Discovery 4.85 :final release

shiranpp · 发表于 2009-7-14 10:27:07

Discovery Freelancer 4.85: Reunion Final Release

Overview

The development of Discovery 4.85 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. The Sirius Sector is on the brink of global war. 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. Creation of a path into Gallia adds a new, powerful, player to the scene, and no one can tell what goals the new House will pursue in these troubled times. Rumors arise that the nation of France was betrayed during the Exodus, making historians and politicians of various Houses search deep into archives to find out what truly happened more than 1000 years ago in Sol.

Storyline is just a portion of the progress taking place in Discovery 4.85. As it was with previous Discovery versions, we created the mod as a full-scale expansion pack that adds diverse new content and yet remains balanced for online play, is stable, and is as bug-free as possible. Discovery 4.85 is the first version of the mod that was developed from the start by the Discovery Development Team, a dedicated group of 3D and 2D artists, coders, designers, writers, and testers.

Increased development time and an increased number of developers allowed us to finalize all features we were planning to implement, and make 4.85 the largest ever update for Discovery mod, which now became of the few mods that actually add more to the game than the original has. We introduced 79 brand new ships with new models, with over 30 previously included ships completely re-designed. Accurate hitboxes had been implemented for almost all ships, old and new. More than a hundred new weapon and equipment types have been added, many having custom models of their own, as well as custom weapon projectile and hit effects. Out of eight dozen new systems Discovery has, more than a half received significant updates, and 11 new ones were included, 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, and nearly all commodities (including original ones) received new detailed icons. The role-playing ID system (used on the official server and most other servers running our mod) has received 53 new IDs with clear and detailed descriptions. The new version also contains about 7000 new and rewritten infocard texts for various new and old ships, items, and places.

Some statistics for the mod include:

- 260 player flyable ships in the game total, of which 225 are introduced by Discovery;
- About 110 new player flyable ship models introduced by version 4.85;
- 134 systems in the game total, of which 79 are introduced by Discovery;
- 11 new systems in 4.85, with about 30 systems receiving significant updates in the latest version;
- 448 bases in the game total, of which about 275 are introduced by Discovery;
- 91 factions in the game total, 44 new factions added by Discovery, of which 11 were introduced by version 4.85;
- Over 100 new weapons introduced in 4.85, upping the number of new Discovery weapons above 200;
- 46 new commodities introduced in 4.85, with multiple new trade routes;
- 117 role-playing IDs in Discovery, of which 53 introduced by version 4.85;
- About 10,000 new infocard texts introduced by Discovery, of which about 7,000 added or rewritten for 4.85.

The mod now has an integrated automatic updater that allows 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. Currently active servers include Discovery USA RP 24/7, Discovery UK RP 24/7, Discovery Server Berlin, Discovery Kansas, Discovery of Discovery, Rise of the Fallen Empires; information about these (and other) servers is listed in our wiki. Server operators are welcome to run Discovery mod without any restrictions, IONCROSS data files are included, and we provide help and support for all servers running the mod. All servers that run our mod 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, you simply need to 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 view the new navigation map here:

namipan link(纳米盘):http://www.namipan.com/d/Discove ... ab16bf5f621ab1b9d05
rayfail link(rayfail):http://www.rayfile.com/files/735 ... -819e-0019d11a795f/