Discovery Freelancer Website

On other news, the development of Discovery Freelancer 4.86 is speeding up. PvP balancing is largely complete and almost all updated ship models that were planned for 4.86 are in the development build. There are still system changes, bug fixes and submissions to integrate and we hope to complete this soon. Infocard writing is somewhat behind but we are not worrying about this until the system integration is finished.

As of today, we have 83 open tickets out of a total of 198. Many of the open tickets are waiting for integration and QA rather than implementation.

I’ve noticed on the forum that a number of people have said that “discovery will never use stuff from other mods”. This comment is not accurate. What was meant is that our Dev team will never steal content from other mods. We sometimes use content with permission but we prefer to develop content ourselves so that ownership issues do not arise.

As people constantly ask me about these, I can confirm that the following features are actively being worked on or are already finished.
- Player constructed and controlled bases
- Player controlled commodity and equipment dealers
- Player docking on ships
- Cloaking devices
- Jump drives
- Different cruise speeds for ships
- Control of lights on ships, hud colours, shields and group targeting
- Turret zoom

Some of these features are similar to other mods but I think we have a better implementation. I’m not aware of any other mods that allow players to construct their own bases.

Here’s a sample of some of the new commands:

There are a lot of other features we would love to add but we have to focus on getting 4.86 out and so these might have to wait until 4.86 update 1 or 4.87.

Have fun.

We apologize for lack of developer updates recently. Discovery Freelancer 4.86 development is still underway, and the dev team is working hard and is making progress – albeit my own contributions have been limited by various real life issues in the recent months. We are not yet ready to announce release times for 4.86.

This post is dedicated to the events happening in Rheinland in 818 A.S. (prior to the 4.86 release). Previous story posts can be found here:

Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Factions of Gallia
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Tau Conquest
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Kusari in 818 A.S.
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Bretonia in 818 A.S.
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Liberty in 818 A.S.

The war between Liberty and Rheinland is moving towards its logical conclusion, since both nations are interested in peace. Rheinland ended up in a tough economical situation and cannot allow itself to lose the whole warship fleet needed to defend its boundaries. At the same time, Liberty faces the threat of a future attack from Gallia. To prepare for the war with Gallia which seems to be inevitable, the war with Rheinland has to end, one way or another.

The carefully planned attack against Munster could be one of the final blows of Liberty in this war, and also reveal some of Liberty’s true goals and intentions for the attack against its neighbor…

To access the story post from the forum’s front page or from the website, use the following link:

Discovery 4.86: Rheinland in 818 A.S.

If you are browsing the forum, you should see it already as a second post of this thread (after this introduction). Feel free to say what you think and share your opinions!

Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy (belated) New Year to all Discovery players!

The lack of traditional Christmas announcement will be compensated by some more news in the new year. Yes, we surely promise to get more updates to you. Both about Discovery Freelancer 4.86 development and about 4.86 storyline. And yes, we are planning to release the mod this year, most definitely we are. But exact release time will remain unspecified until everything is done and ready for you to test out.

This post is dedicated to the events happening in Liberty in 818 A.S. (prior to the 4.86 release). Previous story posts can be found here:

Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Factions of Gallia
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Tau Conquest
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Kusari in 818 A.S.
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Bretonia in 818 A.S.

The war between Liberty and Rheinland is moving towards its logical conclusion, since both nations are interested in peace. Rheinland ended up in a tough economical situation and cannot allow itself to lose the whole warship fleet needed to defend its boundaries. At the same time, Liberty faces the threat of a future attack from Gallia. To prepare for the war with Gallia which seems to be inevitable, the war with Rheinland has to end, one way or another.

The carefully planned attack against Munster could be one of the final blows of Liberty in this war, and also reveal some of Liberty’s true goals and intentions for the attack against its neighbor…

To access the story post from the forum’s front page or from the website, use the following link:

Discovery 4.86: Liberty in 818 A.S.

If you are browsing the forum, you should see it already as a second post of this thread (after this introduction). Feel free to say what you think and share your opinions!

Discovery Freelancer has made it into the Mod of the Year Top-100 awards of the year 2010! This is the fourth time we enter the Top-100, previous years being 2006, 2007 and 2009. The Mod of the Year (MOTY) contest is 9th annual event held by ModDB.com website.

I’d like to thank everyone who voted, everyone who plays on Discovery servers, and fellow developers of the Disco Dev Team who made 4.85 possible and now work on the slow-running 4.86. Thanks to the whole Freelancer community for continuous support and help that we enjoyed with Discovery. Special thanks goes to our server team who kept the server alive and running for the past years.

There are two Freelancer mods in the Top-100 of released mods (Crossfire and Discovery) and one Freelancer mod in the unreleased category (Freewords: Tides of War).

However, the vote is not over yet. Now the winners of the 2010 Mod of the Year awards are being chosen, and you can vote for any number of mods again.

To vote in Top-100, do the following:
I. Register on ModDB.com (if you are not already registered) and log in.
If you don’t register, your vote won’t be counted in most cases (unless there’s a tie), so make sure you are logged in before you vote.

II. Open the Top-100 listing: http://www.moddb.com/events/2010-mod-of-th…r-awards/top100
Click Freelancer section to open it.

III. Click Vote button on the left. The “VOTE” picture:
will change to 
That’s all. You can vote for any number of mods in the Top-100 for released and unlreleased mods, including all other Freelancer mods.

Many thanks again for your continuous support! As for some of the other news that you may note:

- Discovery official news are now transferred to Twitter. Follow us: http://twitter.com/discofreelancer
- We will run some ads on Discovery Freelancer official website (http://discoveryfl.com). The profits from the ads will be added to our server donations reserve. Although it is likely that they will be removed at some point due to very low profits.
- We will soon continue to publish storyline posts and developer screenshots for Discovery 4.86. Stay tuned!

The annual Mod of the Year-2010 (MOTY-2010) contest on ModDB.com website has started some time ago. This is the 9th time the event is held, and you still got 4 days to cast your vote.

Discovery is participating in the event for 4 years already. The Top-100 includes mods for all games, and only two or three Freelancer mods can get through. Competition is increasing, and whether we will reach the top or not depends entirely on your participation and help!

To vote, you need to do the following:
I. Register on ModDB.com (if you are not already registered) and log in.
Registration is easy. If you don’t register, your vote won’t be counted in most cases (unless there’s a tie), so make sure you are logged in before you vote.

II. Open Discovery profile on ModDB: http://www.moddb.com/mods/discovery-freelancer

III. Scroll down towards the middle of the page. You will see a large “VOTE FOR MOD” button. Press it.

Now your vote is cast.

Registration on ModDB is not needed only to vote for Discovery, of course. You can vote for as many other mods as you like, Freelancer mods in particular; leave your comments and set your rating for Discovery, and browse other mods for Freelancer and numerous other games.

In 2006, 2007 and 2009, Discovery Freelancer has reached the MOTY Top-100, and has received a Genre Award as the best simulation mod in 2006.

We take a break from events that happened in Sirius in 818 A.S., prior to Discovery 4.86 release. This post will be dedicated to the origins and current agenda of varions groups and factions of Gallia. It will continue the series of storyline-related announcements for Discovery Freelancer 4.86 that is still being developed by our Dev Team. Previous story posts can be found here:

Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Tau Conquest
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Kusari in 818 A.S.
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Bretonia in 818 A.S.

There are ten major factions responsible for the bulk of space activities in the Core Worlds and Border Worlds of Gallia. Since Discovery 4.86 will include the systems of Gallic Core Worlds, players will get much more information on various groups of Gallia. This particular post features more information on the origins of Gallic Royal Navy, Police, and their arch rival, the Council; tells more about the role and business prospects of Gallic corporations; allows to look into the history of Gallic Brigands, Maquis and Unione Corse. A new faction that was not present in 4.85 – Solar Engineering – is revealed. Solar plays an important role in space trade and station construction in the Core Worlds, and has an agenda of its own that few are aware of (and which will be explained in further detail in future versions of Discovery).

Most dates in the post are in AGS format (After Gallic Settlement). Since New Paris was settled 84 years after Manhattan, A.S. date can be (roughly) derived from AGS by adding 84 years to the latter. Longevity of the year is the same in both chronologies.

To access the story post from the forum’s front page or from the website, use the following link:

Discovery 4.86: Factions of Gallia

If you are browsing the forum, you should see it already as a second post of this thread (after this introduction). Feel free to say what you think and share your opinions!

This post will continue the series of storyline-related announcements for Discovery Freelancer 4.86 that is still being developed by our Dev Team. Previous story posts can be found here:

Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Tau Conquest
Discovery 4.86 Storyline: Kusari in 818 A.S.

As a result of events described in Tau Conquest section, the war with Kusari is now over for Bretonia, but a much more dangerous foe is threatening the war-torn nation. Gallia is going to advance against Bretonia from two or even three sides, which include Leeds, Edinburgh and Newcastle. The numerical superiority of the Royal Navy is overwhelming, and Planet Leeds is being evacuated and converted into a large military outpost, with no way to defend it from space. Many fear that New London is going to fall before Gallia as well, and Bretonian government has to forsee this possibility and prepare escape routes in case the worst happens…

To access the story post from the forum’s front page or from the website, use the following link:

Discovery 4.86: Bretonia in 818 A.S.

You are welcome to comment and give us feedback.

Discovery Gaming Community, our main message board located at http://discoverygc.com, is back online. We are setting up the new server right now so there may be issues with downtime, but in general you are free to post and use the forums as usual.

Thank you for your patience during the downtime.

Development of Discovery Freelancer 4.86 is still underway. I must admit that this summer was not the most active for our development team so far, but we are making significant progress, and in a month or so should be able to show you much more of what we actually got.

Meanwhile, we continue to post the storyline parts of 4.86 to inform you of the changes that await in the next mod version. This one is about the events that are going to happen in Kusari in 818 A.S., and about the state of Kusari factions. After getting involved into a brief but devastating conflict with Gallia, there was a coup in New Tokyo which put an end to the former government’s militaristic policy. With its economy in deep crisis and its military power compromised by two wars, Kusari barely had forces to defend its own borders. New Kusari leaders did not only rush signing a truce with Bretonia, but also attempted to establish trade relations with Gallia.

You can find our first storyline announcement (dedicated to Gallia invading the Tau systems) by following this link.

To access the story post on Discovery Gaming Community forums, use this link:

Discovery 4.86: Kusari in 818 A.S.

Feel free to comment and share your opinions!

Today we release the complete version of the system map for Discovery Freelancer 4.86: The Exiles. The map was created by Blodo. As you may be aware, an incomplete version of the system map was leaked some time ago without intention. Differences of this version are mostly cosmetical: some errors and misprints were corrected.

You can view the whole map by following this link.