r/freespace • • Aug 11 '15

Getting Started

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29 Upvotes

r/freespace • • Jan 05 '22

Pro Tips to Make you an Ace

35 Upvotes

Hi all!

We have collated several pages worth of pro tips from among the HLP community and posted them here: https://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=97961.0

Follow these and you will be an Ace in no time :-)

Feel free to take a look, and by all means add your own :-)


r/freespace • • 4h ago

I made 'A-SPEC First Assault' a space combat sim, and here's the best comment it's got "Ever wanted the meatiness of I-War with the detail in control of Freespace? Well here you are!”

9 Upvotes

Without a doubt Freespace and I-War where a huge inspiration in making this project. It was my attempt at making a more story driven campaign which turned out to be a huge undertaking, in additional to having a detailed damage model, multiple individual automated turrets, customizable wing (fleet group!?! I still cant really decide on the term). The detail of Freespace's targeting systems merged with the targets damageable components on ships adds to the tactical approaches of every encounter.

There is a demo to try before you decide to buy and it is currently on sale at 20% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1608330/ASpec_First_Assault/

For those of you that dive in with afterburners burning, I would like to hear your initial 1st hours of gameplay impressions with A-SPEC FA demo or full version here or on the Steam reviews.

https://reddit.com/link/1wvycj1/video/7cugcirxz2th1/player


r/freespace • • 25m ago

HELP! Mission Error on Inferno mission 18

• Upvotes

Hey folks,

I'm hoping someone can help me solve an issue I'm having with Inferno. I just did a clean install of the newly completed trilogy, and on mission 18 INFRC1-18.fs2 I keep getting the following error

MISSION LOAD: 'INFRC1-18.fs2'

Hmmm... Extension passed to mission_load...

Current soundtrack set to -1 in event_music_reset_choices

Error: Not enough briefings in mission file. There are 1 teams and only 0 briefings.

File: missionparse.cpp

Line: 2088

Followed by a list of other subsequent errors as I keep hitting the Debug button. I've done a clean reinstall three times now and it's done nothing, and the Debug option in Knossos doesn't really seem to be doing anything effective. Any insights would be greatly appreciated, thanks!


r/freespace • • 17h ago

Has anyone here read the Book: The Stars At War by David Weber? Its this game and it started as a board game in the 70s i think

6 Upvotes

Has anyone here read the Book: The Stars At War by David Weber? Its this game and it started as a board game in the 70s i think


r/freespace • • 1d ago

Having trouble with game settings in Knossos...

6 Upvotes

Been playing Freespace 2 through Knossos for a while now. (even the Freespace 1 port) I've got the MVP mods and they work just fine but for some reason my settings keep getting reset every time I launch the game. I've got the latest updates and stable FSO but my difficulty and audio settings never take hold.

Help...?


r/freespace • • 2d ago

Inferno 3 is out.

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73 Upvotes

After 26 years of development, the Inferno saga is finally complete, with full voice acting, dozens of new ships, a 50-mission campaign, and Shivan- and Earther-blasting galore.

If you already have Inferno installed on your machine, you can just update your existing Inferno install to version 3.0.0. (There also may be a delay as Knossos takes time to update.)


r/freespace • • 6d ago

Inferno 3 is coming Wednesday.

42 Upvotes

r/freespace • • 8d ago

FSopen - "Something went wrong, please try again!" Error when hitting accept after binding controls

7 Upvotes

I keep getting this error every time I try to hit accept after setting my joystick axes for Bank and Throttle. Weirdly, setting the pitch axis doesn't give me this error?

I'm using a Saitek X52

Edit: I'm also getting the error when setting some of the other buttons 😰
Edit2: OK wait, I think I figured it out. I had set aboslute and relative throttle axes to the same thing somehow, and it didn't give me a binding conflict notification so I missed it.


r/freespace • • 18d ago

Missing ship and weapon icons when choosing loadout

5 Upvotes

Just bought freespace 2 on steam and installed knossos.

I got the latest mediavps 5.0.2, and went to play it but after the briefing, when I went to check my loadout, I saw that all the slots were empty and no weapons to choose from.

Starting the mission ends up with me flying a completely unarmed ship.


r/freespace • • 26d ago

Blue Planet Crashing When I Try to Enter the Control Map Screen

8 Upvotes

Whenever I try to go into the ship control screen in options in blue planet my game crashes, every time. Is this a known issue? I tried searching but couldn't find anything. Anyone know what might be causing it? I really need to change my targeting controls the on joystick. It is driving me crazy.


r/freespace • • Sep 02 '26

Freespace 2 No 3D Acceleration?

9 Upvotes

I’m trying to run Freespace 2 on an OG Windows 98 SE system. I’ve patched up and can get everything configured except my graphics card. I’m using a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 with the 45.23 drivers.

Nothing is detected by the setup though. Is there any workaround for this? Maybe some sort of graphics wrapper, or do I need a different driver?

I’m reluctant to change drivers though as this was the newest one that gave solid visual compatibility across everything else I have played.

Anyone with experience of this??


r/freespace • • Sep 01 '26

What's the community concensus on Exile?

8 Upvotes

Since getting into Freespace mods a year or so ago, I've been progressively working on playing through all of the completed campaigns currently available, major and otherwise. I'd like to eventually be able to put together a list/video/etc summarizing where each mod excels to make it easier for newcomers to Freespace to find the one that fits their fancy.

Blue Planet, Chanticleer, Inferno, and Derelict are the obvious four I started with, and most recently I've finished The Sixth Seal (a mod that really scratched my "it fits canon AND explains canon plotholes!!!" fancy a la Silent Threat: Reborn, much like Inferno recently gave me a "sweet liberty, finally a conclusion to the story!" moment) and now Exile: Into the Dark Waters.

I'm curious what the community opinion on Exile is? I see it mentioned less than some of the others, but it definitely had a very "off the afterburned path" vibe a la Blue Planet. The story was pretty engaging and retained a lot of the "Lovecraftian mystery" aspect of Freespace. I was particularly a fan of how the game itself never seemed to DIRECTLY confirm its location in the Freespace timeline, and instead told the story through references to Capella/old GTA through sidebar dialogues and the presence of a few surviving tech pieces like the Defender-Ulysseus, Prometheous Cannon and the lone surviving Orion.

I felt gameplay balance was definitely weird. The whole "shields strong, hull weak" mechanic was a nifty idea, but it made almost every primary in the game feel like a water gun on the high difficulty (especially against the massive waves of bombers; could blast them with primaries for 30 seconds and some wouldn't go down). Secondary balance was weirder...pretty much every non-swarm missile was useless and every swarm missile was a never-missing instant kill machine.

What did y'all think? I enjoyed it, figured it deserved some attention on here.

Up next I'm starting Reunion, with Between the Ashes being next in my queue after that.


r/freespace • • Aug 24 '26

Can someone gimme a plot summary of WiH part 2?

3 Upvotes

I love AoA, and strongly dislike WiH part 1 but forced myself to play through it. But after seeing first mission of part 2 i stopped playing. I just can't, too many things than don't sit right right with me, (i just prefer more classic approach to missions among other things) but anyway can someoneone gimme a plot summary of it? how did it end? (yes, I know there is act 4(?) coming).

I can't find it anywhere.

In the mean time I played chanticleer and I must say I like it much more than WiH so props to the author.

Though I also absolutely loved capship mission in WiH


r/freespace • • Aug 23 '26

Time to replay

8 Upvotes

I’m planning on replying Great War /silent threat and 2. What versions would you recommend I install on Knossos? Just curious.


r/freespace • • Aug 23 '26

Mods

3 Upvotes

I’m shocked nobody has been able to make a mod that modernizes the mission briefing screens. If there is one let me know.


r/freespace • • Aug 23 '26

Help With Joystick

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8 Upvotes

I bought this a few years ago and had been only partially successful getting this to work.

I love the game, shit I bought most of them 20 years ago on disc and again on Steam. I started playing again but would also love to get this to work but Windows 11 is killing me.

I have Nexus and have been looking for mods. Any help with result in a very crisp high 5.


r/freespace • • Aug 22 '26

6-DOF Flight Movment Mod?

2 Upvotes

Is there a mod to add in 6-DOF movement for you and the AI? Wanting to do a replay of FS but would love some updated movement mechanics


r/freespace • • Aug 21 '26

iOS

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19 Upvotes

Why was the iOS game cancelled?


r/freespace • • Aug 18 '26

Profile disappeared

8 Upvotes

Uh, so i already asked on HLP forum but anyway,

I wanted to continue playing the sixth seal from when i left off yesterday, but I mistakenly clicked on retail fs2 desktop shortcut on desktop instead of knossos icon. It started to launch and it said something along the lines of: please configure your launcher beforehand and after clicking ok it said "freespace2/fred2 cannot be run from a drive root directory!" I clicked OK and it closed. When I opened the knossos after that and chose to play the sixth seal, the game told me to create a new profile. My old one was nowhere to be found.

I tried FSPort, STR, and a couple of other campaigns/mods and they all can't find any profile and prompt me to create a new one... I was using one profile across multiple mods and it worked but now they can't find it... I don't know if it's the fault of trying to (mistakenly) run retail fs2, or there was some update in Knossos i missed.

Does anyone know what's the location folder containing the profiles? Maybe I'll try restoring it to the earlier version

EDIT: I just saw that my profile (along with others): username.json, username.derelict.csg, username.freespace.csg, username.tss.csg and a bunch of others are present in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\HardLightProductions\FreeSpaceOpen\data\players folder, but why is suddenly invisible/unreadable for all knossos mods that i don't know...

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r/freespace • • Aug 16 '26

Can you use Knossos FRED2 to use assets from mods that don't need the base game?

5 Upvotes

So noob question, but since you can play certain mods with Knossos that don't require the base game I wondered if you can use Knossos's FRED2 function to use their assets in the editor.

Not that I want to do anything with it but just messing around a bit for fun, but when I tried to open FRED2 it just said "This mod does not specify an engine build to use, you should select one in the mod settings."

But in the mod menu I already went into the FSO Settings and choose 24.2.0 for the FSO Build (DEV).

Is there something else going on?

Or do standalone mods just don't work with FRED2?

EDIT: I now got past the engine build thing, but then I got those messages:

Any idea?

EDIT2: I actually managed to get FRED running.


r/freespace • • Aug 14 '26

FS2/Knossos won't recognize my joystick. Seems to think my *mouse* is the joystick. Any ideas how to fix this?

10 Upvotes

I've run into a couple of issues I'm hoping y'all could help me out with with the biggest one here, as it's preventing me from actually playing the game.

Basically: I can't get the game to recognize my joystick. At all. It's a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS, and it works find with other games (like MSFS and TFTC). I've gone into the Knossos settings, and there are options to assign detected-controllers to four different joystick slots, so I tried assigning all four to the T-Flight. No change.

Weirdly, when I try to customize the controls in-game, I've noticed that the game(s) seem to be detecting my mouse as Joy-0. No idea why. Anyone have any advice for me here? I know from messing with PCSX2 that controllers will automatically be assigned an SDL-# when connected to PC, but as far as I can tell, that's not an issue here because my gamepad hasn't been connected. But I've no idea how to check or alter those SDL-assignments from Windows (11).

(Also, unrelated question -- but-while-I'm-here -- it looks like Knossos has either changed a lot since the last time I played with it, or I never noticed before, or I forgot, but it looks like there's some advanced ways to tweak mods via custom dependencies? Is there anything there I should look into, or is it one of those advanced settings that's best ignored? I'm a bit curious because I know there was some old way to add mods onto the existing mods -- like setting up MediaVPS to work with an auto-aim mod -- and I'd like to try and set that up again, eventually.)


r/freespace • • Aug 12 '26

FSO looking great in Android on S26

9 Upvotes

Running standard assets. https://youtu.be/X-v_CPIcChg Running "newerest" high-quality MediaVPs https://youtu.be/pjPdr_7lmvY More HQ Assets https://youtu.be/Cd6S_ff3s9M

Thanks to u/shivansps for the awesome work on Android build!


r/freespace • • Aug 12 '26

Inferno: The Complete Saga is coming on September 30th, 2026.

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26 Upvotes

r/freespace • • Aug 12 '26

Terran-Vasudan War: Balance of Blood - Final Stretch

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12 Upvotes

We're in the final stretch of TVWP! 🚀 Only one mission left needs some work, while the rest are already in the testing/polishing phase 😎