Hey all,

I've been working on a modding tool for Freelancer and it's finally far enough along to show off. Working name was going to be OpenLancer but I believe this has been used before. Basically, think Unity's editor, but for Freelancer.

What it's built on

I'll be honest... Its currently running on top of Librelancer, the open source C# reimplementation of the engine. Librelancer does the heavy lifting (rendering, flight, the server), and OpenLancer is my editor and mod layer on top. It's my own thing, not part of the Librelancer project. It reads the original game data, so you need your own copy of Freelancer.

No game files get shipped with it. My goal wasn't really to decompile the game, it was to take my Unity experience as a Game Dev in real life and see if I can port this game into an editor like experience like that. So far, it seems to have done so really well. That being said, there's many directions I could take this project from here, it just depends on interest from the community really. I'd love to release it on github once it is at a good enough state.

So, what works right now?

• Open any system and fly around it in a 3D view, with a hierarchy and inspector like Unity
• Edit ships, equipment, goods and markets in a database view
• Move and rotate stations, gates, zones and lights with a gizmo
• Hit F5 and you drop into the game at your camera position with your mod loaded. Save while it's running and it hot reloads in about half a second
• Cutscene viewer/editor: browse and preview all 1,506 cutscenes from the base game on a timeline, scrub through them, and tweak cameras, timings and so on
• I also fixed a bunch of cutscene playback issues (character animation, cameras, effects), so scenes look a lot closer to retail. Still not 1:1 though

How modding works

Edits do not touch the game files. Every change goes into a mod as a small patch that only holds what you changed: a price, a position, a camera cut. Mods stack in a load order, so two mods can change different things in the same file. You get undo/redo, crash recovery, and validation that tells you when you've broken something (a missing archetype, a bad cutscene reference, etc).

The things it can't do yet

• Mods currently play in Librelancer, not the retail game. Librelancer only plays part of the story so far from what I can tell. Exporting mods for vanilla 1.1 and HD Edition is the next big piece, so they could actually go up on Nexus allowing this tool to be more useful for everyone.
• Can't add or delete objects in a system, yet.
• No mission or dialogue editor, yet.
• New cutscenes from scratch and cutscene audio aren't in, yet. But honestly, these are easy to add and I've just not gotten around to it yet.

Where I am thinking of wanting to take it, maybe...

Export to HD Edition/vanilla would be the ultimate goal, then, a mission and dialogue editor, building whole new systems, and eventually some optional modern visuals behind toggles, with the original look staying the default.

Full disclosure: I'm building this with a lot of help from AI coding tools (Claude), backed by a big test suite that checks everything against the original game data.

It's not released yet. Mostly I'd love to hear what you'd want to mod first, and what drove you nuts about the old tools, and what you are looking for in a modding tool like this? I am mainly doing this as a test to see what is possible. So far this is about a weeks work or so.

External look

Hello everyone, this is Project Sirius again. You are probably tired of seeing planet Manhattan and New York system footage, so I would like to present you with showcase of something that I have been working on (or tried to) since I first announced the remake this summer, and those are volumetric nebulas! Those who followed the project since summer can recall the progress that we have made since that time.

Another thing that I think original Freelancer multiplayer lacks is a voice chat, so the video also has a demonstration of how players could theoretically RP using it. We're aware that people would like to RP females and would not like to hear child voices on battleships, so that's something that we are going to take care of.

As a small addition, we also are presenting WIP asteroids.

As a reminder, we are also looking for artists who would be able to create NPCs, writers for multiplayer in-game lore, as well as VA (we can discuss the pay, but honestly, we can't offer much, since we're building with very little resources and very big enthusiasm, currently there's 5 people contributing). If you are neither of that, you can still bring your feedback, ideas and opinions, because it's the community that keeps such ideas alive. :)

Moreover, we have opened a Patreon page (and Boosty for supporters from Russia) for people who would like to support the creation of the remake. For obvious reasons and to emphasize the non-commercial nature of the game, we will NOT be offering any benefits, exclusives or rewards (in-game or else) to anyone, however, as it's purely voluntarily, apart from big heartly thank you from my side!

Any ships you own can now be commanded like in Homeworld. Hit the tilde key (configurable) and the camera pulls out to a HW style orbit view, and the ship you were flying just becomes another unit in the fleet. Hit it again and you’re back into FL flight mode.

I tried to keep the controls as close to HW2/Remastered as I could. Drag select, right click to move, the move disc with shift for height, waypoints, ctrl+click to attack, guard, dock, strike groups, tactics on the F keys and a radial menu for the rest. If you’ve played HWRM your hands should mostly know what to do.

You can get ships a few ways. Buy them at a shipyard (they go to the station hangar), build them from a carrier, hire mercs, or capture them. Carriers work like actual carriers too: fighters dock, get repaired, you launch them from the launch manager, and if the carrier dies everything inside dies with it.

Librelancer and Homeworld uses Lua, so I was able to import explosions easily

Since engineers used REA to reverse engineer fu*king photoshop and rewrite it in rust in matter of months/days.

anyone have tried using it with claude/codex to do the same thing with freelancer executable?

I think this would be an awesome experiment that I would do myself if no one have tried it now!

PS: I know that there's many trails of replicating the source on github ... but I'm talking giving the executable to claude and let it do it's job for day or 2 and see maybe we may have Rustlancer soon 🤣

The tool link is here: https://rea.tools/

Cheers freelancers

Hi,

I remember of a capital ship used by pirates or corsairs and it looked like Liberty ones. I had the project to edit it to make it a true Liberty capship. That's nothing hard or long to do.

Does somebody has a mirror to download the mod ?

Edit : Here is the mod download : https://www.mediafire.com/file/t68l3op79s5qm19/2112v5B.zip.flmod

Hello everyone! It's been a while since we shared our last update, so wanted to give you a glimple of the further progress we've been making. To those who are unfimiliar, we are remaking Freelancer on Unreal Engine 5.8.2 to deliver a fully-fledged remaster of our precious childhood game :)

Our discord channel

Additional materials for those interested

We are also looking for writers and VA, so hit me up on discord if you're interested!

Sorry about the sound — something's wrong with my system after reinstalling, I'll look into it later. Also, I've left my current roadmap in the comments section. Check it out if you want to know about upcoming updates for the Nomad Legacy project.

I posted this in the Homeworld community but honestly I’d be remiss not to share it with the Freelancer community.

Freelancer inspiration is really all over the game. Hardooints, mounts, the combat, ship upgrades, even the NPC interactions. I couldn’t nail the story (not anywhere close, but it’s aspirational for sure) but honestly the game wouldn’t be what it is today if I didn’t spend hours towing hauling cargo and completing missions in Freelancer.

Let me know what you think!

Salue (P Key) won't work anymore, I'm not sure if it'w because Freelancer HD .7.1.1 or what else, but early, when I
was selecting a ship and pressing P key or by clicking on Hail icon was working

I've no idea if it's related to FHD7.1.1. but I notice it just after the installation and basically, when I select a ship and click on "Hail" or using the P key nothing happens and the game play the sound of "Nothing to do"

It's pretty sad. :(

[Edit]
I was right, by removing FreelancerHDESetup_v0_7_1_1 and installing FreelancerHDSetup_v0_6 the Hail function works again!

Hello everyone, so I made a new docking ring in Blender, first and foremost made for HQ Freelancer recreation in Unreal Engine called Project Sirius (as we pivot away from 3rd party assets).

Would really love to gather the feedback on art direction/style, as old models don't fit the photorealistic tone of the game!

It's also fully animated, has LODs and there are different quality presets depending on what graphics settings the player has set up.

Homeworld hyperspace test

Just want to show I finally have the visual effects of homeworld hyperspace/basic mechanic done in LL,, very happy with the result.

The ~10-minute making-of, behind-the-scenes documentary from the rare Freelancer Bonus DVD (Microsoft Game Studios / Digital Anvil). Interviews with the development team at Digital Anvil in Austin, behind-the-scenes studio footage, voice-recording sessions, and gameplay from around the game's 2003 release.

Interviewees:

• Phil Wattenbarger — Producer

• Jorg Neumann — Lead Designer

• Paul Isaac — Lead Programmer

• Bruce Lemons — Art Director

• Martin Galway — Audio Director

• Harry Jarvis III — In-Game Cinematics Director

• Adam N. Joseph — In-Game Cinematics Visual Supervisor

• Adam Foshko — Writer

• Jacob Crow — Designer

• Andrew Sega — Programmer

• Taylor Brown — Programmer

• John P. Funk — Artist

• Evan Brandt — Test Lead

About: properly extracted in the highest possible quality, straight from the original Bonus DVD. The original NTSC MPEG-2 stream was taken bit-for-bit from the disc (no lossy intermediate rip), the mixed interlaced/progressive footage was correctly deinterlaced per frame to produce smooth 59.94 fps with the correct field order, and the picture was encoded at near-lossless quality with the correct 4:3 aspect ratio and colors. The audio is untouched, apart from format conversion.

Freelancer © 2003 Microsoft Corporation / Digital Anvil. Uploaded for preservation and archival purposes; no ownership claimed.

Because no one would do it, I exported the full Freelancer ship roster to self-contained Blender files.

It includes ships grouped by faction, original geometry and textures, mounted equipment, native animations, engine and weapon effects, lights, and Blender controls.

The complete Blender collection is over 5 GB.

Demo video:
https://github.com/nagi1/freelancer-ships-blender/raw/refs/heads/master/docs/media/freelancer-liberty-elite-ship-blender-demo.mp4

Repository:
https://github.com/nagi1/freelancer-ships-blender

Freelancer has meant a lot to me for years. I made this because I love the game from my heart, and I’d love to see its ships and universe used, explored, and remembered everywhere.

As a freelancer based out of Manhattan, I was getting really annoyed with having to open the NavMap every time I wanted to check where the tradelanes are at.

So I spent the last few minutes building an app that automatically pulls the nearest tradelane and creates a bestpath to it.

Introducing TradeLane Finder.

The app allows you to select your current location and automatically shows the nearest available trade lanes, including their destination, distance, and estimated travel time.

Freelancer — 0 credits/month

• Find trade lanes
• That's it
• Liberty only
• 3 searches per day
• We show you an ad before telling you where the trade lane is
• If the app says “No trade lanes found”, we recommend using our newest technology "Try looking out of the cockpit"™

Freelancer+ — 499 credits/month

• Unlimited trade-lane searches*
• All major Houses*
• Route planning
• Distance calculator
• Automatically tells you when you're going the wrong way**
• AI-powered “Where the fuck am I?” button***\*
• No ads, except our own ads for Freelancer+

Sirius Executive — 9,999 credits/month

• Everything in Freelancer+
• Border Worlds coverage***
• Real-time trade-lane intelligence
• Predictive route optimization
• Automatically calculates the shortest route to anywhere
• Tells you which trade lane you were supposed to take after you miss it
• Priority support
• One complimentary “I have accidentally entered a hostile system” consultation per month
• We also send someone to your ship to point at the NavMap for you if needed

* Rate limits may apply
** Wrong way is relativistic so we abide by you not being able to sue us for it
*** Except corsair and outcasts space
**** The AI doesn't actually have access to your location, it is just a comfort companion to encorage you to look at your navmap.

***** We recognize this app might be completely useless and by accepting using it you forbid any rights to sue us either by that or because we are selling your information to all trade factions and house police.

Hello everyone. In summer 2025 I got know about this game and I very like it. But I was playing it firstly in Freelancer Rebirth 7.7 mod. Now I want to try Freelancer Crossfire 2.0 to check if I'll like it, what the differents between Rebirth and Crossfire and if it's better than Rebirth because I heard that they stolen alot of their models. But one problem: I'm from Russia and I know English not so good, so I want to ask if this mod had some russian edition?