Discovery Freelancer mod

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:

• 290 player flyable ships in the game, of which 255 are introduced by Discovery
• 30 new player flyable ships introduced by 4.86
• 152 systems in the game total, of which 97 are introduced by Discovery
• 18 new systems in 4.86- 617 bases in the game total, of which about 444 are introduced by Discovery
• 139 factions in the game total, 92 new factions added by Discovery
• Over 50 new weapons introduced in 4.86, upping the number of new Discovery weapons above 250- 275 commodities, including mission specific commodities 
• Over 15,000 new infocard texts introduced by Discovery

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.