Freelancer: HD Edition is a mod that aims to improve every aspect of Freelancer while keeping the look and feel as close to vanilla as possible. It also serves as a customizable all-in-one package for players so they don't have to worry about installing countless patches and mods to create the perfect HD and bug-free install.
This mod was made possible thanks to the assistance of project Freelancer: Nomad Legacy. Huge thanks to the developers for allowing us to use their textures!
Freelancer: Nomad Legacy website
Freelancer: Nomad Legacy Mod DB page
N.B. Freelancer: HD Edition does not add additional content on top of Freelancer but rather enhances what the game already has to offer. Although minor gameplay changes were made, Freelancer: HD Edition will always be compatible with vanilla Freelancer. Therefore, players can use this mod to play on all vanilla servers as long as the server owners allow these changes.
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Key Features
- HD Space Stations
- HD Ships
- HD Planets
- HD Effects
- HD Asteroids
- HD Character Models
- HD Base Interiors (WIP)
- HD HUD
- HD Nebulae
- HD Starspheres
- Maximized Draw Distances
- Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering support
- HQ Music
- Windows compatibility fixes
- Jason's Freelancer Patch
- Full Widescreen support
- Improvements
- New features
- Bug fixes
- flplusplus
- No-CD Patch
- Official 1.1 Patch
- Tons of additional bug fixes
- Additional gameplay improvements
- Full vanilla Multiplayer support
To learn more about all the changes made in this mod, please refer to the Changelog.
Recommendations
Due to the large file size of many textures used in this mod, some users may experience significantly longer load times during gameplay. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to install Freelancer: HD Edition on an (M.2) SSD.
Installation instructions
Visit this link to view the installation instructions.
Contributing
Have something to contribute to make the mod even better? Feel free to create a pull request or feature request on the GitHub repository! We are always open to new suggestions and improvements. Making the repository public has allowed us as a community to create the best possible HD mod for Freelancer out there since many modders from around the world have contributed to this project.
Credits
Changelog
Visual
- Added HD Nomad Lair textures
- Added HD Dyson Sphere textures
- Added updated version of the HD Character Models addon (tremendously improved character textures over the previous version)
- Added support for native Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering
- Added higher quality startup movies
- Added improved HD Nebulae and Fog
- Improved HD Nomad, Pirate, Bretonia, Blood Dragon and Utility ship textures
- Added many HD weapon and misc effect textures
- Added an HD Smoke effect
- Added HD Base Interior tables
- Added HD weapon models
- Added HD equipment carts
- Added HD background stars
- Added HD vanilla HUD
- Added HD mouse cursors
- Added HD button textures and other icons
- Improved HD cockpits
- Improved the St03b starsphere
- Added HD Base Interiors (Proof of Concept) for the following bases:
- Manhattan
- Pittsburgh
- Liberty Dreadnought
- Improved station textures:
- Fixed outline for dome trees
- Improved dome grass
- Improved HD station numbers
- Added HD base windows
- Added HD light panel textures
- Improved texture quality of previously original textures for asteroid stations
- Added HD cargo crates
- Added optional shinier reflections
- Improved overall reflections
- Added an improved explosion effect texture
- Improved the zoomed map by adding more, smaller stars to it
- Improved texture quality of some original ship textures
- Adjust colors slightly in the Ew05 and Ew06 (both Unknown systems) starspheres
- Added updated Maximized Draw Distances addon (enables high quality sphere rendering)
- Include a copy of ReShade with a basic, optional config (includes HDR, increased saturation, and bloom)
- Added optional player engine trails
- Added an HD jump effect
Audio
- Compressed HQ Music to 320 kb/s (fixes issues with Freelancer sometimes not looping or playing the music)
- Adjusted the cutscene music attenuation according to the differences in volume between the standard and HQ music
Features
- Made intro skips optional
- Made jump tunnel time adjustable
- Made the Dark HUD optional
- Made the Flat Interface optional
- Add possibility for users to choose a separate save game folder
- Increased max number of characters in the chat input box (allows for longer messages to be typed)
- Increased the max number of chat lines in the chat history window
- Made both Unknown systems appear on the nav map after visiting them
- Made the Text Strings Revision patch optional
- Added the Territory plugin with a custom config; shows which region of space the current system is in
- Added the Ranks plugin with a custom config; associates a rank with the playerlevel
- Added the HUDless plugin which allows players to hide the HUD
- Added optional no-story (open single player) modes:
- Normal: the player starts on Manhattan with a basic loadout and a default reputation
- Pirate: the player starts on Rochester with a basic loadout and an inverted reputation
- Ensured Bounty Hunter and Corsair ships have Corsair engines (like the NPCs do)
- Added "HDE" to the version text in the main menu to indicate that the Freelancer: HD Edition installation has succeeded
- Added an alternative base interior lighting fix
- Added flplusplus; allows for configurable draw distances, PNG screenshots, and more
Fixes
- Replaced Liberty Defender with Juni's Defender in Kress cutscene
- Adjusted the HQ reveal and exposition music so it has the same length as the original
- Reduced vanilla icon sizes in contact list so they can no longer overlap
- Fixed fog colors on the New York nav map
- Inverted the HD Moonblu Planet's color so it looks more like the original
- Ensured the Rowlett's Revenge weapon drop has the correct string reference (it used to be called Nomad Prototype)
- Reduced LODCurve in the dyson_city hypergate ale effect to ensure it doesn't look too dense
- When both the Dark HUD and Adv Wide HUD have been selected, the player will now actually get both
- Added a visit tag to the gravity buoy in Tau-37 so it can no longer be selected in the contact list
- Removed a purposeless hazard buoy on the outer edge of Sigma-17
- Centered the nav map animation in 16:9
- Fixed seams in some Bretonia starspheres
- Removed silence in the zone_nebula_nomad ambient sound
- Made the fog in the Liberty Dreadnought deck start right away, instead of 30 seconds later
- Moved Armored Transport in mission 13 cutscene so it's no longer on the same landing pad as the Anubis
- Mission 1 cutscene fixes:
- Prevented the Transport ship from tilting downwards at the very start
- Prevented Freeport 7 escorts from colliding with each another off-screen
- Adjusted the angle and position of the 3rd Nomad attacker ship so it can fire torpedoes properly
- Ensure the Nomad attacker ship's engines can't be seen as they are decloaking when the camera zooms out
- Properly despawn Freeport 7 so it can't be seen in New York during mission 1
- Ensured the Planet Houston -> Bering Jump Gate trade lane has the correct name
- Assigned a faction to the Alaska -> New York Jump Gate, and the Magellan -> New York Jump Gate so their names are displayed properly
- Lowered volume for music that plays when Orillion talks during a mission 13 cutscene
- Set numerous friendly jumpholes during story missions to neutral
- Prevent cloaked Rheinland Battleships from being visible during mission 7
- Turned down the volume of a rather loud voice line in mission 6
- Removed a screech in the HQ Omicron Battle music
- Applied engine fixes in the gasminer3.thn main menu script
- Disabled the D3D8 error spam in FLSpew (Freelancer log)
- Fixed uneven edges in HD main menu Freelancer logos
- Set the mine detonation distance to 8 (mitigates the mine collision bug)
- Added missing audio files from JFLP v1.25; fixes some incorrect NPC chatter
- Applied several vanilla compatibility hotfixes (prevents crashes when playing on vanilla servers)
Misc
- Increased asteroid field fill distance
- Multiplied the maximum docking initiation distance by 5x
- Reduced time between contact list refreshes to 0.5 seconds
- Allowed the current worth to be shown in Multiplayer
- Replaced manual hex edits with the Factions plugin for making several factions appear in the faction list
- Added a trail-less version of the CSV engine (unused)
- Reverted the solid gauge bars (still made the gaps a bit smaller than the original)
- Added the latest version of HUD Shift which centers all windows correctly
- Replaced Freelancer.exe's application icon with a Freelancer: HD Edition icon
- Replaced d3d8to9 with DxWrapper
- Changed dgVoodoo2 version to 2.54
- Added an FLDOCS folder with useful Readmes and documentation
- Include documentation regarding manual hex/binary edits for Freelancer: HD Edition
- Compressed R8G8B8 textures to DXT1 and DXT5 (saves space)
- Dropped support for installations via Freelancer Mod Manager
Hi Dev Team, I hope you don't mond but I made an entry specifically for this mod on the sweetfx database, here: Sfx.thelazy.net I've also added my own preset to start the list. I suggest making an entry for the preset the team are developing/distributing. The site design itself is quite spartan but in my opinion it's still the best database for postprocessing mods.
Thanks for the suggestion, will add it soon. Any particular reason why you didn't add your preset to the "Freelancer" list? Sfx.thelazy.net
Hi, sorry I didn't see your reply until now!
The reason I made a new entry in the database is because the more you guys update basic visual assets the less likely it will be that a shader preset will work on both the vanilla and enhanced versions of the game. For example one may require sharpening while the doesn't, and so on. Feel free to post presets wherever you please though! I just thought it would make sense to have a forked version in the database. Again sorry for the lateness in replying, for some reason I never received a notification.
I downloaded this "update" and thought it looks divine. For Freelancer to really become an amazing game, it is enough to have a server dedicated to battles between corporations and with the player's option to be a pirate of the universe. Who knows, maybe one day we can get there.
Great mod, I am really enjoying the HD edition. Went back to my old PC and rediscovered all the fun.
Regarding the playership in the HUD, what is required to add the wireframe of a modded ship to show in the HUD?
Check this out: The-starport.net
BC46 that was a quick reply, many thanks for the link.
Do I need the original game Freelancer to play this HD version ?
Yes, you can't install the mod without it.
Great work !. Can you please provide a full installer package as an optional download. Thanks.
Instructions on how install the mod in offline mode can be found here: Github.com
Hey, how to add mods like, advancedbeam into HD Edition?
Hi, Freelancer: HD Edition was made to be a standalone mod, meaning compatibility with other mods hasn't been considered. Mods like the advanced beam make use of FLMM scripts. Activating those types of mods on top of HDE will most likely fail due to .ini file mismatches. Though we might be able to find a workaround for you. Which mods were you planning to use?
i missed it so much. Good luck to you. It's so nice to play this game again today thanks to you. Can we donate for this?
I appreciate that! Though we can't take any donations because it's not possible for us to distribute the money between all the mod contributors. Secondly, we want to keep this project completely free, hence taking people's money wouldn't feel right to us. The best way you can support us is to stick around whenever we have something new to share. :)
Greetings,
just perfect for some timetravel back into childhood. Nice Work. Is there a somewhere maybe a full list of Console Commands?
Hi, you can view the list of all available commands and their usage with the "help" command.
Yes, id saw that. But it only shows me the "main things" cash, costume, etc. but can i see somewhere what is possible, or is it just trail and error :).
This should be the full list from the plugin's source code:
{ L"about", cmdAbout },
{ L"anim", cmdAnim },
{ L"al", cmdAutoLoad },
{ L"as", cmdAutoSave },
{ L"autoload", cmdAutoLoad },
{ L"autosave", cmdAutoSave },
{ L"base", cmdBase },
{ L"cacc", cmdCAcc },
{ L"cash", cmdCash },
{ L"costume", cmdCostume },
{ L"cspd", cmdCSpd },
{ L"drive", cmdDrive },
{ L"ghost", cmdGhost },
{ L"godmode", cmdGodmode },
{ L"help", cmdHelp },
{ L"hitch", cmdHitch },
{ L"jump", cmdJump },
{ L"l", cmdLaunch },
{ L"launch", cmdLaunch },
{ L"load", cmdLoad },
{ L"monkey", cmdMonkey },
{ L"ntb", cmdNTB },
{ L"park", cmdPark },
{ L"play", cmdPlay },
{ L"pos", cmdPos },
{ L"posr", cmdPosR },
{ L"rep", cmdRep },
{ L"robot", cmdRobot },
{ L"rot", cmdRot },
{ L"rotr", cmdRotR },
{ L"s", cmdSystem },
{ L"save", cmdSave },
{ L"sell", cmdSell },
{ L"ships", cmdShips },
{ L"show", cmdShow },
{ L"system", cmdSystem },
{ L"trent", cmdTrent },
{ L"xfer", cmdXfer },
{ L"zoom", cmdZoom },
Thank you, nice work :)
Hey, is there any other place I can get the full version of this mod? everytime I try to download the files using the exe, it fails.
Github.com