So I recently started playing around with Freelancer Explorer. For those of you who don't know, this is a tool to edit/create/modify systems and bases and stuff.
It's nice and all, but is it possible to import a ship model and add it using Freelancer Explorer? Like for example I want Manhattan to sell a Arbiter. Actualy, I think I should ask if I can use Disco ship models for personal use only.
And if all that is possible, how can I edit the ship's stats and hardpoints?
the-starport.net/freelancer/download/visit.php?cid=5&lid=537 Has a tutorial that should help. The first half is no real use for what you want but the latter half shows which files are involved in the editing.
If you look in the Freelancer directory (in Win7 usually its C:\users\[username]\appdata\local\Discovery Freelancer 4.87.0) you will see a folder named DATA.
Open that folder, go to DATA\SHIPS and open shiparch.ini (it should open with Notepad, but if you want a better text editor download Notebook++).
Once you have that file open search for "arbeiter" and you'll find the ship entry for that ship.
Study this closely-- you will have to copy most of this into your Vanilla FL shiparch.ini and you will also have to copy the models (cmp, mat, sur) and make sure the paths are correct.
For this ship the models are in ships\discovery\frozen\
You also should delete the drop_cargo fuse from the shiparch entry when you copy it to Vanilla FL (that fuse doesn't exist in Vanilla).
And you should have permission from Frozen to use his models.
If this doesn't make sense to you, Google "freelancer modding" and start reading up on the wealth of information there is available on how to customize this incredible game (that's basically what Tunicle is telling you-- the Starport is a great place to learn modding).