[Nuke]

i have an ide for an alternategameplay mode. instead of playing the usual missions, is there a way to create a frelance mode (yes, ive been playing freelancer).

you could use blank fred missions to set up the layot of various locations within each system. that way each system has various locations you can warp to via an intra system jump, and go through the nodes for an inter system jump (you could load the subspace tunnel when doing an inter system jump, a good place to pirate fighters with a maxim). you could use alt+j to bring up a jump menu, listing locations in your current system, pick one and your drive jumps you to that location. using alt+j in a node will jump you to whatever system it goes to.

place installations, or anything with a docking bay for that matter so you may have places to trade and buy ships weapons. you would be able to request dock via the comm menu. once permission is granted, white brackets will then hilight a docking bay, get close to the bay and hit alt=j to dock. would once docked you coould have a modifyed loadout and ship select screens so the player could buy and sell ships and weapons. replace the briefing screens with commodities trading.

it may be possible to implement a political engine like the one  freelancer has. for example you may be friendly to the terrans, but not the shivans or vasudans, start attacking ntf ships and the vasudans might like you more, and let you use their stations and buy their weapons and ships and stuff.

throw in some ai traders, bounty hunters, pirates, whatever, and you got yourself an elite clone. theese changes focus mainly on gameplay, so im not sure how hard this idea would be to code. im not too sure how to implement capships in this mode. maybe you could rent a cruser for an attack on a base somewhare. anyone else thing it would expand freespace's playability.

im still playing freelancer even though i beat it 3 weeks ago.  i got about 6 million credits, and i still find something new everytime i play. the only thing i dont like about freelancer is that all the ships are ugly looking. i need to figure out how to convert some of my models to freelancer. anyone know where to go to for freelancer mod tools?

[Sesquipedalian]

No.

[Liberator]

One question...Why?

Don't get me wrong, it's a moderately original idea, but it would be impossible to implement given the fact that the current state of the Multi code was beta last time I looked.  Not to mention the fact that we'd have to get a server and the other stuff we'd need to implement such a thing.

[Nuke]

games like that have of playability. i still play elite, i think ive been playing that game sence i was 9. thats playability.

[terren]

it can be done, need a way for the game to run a sepret program and get information from that program however.  What you need is some one to make a program that builds belevable missions,  and can run on a puny 500Mhz system with only a few hundred megs of ram.  All I can say is good luck

[Flaser]

This project would need several things.

1 A political simulator
2 An economic simulator
3 A piratism simulator
4 A policing simulator

So things could go on their way, even when you're not in a system.

The political simulator is not that hard. You assign certain stations and systems a political group, then have them generate their traders and police / pirates.
The hard part is making routines of what they do when an action is taken against them or for them. It still wouldn't be so hard IMHO.

Now, the economic simulator is a b***h. Believe I've tried to  model one a while ago.

The piratism/police simulator is pretty much part of the 1'st group, though it will need actual routines for capturing/disbaling someone.

[Galemp]

Why not just play Freelancer? Sure, the combat's different, but I guarantee you our coders have much better things to do.

[kasperl]

indeed, it would be very hard to make such a thing, and it has been discussed a lot.

but, with some very clever PHP, MySQL and FS_OPEN coding, you could make a mplayer thingy without too much AI.

[Falcon]

Freelancer good, but don't have beam cannons like Freespace!

[mikhael]

Tsk. I can't believe you would even CONSIDER asking for adding a new gameplay mode?

Key-RIST! Its not like now that the coders have the source code they can go an change things willy nilly? Of course this is a bad idea, Nuke! The fans would be positively apopleptic anyone actually did something beyond cosmetic changes.


----

You know, I was going to call all that sarcasm, but I really am not sure if it IS sarcasm, or just an observation. Nuke, your idea isn't bad.

[Krackers87]

why dnt u just go mod freelancer with FS2 ships?

[Woolie Wool]

We can't have FS2 without beams!:p

[Nuke]

freelancer has a good engine that runs fast and looks good. but there does not apear to be much versatility as far as gameplay goes. modding ships for freelancer may turn out to be a waste of time. i stick with freespace because it is open source and has as much potential as we could pound out of it.

[Falcon]

freelancer ai stink

[Flaser]

I'd be willing to join a project writting the economy and routine part for one such edevour - except for SCP, since I'm not familiar with the code.

I'm a somewhat capable (in other words - not that incapable) programmer.

The hard part would be writting the routines for traders, mercenaries, pirates and police.
Still, I think it can be broken down into simple FS Ai orders.

[Nico]

Originally posted by mikhael
Tsk. I can't believe you would even CONSIDER asking for adding a new gameplay mode?

Key-RIST! Its not like now that the coders have the source code they can go an change things willy nilly? Of course this is a bad idea, Nuke! The fans would be positively apopleptic anyone actually did something beyond cosmetic changes.


----

You know, I was going to call all that sarcasm, but I really am not sure if it IS sarcasm, or just an observation. Nuke, your idea isn't bad.

exactly what he said, word for word.

[KARMA]

well I already asked for an economic system sometimes ago, so I'm not against adding more gameplay possibilities.
The problem is that you are asking to make freelancer on the fs2 engine, wich is designed for something completely different.
You already have a lot of more freedom in designing missions than before, and with persistent variables thought a bit tricky you can have the player going from a system to another (actually it will be done with two different missions, but it will look as only one), and you can create a primitive economic system using those persistent variables.
It will be surely possible to work on those variables to increase the complexity of the gameplay, but fs2 remain mission based and I think it will never become like freelancer or privateer or elite, and surely not in the immediate future.
At least you could create some campaigns that will somehow look similar to those games, something like tachyon for example, that can probably already be done, althought with some limitations
If you want a privateer open source you should check vegastrike;)

[Falcon]

It would probably make more sense to put Freespace 2 in Freelancer.

That way you could see the Hecate in 1600x1200:D

[KARMA]

I bet this will happen in fs2 too, one day or the other:)

[Nico]

Originally posted by Falcon
It would probably make more sense to put Freespace 2 in Freelancer.

That way you could see the Hecate in 1600x1200:D

but you can't have custom scripted missions in FL. There lies all the difference.