FLSharp

FLSharp (FL# for short) is a plugin for the game Freelancer (2003) that aims to apply game-related fixes and improvements to the game's code. These include:

• Fixed a bug that caused the lights of a trade lane to never turn back on after the trade lane got disrupted.
• Fixed a bug that caused waypoints to be cleared when the player reaches the coordinates in a different system.
• Fixed a bug that makes the player ship a selectable target for creating waypoints on the nav map.
• Makes the weapon flash particle effect play on all barrels instead of only on the first barrel.
• Fixed a bug for the one_shot_sound not playing when firing multi-barrel launchers.
• Fixed a bug for the ammo count not decrementing correctly when firing multi-barrel launchers.
• Fixed a bug that caused the use_animation entries in weapon_equip.ini to not work, i.e. enables weapon animations.
• Allows a gun's use_animation entry to be played on the parent (e.g. ship) if the animation name has a leading underscore (_); this leading underscore should not be included in the cmp file's animation name.
• Fixed a bug that caused the client to not send the correct engine state of the player's ship to the server.
• When playing on a server, ensure the client sends an update:
  • at least every 2 seconds;
  • when engine kill has been toggled;
  • if after every 0.25 seconds the ship's orientation has been changed to some extent.
• Sets the minimum time between client-server updates to 40 milliseconds (or 750 ms while in a trade lane) such that jitter is prevented when playing with a high or inconsistent framerate.
• Allow ui_music_test to play when the current background music has finished playing.
• Added support for playing the ui_interface_test and ui_ambiance_test sounds when adjusting the respective sliders in the options menu; these sounds should be defined in interface_sounds.ini.
• Automatically prevent crashes while adjusting the interface and ambience volume sliders in the event that the test sounds are not defined.
• While adjusting the ambience and music volume, mute other background sounds accordingly so that the volume can be fine-tuned more easily.
• Allows up to 127 selectable resolutions in the general options menu; these are automatically determined based on the user's main monitor resolution.
• Fixes the problem where the general options menu can't distinguish two different resolutions with the same width.
• Makes the default resolution button in the general options menu select the user's main monitor resolution instead of 1024x768.
• Prevent Freelancer from running with resolutions beyond the main display's capabilities in terms of horizontal and vertical resolution.
• Sets the user's main monitor resolution as the default in-game resolution.
• Instead of checking if the available resolutions are supported each time the option menu opens, do it only when needed (optimization).
• Allows for the Ctrl + C hotkey to copy text from any Freelancer input box to the clipboard.
• Allows for the Ctrl + V hotkey to paste text from the clipboard to any Freelancer input box.
• Improved the slide-out animation for some UI buttons in the multiplayer menus.
• When the "You must be on friendlier terms to purchase this." message is displayed in the Dealer menus, allow the exact reputation requirement to be printed too. Include %d in the IDS (S 1564, resources.dll) to make it work.
• Fixed a bug that caused the Freelancer process to not always terminate after closing the game.

More fixes and improvements may be added in the future.

Installation instructions

Download the latest FLSharp.dll from Releases. Extract dll to the EXE folder of your Freelancer installation. Next, open both the dacom.ini and dacomsrv.ini files and append FLSharp.dll to the [Libraries] sections.

Optionally, you can download the FLSharp.ini file and place it in the EXE folder as well. In this file you can specify for every feature whether or not it should be enabled. To disable a feature, change its value from true to false. In almost all cases, having every feature enabled is ideal since these are all quality of life improvements. However, you may want to disable one or more features if you do not like them for whatever reason or if they introduce compatibilities with other plugins.

If the FLSharp.ini file is missing or if it can't be opened, then all features are enabled by default. When an entry in FLSharp.ini is missing, then that particular feature will also be enabled by default. In other words, every feature is by default enabled unless stated otherwise.

Build instructions

Build the project using the NMAKE tool from Microsoft Visual C++ 7.0 (VC7) + the VC6 runtime libraries. This will output the FLSharp.dll file in the bin folder. Building the project using other compilers may require the code to be modified.

Credits

• Aingar
  • Identification of the client-to-server communication bugs/improvements and implementations within DiscoveryGC's client hook
• BC46
  • Standalone implementations
• Venemon
  • Original implementations of the multi-barrel launcher sound and weapon animation fixes