Freedom Force Patch v1.1.

 

Introduction

Welcome to the Freedom Force Patch version 1.1! This patch is intended for use by users of the US or European version 1.0 of Freedom Force. Installing the patch will automatically upgrade you to version 1.1. It includes a new skirmish mode ("danger room") as well as many tuning and bug fixes.

 

Please note that this patch is released "as is" and no representation is made about its fitness for any specific purpose (read the attached EULA Patch for full details).

 

Mod authors: the scripting documentation on www.modforce.com has been updated with additional scripting functionality and a description of how to create new skirmish modes!

 

Skirmish Mode

Skirmish mode is an exciting new way to play Freedom Force against random or pre-generated selections of enemies. It's a good way to test out your custom heroes or just to try re-playing missions to see if you can improve your performance.

 

Access skirmish mode from the main menu or from the base (in campaign) by pressing the "danger room" button. This will take you to a series of screens from which you select the skirmish mode, the characters you wish to play with and, depending on the mode, the enemies that you want to fight.

Select a Mode and Map

On the first screen you select the mode that you wish to play and the map.

 

There are three major modes provided:

 

  1. Campaign re-play. Here you can re-play any campaign mission that you have already reached in the campaign. The game automatically tracks which missions you have reached in the campaign and only shows those missions.

 

  1. Danger Room: Here you can fight against up to 24 enemies that you select.

 

  1. Instant Action/Iron Man/Beat the Clock: In these modes you will fight a series of enemies that appear in waves. The set of enemies provided depends on the mode.

 

Once you have selected the mode you wish to play, you will need to select a map. Danger room and instant action modes only utilize the multiplayer maps.

 

Once you have picked a mode, you can also see the top 5 scores for that mode.

 

When you are done picking the mode and map, press the Next button to continue.

Select Heroes

Now you can select the heroes you wish to use in the upcoming battle. This is just like picking heroes for a campaign mission or multiplayer battle. You can choose up to four characters from either the multiplayer characters or your custom characters.

 

Note that some campaign missions may only allow limited numbers of characters. Also, you can replay campaign missions with non-standard characters (i.e. take Bullet in the first mission instead of Minuteman).

 

Be careful when picking characters, as your final score will be scaled by the total point value of your squad. Points awarded are multiplied by 40,000 and then divided by the total value of your squad so picking more than 40,000 points of heroes will result in a lower final score (you can never get more than 100 times as many points or less than one tenth so don't bother picking squads that are worth less than 400 points!).

 

Press the Next button when you are done picking your heroes.

Select Enemies

If you selected Danger Room mode you will now have to select the enemies you wish to fight (other modes will skip straight to the mission). Up to 24 enemies can be selected from either custom characters, villains or multiplayer characters. When you are done, hit the Next key to enter the mission.

Mission

Danger Room missions will end when you have defeated all enemies. Other modes will end when all waves of enemies have been KO-ed. Watch the message box at the top of the screen for scoring information.

Debrief

Once you have won or lost a mission, you will see the debrief screen. In non-campaign modes you can now see your score. Click on the Heroes tab to see how many points were scored by each hero. Click on the Enemies tab to see a breakdown of scores by enemy type. The Score tab shows how the total score is scaled by the cost of your squad and by any additional bonuses you got. Finally, the High Score tab shows you the top scores.

 

Have fun!

 

New Features

-          New skirmish mode added including:

o        buttons to danger room from main menu and base

o        new skirmish mode selection screen

o        new character selection screen

o        new enemy selection screen

o        new skirmish debriefing screen

-          Enemies now react to physics events such as thrown objects colliding.

-          Hero portraits now flash if hero takes damage while off-screen.

-          When a hero is damaged off-screen, his pain sound is now played 2D.

-          Enabled python scripts to be read from a mod's Missions/Scripts folder.

-          Multiplayer hosts can set pause speed on the creation screen.

-          Multiplayer game now waits 4 seconds before showing end-of-game screen.

-          Games of different build numbers now cannot play MP together (to prevent patched versions playing against non-patched versions).

-          Multiplayer screen now remembers CP, time, map and max players.

-          Added new difficulty level (impossible).

-          Difficulty now modifies villain and minion health as well as damage done.

-          Added script function Object_CalcPrestige for calculating prestige costs of characters.

-          Added script function AI_SetAlerted.

-          Added script command Object_SetOrientation.

-          Popup help is now available to show how much CP is recovered from removing an attribute.

-          A countdown is shown in multiplayer when game time approaches 'time up'.

 

Tuning

-          EP for melee attacks now deducted on contact rather than when triggered.

-          Capped number of monsters (20) killed for prestige purposes.

-          Speeding bullet knockback is now scaled by distance traveled. Also, cost is increased.

-          Molecular excitation now does more damage.

-          High knockback made more expensive.

-          High stun made more expensive.

-          Material costs for stone and metal increased.

-          Villains have double hit points (like heroes).

-          Strength gives less melee damage bonus.

-          Multiple contract points now cost more.

-          Attributes crack shot and cybernetic brain are now more expensive.

-          Attribute 'radioactive' is no longer cheaper than invertebrate, since it's better.

-          All attributes that increase your vulnerability to damage are now worth 50 more points.

-          Changed description for lightspeed plus reduced damage multiplier.

-          Bullet's melee attacks are now set to medium swiftness (he actually misses once in a while).

-          Melee attacks can no longer knock back characters while they are getting up.

-          Beneficial 'support' powers can no longer be assigned stun and knockback (this would have the effect of bypassing the target's resistances).

-          If a character's stats are over 10, they are now clamped to 10.

-          Multiplayer squad selected list is no longer sorted.

-          You can no longer indicate that you are ready to start a multiplayer game with an empty squad.

-          You can no longer pickup or wield objects while invisible or displaced.

 

Code Fixes

-          Fixed potential crash/ corrupt stack.

-          Fixed bug where heroes that had direct attacks wouldn't use those attacks when they were enraged or hypnotized.

-          Fixed: Ant could pick up canisters when burrowed.

-          Tweaked thug with gun's retreat distance to fix bug where they would oscillate between attacking and retreating.

-          Fixed bug where panicked characters sometimes got stuck.

-          Fixed bug where moving camera quickly and then releasing camera control button

-          sometimes caused camera to jerk continuously.

-          Fixed drag select 'sticking' when dragged outside of the map.

-          Fixed widescreen_leave sound distortion on briefings.

-          You can no longer target yourself with a wielded object.

-          Active defense effects were wrongly positioned on the character in the power creation animation/effect screen.

-          Fixed status text box hanging around during load screen.

-          Fixed pause clock hanging around for save/load screens.

-          Character weights are now shown correctly in multiplayer.

-          Cars don't collide with characters so much anymore.

-          Fixed: Bullet's Electrify power's first explosion wasn't doing damage.

-          Fixed: being unable to fly or land whilst having shield activated.

-          Fly no longer appears on the menu when carrying objects.

-          LockupFlying tactic added to AI, for robots. Robots no longer get confused by flyers in Mr Mechanical's base.

-          Fixed talking heads moving in slow-motion during game paused.

-          Fixed increased/decreased game speed carrying over into cutscenes and debriefings.

-          Fixed passive defense appearing as default power when no zero-cost

-          melee was available.

-          Fixed move splat sound being played once for each hero in a formation.

-          Game now uses non-exclusive input by default, enabling screen shot programs.

-          Water damage type is now resolved to crushing.

-          Players are kicked from multiplayer if their squad points total is unusual.

-          Fixed: repeated overpowered projectiles didn't do extra damage.

-          Fixed: Mercy transferred hitpoints to ground or buildings and buildings collapsed when Mercy used on them.

-          Fixed: Balance gave wrong results when hit points above maximum were granted.

-          Fixed: some secondary states (power nullify, empathy, etc.) were not cured by

-          Commuted Sentence

-          Fixed: Levels do not increase projectile damage.

-          Fixed: Empathy no longer causes damage to attacker when beneficial powers

-          are used on target (e.g. energy transfer).

-          Fixed: Timemasters would attack Manbot in final level.

-          Fixed Law and Order recovering hero points when transforming.

-          Triggering an attack now cancels the invisibility state.

-          Fixed: Fire Shield and a few other FX not configured properly.

-          Six new fx should now be accessible in the char screen.

-          Named El Diablo's and Manbot's power tiers.

-          Numerous grammatical and spelling errors fixed up.

-         While throwing an object, you can no longer target the object that you are holding.

-         Fixed: if an enemy did not have a entry in the string database, then they would not appear on the debrief screen.

-          Fixed: move commands would sometimes be ignored after a wield.

-          El Diablo would keep his fiery feet after being stunned or knocked back in the air.

-          Fixed: EP Drain and EP Transfer did not work correctly in multiplayer

 

Script fixes

-          Came A Hero: civilian in alley will no longer panic if her muggers are already KO'd, it won't re-assign the objective either.

-          Came A Hero: cafe will no longer fade in cutscene.

-          Strange Visitors (a): alarm is raised and alarm light appears only if the alarm and station are intact.

-          Skating on Thin Ice (a): frozen ice trooper will get knocked out 15 seconds after he's frozen.

-          Skating on Thin Ice (a): cop who flees muggers will react to enemies normally after the event.

-          Skating on Thin Ice (b): weird interrogate on ice queen works the standard way now.

-          Nuclear Winter (a): heroes weren't standing around an ice queen if you interrogated her.

-          Nuclear Winter (a): heroes will now properly face the interrogated NW minion.

-          Nuclear Winter (a): moved a badly placed ice trooper.

-          Nuclear Winter (b): remove the arrow before cutscene.

-          Nuclear Winter (c): nuclear winter will always detect you, so you can't sneak up behind him and disarm the bomb.

-          Nick of Time (c): after nick's second feeble speech, minute man will not say that they have to take pinstripe down if they already have.

-          Thug in Sea Urchin/Man O War intro cut-scene no longer stuck in terrain up to his eyeballs.

-          Where Shadows Fall (a): trainer at start of level only plays once now.

-          Looking For Trouble (b): RPG system is now switched off for intro cutscene. Also moved order back slightly.

-          Deja Who (a): the extra two chars beyond Minuteman and Liberty Lad run in the final cutscene now.

-          Deja Who (b): Eve is added after the cutscene where you talk to her, so you don't see her selection ring now.

-          Robots Rampage (b): awkward transition in final cutscene smoothed out.

-          Robots Rampage (b): one of the robots in the intro was facing the wrong way.

-          Destruction Production: the exploding robot no longer blows up twice.

-          Destruction Production: final cutscene no longer snaps to Minuteman before he's in position.

-          United We Fall: Alchemiss was sometimes obscured by the third character in final cutscene.

-          A God Walks the Earth: heroes 3 and 4 now have proper places to stand during the final cutscene.

-          A God Walks the Earth: the cop at the station will no longer assign you the objective to clear the entrance if you already have.

-          Pandemonium: Mentor no longer speaks the same line twice when you move over both ramps in the first room.

-          Beginning of the End: added a slight pause before the final cutscene changes locations on you.

-          Beginning of the End: the thugs around the crystal will halt their speech if attacked.

-          Beginning of the End: added a pause for end cutscene.

-          End of Time: Timemaster will no longer have his lines get cut off when he disappears.

-          End of Time: the portal had an attention mark on it in the final cutscene.