant and make it feel fuller.
- Fixed the animation script of the Manufacturing Platform model (industrial base component, with the 3 chimneys). It won't jerk it's rotating component every 30 seconds.
- Fixed reps between Kusari Exiles and the Bretonian folk. KuEx going hostile will no longer trigger Brets going hostile.
- Moved Nagasaki a fair distance from Stokes - just barely out of range of it's main weapons. This should allow people to safely dock/undock from that base.
- Several Gallic systems: Minimap updates to paint nebulas with the proper color.
- Tau 44: A few GRN NPCs were not in uniform, fixed
- Provence: A few UC NPCs were mislabeled as Brigands. Fixed.
- A few CR infocards were displaying the formatting code due to errors in the formatting. Fixed.
- Asco hitbox: Adjusted the crosshair location to be in the middle of the "fat" part of it. Should make aiming by crosshair on these boats a lot easier.
- Dublin: Adjusted encounters, put in some limitations to them. Also added a third gold field and adjusted the sizes of the other two.
- Omega 49: Limitations to the number of NPCs areas can spawn. Also toned down the level of NPCs in the area (18 -> 16).
- Touraine/Anjou jumphole restricted to fighters and freighters. It was creating an unwanted trade shortcut.
- Ship and equipment sold in Tau-117 altered at the request of the Wilde faction to blend more with the new natives.
- Fixed a bug with a planetsphere raduis not being set correctly. Affects planet Chateauroux in Berry.
- Fixed a number of guns that weren't set as nonlootable but should be. Affects Phantom, a few Guard guns and a bunch of transport and cap turrets.
- Nomad light fighters couldn't do 400m/s. Had to define a new engine for them since practically all Nomad fighters use the same engine. Affects Nomad LF and Morph.
- Adjusted cargo-to-scan-for to not demand pilots not belonging to a faction or direct allies. Else you get stuff like BHG shooting LPI.
- Zoner Whale power core swapped out with the standard transport power core. This'll allow it to fire a heavy CM while in cruise.
Proud member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
Quote:Cloaking devices, jumpdrives and survey modules are manufactured and buyable from player bases. These three modules need fuel to operate and in general the better the module the more fuel it requires. The largest jumpdrive requires fuel ships to supply the jumping ship as it is charging its drive. Also this equipment has a small but non-zero probability of being destroyed on ship death. It is important to maintain good a relationship with a faction who can supply your ship with replacement units.
YES
And no.
First base will be extremely popular I reckon.
Great work cannon thanks for not leaving due to extreme douchebag pressure from impatient people.
Oh my god....... This update is... just, FREAKING AWESOME. Been sat here reading all the changes in the new update and the dev's and everyone who helped make the update have done an amazing job! Well done guys for keeping the awesome game Freelancer Alive =D