Discovery Gaming Community

Hello DGC,

Since lockdown, I have been building a game heavily inspired by Freelancer. It's called Freeport 7 (Until someone claims copyright infringement...)
it's in no way a complete game but I hope that you, the Discovery and Freelancer Community will help shape its future.

Here's a little collection of some playtesting. (slightly outdated)



I'm still working towards an ALPHA but as soon as its ready, I'll be dropping a link right here.

Heres a few more details


It's a single-player (for now) Sim-Arcade game. Similar to Freelancer in level structure, with travel gates to other locations and system gates to other levels. The difference is that the levels are VAST, not to scale but without fast travel methods, you can't get to other locations (unless you had a spare half an hour)

I have tried to emulate the feel of freelancer with a simple point and go control BUT with full Newtonian physics and 6DOF ( with roll )
There's a physics-based flight assist system too, it can be turned off for maximum velocity or kept on for tighter turns. The vid below might give you a feel for the physics and control



My main focus at the moment is to achieve SOLID dogfighting mechanics and being able to complete a side contract from boot in under 10 minutes.
It will eventually include all 3 pillars: fighting/trading and mining but this is a solo effort worked on in spare time (also for now)

Freelancer's story was Excellent, But unfortunately, I'm a REALLY bad writer. I have written a couple of missions but I have no clues about the overarching story, If you are a good writer and would be up for contributing/collaborating, Please get in contact. Right now it is text-based but would be looking to get voices ASAP.

The ships are my design and will be a mixture between re-imagined updated Freelancer ships (Legacy Ships) and brand new ones with a similar design language.
So far there's the Patriot / Dagger and my personal favorite, The Anubis. For now, the starter ship is the Dagger but I'll be holding polls on if that will stay or not and what to model next.

If you'd like to learn even more there's a dev blog on my site here: https://kingsleyvaughan.co.uk/freeport-7

You can follow my meandering progress on my Trello here: https://trello.com/b/Gjd8F1zy

If you have any questions or feedback or maybe even interested in getting involved, please get in contact!

Thanks DGC,

Kings

Damn impressive. Are there any game play features / mechanics that we are used to in Freelancer that you hope to mimic?

For example, docking a station, visiting a bar, selecting a mission and launching to complete a mission. Or, another example, buying hull and shield bots to regenerate hull and shields during a dogfight. Etc

Wait, is this the same one of these, or another one? We're going to need a database of all of them, at this rate. What if each of you worked together?

Anyway, looks good, please continue.

Hey Avalanche,

Right now everything is done in the service bay through menus, similar to ED.
- As its just me on development and id like to keep quite a high aesthetic I've chosen not to have multiple areas at 1 location.
Though there will be a number of different service bays with themes dependant on the type of station. eg: Spaceports, are going to have a big window looking at the planet it's orbiting.

Shield bots are a great idea, I'll add that to the Trello!, though I'm not sure about hull bots at the moment.
- hull damage equates to 40% of the value of your ship, so it's quite expensive to fix. I'd like to keep the tension that gives you while dogfighting. having to pull away and be evasive when you take a lot of damage.
Maybe very limited amounts of both? I will prototype it.

Docking at stations is very basic at the moment, Its simply a button press and a level change if you're in the right spot and under a certain speed,
it could certainly do with some development but unsure if I want to go with the cinematic approach freelancer had. Maybe a poll once I'm at that stage.

Side missions are pretty much exactly as you describe, except you pick up the mission from a menu,
Side note: Has it ever bugged anyone that you have this super futuristic ship yet you cant browse the shop or mission board from outside in most games?
- Another thing to prototype.

(08-10-2020, 12:31 PM)Avalanche Wrote: [ -> ]Damn impressive. Are there any game play features / mechanics that we are used to in Freelancer that you hope to mimic?

For example, docking a station, visiting a bar, selecting a mission and launching to complete a mission. Or, another example, buying hull and shield bots to regenerate hull and shields during a dogfight. Etc

It's another one Champ, did some digging to find there another 3 Unreal FL remakes haha!

Working together is a great idea but I've done far to much work to start over from scratch, as I'm sure the others think the same.
Also, It looks like we all have quite different goals.

(08-10-2020, 12:58 PM)Champ Wrote: [ -> ]Wait, is this the same one of these, or another one? We're going to need a database of all of them, at this rate. What if each of you worked together?

Anyway, looks good, please continue.

as much as it saddens me that there is no official freelancer-like game yet, seeing all the fan work brings a smile to my face. your models look really solid and flight mechanics feel very freelancer-y. just hope you manage to latch onto that vanilla FL feeling of unknown yet living space. keep up the good work!

Hey Chronicron,

Cheers for the kind words and yeah, that freelancer feeling is hard to pinpoint but if anyone knows its this community... the game is going to need plenty of feedback to achieve it. I hope you involved !


quote="Chronicron" pid='2184588' dateline='1597071545']
as much as it saddens me that there is no official freelancer-like game yet, seeing all the fan work brings a smile to my face. your models look really solid and flight mechanics feel very freelancer-y. just hope you manage to latch onto that vanilla FL feeling of unknown yet living space. keep up the good work!
[/quote]

Do you plan on having multiple systems filled with stuff like multiple planets, multiple bases (controlled by unique factions) suns, fields of gas or asteroids etc?
Will systems have trade lanes like we're used to?
Will there be jump gates and jump holes to travel to different systems?

Best of luck with your project !

I have one question regarding this:

(08-10-2020, 12:37 AM)FP7 Wrote: [ -> ]The difference is that the levels are VAST, not to scale but without fast travel methods, you can't get to other locations (unless you had a spare half an hour)

Are you using world composition?

Impressive, Ben.