Discovery Gaming Community

The one thing that always irritated me, is the fact that the MK II VHFs (Wraith, Nephtys, Guardian etc.) all have the very exact model of their original HF sister ship. I mean, these ships have massively boosted stats, I think it should be reflected in the design. I am not talking about completely remodelling and retexturing them, just take the original and change it a bit.

Unfortunately, these are the ONLY pictures I could salvage from a very old (but ingenious) mod called Nomad Revenge II 2.29 (maybe some guys know it). Every house VHF had a slight rework over their HF.

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-1336876/screen3.JPG.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-1336877/screen4.JPG.html

http://www.pic-upload.de/view-1336878/screen5.JPG.html

As you can see, the changes are small, but noticeable. Note that this is an example and might not suit your taste, just so you get a general idea of what I mean.

Note: This ship was not modelled by me and I do not take any credits for it. It is from a Freelancer Mod called Nomad Revenge 2.29

Edit: Wow, I found an image of the Paladin, the Bretonian VHF of NR 2.29:
http://the-starport.net/uploads/extgallery...n_438_8ddda.jpg
Now this is a complete remodel, BUT it still retains Bretonian- and Freelancer design elements!

Wraith looks wekrd.

Paladin...O_O epicness.

This is very interesting. I think I'll fiddle a bit with some models.

It's kinda like what the Disco mod boys did with the bombers. Take the base model, add a fin or two, add an engine or if it is really ugly (like Crusader/Templar:P:P) remodel with a Freelancer-ish look.

And then what do we do with the originals, hrm?

The 'Mark II' versions are redundant.

What SHOULD have been done is boosted the originals up to the Mark 2 levels instead of adding in this second level to the now redundant tier system of vanilla Freelancer.

Or better yet, used the Defender, Bloodhound and Startracker as the base level to balance everything else around instead of the Sabre, Eagle, and Titan.

' Wrote:And then what do we do with the originals, hrm?

The 'Mark II' versions are redundant.

What SHOULD have been done is boosted the originals up to the Mark 2 levels instead of adding in this second level to the now redundant tier system of vanilla Freelancer.

Or better yet, used the Defender, Bloodhound and Startracker as the base level to balance everything else around instead of the Sabre, Eagle, and Titan.

Well said. Balance-down instead of balance-up would be interesting.

I think this was initially done in a very early release so that each faction had craft of comparable strength, but keep lower level missions playable. Seriously, you'd not want to pit vanilla Defenders against vanilla Sabres right? Or a starfly against beefed Defenders?

Which is why you beef the Defender up to the Sabre's level, or bring the Sabre down to the level of the Defender.

Just as you'd bring every other ship to the relative level of every other ship.

Still, this is not the topic. I simply think that stronger ships should have a different design than their weaker sister ships. It does not even make sense in a RP way. You cannot boost a ship's stats by such huge amounts by simply changing the interior.

The stats are arbitrary numbers used to represent the capabilities and resilience of the fighter and how they match up against other ships.

The stats are, or SHOULD, be derived from the ship. The ship should not be built from the stats.

The 'stronger' ships are the exact same ships, just brought up to the level of the other 'top tier' VHFs from vanilla.
Take a look at vanilla's 'tier' system, designed to give the illusion of progress and increased difficulty through bigger numbers instead of different tactics or the like. You ran into Valkyries in Liberty during the campaign that were a match for the local Liberty Defenders because that was what you were expected to be flying at the time, even though the Valkyries you later encounter in Rheinland were significantly 'stronger', or rather, they had larger numbers.