OK Some quick questions. (with probably very complex answers)

So I did some digging here and I've done a ton of searching elsewhere; apparently my interests in modding aren't the common things people go for in FL. Thus having some trouble finding answers. Mostly I like FL as is, insofar as plot and setting go, but there are some gameplay issues with it (and pratically every other Elite style sim) that bug me so That's all I'm looking to change. Mostly just balance things. I'll list them all, even though some I already figured out and note the ones I'm still looking for help on so you can get a general idea where I'm going with this. I'm new to modding FL but I've done lots of other modding from mapping to scripting to hex modding on really old games. So don't be afraid to throw out the complex answers, but be specific when it comes to stuff that's particular to FL modding, because I don't have the vocabulary and experience with this particular game yet.

Filler weapons and ship types. I just don't get the concept of useless stuff in games. Better and worse ok, but not useless. The challenge should be one of piloting skill not grinding tolerance. So I need to re-balance all the weapons and ships to make each serve a specific function. Not a problem, it will just be time consuming.

Shields on small ships. Gone. I can buy a station, cruiser or destroyer having the power needed for this but not a fighter. Besides they make people too comfortable. It's much more fun when every weapon hit could result in some subsystem getting knocked offline. (Did I mention I like Battletech?) This should be easy enough.

Which leads us to nano-bots, also gone. Gah it's the health and mana potions of the space age. I'm astounded they didn't make them red and blue. Another upside is I don't have to make the AI use them to balance, just take them away from the player.

Here we get to the trickier bits. Missiles..... Okay, maybe I played too much Elite and too many Jane's sims buy I have a real problem with ships carrying boatloads of missiles. You know cause... they're big. Heavy too. I also don't care for weak missiles, I don't see the point. Missiles should expensive, deadly and VERY limited. What I'd really like to do is mount them to hardpoints on the wings (detach, ignite and fire would be sweet) and have that be a major factor in ship balance is it's missile loadout. They essentially should be one hit kills if they hit. Variance should be in speed and tracking. (and special types like the disruptor) Torps for larger vessels that have shields. I'm guessing that hardpoints are going to be really difficult though, (especially since I'm NOT good at modeling) so I'd settle for just limiting the amount carried, but I'm not sure if that's possible. or if so how.

Letting yourself get mobbed should be a "trademark Mr. Skullhead" Bad Idea. Four incoming fighters should scare the pants off a lone pilot. With the other balance changes this should be fairly easy to manage, and will add to the importance of how many missiles you can carry. The problem is that Freelancer AI by default is like Zerglings in space. I'm surprised they even bother to spawn off screen rather than just materializing incessantly around my ship. So I need some way to tone that down. I know the encounters have parameters for group size and respawn time, that will do if it has to. What I'd really prefer though is for the NPC "patrols" to actually... well, patrol. Leave base, go to Nav A, B, C sweeping for hostiles then RtB. If this can be done, I'd appreciate some ideas on how best to implement it.

Lastly I like tactical abilities in games. I have some ideas on how to add some depth in this area but not sure how best to manage some of them. First I'd like to make the space phenomena more phenomenal. Dense asteroid, ice and debris fields limit sight; but I think all nebulas, badlands and things of that nature should use the reduced sensor range hazard. My question is will this affect the AI, or does it use ye cheezy magic detection routines most game AIs seem to use? Another thought is engine kill. Does this actually take you off radar? If not couldn't the cloaking device be modified to be radar only (just nop the call to the visual effect) and activate only when the engine is powered down? (say give it the same bind key as a simple solution) This would be great for losing enemies, smuggling and setting up ambushes.

So those are my ideas and my questions. I'd be most grateful for any assistance anyone could offer. Thanks for reading.
Jack

I believe so yes, it will change the entire style of play which is exactly what I'm hoping for. Normal FL plays too much like Diablo II in space for me. (in so far as combat is concerned) I'm trying to get a balance where if you're on top things you can fight no matter what ship you have, but if you let yourself get surrounded you're in serious trouble. I want it where if things get nasty fleeing to the nearest base for repairs is your only option. I want proper use of countermeasures and evasion to be critical to survival. I want missiles to be the crutch they actually are, where they can take down anything, but you only have 2 to 4 (maybe 6) shots then when thats gone you have to rely solely on dogfighting ability, which is when most pilots fall flat on their face. In short I want the game based on skill not credits.

As I said I like Freelancer, but not because of the stock combat. I like the fact hat the universe is Human dominant (a rarity in these game types), I like the large sectors, the trade/economy implementation, graphics are decent but not so heavy as to lag the game, input handling is good compared to other similar games, and it has an overall polished and nice feel. Thus it seems a good place to start. My problem with all the space games I've tried is that you basically seem to have two choices: good combat in a mission based linear game; or exploration and freedom with lousy combat due to the rpg power curve design.

I've done these kinds of changes to other games (X series, Hardwar, Darkstar, and Privateer primarily) and seen how some games take to this style of play better than others. Some it's fairly easy, some require massive re-balancing to make it work properly. My Freelancer experience however is, I'm sure, a lot more limited than most people's here since I don't tend to focus on any one game. So it is most likely possible you're foreseeing some specific problems I won't find until I run into them head on. If so, then by all means I'd appreciate the heads up as then I can start working around it from the beginning.

Already finished with preliminary calculations for hull strength vs weapon damages. Shields and nanobots are gone. Will need to adjust the hulls of the ships across the board which I'm in the process of doing now. However I can't accurately test the values till I figure out a way to limit the number of missiles a ship can carry, which is my next task. I see in the loadout files that the npc ships have a quantity for missiles (usually set to 4). I can't recall npc's ever running out of missiles in the game but this could just be due to the fact that there's usually so many that even at four each times five or six fighters, (not to mention that by the time you beat one wave another is already closing) you'd still be under constant missile barage. I'll do a bit of testing against single ships and see how it works out. Assuming the npc's abide by that, all I have to do is limit the player. I found a post (not sure why I've never seen it before been looking for this for a while.) that says adding MAX_PLAYER_AMMO to constants.ini will do the trick, it seems to limit all ammo as a bulk but that will do I guess. Another possibility (which would require a lot more work) would be to have only one type of missile and one type of torpedo then hijack the max values for bots & batts. I would think this could be done with FLHook but I haven't looked at it enough to know for sure. This would allow for variable loadouts by ship type, which would be interesting.

After I get done with the above I'll start working on doing the sector work to limit patrols and implement the hazards. Then maybe tweak engines a bit. Hopefully have it knocked out by tomorrow.

I noticed all the ship loadouts have this line:
equip = infinite_power
that has to go. Hate it when developer use this kind 8-bit nintendo difficulty.