It is with great joy that I can present to you the result of 2.5 months work and contributions from other people with Freelancer Variations: a mod which expands the Freelancer game mode to different versions of maps.
The primary goal was to add all bonus missions and similarly different map versions to Freelancer, the other goal was to give alternate times of day where no bonus missions existed. Adding to the times of day, I tried to bring as many low effort differences to the maps as I could. This mod works on the vanilla server and will work on Peacock when that supports Freelancer. If you’re on PC, you’ll have no excuse not to use this to play Freelancer! (Unless you get SDK crashes lel)
Installation
On top of the SMF mod being deployed as per usual, this is the first mod I’m aware of to make use of the Modding SDK by NoFaTe, this is required for the variants to actually show in game.
- Deploy mod in SMF
- Put the SDK in your games retail folder
- Put the FreelancerVariations.dll and .json in the retail/mods folder
4 (Optional). If you wish to change which variants will appear for you (By default all are turned on), go to PiePie’s variant picker website, pick what you want, and hit Generate (IO). Replace the .json in the retail/mods folder - Launch the game and select FreelancerVariations in the mod list
- Play the game!
Temporary SDK solutions to stop crashes
Solution 1) (Suggested by ProjektRF on Nexus)
For people having issues with SDK just crashing the game on launch I’ve had luck changing the Hitman3.exe to compatibility mode Windows 8 and it launched. I’ve seen others have luck changing it to Vista compatibilty. I guess play around and see what works
Solution 2) If you use a controller, disconnect it and do not reconnect until you are past the welcome screen, for some reason the SDK does not like it.
They’re working on a better and more permanent solution, thought I’d put this out there in the meantime
Known Issues
- Getting crashes from SDK (Unconfirmed if this is still happening in 2024)
-After having taken a survey it appears bugs you might assume are part of this mod are actually part of the vanilla game: Showdown Suspects standing around doing nothing, Crash on entering map from safehouse, crash on returning to safehouse from map. Mention them to IO, not me.
Incompatibilities
- If you use Lighting Ultimate then turn off Colorado - The Vector and Chongqing options in LU and it will work. Only use GOTY version of The Author, not Vanilla+. Also turn off Isle of Sgail if you want to play Hantu Port. If a better solution is found I will update this.
General Principles
- Each map is meant to have at least one alternative time of day, and for slight difference I try bundle in at least one ET/Special Assignment with that time change
- If I had to make a new file from scratch, usually I remove the story targets and enabled their ‘dead’ logic to help it be slightly more immersive (It will be like the targets recently died)
- I’ve put little bonuses in where I could to keep things interesting. Mainly increasing the variety of NPCs, you may see some unexpected cameos.
- 7DS and Deluxe content was not to be added as variants
Notes
- If you have the Noodle Massacre mod deployed, you do not need the Noodle Massacre SMF option for this mod (If you have it enabled you’ll be deploying the same files twice)
- I was unable to verify every variant since Freelancer launched, there may be major bugs! Please comment any bugs you find in this thread (along with screenshots if possible)
- At this stage New York is not intended to get any variants at all being the only indoor map and having no extra IO-made content for it.
- Chongqing Noodle Massacre starts on by default in SMF and SDK. If you do not wish to play Noodle Massacre you may disable it in SMF’s options screen, then just use Piepie’s variant selector to unselect the two Noodle Massacre options in Chongqing. I strongly discourage you from doing this as it adds a lot more than just Chongqing Noodle Massacre changes, and in my opinion is a way more fun way to play Chongqing than having to go around the ICA Facility or Hush’ weird shit
Contributors/Credits
Contributions have been made by some other members of the modding community
@piepieonline granted this mod the ability to work on the vanilla online server via his SDK mod
@Kercyx came up with the following time of day changes: Night Dartmoor Garden Show (Fireworks by 2kpr), Night Dartmoor (with assistance from Ruddy), WoT Sunset conversion, Night Haven, Night Mumbai (with assistance from Ruddy), Berlin Easter conversion (with assistance of NPCs and crowds by Ruddy), Mumbai + Dartmoor Day conversion, conversion of existing ToDs made by Rudd into new format
@musicalmushr00m created the following time of day changes: Night Colorado (Lamp tweaks by Ruddy), 2016 Daytime Sapienza (Applying it to Landslide has meant some interiors may not look like how creator intended), 2016 Night Time Holiday Hoarders (Restored from 2016)
@Tony_Stark created the following times of day: Berlin Midday (Tweaks to indoor lighting means it may not look 100% as creator intended)
(If I’ve forgotten any contributions, which is likely, I will update)
The Variants
There’s a lot to go through, I suggest you go to the variant selector website to read them all
https://www.piepieonline.com/h3-freelancer-variations-configuration/
I will update/do a post with them all at some point though
Future Updates
- Bug fixes as they pop up
- Romania Passenger Train
- Hawke’s Bay festival variant
For now… have fun and explore a true world of assassination!
