Discovery Freelancer Website

Today we launch a new version of Discovery’s official website. The address is the same as before: http://discoveryfl.com. The new website uses the WordPress engine. All posts and pages were transferred to it from the old site, which will be available for some time at http://discoveryfl.com/old. This new site will not be linked to the forum user database, however, you will be able to register with your Facebook account and leave comments and questions. We will continue to post news on the Discovery Gaming Community forums as well.

Along with official Discovery news, the website will feature blogs for Discovery development team, 24/7 server admin team, and for selected posts of our users. If you wish to become an author and contributor, please contact me at igissmail@gmail.com. In most cases we won’t be able to post multi-part RP stories and other lengthy materials. However, short stories, gameplay event reports, interesting screenshots and (especially) videos will be appreciated.

In addition to that, Discovery gets a Facebook application where all website updates will be posted as well. This application works the same way as any Facebook app or fan page: you can bookmark it, share it with friends, post your comments, and “like” it to become a fan and receive the news without even visiting our websites. Something you could use if you want to take a brief break from Disco.

The wiki, forums and other web services will not be affected by the change. However, you should be aware that we may be relocating the forums to another host in the near future, and you should store valuable attachments, avatars, photos, PMs and posts locally in case anything goes wrong. The posts and PMs will most probably be transferred without issues. However, the files stored on the board may be lost.

We will update you on the status of Discovery 4.86 development soon enough. Stay tuned!

A lot of time has passed since we last updated you on the progress of Discovery Freelancer 4.86 development. While the process is complex and slow (in fact slower than we anticipated), we start sharing the details on the mod’s storyline and locations, and we start today.

Why The Exiles? The name of the new version mainly refers to the fate of the Council, faction that was responsible for breaking the 700-year long isolation of Gallia from Sirius. Now, when Gallia gathered its forces for a strike that Council had nothing to counter with, the faction has to abandon its bases in Languedoc and flee for the Tau sector of Sirius space. So, first of all, “The Exiles” are hundreds of thousands of Council members and civilians fleeing from Gallic wrath.

“The Exiles” has a number of other meanings as well (like it was with with Reunion): more groups and factions will be forced to abandone their homes and seek refuge elsewhere. But… enough speculations for today.

If you open the forum thread belonging to this news post, you will find the first part of the storyline for Discovery 4.86, dealing exlusively with the new Gallic offensive in Languedoc and in Tau worlds. More details on Gallia, Bretonia, Kusari and all other regions will be presented in a form of separate announcements once they’re ready.

Igromania, the largest Russian video gaming magazine, has featured Discovery as one of the 10 top mods released or updated in the year 2009. The article is available in issue 4’2010 released in the beginning of April. The same article in slightly shortened form was also published in a biweekly Igromania Light magazine in the end of March.

You can view the scan of the article here. It is in Russian. Unfortunately, Igiss was listed as the only developer insted of the Disco Dev Team because that’s how dev information is currently displayed on ModDB.com. I’ll be working to fix that issue in future.

We’re listed among the following mods (links lead to ModDB): NeoTokyo for Half-Life 2, Star Wars: Galactic Warfare for Call of Duty: MW2, FIFA Total Reality 09 for Fifa Manager 09, Median XL for Diablo, Third Age – Total War for Medieval 2: Total War, Out of Hell for Unreal Tournament 2004, Cube Experimental for Fallout 3, MechWarrior: Living Legends for Crysis, and Nameless Mod for Deux Ex. Since media attention to mods is mostly limited to a few most popular action games that have multiple well-known mods (mainly Half-Life and Half-Life 2), it’s good to see a selection that contains multiple games representing multiple genres, featuring older titles among new ones.

With a circulation of 180,000, Igromania is the largest gaming magazine not only in Russia but in Europe as well. The magazine is published since 1997. The circulation of Igromania Light is 25,000. For both monthly and biweekly edition, Discovery Freelancer 4.85 full version was featured on the magazines’ DVD disk along with Freelancer Mod Manager.

We are now starting to prepare to our final run to get Discovery v4.86 (Discovery Issue 14) complete. The team of developers is almost assembled, but we are seeking for additional help in a number of areas.

First of all, if you know how to model and are aware of graphic design basics, and (even better) have some previous experience with Freelancer modding, you could help us with designing new stations, ships, NPC constumes, and commodity icons for the game. Please note that ships are much lower priority than stations and other stationary space objects (satellites, weapon platforms etc.) right now. We have lots of ships, but have to build stationary objects from the same few components than Vanilla Freelancer had. This is not very good.

Note that we’re looking for people who will not simply model objects and deliver them for other developers to complete, but for those who are willing to learn the complete process of getting their models into the game (texturing, fixing bugs, optimizing textures, creating a hitbox, adding hardpoints). Same applies to icons and NPC costumes, although these are lower priority than models. Also, when submitting a model to us, please remember to contact our more experienced modellers (Gurjiv, Jinx, Doom if he’s available) in order to know specifics about submitting.

Also, I need all system submissions ready before March 20 (2010, yes!), and everyone who is going to submit systems or propose significant changes into systems should contact me within 5 days from now, before March 8. Right now, I have basic submissions of the following systems:
Koeln by Blodo
Tottori by Seth Karlo
Omicron-94 by Seth Karlo
Omicron Mu by equanimitee
Poole by Ktayn and BaconSoda

And I’m aware of the following system editing plans:
Kusari expansions by Dab (awaiting initial submission)
Minor additions to Omicron Lost by Atreides2 and Panzer
Minor additions to Omicron-91 by Seth Karlo
Saar submission by Blodo
Londonderry submission by Linkus
Omicron Minor and other Nomad-related submissions by Treewyrm
Minor additions to Duesseldorf, Stuttgart, Hamburg and Omega-54

About all other system edits and additions: send me a message as soon as possible using the igissmail@gmail.com mail address.

We will release more information on the mod development later. Release dates or time frames will not be available for some time from now, so please don’t request those. Thank you.

Discovery Freelancer has reached the Top-100 of the 2009 Mod of the Year contest run by ModDB. After a brief interruption in 2008, Discovery is back to ModDB’s annual Top-100 where the mod was already present in 2006 and 2007. Great news, and huge thanks for everyone who cast their votes for Discovery and other Freelancer mods!

During the 2009′s MOTY contest, there were 80,000 votes for more than 3,500 mods and indie games, so this Top-100 position is already an award of its own. Also, we are one of only four Freelancer mods that got into the Top-100. Now we should vote again and try to reach the highest awards of Mod of the Year contest.

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. If you log in after you vote, you may not be allowed to vote again, so make sure you are logged in before you vote!

II. Open the Top-100 page on ModDB.com website. In the “Released” category, there are three mods:
Crossfire 1.8,
Discovery Freelancer and
Shattered Worlds

In the “Upcoming” category, there is one mod:
Freeworlds: Tides of War

I’m not sure how many mods you can vote for. In any case, you should know where to start! To vote, just press “VOTE” on the Top-100 page (NOT in the mod profile) next to the mod you prefer. When the image will change to “VOTED”, your vote is cast.

Today, the annual Mod of the Year-2009 (MOTY-2009) contest on ModDB.com website has started. This is the 8th year when the contest is held.

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, leave your comments and set your rating for Discovery, and browse other mods for Freelancer and numerous other games.

We will also run a screenshot contest on this forum soon. The best screenshots will be uploaded on ModDB for thousands of visitors to see. Also, if you have any hi-quality videos shot on Discovery servers, you are most welcome to contact us and submit your work to ModDB.

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

The development of Discovery 4.85: Reunion has taken 1,5 years to complete. Now we, the newly formed Discovery Development Team, present to you the result of our work. The wait is over. After months of online beta testing, Discovery Freelancer 4.85: Reunion is released and available for download.

Year is 817 After Settlement (A.S.), 16 years after the single-player campaign of Freelancer, and one year after Discovery 4.84 took place. A Sirius-wide war is on the brink of engulfing the sector. While Kusari pushes its onslaught against Bretonia deep into the Leeds system, Bretonia attempts to surround Kusari forces in Tau-31. Liberty attacks Rheinland in Bremen and Hudson, and Rheinland has to pull back to defend its own borders. As if this was not enough, in late 817 the Independent Miners Guild encountered a large number unknown ships in the Orkney system. The ships belonged to a rebel group formed within the long-lost House of Gallia, the existence of which remained unknown for centuries.

The storyline is just a portion of the progress taking place in the new Discovery version. Increased development time and an increased number of developers allowed us to finalize all the features we were planning to implement, and make 4.85 the largest ever update for Discovery mod. We introduced 110 new ship models, with most new ships receiving custom hitboxes. More than a hundred new weapon and equipment types have been added, many with custom weapon projectile and hit effects. 11 new systems were included, and about 30 previously available systems were updated, all of them following much higher quality standards than in previous versions.

The mod now has a renewed balance system for weapons, equipment and ships, plus a fully revamped economy system that provides profitable routes for all locations and factions. To add depth to the new economy, 46 new commodity types were introduced. The role-playing ID system (used on the official server and most other servers running our mod) has received 53 new IDs. The new version also contains about 7000 new and rewritten infocard texts for various new and old ships, items, and places.

The integrated Discovery automatic updater allows players to download and apply new updates easily without having to re-download and re-install the whole package. The updater does not restrict offline play, and you will still be able to play single-player without an internet connection.

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 mod without any restrictions. All servers that have our mod installed are listed in dsupdate.cfg file located in Freelancer\EXE folder to allow quick connect to all of them without using shortcuts or patches. To add another server, simply add its address to dsupdate.cfg.

In January 2007, Discovery mod was chosen to receive the Simulation Genre Award of ModDB.com’s Mod of the Year-2006 contest (MOTY-2006).

You can download the mod from ModDB download page, from the download section of the website or the mod announcement thread on our forums. The file will soon be available at The Starport.

Today, we are releasing the trailer for Discovery Freelancer 4.85: Reunion mod by Discovery Dev Team. The trailer was created by 13CentKiller using actual in-game footage and custom music, and showcases a number of new ships, new systems, storyline events, and action sequences taking place in newly added locations. Yet, what the trailer shows is just a small fraction of what you will be able to see in the game after the mod is released.

Check the trailer on the newly created YouTube Discovery Mod Channel and on the ModDB.com Discovery profile.

Today, on June 14 2008, Discovery is celebrating its 3rd birthday. Three years is not a very long time compared to human life, but quite a lot for an independent gaming project that started out from (almost) nowhere. A forum with only a few members, and plans to create a Freelancer server with a small mod for it.

Since then, we’ve come a long way. Server has grown to become the largest Freelancer server available online. Board changed hosting, server changed ownership, new people came, while old ones left. We’ve exceeded the 128 player limit, and reached the record 197 players simultaneously online. The mod received a genre award at ModDB.com Mod of the Year-2006 contest, was downloaded hundreds thousands of times from various sites, and was even stolen by a rogue server and re-released under another name. Everyone within the community can tell many more interesting stories on what was going on… and I’ll just reveal some celebration plans for this month.

First of all, you are welcome to participate in Discovery Screenshot Contest. Sure, there will be prizes – but it’s not only about prizes! The best screenshots can be used to promote Discovery on various websites, including ModDB, and you can help to showcase the mod from the best point of view. Second, you all know about the recent Discovery 4.85: Reunion announcement. Very soon, I’ll post Q&A article revealing much more details on what we are planning to do. And answer more questions that you may ask yourself.

Good flying, and stay with Discovery!