Discovery Freelancer 4.86: Exiles
Dec 6, 2012 Full Version 31 commentsThe year is 818 A.S. and war is everywhere. 17 years after Trent saved humanity and one year since Episode 13 took place, a Sirius-wide war is being waged...
Overview
Discovery 4.86 is the second version of the mod that was developed from the start by the Discovery Development Team, a dedicated group of 3D and 2D artists, coders, designers, writers, and testers. Storyline is just a portion of the progress taking place in Discovery 4.86 and we are dedicated to improving the mod in every way possible.

4.86 goes further than Episode 13, bringing another 30 brand new ships, with many previous ships being re-designed. All 290 ships in the game have had their hitboxes re-done, to make some more accurate and to make the entire mod run with less lag on servers. Large amounts of weaponry and equipment have been added, with factional SNACs being only the tip of the iceberg. Every system added by Discovery has gone through a quality assessment, with many systems being altered and improved, such as Newcastle being rescaled.
The balance of weaponry, ships and equipment has been altered and improved. Ships are moving more into specialised roles as variable cruise speeds come into play. A new balancing system, completely unique to Discovery, has been put in place to improve gameplay whilst complimenting the roleplay aspect of the mod.
The economy has been revamped from the top to bottom. Realistic chains of material harvesting, refining, manufacturing and retailing now exist. New commodities have appeared on the market and there are barely any 'useless' commodities in terms of trading.To give a fuller sense of immersion into the dangerous Sirius sector, NPCs throughout the entirety of the mod have been redone. Players are not alone in their use of Big Dragons, nor will Zoner Dromedary patrols go without Osprey escorts anymore. Accompanying these additions are thousands of new rumours, infocards and bits of information for players to find and trouble their brains over.
One final element that is both a first for Discovery and unique in it's scale, is the implementation of several FLHook plugins. Ranging from powerful Jump Drives to fully operational Battle Stations, 4.86 will be the first Freelancer mod to offer an entirely new and dynamic way of gameplay to thousands of players. Although other mods have made use of these plugins before, they have never been attempted on the scale and in the universe that Discovery can offer.
To satisfy those who like statistics, here are some for 4.86:
The integrated Discovery automatic updater will allow for easy, secure and rapid updating with no manual file transferring. Each time the game is launched, it checks with the server if new updates are available. Updates are cumulative (you don't have to download all of them, just the latest one).
More Information
If you prefer online play, you are welcome to join the official Discovery Freelancer RP 24/7 server and a number of other servers running Discovery. Server operators are welcome to run Discovery 4.86 without any restrictions.
Please visit Discovery forums at Discoverygc.com, Discovery website at Discoveryfl.com and Discovery Wiki for more details. Also, refer to mod's Readme.txt for installation instructions, troubleshooting hints, information on mod options, credits, and thanks.
4 comments by cannonnz on Dec 6th, 2012
As you may have noticed, the Discovery Freelancer ModDB page has renovated and updated. We released Discovery Freelancer 4.86: Exiles over a year ago but somehow failed to make an announcement here. Checkout the downloads section to download the latest version of the mod.
The Discovery Development Team hopes to showcase a number of the things that currently make our mod the shining success it is, as well as a few of the features that we're going to be bringing you in the very near future. Given recent progress, we're hoping have a functional beta of the next mod release for you all to test before long.
This is just the beginning and a sign of things to come! With any luck, we'll have the cobwebs brushed off and this place running at full speed within a few days.
Stay tuned and you can expect to see user generated videos and pictures from our official server, Discovery Freelancer RP 24/7, as well as member interviews and in-universe fiction to help highlight what's going on in the Discovery universe. We also highly recommend people take a look at our main forums (www.discoverygc.com) to meet our very greatest asset - the people who make up the Disco community.
-- news by jammi
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Lowest Rated (3 agree) 1/10
Good idea but very bad implementation because it allows players to create their own rules preventing anyone else from joining the pleasant game... so in effect spoiling the game all together regardless how good it looks and the conceptual idea. After been ransacked by 3 different players in a single day even as beginning level... the mod has been removed as result because it is utterly pointless unless someone is so sadistic that like to play to become a slave of others.
May 30 2011, 5:06am by thyropt
is the website are down? I cant get in website :(
Hell i've tried to join the forumn for well over a year and it always gives me an error everytime i try. I love the mod but i'm long past beginning to get angry with the devs as not a damn one of them helps me except to "Join the forumn and ask questions" but when i try to join i can't. I am beginning to feel blackballed for no reason except for trying to run my own private server with my son,brother and also attepting to get back some of my old friends who loved the mod at first until they incorporated that crappy weapons restriction and since no one answers me except with the usual cardboard cut out answer,well they won't join me "or" eventually their main server because they have had it. I had such plans for this mod along with joining their main server with alot of my old friends and it was coming along just fine until this past year. We were going to create our own faction along with roleplay and everything ! I'm almost 48 and my friends are also older than most but so much for our galactic adventure. All i asked is exactly how do i turn off the weapons restrictions,deploy a base since even that won't work and since i'm running my own Centurian server,how do i get the ability to access the bastile System since i have the right to being i'm running my own so i can purchase the Battlestar Galactica as well as the other ships but NOOOO,no one help me to anything no matter how many times i've nicely asked ! And no i have absolutely no idea of why i cannot join the forumn as i've tried upty billion times and STILL get an error. it says everything is correct and then BOOM i get the same damned error.
After trying repeatedly to join the forumn and asking questions here where i have no other place that i can ask "any" questions i have finally lost all respect for everyone who has worked on this mod and unless i get some kind of help along with my satisfaction then i'm not gonna plug to anymore of my friends as well as those who would really have swollen the ranks eventually on their main server again. I have eaten crow for this mod as i've talked so much about it only to be made a fool of and i've had it. So stop telling me to join your Goddamn forum and tell me right here where you're trying to get others to join your cause anyways. Great modders but very bad salesmen ! I am very disappointed in you all. Did i also mention that i am a singer for an all original metal band named Slam Corps and i could reach a very broad audience for you all and your hard work on your mod ?! Well give me a hand will ya' and stop giving me the same cardboard cut out anser since i am unable to join your main site. I have tried that repeatedly and it gives me an error
so, im really enjoying the mod, however I've recently became the barge pilot of a clan
its massive, i enjoy it, however- i have 1 suggestion that me, and several other barge pilots have discussed. here it is
The barge needs to be MUCH heavier, it maneuvers as if it should be heavier, in other words, im not saying adjust the maneuverability of the barge
what i am saying, is that i shouldn't feel like a sock in a dryer when a fighter hits me,and i should be able to be bashed through by a battleship, the other night, i was docking with the Lancaster trade center, i was tapped by a battleship while UN-docking, flinging me into the nearby planet causes instant death, and loss of over 100million cred
or, the NPCs that *push* you in a barge, again, highly inaccurate, should be dying, not rotating you around like a rag doll, if one can die by simply colliding into a jump-gate, why can't they die fron colliding into a barge thats 10x the size of said jump-gate, and probably heavier too...
Make it so we don't get pushed around like little bitty things the size of starflyers ....its tiring and makes a 30second dock job take in excess of 10mins
that's the only thing i believe needs to be done :)
Oh, minor thing as-well, get some voice for mooring, and fix it so that most of the fighters dock, instead of mooring, making it inaccessible to most of the ships that actually need to moor
thanks
Unfortunately, the Freelancer engine doesn't deal very well with large ships - after all, it was originally designed for fighters and Microsoft discontinued development before capital ships could be made playable. The mass, or 'feel' of ships is one of the factors affected. The issue with the NPCs can't really be fixed either. They don't actually detect collision damage, and instead fly on rails. So whatever is in their way is simply pushed out of the way. We can make collisions between players a bit better, but NPCs are an issue without significant engine re-writes.
So. I'm new to the whole modding of freelancer, i havn't played since like...'03?.. or so? the year the game was released, anyway, what version do we need to install this?.. as im currently downloading FL again.. o.o not sure what all has changed in the past decade.. but regardless, im comming back due to this mod :P
Can I still play the original story with Discovery?
From .85 and earlier you can, but the latest version has disabled the single player campaign due to compatibility issues.
Well I found a way, haven't tested it yet. Basically I used the registry editor to export my entire freelancer registry @ SCHKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\MICROSOFT GAMES\FREELANCER as a reg file, so theoretically I should be able to use this file on a new computer and retain my character data yes? Has anyone else tried this method? since myflaccountid.hta reads from the registry, this should theoretically work, can anyone with nothing to lose try it out and confirm this?
The easiest way to back up your accounts is using a tool like Freelancer Account Manager by Korrd, or Discovery Launchpad. They'll scan your Freelancer ID accounts and save them for you.