Honest Singleplayer-Campaign feedback

Hello, first of all, I don't think I'm competent to talk about this topic because I didn't participate in the creation of the mod itself. But I couldn't resist the urge to respond to your post because I myself like to play Single Player from start to finish from time to time. Of course, other ships, other ways to complete missions, endless grinding of money (you can do that easily if you have the nerve to pod) for weapons and upgrades and finding loopholes in the system to get to VHF and level 10 weapons very quickly. In fact, I succeeded already after the mission in the California system. I wouldn't want to spoil it for someone who wants to play the campaign for the first time, so I won't go into details. Regarding the bug that can't seem to be solved, escorting the convoy to the Order base on Mars is enough that when the leader goes crazy, get out of the formation and gently push him to the direction he should go and return to the formation. Although there are a few bugs and illogicalities, this mod can compete with many AAA titles in terms of stability and creativity, even though it was made by enthusiasts without any compensation. Maybe I've never mentioned this, but I'm grateful first to SWAT_OP-R8R and also to the other good people who participated in the creation of this mod, that team made my life better. So THANKS again guys. And I agree with you, the game lacks a little more opportunity for a little exploration, less after the vanilla campaign, more in the vanilla phase itself.

Ok lets see if I have a few answers.

- Oasis is supposed to be locked just like all other systems until the discovery of x-3043. However, due to engine limitations, which force the entire CF campaign to run in a single mission instance (unlike vanilla missions, which have one for each mission), it can happen that at certain situations locked gates open. This is not intended but can not be 100% avoided.

- Following mission triggers and waypoints is highly advised throughout the entire campaign. In theory, the CF campaign needs further fail triggers, which prevent players from going off the rails. However, this is very hard to do and would take an insane amount of time. I have experimented with it for the very first mission (the way to New Berlin) but have not released anything yet since the amount of code for it to work is pretty large, and I was looking for better implementation. An alternative, at least for that specific mission, might be to let FL auto-generate a path, at least from system to system. That would give players more freedom and reduce the need for fail triggers. A disadvantage might be bugged autosaves if players decide to dock stations.

- Once CF campaign started, you unfortunately can not take a break from the campaign until somewhat later. FL has hardcoded free-time phases between missions. All of them are already used by the vanilla campaign. More, in theory, can not be added unless you understand the code well enough to create plugins for just this purpose. This is beyond my knowledge at the moment. There is a workaround later during the campaign that allows you to explore, but implementation is pretty difficult.

- The Nephele System exists in multiple "development states.". That is why it resets later on. This, unfortunately, is necessary for storytelling purposes. FL systems are static, but the storytelling requires revisiting them at a later point, and if major changes to the systems are part of the story, then there is no other way to do it. The same happens early on in X-3043 and later in Sol. Every time these systems are discovered for the first time, you probably should not try to explore them fully. Instead, wait until planets or stations can be docked with.

- Teleports are sometimes necessary to progress the story without creating endlessly long paths to the next mission. Sometimes it is a pacing method; sometimes it is a technical requirement since the methods of how triggers are called are limited. There are moments in which this is the only way to trigger a cutscene that helps to progress the story.

- Yes, the trains suck in that mission, and I have no real solution for that yet. I redesigned the mission twice already, which improved the situation, but its still far from perfect. The main issue is that I cannot script a reliable path for the trains since the spawn points around the gates are random. Each time they spawn at a different location, and each time the AI tries to calculate a new path. Some are working... others are not.

Dunno, chaos theory, I guess.

- It was and still is planned to make more capital ships available to players. The Order ships in Sol were meant to be rewards for automatic online events.

Unfortunately, I did not have the time to fully implement the events yet. Let's call it work in progress (pretty high on my to-do list).

For singleplayer there are no such plans yet (especially for the campaign mode). Maybe later when the multiplayer part of this event system is working.

Hey, nice to see your review! Also, welcome to the community !

Using the search engine you may find some info about modding, but if it's related to CF's install, any change will get removed on launch even if you are just playing singleplayer.

I believe that he can try and test the changes on SP, he just needs to avoid the update while the testing is going on, he can also make a backup of the same changes if he likes the results and suggest it to the modding community. So if something good comes out of it, why not. I think any help is welcome, so since I have no idea about coding and would really like to help, I welcome any initiative from someone who knows.

Some tutorials.

Freelancer Modding Boards - Freelancer - SWAT Portal

Tools have evolved but the basics are the same.

SomeHansomeHans

Greetings, there are possibilities (moments). when can be SP Campaign paused: Crossfire bonus mission - Lost Fleet

It have limitations, but still offers possibility for exploration. In regard to bonus mission itself: for some players bonus mission do not offered possibility to resume Campaign, so backup save is recommended. However it shows some of huge possibilities, which Crossfire as mod have.