You sure? Near as I can tell, just changing the system's .ini file seems to have worked. I changed Pittsburgh to be controlled by Bretonia Police, a faction I'm currently neutral with, and when I flew out into space, Pittsburgh was neutral and it even said "Police Base" (normally, it says "DSE Base") when I hovered my mouse pointer over it. As an additional test, I changed Fort Bush to be controlled by the Liberty Rogues, who are hostile to me. Sure, enough, when I flew out there, Fort Bush was hostile, said "Rogues Base", and it even had Bounty Hunters shooting at it. I took a look at universe.ini (in the "DATA/UNIVERSE" folder) and it didn't seem to have the usual faction and reputation text strings in it.



Well yeah, but there's got to be a part of the game data that influences all the different aspects of those random missions, right? That's what I want to try to change.



I know it's going to take some effort on my end, but I do want to try to learn how to do this stuff. That's why I want to take it slowly, one thing at a time, so that I can gradually take in how to do it and avoid information overload, and I'd be greatly appreciative to anybody who can help me out. So, let's start from the top. What file or files do I need to look at to see how random missions are made, and what's the first thing I should edit to start moving towards what I want to do?

Okay, what all .ini files do I need to edit just to change the faction that controls a given base? I just want to focus on that for now, ignore the other stuff I asked about for now.

After spending some time editing reputation and ships, I'm starting to feel a bit more ambitious. Something I would like to do now, if it is not too complicated to do so, is edit a base to change the faction that controls it, change the random jobs that are offered there, and maybe the NPCs that can be found there. How would I do that? Is it possible simply by editing .ini files?

Specifically, I would like to do the following. If I could get specific (and simple) instructions for doing so, that'd be great.

== Change Kabukicho Depot's ownership to the Blood Dragons, and fill it with Blood Dragon NPCs who say the same stuff that the NPCs in Kyoto Base say. (I don't like how the Blood Dragons' only base is sort of isolated off in it's own system, so I'd like to give them another one in a more populated system.)

== Change Narita Outpost's ownership to the Hogosha, and have Kabukicho's original NPCs appear here. (Storywise, the Hogosha's operations are "technically legal" so it kinda-sorta makes sense for them to have a base out in the open.)

== Change Shinjuku Station's ownership to the Kusari Navy. Move Shinjuku Station's NPCs to Yokohama Shipyard, and populate Shinjuku with Navy and Police NPCs.

== Change Planet Junyo's ownership to the Kusari Police. The NPCs can stay the same, but the vendors and bartender should be aligned with the Police.

== Change Tsushima Depot's ownership to the Kusari Navy.

== Change Nansei Research Complex's ownership to the Blood Dragons, and fill it with Blood Dragon NPCs (and maybe a few Golden Cs since they're supposed to be kindasorta allies). Move Nansei's original NPCs to Tsushima. (Just so the Blood Dragons can have one more base, and Nansei is out of the way enough to be a plausible location for an outlaw faction's base. I kind of like the Blood Dragons a little bit, if you couldn't tell, and I'd like for them to have a bit more presence in the game. One BD base in an otherwise-empty system and a few BD NPCs on one other faction's only base in a nearly as desolate system just isn't enough.)

== Every base mentioned above also offers jobs that reflects the factions who now hang out there.

Or, failing that, perhaps I could create an entirely new base, cobbled together from existing assets? I have a feeling this would be more complicated, but it might not be. Couldn't hurt to ask. I'd prefer to remodel existing bases though, depending on how complicated a task that is.

I'd also like to change the random jobs that specific factions offer. For example, the Blood Dragons give jobs to attack the Kusari Police and Kusari Navy. Would it be possible to change that to have them give jobs to attack Samura Industries and the Hogosha instead?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

Alright, I think I was able to get it. I went into shiparch, found "ku_dragon" and changed the value next to "ids_info3" to "66520" (which is the "ids_info3" value for "bw_elite"). In-game, this seems to have changed the red Dragon's stats to display the Stiletto's stats, while keeping the standard Dragon's name and flavor text description. Did I do it right?

Another thing I'd like to do is make Juni's Defender playable, if that's possible without mods that require more than just editing plain text files. Is there something I can just copy and paste like I did to make the red Dragon playable?

Where do I place these files? What are they, even? Do I need to do anything else?

That doesn't seem to have worked. The red Dragon's stats are still identical to the regular Dragon.

I would appreciate a more detailed, step-by-step walkthrough, if it is no huge trouble to you, thanks. This seems to be a fair bit more complicated a process than just editing ship dealers or editing story mode reputation changes.

Hi again, all. Something I've been wanting to do is to add some new playable ships to the game. Specifically, I want to make the red Dragon used by the Blood Dragon faction playable (preferably with somewhat better stats than the normally-playable brown Dragon). I was able to figure out on my own how to change the ships that each Ship Dealer offers, but how would I go about making non-playable ships playable, or adding new ships? I would greatly like to know, as I would really like to make the red Dragon playable. Another thing I was wanting to try doing was making a "Mk.2" version of each early-game ship, which has higher stats suitable for post-story, and can be bought around level 20-ish. That way, there's a much larger selection of ships that are viable post-story, but doesn't compromise the difficulty of the story or the sense of progression from getting stronger ships as you go through the story.

If that is at all possible (and if what I said made any sense, I'm kind of bad at explaining things), then I would greatly appreciate some instructions on the matter. Or, alternatively, if a mod or mods to do the things I want already exist, then I would greatly appreciate being directed to them. I am not very tech-savvy and have only just begun to learn about modding Freelancer, so I'd appreicate explanations that are explained in simple terms. Thanks in advance!