Freelancer Modding Tutorials

[Dusty Lens]

= Index of Tools and Tutorials =

By LA-384 - Rendering with Milkshape and such.

Female Dealers/Bartenders - MarvinCZ

By kingvaillant

I've started editing and creating systems myself recently, and as I'm using the same program that most of you are using - Freelancer Explorer - I guess it's worth to mention a few points that should not be forgotten.

First of all, a general point - Freelancer Explorer is far from ideal. Even though FLExplorer often seems very convenient and easy to use, you'll still edit many things manually. So,..

New system = shortest_illegal_path.ini, systems_shortest_path.ini and universe.ini generated by FL Explorer + Separate folder in \Universe\Systems\ with .inis for system itself, bases and rooms + Jump holes from other systems, entries in other system .inis + Infocards.

1) Object Placement

Explorer does not allow you to move objects by Z axis, down and up. I don't insist on making a totally 3d systems, this will be too unlike original systems, but adding a bit of 3d touch will be nice as original systems are generally 2d. So you'll have to add depth to objects manually.

How you make 3d object placement look nice and logical? Easy. First of all, do not make bases and settled planets too far away from Z=0. If you do, make sure to give clues how to get to them.

Placing large solars, like suns and planets, far below other solars will make navigation confusing. Players are used to the fact that objects are all in one plane. Imagine a planet 50k above Manhattan for example. Nice? Yes, but if you never dogfight above Manhattan or nearby you'll never even see it. Generally objects that are down from player and up from player are not seen. Solution? Move those objects to remote places of the system.

2) Zones

What if you create a sun in FLExplorer and move it 8 km above Z=0? Well, fine, but don't forget to move death zone along with it.

Note about asteroid field+nebula objects (like Badlands, or many ice clouds). I've read that placing two ellipsoids in one place causes crashes. So I usually move centers of two objects some 50 units away from each other (for example, one is 40000, -4000, -70000; another is 40050, -4000, -70050).

3) System Size

Don't make large Border and Edge World systems! Better make smaller more dense one, with more objects etc., that's why players love existing Border Worlds.

4) Sun(s)

Don't forget death zones.

Add rings to sun if you wish. The good way to do this is to place a ringed planet inside a star (I'm not absolutely sure if it works, but it should).

Take care when creating multiple suns. A red giant near a blue dwarf may be astronomically explainable. But it doesn't look very good in most environments.

5) Planets

Do not add spin. I'll make a standalone Spinning Planets mod for Discovery. The spin should be low, like original planets.

Rings? rings are good, but when adding them you'd better check if the ring .ini you are going to use has 2nd entry for what the ring contains. Otherwise flying through your ring will be an annoying experience - for example, a lava.ini ring looks like a transparent plastic disc that you can fly through. On the other hand, rings like Fuchu.ini and Ross.ini contain asteroids within.

Ring angle is a major problem, I was unable to figure out how to make it exactly the way I want. I suggest using angles from existing rings and test, sooner or later you'll find the version that you like.

6) Bases

That's where you should use FLExplorer as much as you can. Lazy to add all NPCs with custom names? Copy existing base NPCs and rooms in FLExplorer. There's nothing too bad about it, however don't forget that copying planet rooms into a base is a bad habit, and vice versa. Wanna window with LA cityscape in commodity trading room of a remote asteroid base ? Well, if you explain how these guys live in a matrix...

To make a real good base, however, you'll need custom NPC names, rumors and descriptions. Read further for additional explanation on infocards.

Base = universe.ini entry + (separate .ini within your system folder + rooms, at least 2 room .inis should be present) + mBases.ini entry + market_ships.ini, _commodities.ini, _misc.ini + optional nebula and asteroid fields .inis.

For \Interface\InfocardMap.ini

7) Nebulas and asteroid fields

That's a complicated part.

Nebula/field entries are found in primary system .ini file, like all other objects. But these objects will need new .ini files that will be located in \Solar\Asteroids or \Solar\Nebula. Or both, if you are making a nebula+asteroid field (which is good).

There must be two sections for each nebula/field in system .ini file - [Asteroids] or [Nebula] and [Zone]. [Zone] in system .ini file determine size, placement of the nebula zone and encounters within. [Asteroids] or [Nebula] is located in the beginning of the file, there you should provide a link between a zone and nebula/field separate .ini file. Like this

[Asteroids]
file = solar\asteroids\Ys01_Your_ice_asteroid_field.ini
zone = Zone_Ys01_Your_ice_asteroid_field

If the Ys01_Your_ice_asteroid_field.ini file does not exist or if the zone does not exist, you'll get crashes when trying to get to new system.

Ys01_Your_ice_asteroid_field.ini is the file where properties of your field are specified. You'll probably want one of the existing asteroid fields for this. But why not link your zone to an existing asteroid field .ini, like iw04_corcovado_ice_crystal_field.ini, without creating a new one? Reason is simple: the file for Corcovado contains
[Exclusion Zones]
section that specifies zones in Iw04 system that should be excluded from the nebula. These zones surely don't exist in your system, therefore you'll get crashes - to resolve it, make a copy of iw04_corcovado_ice_crystal_field.ini (if you want to use this pattern), rename it to Ys01_Your_ice_asteroid_field.ini and then delete, comment out or change all entries in [Exclusion Zones] section. If you ever added jump holes with FLExplorer, you've probably noticed that it places small zones around the jump hole. You may add these zones to [Exclusion Zones] if jump hole is located inside a specific field. This is a good way to clear area around the jump hole from asteroids. It's a good idea to exclude zones for smaller fields within the larger field, zones for planets, suns, bases and other objects.

8) Encounters

I won't get into depth with encounters right now, just the basics...
Encounters are located in system .ini and consists of two essential parts.

[EncounterParameters]
nickname = area_assault
filename = missions\encounters\area_assault.ini

[EncounterParameters]
nickname = area_nomads - Nickname that you'll use for encounter
filename = missions\encounters\area_nomads.ini - File with encounter properties

+

[Zone]
...
toughness = 19 - Level of encounter (for original Freelancer 19 is max)
density = 5 - How many ships may be in one location at one time. Set up to 25-30 for huge battles.
repop_time = 20 - Time between ships respawn
max_battle_size = 8 - Unknown, but I prefer to set it equal to Density.
pop_type = nonlootable_ast_field - Type of population
relief_time = 25 - Time between ships respawn (?)
faction_weight = fc_n_grp, 5
faction_weight = li_n_grp, 2 - List of factions and their 'influence' in the zone.
encounter = area_nomads, 19, 0.250000
faction = fc_n_grp, 1.000000
encounter = area_assault, 19, 0.150000 - Encounter nickname, level and % chance of spawn.
faction = li_n_grp, 1.000000 - Factions, you may list several "faction = " for each "encounter = ". Number is % chance of spawn, this time it's 100% Liberty Navy. You may set several faction here, but sum of chance numbers must not exceed 1 (100%).

9) Infocards

Install and use fled-ids. Don't trust FLExplorer in name assigning.

Discovery infocard numbers:
476*** - Capital ships
5000** - New ships
5004** - New commodities
501*** - New systems

DO NOT add names and info with the same number. In several cases it might be unsafe. Better keep them apart.

That's all for now, will add more later.

10) Reference

System coordinates

-- | +-
---+---->
-+ | ++

Angles

180
|
-90 ---+---- 90
|
0

This tutorial is meant to be a brief source of information for everyone willing to create their own systems for Discovery mod. You may also use this info for editing any other systems, but most information presented here is Discovery-specific.

Part I. Basics

Freelancer Explorer (FLE) is a free tool that allows to edit systems in Freelancer. Since it's free, it is far from ideal, but this program is effective in many ways and... well, it's the only one we can use.

I. Opening Discovery in FLE

If you try to open Discovery mod directly, you won't succeed since FLE will crash. This happens due to additional files that are present in Discovery package. Besides, I won't recommend to edit Discovery 'original' files since you'll need backup copy to review changes you've made.

So, what's needed to open Discovery in FLE?

1) Open FLMM mods folder (usually C:\Program Files\Freelancer Mod Manager\mods) and create a new folder with a name like 'EditDiscovery'.

2) Open Discovery mod folder in FLMM mods. You'll see 4 folders and 6 files (for 4.81). Copy only two folders:

\DATA
\EXE

into EditDiscovery.

3) Launch Freelancer Explorer. You will see a 'Do you want to continue editing an existing Mod?' dialog, choose Yes. Then you may see another dialog, 'The dll DSSYSTEMS.DLL has the explorer signature. Do you want to add names to it if necessary?'. Choose No.

4) Select DiscoveryEdit foder and open it.

You will see a huge universe map of Discovery. Ready to start?

II. Getting Around

There are 342 systems total (18x19) in Discovery, 289 of them are added by the mod. 53 systems are original.



When you point your mouse at one of the systems, you'll see its code (IW14 in our screenshot) at the top of the window, and its name (Cassini) near the system itself.

In the right of FLE window you will see system description infocard.

When you right-click any system, you will see a dropdown menu and several options in it. To edit Discovery systems, use only Edit, all other options are completely useless.

When you select Edit, a system editing screen will appear. On this screen, most of system creation and editing takes place, so you should be attentive to every element it has.

Here's what a typical empty Discovery system looks like:



We will return to this later, and now... how do you know what system to edit? For this, I will share a part of Discovery design document, part responsible for systems. You can get the file here:

http://discoverygc.com/files/DiscoveryDesign.xls

This file contains all systems, both original and Discovery, in one large list. There are several columns in the file, and I'll explain briefly what each one means.

Column A = Code of the system

Code is the main attribute of a system, it determines the name of system folder in \DATA\Universe\Systems. Code is also listed in system ini and in a number of other ini files.

There are several codes in Freelancer, and I did not add any new ones. In DiscoveryDesign.xls codes are listed alphabetically:

BR** - Bretonia
BW** - Border Worlds
EW** - Edge Worlds
FP7 - Freeport 7
HI** - Hispania (Outcasts and Corsairs)
IW** - Independent Worlds (worlds between Houses and Liberty)
KU** - Kusari
LI** - Liberty
RH** - Rheinland
ST** - Omicron (Nomand and Order worlds)

** is a number of system in each code group. First numbers belong to original systems, following numbers belong to Discovery systems. You will see the division clearly in system list.

Column B = Name of the system

Players don't see code, they see only the name. Name is an infocard string stored somewhere in Discovery.dll.

Column C = Infocard

This is the number of infocard where system name is stored. And also the beginning of infocard list for every new system. There are 100 infocards reserved per each system, more than enough for a basic layout.

For example, Huygens system with code IW13 (Liberty Rogue faction system) has its infocard at 465500. Next comes Cassini with code IW14, infocard number is 465600.

465600 is system name (Cassini).
465601 is system description.

All of the following numbers are free, unless there are other objects in the system. So you may add new names/descriptions with number 465602, 465603 etc., until you reach 465700 (Tau-111 infocards start here).

I will explain how to add names later, and now let's proceed with the xls file.

Columns D, E, F = Starspheres of existing systems

You needn't change the starspheres, but if you would like to, here's your reference.

Column G = Suns

Type of sun for each system. More information about suns is available from 'Suns' sheet in the xls document.

Column H = Factions

If the system belongs to some specific faction, this faction is listed here.

Next columns may contain some additional numbers that I used for technical purposes.

This is all for now, I'm locking this thread and will unlock/add/edit it later when I'll have time. If you find it necessary to comment or ask on this post, start another thread or PM me.

To be continued.