I recently got into Discovery and it also sparked my interest in playing the singleplayer story again. Only once I actually started up vanilla FL did I realize how well Disco fixed the appearance and interface for high resolutions and modern computers. Disco looks like the vanilla game would look if it provided for modern computer power and graphics. I'd like to know what to tweak/install to make vanilla FL look like Disco.
Specifically, I'd like to do the following:
Fix the hud scaling and text size. I'd like to know Disco's font size settings, they seem to be pretty much perfect. Disco somehow managed to fix the all-too-common issue with the health and energy gauges being too wide as well. Also, Hudshift works seamlessly with Disco, but I can't seem to get it to stick to vanilla. Where it's installed and what settings that Disco uses would be quite nice. I use 16:9 1920x1080 resolution.
Draw distance and model detail distance. I feel practically nearsighted in vanilla; at times I can't see the next trade lane ring, where in Disco I can see nearly every object in the system (at least as far away as I'd ever need to see them). Also, the distance where the game switches to lower-detail models is painfully, glaringly short. The first cutscene when you leave Manhattan and meet King in orbit had the guns switching models every few seconds, just from the camera circling around the ship. This computer can run Witcher 3 on none-too-modest settings; increasing the draw and detail distance as far as it can go couldn't possibly be an issue for my rig; and indeed, I've never seen a hint of framerate loss in Disco even in the largest and busiest systems.
The "Mouse Flight" text above the health gauges is very minor compared to these but I could do without it as well. It's unnecessary visual clutter that Disco was smart to remove.
HudShift does work with Vanilla. I assume you already have it, so here is what you have to do.
Drop hudshift.dll inside the EXE folder. In the same folder, open dacom.ini. In the Libraries section add a line "hudshift.dll" without the quotes.
Next drop hudshift.ini inside the INTERFACE folder. Now you can edit it like you normally would.
About the mouse flight text and draw distance, I believe they are coded inside the Freelancer.exe, so changing those won't be easy. You might want to turn to The Starport if you're really serious about this.
