Posts by SWAT_OP-R8R

just run the cf installer again and select it there

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:

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).

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.

no its part of vanilla FL

faction fc_f_grp

a faction without description

where did you find this?

good question, next question (I have no answer to this yet)

The "Nomad Planet Killer Event" (for a lack of a better name) is going to be an upcoming automatic server event prototype.

Prototype because it might be the foundation for many more similar events or events with a different structure but same automatic nature.

At this point I have to mention everything is highly experimental and most certainly will have to be rebalanced during the first few iterations.

There also might be unforseen technical issues that have to be sorted out after the first event runs.

Background/Idea

The FL intro describes the exodus of the Alliance fleet from the Sol system and the extended non-canon Intro shows that Earth is destroyed by the Nomads right after that.

In Crossfire I went with the version of the original Intro and some aspects of the extended version. Here the Nomad attack happened... but did not destroy Earth. Instead it only whiped out the remaining humans on it (cleansing it).

With the return to Sol and the recolonization of it the Event scenario is based on the return of the Nomads to once more whipe out all human life in Sol.

For the duration of this Event the task is to destroy a Nomad Planet Killer which is escoted by Battleships, Reapers, fighters, bombers etc. (the whole variety of Nomads).

Destroying any kind of Nomad capital ships will lead to a reward drop.

Damaging the Nomad Planet Killer by x% will periodically lead to a reward drop. (e.g. do 5% damage you get a loot drop, do 10% you get another... 15% etc. )

Destroying the Nomad Planet killer will eventually lead to a much bigger amount of rewards.

The Event will last for 24 hours.

Not destroying the Planet Killer atm has no consequences but once I have figured out how to log stuff like this a kind of penalty will be introduced. (this whole thing still is in an early stage)

What will the reward be like?

For the first tests of this event probably just dummy rewards will be used to avoid that wrong balancing lead to an unwanted flood of reward drops. Maybe some energy crystals... dunno yet.

Later on I was playing with the idea of introduced a reward currency. Some kind of token that can be collected accross multiple kinds of automated events and once the player has collected enough token there would be a reward shop where special stuff can be obtained. This in the end would work similar to how cloaking devices are currently assembled.

The token system would allow players to prioritize on what reward they want or need and reduce the "bad luck" part of the looting. I also think that the replayabilty of these events will increase.

This event will repeat periodically once tested and balanced.

The server news (on the launcher and on stations) will inform players when this event is active.

Future events might be based on similar invasion type structures but also might add an exploration factor into it. One idea of this would be to have time limited wrecks which contain token or even mining operations (which only can be done using Mining ships), kinda like a gold rush scenario.

However, first this Nomad event.... and more information about it will be published here once available.

happy birthday

I remember when he took the leader role of LP. I told him that it's going to be a hell of a job. He did very well and had the respect of the other players from day one.

RIP

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 (preset 7) with the same sharpening as previous preset 1
• introduced preset 8 which is similar to preset 1 but has lens effects deactivated
• 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
• Order Ships refresh (replacing 25 ships with better versions)
• texture improvements on Renaissance station models
• modular station attachments for Renaissance added
• Broken Nomad gate added
• fixed story inconsistencies with the Rheinland fleet in Altair
• ~400 story elements rewritten
• minor changes to asteroid fields
• fog increased by 50% for all Nebula
• return conditions from side missions to main story missions completely rewritten to fix being stuck on Bonus mission
• various small story improvements
• Nomad server event added
• fixed station description for Renaissance stations and ASF & CSF
• fixed speed of the Mayfly VHF aswell as its trade icon
• fixed missing faction names on job boards and bribes
• improved the way how textures are rendered
• Hurricane pilot bug fixed
• fixed a crash bug with the Renaissance manufacturing platform/satellite
• invisibility bug in Throlech nebula fixed
• fixed sound issue with Adv. Battleship Defense Turrets
• potential fix for Dom'Kavash attacking Nomad depots(?)
• fixed capture mission bug in Oasis
• removed self-damage from flak ammo to have sequential explosions
• new flak turret effects
• default font color set to light grey to fit the multiple UIs (until a better solution is found)
• modern UI loading screen is added to classic UIs
• experimental story transition script added
• new neutronstars effect added
• new warp buoy effects added
• new blackhole effect added
• a few hundred other minor changes that do not require to be listed here individually

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.