Freelancer Singleplayer experience

[The.Wizard]

I had problems flying anywhere with a freighter in 4.84 because of attacks by low level and mid-level NPCs which took forever to kill. Below is part of my initial post in a thread explaining why I was planning to quit Discovery back on January 7, 2008:

A few hours ago I had a really bad experience with 4.84, so I'm thinking of quitting the Discovery mod, at least until 4.85 if the balance issues are fixed then.
First, I'll tell you a little about myself, as it is relevant to why I'm seriously thinking of leaving the mod. I have a very stressful job as a taxi driver. I need an outlet to relieve my stress. Playing Freelancer for a little while gives me that outlet or it did until earlier tonight. As -{BD}-Kirikabu, I flew from Planet New Tokyo to Planet Honshu earlier tonight, but that took me TWO HOURS for the following reasons:
1. Blood Dragon NPCs disrupted the trade lanes three different times;
2. The first two dogfights against 3-5 Blood Dragon NPCs took about 45 minutes each;
3. The third dogfight only lasted 20 minutes, because I retreated after running out of missiles and finishing off one Blood Dragon with my guns.
What I absolutely HATE about 4.84:
1. Killing mid-level (level 5-10) NPCs now takes forever with a well-equipped X-Shuttle;
2. Missiles are useless (I killed one Blood Dragon NPC with my missiles, 90% of my missiles didn't hit their targets even at point blank range);
3. Killing a single mid-level NPC now takes 15-20 minutes with a mid-level ship (X-Shuttle);
4. At least one-third of the NPCs I fought escaped, because I couldn't kill them when they were weak;
5. I don't need this level of frustration (I get enough frustration from my job -- I don't need it from Freelancer).

If you want to fight low level NPC fighters that are nearly impossible to kill, good luck with that. I had to quit 4.84 to maintain what was left of my sanity.

Yeah,i hear you.I wanted to break my PC many times while i was trying to finish it.
Do not fly freighter,only fighters.
Do not think you'll finish all the missions by yourself,let friendly npc's do some work.
You'll need lots of torpedoes,finding blind spots of gb/carrier npc's and flying there.
Do not break your pc.
Last mission before nomad city is nomad bs just like in vanilla-fight but let npc's do the job and just before they kill it-fly away and dock on Toledo.It's only way to do it.
After that go and buy admin cannons in lost battlestar-your reputation will allow you to buy it.
They fly open space,kill everything and be happy.

---