Freelancer

Allow me to present some of my own information and mod files for the Microsoft/Digital Anvil game Freelancer. All of this is based on the Unofficial FL SP 1.4 patch (and my modifications to it).

Patch (985k) the unofficial patch to restore some of its changes and for additional fixes. It should be extracted to your main Freelancer folder. The sources (687k) I created for the resource files are also available.

Patch Common.dll to allow the Trade Lane speed to be customised. You will need my BPatch program: download bpatchw.exe.bin, rename it to bpatch.exe, put it on your PATH (C:\Windows will do), cd to your Freelancer\EXE directory and run bpatch -f path\to\tradelane.txt. If there is no output it worked fine; if not, I guess we have different versions. Assuming it worked, you can now edit DATA\constants.ini to set the Trade Lane speed by using the TestValue key in the [Constants] section. The default speed is 2500.

Patch (603k) Hostile Universe V8.1 to fix quite a lot of things. Extract it to the same location you gave the HU installer, then run hudel.bat you will find there to remove unnecessary files. The resource sources (104k) for it.

FL Hack (43k; includes C source): a run-time patch to display the target's damage numerically; allow a single machine to have two players in multiplayer; and change some constants. Look at the start of flhack.c for information.

Mapping:	A description of how to use my mapping system.
Bases:	List of bases with their (abbreviated) owners.
Holes:	List of jump holes.
Wrecks:	List of wrecks with their loot.
Shields:	List of the different shield types.
Commodities:	List of (non-standard) commodity prices at each base.
Trade:	Best possible buy/sell prices and bases for each commodity.
Route:	A convenient trade route.
Weapons:	An Excel spreadsheet containing all the player weapons.
System nicknames:	Translate internal system nicknames to the corresponding Sirius name.
Base nicknames:	Translate internal base nicknames to the corresponding Sirius name.
FL Info:	A zip file containing all of the above files.
HU Info:	Additional information for Hostile Universe V8.1 (according to my patch).

Eagle Forward-Firing Turret:	Adds a forward-firing turret to the Eagle.
Sabre 8 Guns:	Activates two hidden guns on the Sabre.
Scenes Cut:	Removes the cinematics from the story.
Show Unknown:	Shows the two Unknown systems on the Nav Map (after revisiting).

All Nomad:	Not sure whether to use Nomad Energy Blasters or Cannons? Why not have both... (This is also my "completed" game, but no, I didn't use this loadout.)
Eagle Mission:	Use a decked-out Eagle for the story missions. Comes equipped with Tizona Del Cid, Salamanca Mk II, four Nomad Energy Blasters and a Salamanca Turret, and has an additional Tizona, Salamanca and Rapier Turret.
No Story:	A new game (rename to restart.fl to actually use as "New Game") without the story missions and your reputation completely neutral with everyone. Haven't actually used this, so I hope it works (Colorado jump gate and hole worked, so I guess the rest will).
flcodec:	A slightly improved version (quicker) of the save game decoder.

• Go to your Freelancer group and start FLServer (or run Freelancer\EXE\FLServer.exe);
• enter anything for the name and make sure "Allow New Players" is checked;
• bring up the properties for your Freelancer shortcut, you should now see the "Target" highlighted, so press End and paste in everything between the quotes: " -s127.0.0.1:2302";
• start Freelancer, select "Multiplayer", create the account if you haven't already done so, select "LAN" and you should see your "server" there;
• have fun.

Jason Hood.
4 February, 2009.

Main.