Unofficial Freelancer SP Patch 1.40

Unofficial Freelancer SP Patch 1.40

This is the Unofficial Freelancer SP Patch that has something for all players weather your playing a modified game or the original game right off the disk, this will fix allot of the things in Freelancer. Read below for more details.

Summary Patch description 1.40.doc

This package contains the patches for Freelancer that were earlier released under the name Unofficial FL SP patch 1.1 and 1.2. Improved some of the patches and added some others.

Some time after the release of patch 1.2, the SDK 1.3 was released and many Freelancers started using the SDK 1.3 ini files, which is good.

But by using the SDK 1.3 files the majority of the Unofficial patches were no longer available. This package gives you the opportunity to have them both, because all patches are implemented on SDK 1.3 ini files.

This package would not have been possible without:

* Louva-Deus for giving us his SDK 1.3 ini package.

* Support and contributions from Crabtree and members of the WTS-team.

* Bakedpotato for linking me with Crabtree.

Why is this not offered in FLMM-format?

This version is in FLMM aka Freelancer Mod Manager format

Well the reason is in the nature of the patch, it corrects errors. This package repairs from my point of view bugs that in the ideal world Microsoft and/or Digital Anvil "should" have corrected before or after releasing the game. They are minor bugs but still errors. The patch does not create anything new and it does not really add anything, it just repairs and makes available what already was there.

Warning. The package normally will not interfere with mods, but some mods use scripts to change your files. If a mod uses a script in a file that is patched, it may fail to load if it is trying to change the patched area in that file. Although the risk is very low because the patches are in code area's that are normally not subjected to modding, great efforts have been made to apply the patches in a way that this risk is reduced to the absolute minimum.

What does the Unofficial FL SP 1.4 package do?

The packages contains all the SDK 1.3 files and the credits for that go to Louva-Deus.

All patches are performed on SDK 1.3 files. In this way you don't have to merge SDK 1.3 and the Unofficial FL SP 1.4 patch files yourself. It is all-in-one.

The patched "errors":

Shipwrecks not delivering the correct loot.

Unknown objects not having their id or wrong id.

Missing reputations.

Wrong run by references.

Wrong local_faction.

Lacking radiation warnings.

Locked Jumpholes. Some of the jumpholes remain locked after finishing the game.

Roid_miners only visible when in range <= 2000.

Some minor bini errors still present.

Restored the original compressed engine_good.ini. The bini version causes problems for some servers.

Navmap related.

-Asteroid fields and/or clouds not visible.

-Jumpholes not visible.

-Mineable area's not or not correctly displayed.

-Missing names.

-Missing reputations.

-Objects not on Navmap.

-No information. Some objects or area's had no Ids-info (?).

-Mine fields not visible.

-Mineable aera's displaying the mineable resource.

-Visibility clouds on Navmap. Some black clouds were hardly or not visible on the Navmap. I altered their fog_colour settings slightly to make them better visible.

-Hazardous area's reveal themselves when the cursor is over them on the Navmap.

All repairs to the above mentioned are based on in dept studying the Namesresources.dll, Infocards.dll and all other FL files.

What does the Unofficial FL SP 1.4 package NOT do?

* Roid_miners. In Universe.ini, in the systemfolder and in some of the system ini-files there are code-lines that suggest that these miners are a kind of bases. Likely this is a leftover of the intention to have miners to be dockable. There are also some rooms declared for these miners. So far I have not found a miner where I could actually dock. In principle all these lines are obsolete and could be removed. I left them alone.

I have not done any work on getting the miners to be dockable. Simply because there is absolutely nothing happening there and making things happening there would be modding and that is not what my patches are about. Furthermore, there are more than enough places in unmodded and modded Sirius where you can dock and where things are happening.

* In all systems where robotbodies are used the following lines are present:

space_costume = , robot_body_A or space_costume = , robot_body_B

With other characters the syntax is space_costume = head, body. But since robots have their heads already attached to their bodies, a head does not need to be declared.

The point/question is: should not be the syntax space_costume = 0, robot_body_A?

Apparently having the head not declared does not seem to course any errors, at least I have not noticed it. Actually it seems that adding the 0 will cause problems for servers, according feedback from Crabtree. So- we left it the way it is in the SDK 1.3 files.

How to install the Unofficial FL SP 1.4 package?

Backup first!!! Close all mods before patching!!!.

The package is a zip file. The zip was created with the option "save full path info" on. So when you unzip the package all files will unzip in a Freelancer folder structure.

To be on the safe side unzip the Unofficial FL SP package into a temporary directory so that you don't accidently overwrite files you did not want to loose and you will be able to see what exactly needs to be backed up. Then copy the Data and the EXE directory to your Freelancer directory. This way your old files will be replaced with the patched files. Make sure contents of "Tmp-folder"\Data are copied in Freelancer\Data and contents of "Tmp-folder"\Exe are copied in Freelancer\Exe.

Be aware that:

* Most of the patches are effective directly after restarting Freelancer and reloading your current game. And remember, to make the changes appear on your Navmap, you'll have to visit the place.

* However, some of the patches especially where clouds, asteroids and/or mineable area's are involved, the changes only become noticeable when starting a complete new game. This is due to flags that are set in your savegame file. If you don't want to start a new game: For those who are familiar with editing of savegame fl files, at the end of the detailed document there is a rough description of the workaround I use to find out what needs to changed in .fl visit = code lines to get the desired result.

* Some errors are still there. Simply because I have not come across them yet or due to the fact that at the time I could not find a proper solution for it or the solution was to complex.

All modders are encouraged to use this package. You allowed to use it as a whole or parts in your mods. If you've already edited system files in place, the detailed information makes it every easy to patch your own system files on the fly.

See you in Sirius

Buck Danny