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L.I.F. has continued to make great strides in his mission to rework the WC Freelancer port's economy to support a more balanced progression system. Ships will have different powerplants that will have to spread resources between engines, shields and weapon systems. The weapons have multiple levels of complexity based around their type, grade and quality. Development of this system is an interesting deep dive into game design that you can read about at the CIC Forums here. If all that sounds pretty complicated, and you'd rather wait for the team to smooth out all the details, you can upgrade your copy of Freelancer with Wing Commander ships now with the mod here (320 meg zip) or here.
You can see above the successful implementation of the new equipment ingame. Right now, I've only finished the process for the engines, the guns, shields and powerplants still having to be added over the next few days. On this screenshot, I'm pondering whether to add an antimatter drive designed for medium fighters. It's a civilian, AKA pretty bad, one, but it's still an improved version over the standard antimatter drive (AKA one made by Rheinland, which is specialized in M/AM systems). Note on the left side, the yellow area in Cargo Space: the engine takes some room, and some are bulkier than others, so balancing needs and wants will be an important thing as well.In the above screenshot, you can see the gun store in New London. It's a civilian store, so it has the lowest grade of weapons available, of course, but since it's in Bretonia, its plasma guns are better than foreign equivalents, making it a good place to buy high power close combat weaponry.