F/A-37 Talon Start Mod
**********************

author: Doug (recursion) Cantrell

VERSION 1.2

This is a rebalanced version of Mr. Cantrell's mod featuring the F/A-37. All credit belongs to Mr. Cantrell. I really enjoyed his model but the game wasn't quite the same. I realized I could literally go AFK in the middle of combat. There was little incentive to play since your starting equipment was better than anything else in the game. This prompted me to learn a little bit to try tone down the munchkin factor a bit. Not all the way off mind you :), just down a little bit to assuage my conscience.
 
CHANGES VERSION 1.0
-All Weapons have been toned down by 50-90% to be approximately Class 6-8. This way upgrades are still desireable.
-All Weapons have been appropriately classified based on power relative to other weapons.
-Power Plant Thrust Capacity and Charge rate has been reduced.
-Scanner Range has been toned down.
-Tractor Beam range reduced.
-Countermeasure range and effectiveness slightly reduced.
-Shield Generator regeneration rate reduced by 75%.
-Custom Mines have been toned down.
-All costs have been increased by a factor of 2-200 to be comparable to similar items in the game.
-All Custom items have level restrictions comparable to existing items in the game. If you use up your missiles, don't expect to replace them anytime soon.
-Custom Item availability has been adjusted to those places that would most likely have stolen or prototype military technology. Not every system will have replacement parts.
-The bug involving the ship not appearing in the cutscene with Juni in the Equipment shop on Manhattan has been fixed.
-Whoever stole the plans also tried to steal the third prototype ship. Fortunately Juni stopped them, but not before they stripped it of all its armamament. You start with the Custom ship but standard weapons.
-The amount of maximum Nanobots/Shield Batteries for the ship has been reduced.
-Cargo Space has been reduced to be comparable to similar ships.

CHANGES VERSION 1.1
-Weapons retweaked to be closer to Mr. Cantrell's original design but still somewhat balanced relative to existing weapons. They are still among the best out there, but now there are still some that are better.
-You now start without any of the custom weapons/accessories which are available for purchase later.
-Cost of the ship lowered significantly to prevent accelerated progression of storyline and levels.
-All Level requirements rebalanced based on closer analysis of existing requirements. (Except the requirement to buy the ship itself. It really should be level 28-30 to be balanced with the other ships. I wanted the ship to remain available during the single player campaign.)
-NPC ship loadouts reworked based on availability of items to the player.
-Minor tweaks in equipment durability to match similar equipment.
-Ship Armor, Cargo Capacity, Max Shield Generators/Nanobots adjusted to 80% of original capacity.
-Hardpoints 1 and 2 (above the cockpit) adjusted to max Class 9.
-Mass decreased.
-Reclassified as a Heavy Fighter.
-Shield Generator readjusted to 60% of original power and regeneration rate.
-REMOVED EXTRA ENGINE. Having two engines causes a bug that increases your speed to the trade lane speeds when the engine is killed. AFTERBURNER SPEED is 320 with 2 thrusters.

CHANGES VERSION 1.2
-Now there are three versions (Class 6, 8, 10) of both guns and both missiles.
-The power of the Torpedo and Cruise Disrupter adjusted again.
-All missile Speeds significantly decreased for balance reasons.
-NPC loadouts readjusted.
-All Shopping Lists readjusted.

Thank Mr. Cantrell for a great model, all credit belongs to him.

-Doc Johnny



F/A-37 "Talon" Start Mod

This mod adds a new ship, the F/A-37 "Talon" advanced light fighter, inspired by the motion picture, "Stealth." 

It also adds new, advanced engine, power plant, scanner, tractor beam, lights, shield, thruster, CM and mine. The shield, CM and mine may be used on other ships, but the thruster is integrated into the engine and is "invisible." Also a new weapons system is added, but should not be used on other ships, nor should other weapons be used in their place. 

Twin M-161 "Vulcan" plasma autocannons are mounted in nacelles just aft of the canopy. A weapons pod below the fuselage contains the newly developed EMPML-37 "Blackout" shield buster EMP missile launcher, the HEML-37 "Copperhead" high explosive homing missile launcher, the M-180 "Thunderbolt" kinetic energy cannon, the CDML-37 "Stinger" cruise disruptor missile launcher, and the HET-37 "Truncheon" torpedo launcher.

Though not available at all locations, replacement guns/launchers/droppers and ammo, as well as the shield and thruster, are available at equipment dealers at all storyline locations as well as chief/capital planets/bases in each system.

STORY:

The LSF develops and commissions three prototypes of the F/A-37 "Talon" advanced light fighter. One prototype is assigned to Jun'ko Zane, one to Michael King. The third prototype is offered to Edison Trent when he comes to work for the LSF. Before developmental testing is completed on the prototypes, the plans and all data are stolen by parties unknown. Further development is halted and the three prototypes are the only ones known in all of Sirius. (So, if you sell it, there's no guarantee tou will be able to buy another one anywhere.)

TESTING:

This mod has been fully tested throughout the single player storyline.

KNOWN ISSUES:

Because Juni and King also have the Talon, the storyline movie and cutscene thn files had to be added, some quite a bit. The thn decompressor I used introduced some bugs. Accushot (many thanks) whipped up a fix that took care of the most annoying problems, but some effects are still lost in one scene. Also, if you do find a Talon for sale, don't try trading yours in for it (although I have no idea why you would want to) as it causes the game to go into a hard freeze for some unknown reason.

There are no other known issues.

COMPATIBILITY WITH OTHER MODS:

This mod is intended as a single player storyline mod. Even though this mod is heavily scripted, no other mods are known to be compatible, including the Open SP mods. There may be some mods that are compatible, but definitely none that assign Trent another starting ship or assign a different ship to Juni or King. You may try others at your own risk. If you wish to fly the F/A-37 "Talon" without going through the storyline, download and use the "F/A-37 Talon W/O Storyline Mod."

CREDITS:

The F/A-37 "Talon" is an original mesh developed by recursion using G-Max v1.2 and Milkshape 3D v1.7.0.

The textures are original, developed by recursion using Adobe Photoshop 7.0.

Original scripting by recursion was done in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.

OTHER CREDITS (with deep gratitude):

ShipScripter v1.2.1 by Crabtree CCN

FreeLancer UTF Editor by Mario "HCl" Brito

HardCMP v1.0.0.18 by Louva-Deus & Shsan

Freelancer SDK v1.3 by Louva-Deus

thn file decompressor (author unknown) submitted by Wasabe

CMP Exporter v0.3 Beta and MAT exporters for Milkshape 3D by Colin Sanby

Freelancer Mod Manager v1.31 by Matthew "IGx89" Lieder

Special thanks to blackhole2001, Accushot, and Bejaymac at TLC for their help in trying to solve LL THE the cutscene problems (we'll beat it yet, guys). Accushot came up with a repair program that got rid of most of the problems. Great work and many thanks, man.

More special thanks to Osprey, Black Lightning, Kirghiz, and PantherX at dragonfeather studios for their advice and encouragement.

The Lancer's Reactor for the oh-so-much they do to promote Freelancer and modding.

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:

The F/A-37 "Talon" Mod is copyrighted (C) 2005 by Doug (recursion) Cantrell. All rights reserved. This mod and/or its components may be used for non-commercial purposes only with written permission from the author and adherence to terms and conditions (e-mail: recursionstudios@aol.com).

The movie "Stealth" is coprighted (C) 2005 by Sony Pictures Digital INC. All rights reserved

Freelancer is copyrighted (C) 2002 Micrsoft Corpration and Digital Anvil.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm