Blatant Freelancer clone (I was wrong)

[Fox]

EDITED: As someone who is intimately familiar with Freelancer (completed the story again just a month ago), I can "wrongfully assume" that this is clearly just a heavily modded Freelancer game using the same assets and slightly modded UI design / layout. The fact that the dev admitted to the Freelancer mods working with this game pretty much says it all. It also wouldn't surprise me if this dev stole some of the mods from Freelancer and added it to this game to make it look better (like Freelancer HD Edition 0.6 mod or one of the other modpacks that pretty much does the same thing with different defaults).

I only hope that I get to play this before Steam takes it down or the devs of Freelancer steps in (if they still exist or even care at all). I also hope this dev / modder doesn't get greedy in pricing this either given the situation.

My suggestion to this cloner would be to make far more drastic changes to make the modded game look less obvious. Stop using Freelancer's assets. Ideally, use a newer game engine so circles can stop looking like octagons. I mean, DirectX10 is really sad for anything being released as "new".

[Trainwiz]

As stated elsewhere (in the very same statements you are misinterpreting): Absolutely all assets in the game, including code, are original and made in-house or made with the permission of their original creators. The game is made in Unity, not Freelancer's engine, as the demo clearly demonstrates. You can also check the monthly devlogs to see all work done in the game, as well as WIP things like models and assets being developed.

No amount of modding of Freelancer could give the features we offer, including a dynamic economy, in-game ship customization, and first person portions on stations and planets. You are welcome to join our discord[discord.gg] and try out our demo [pastaspace.itch.io] to see for yourself.

[BrianRubin]

Originally posted by Fox:

As someone who is intimately familiar with Freelancer (completed the story again just a month ago), I can confidently say

As someone who is a self-proclaimed expert in space gaming, I can confidently say you're an idiot. Do your research before making such baseless accusations, you feckless clown.

[Fox]

Originally posted by BrianRubin:

Originally posted by Fox:

As someone who is intimately familiar with Freelancer (completed the story again just a month ago), I can confidently say

As someone who is a self-proclaimed expert in space gaming, I can confidently say you're an idiot. Do your research before making such baseless accusations, you feckless clown.

Ok, that was uncalled for.

I'm playing the demo right now. While I admit my post was completely wrong, my assumptions before playing it were justified as the similarities were blatant and game cloning is definitely a common issue among classic games.

Trade lanes, aim assist, flight controls, docking stations, UI, menu layout, everything graphics detail related, etc... they all looked near identical to a modded Freelancer. Plus the mention of mods of a completely other game somehow being compatible to this game... I mean, how can anyone not make this assumption.

But yes, this is definitely a new game with new code. I just don't know why this dev decided to use so much of the outdated features of Freelancer in the new game. Why not use a more modern engine with modern graphics?

Also, the ability to walk around seems to add nothing at all to the game in my opinion. Maybe that will change as the development progresses, I don't know.

Also, Dynamic Economy does exist in the Freelancer Crossfire modpack, which is why you have to update every time you launch the game. I hated it though. Hopefully this one is better.

[Trainwiz]

Originally posted by Fox:

Originally posted by BrianRubin:

As someone who is a self-proclaimed expert in space gaming, I can confidently say you're an idiot. Do your research before making such baseless accusations, you feckless clown.

Ok, that was uncalled for.

I'm playing the demo right now. While I admit my post was completely wrong, my assumptions before playing it were justified as the similarities were blatant and game cloning is definitely a common issue among classic games.

Trade lanes, aim assist, flight controls, docking stations, UI, menu layout, everything graphics detail related, etc... they all looked near identical to a modded Freelancer. Plus the mention of mods of a completely other game somehow being compatible to this game... I mean, how can anyone not make this assumption.

But yes, this is definitely a new game with new code. I just don't know why this dev decided to use so much of the outdated features of Freelancer in the new game. Why not use a more modern engine with modern graphics?

Also, the ability to walk around seems to add nothing at all to the game in my opinion. Maybe that will change as the development progresses, I don't know.

Also, Dynamic Economy does exist in the Freelancer Crossfire modpack, which is why you have to update every time you launch the game. I hated it though. Hopefully this one is better.

I'm not sure what "modern features" you think the game needs and that Unity somehow isn't a modern engine. We have full PBR support, dynamic shadows (coming in the next demo), HDR, all the forms of AA that people think are cool, global illumination, volumetric lighting, etc. But the game is also designed to scale across a wide variety of machines.

The ultimate goal is to take a classic space game that has never had a worthy successor and has long been considered abandonware, and build upon it in ways that nothing else can.

[Fox]

Originally posted by Trainwiz:

The ultimate goal is to take a classic space game that has never had a worthy successor and has long been considered abandonware, and build upon it in ways that nothing else can.

I'm really happy to hear that and fully agree with that statement (which is why I'll likely be spending money on this when it releases).

Unfortunately, NPCs look pretty bad in this game, I assume they're just placeholders given that they all seem to look the same too. Every texture currently looks like they're very low resolution / poly and I also had to disable a few settings cuz it all looked a bit blurry / gross when moving around in space. I could be wrong, but I don't think a classic look really works with 3d space games like this, especially given the competition out there.

A bit off topic here, but there's other feature flaws like it'd be nice if we didn't constantly have to wait in line for really slow NPCs to dock to stuff (especially since that wasn't a thing at all in Freelancer for trade lanes... only for stations, which wasn't quite as bad as this). Also, it'd be nice if the AI actually had some intelligence... for instance, pirates demanding money when my ship and level are far better than them and they don't stand a chance at all which was also an annoying issue in Freelancer too. And when they predictably flee after being wrecked, it'd be nice if it wasn't instant gone so we can intercept their cruise speed attempt like we could in Freelancer. Of course, these are all early days stuff in which I'm sure will at some point get looked into.

I don't know if your goal is to keep a classic look or something but with minor additions like HDR and whatnot, but I think texture quality / resolution matters way more in any game. HDR, AA, Shadows, etc are all just a nice extra.

[Trainwiz]

If your textures are blurry, you need to increase texture resolution or set the graphics higher in the launcher. Textures on interiors, and models on interiors, are not implemented and everything there is placeholder.

You can bypass NPC queues by enabling manual docking (default L key). Pirates DO flee from you without a fight, but your overall level or power must be significantly over theirs, or you must be flying a particularly frightening ship (which are not available in the demo).
The instant flee is a bug however (and will be fixed in the next patch), you can disrupt NPCs still with the appropriate missile class, but they'll charge back up quickly.

[Fox]

Originally posted by Trainwiz:

If your textures are blurry, you need to increase texture resolution or set the graphics higher in the launcher. Textures on interiors, and models on interiors, are not implemented and everything there is placeholder.

You can bypass NPC queues by enabling manual docking (default L key). Pirates DO flee from you without a fight, but your overall level or power must be significantly over theirs, or you must be flying a particularly frightening ship (which are not available in the demo).
The instant flee is a bug however (and will be fixed in the next patch), you can disrupt NPCs still with the appropriate missile class, but they'll charge back up quickly.

I run on an RTX 3080, so everything was set to max by default. I doubt there's anything I could do at my end to increase visuals.

I'll try manual docking again later, thanks.