Crossfire - Upcoming changes, upcoming content

I just a released a small patch that should improve the stability of the mod and prevent rare crashes.

I just released an update bringing the reshade to the latest version aswell as updating the main shader effects to their newest version and removed a few that show some incompatibilities.

Also in this update is band aid fix of a rendering issue of 3d objects in CF. I was not able to find the original problem yet but this temp fix will do the job until the root cause of the problem is identified.

vanilla shader

or you press the home key and switch between existing reshade profiles there or even customize your own preset.

The next update is still work in progress and might need a bit time to complete but I already would publish what is expected with this update (also for me to not forget stuff to include in its release).

• The previously introduced band aid fix to the LOD issues is going to be removed again.
• Since I discovered the unlying issue FL might run into LOD issues (a game engine related parsing issue of data), there is going to be a final fix for this specific issue.
• In combination with that (since we are working on this part of the mod anyways) LancelotonCrack and I am working on redefining LOD scales all over the game to produce settings that offer perfect tansistions without causing performance issues. This will result in a complete rework of settings for:
  • ships
  • solars
  • turrets
  • other equipment
• A fix that might cause irregular settings in widescreen mode also will be introduced.
• As stated in a different thread a change will be done to SP mode when running the game in windowed mode to keep the game running (not paused) when alt+tab to desktop or a different window.
• There are also going to be various loadout fixes on specific NPC ships.
• A crash fix that already is active in SP for ages will be introduced intp MP. This is a relative experimental try to prevent a rare issue to happen in MP. I don't know if that is going to work and I have no way of testing it other than trying it out.
• A material related bug has been discovered by me. I don't know what is causing it, I don't know how long it already exists. Maybe it always was in FL all the time unnoticed, maybe it was introduced with the Dx12 ultimate update in Win10/Win11 which also introduced a bunch of other bug into older games (including FL).
  Actually I don't even fully understand how the fix that I have found even works... but it works and that is all that matters here.
  Bethestda: "It just works"
• On the server side the Dynamic Unverse will get a script upgrade, allowing timed event updates.
  That means the Dynamic Universe will be able to create events at very specific dates. This way it will be possible to have certain universe updates based on the weekday, specific weeks, specific months or annually.
  This in result can and is meant to introduce automatic server events which run e.g. every sunday every 2nd week.
  The point is to have a significantly better control over the dynamic universe conditions in future and to introduce timed dynamic event which will spice up the MP gameplay in future.
• Related to the previous point it is planned to introduce a prototype event far away from the usual event locations.
  The nature of this event will be some kind of raid in the Sol system. It will have a story reference but I don't want to spoil too much yet.
  Since this event is just a prototype it will have to be balanced based on made experience and later on some kind of reward structure has to be introduced. Atm I have big problem to figure out which rewards the event should provide and how to distribute them. But that might be worth to openly discuss in a different topic once some feedback gets in about the general style of the event.
• Small bugfix on fuses to improve situational game stability.
• Fix of a minor texture bug on Planet Manhattan.
• redesign of Inner Core Nomads to mimic an evolution of these
• redesign of Nomad Stations in Inner Core
• texture improvements on various alien NPC stations in Canis and Inner Core
• retextured coalition sleeper ship
• FX improvements + new effects
• additional animations added to various objects
• texture improvement on planet surface
• coalition manufacturing platform retextured
• small redesign of Order-HQ
• docking behavior of a large amount of npc ships reworked
• release of the first part of the coalition station remaster
• rework of docking sequences on various custom stations
• reduced sharpening on shader preset 1
• introduction of a new preset with the same sharpening as previous preset 1
• adjustments to the territories
• serveral stability fixes to Renaissance 3d models
• stability fixes for multiple custom ships
• stability fixes for two solar objects
• previously introduced texture improvements applied to more ships and stations which so far still used the low res version
• texture fixes on various custom cockpits
• various fixes on commodity and equipment icons
• improvents and fixes on a dozen hitboxes
• several hundreds of compatibility improvements of material Ids
• fixes to wireframe models
• ~2400 general compatibility improvements for textures and 3d assets
• minor texture changes on various turrets to better fit the color schemes of corresponding ships
• shader update to the latest version
• ...

The list above might be extended since work is still ongoing and usually that leads to more changes and improvements on the way.

That being said, a small update on my personal situation and maybe an outlook into the not so distant future.

I already communicated that my RL situation is a bit tricky these days.

It remains tricky and certainly won't get better anytime soon. My grandma (94) end of last year had an accident and certainly wont fully recover from that. I found a nursing home to take care of her pretty close to where I live. Thats the positive aspect of it.

My dad was meanwhile diagnosed with ALS (same shit Steven Hawking had) and at the same time mom was diagnosed with some crap that randomly can cause dizziness seizures, even blackouts.

I also meantion changing work conditions...and on top I try to keep a bit of the family business running... so yeah... my RL is pretty much fucked up.

Nonetheless do I want to keep supporting Crossfire and do updates. Partly because I feel the urge to do something constructive and creative in my life, partly because I need a distraction from the RL mess.

Stuff might need longer, stuff might get delayed... some stuff might not be possible, but updates will be done... not as frequent as in the year before but updates will be done.

I want to thank LancelotOnCrack for the help with the current update. It really helps having people being supportive and it clearly helped to discover stuff that otherwise probably would have been overlooked.

Some might have noticed that the update list above day by day got a bit longer and more detailed.

As work progresses I decided to add a bit more content and do a few additional detail improvements.

While some are self explaining there are others that are not.

There are changes done to Nomads in Inner Core. This involves Nomad encounters which will despite their same ship class have a different, more agressive look. Essentially this is meant to mimic an "evolution". Nomads in Inner Core and Nomads in the outer regions of the galaxy were separated for ages their bio engineered design changed over time in Inner Core.

The Nomad stations in Inner Core also got updated to match the previously updated Nomad design.

Freelancer 2024-03-25 20-36-56.png

Freelancer 2024-03-25 20-37-31.png

The OrderHQ got a small redesign aswell since this station might be used as a trading hub in combination with the new Event system.

Furthermore have I decided to introduce a part of the Coalition refresh. This stuff was more or less sitting on my HDD for 2 years since I was not sure what to do with it.

I guess before it never gets used its best to release the content bit by bit and hope that everything fits.

As a result the appearance of many Coalition stations will change, all along with an improved functionality. All the Coalition stations will have their docking animations improved. Most of the stations will receive mooring ports to allow cap ships to dock them. A very few of them will even have mooring ports that can be used by large freighters and trains. This might introduce new trading opportunities and will improve the usefullness of cap ships also in the Altair sector.

I have so far only been able to test the small ship docking ports of the stations. In theory the mooring ports should be working but I simply do not have the time to test them all with all the different ship classes. IF there are issues on some stations these need to be reported via Ticketsystem and I can try to fix it later on.

With the update of these coalition stations I also have done a complete revision the general docking behavior of ALL the ships in CF. This would have some positive effects on NPC behaviour in all sectors of the map and might reduced locked docking states in some areas.

There are more changes and improvements that might be introduced but for some stuff I need some help of Huor.

Im trying to gather some info regarding a previously proposed fix to hud elements (speed and thruster) not showing on 4k.

The solution so far was to change two values in fonts.ini to

My question is if worked for both hud versions, modern and classic?

I am working on two bug fixes that in would overwrite this file each time FL is launcher as a side effect. I would want to know if this fix is working for both versions so I can maybe apply these settings by default (si editing the file will no longer be neccessary).

I guess no reply means "go ahead".

Anyways. The update is going to get a bit bigger since I am in the middle of adding a few thousand bug fixes related to IDs, CRCs and materials. This will fix some minor visual issues and restore some broken wireframe views, but also should in theory improve the stability.

Size of the update currently is well over 500 files and ~700mb. This might further increase but since I want to release this update somewhen this month I probably won't be able to publish everything planned.

The stuff I listed above for sure will be part of the release but there are some experimental changes that just take too long to be implemented (e.g. a rework of bonus mission return to main story scripts). Ill release that stuff as smaller updates later on.

Here are some vids I recorded while working on the current update:

just run the cf installer again and select it there

As already mentioned 2 weeks ago on discord, there was a small setback since my USB drive died and all data on it, inlcuding the latest version of the update, was lost.

It took me a week to restore everything that already was finished and working but I lost some tools and plenty of assets that can not be restored that easily.

That means I have to do some additional work in order to replace the stuff that got lost.

On top of that I did some decisions regarding the upcoming Event System came to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to put some additional content into the update. This stuff actually was meant to be released at a later point but releasing it prior the event stuff goes live makes more sense.

I am specifically talking about the Order Ship refresh (the Order ships that are only spawning in Sol). These ships are going to be replaced with new 3d models. With the new automatic Event system these ships can be earned in MP by participating in the server events. We are talking about ~20 Battleships/Cruisers/Gunboats and ~5 fighters/bombers.

The ship models hopefully all will turn out to a much higher quality and are meant to mimic the color scheme of the Order fighter (light brownish as a basse color).

Size and handling will be more similar to vanilla ships.

So far I got 50% of these ships into the game already... but there still is pretty much work to be done. Work that I actually wanted to do last weekend but I got stuck with some other 3d model refresh that refused to work until late last night.

If everything works the way I have intended for today I can post some images of the new Coalition HQ later this evening. I had to removel this station 3 times from the scratch to finally get it into the game without errors. But I think the result is worth it.

As of now the update (only the already finished parts) has a size of 1.2 Gb and +800 files. Writing the patch instructions for the launcher will be an intersting task.

ignore what I wrote above... going to give the coalition hq a 4th try

there we go...