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THE ARCHIVES
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2002
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EZ Danger Room v2.0
The original skirmish mode add-on for Freedom Force by ABenavides
 It's hard to believe now, but when the original Freedom Force game was
released in 2002, there was no way to just have a quick skirmish among the
characters. Later versions would add a "Danger Room", but the first one had
nothing. You played the campaign story mode and that was it.
Realizing
the need for this, I wrote my first FF add-on, the EZ Danger Room. It's a little
standalone VB app that lets you select a bunch of parameters and then actually
generates a Python mission script that FF uses to let you play a custom battle.
It came out not too long after the game's release and was quite popular at the
time. (perhaps the 1st FF "mod" of any sort)
I had to start learning
Python scripting to do this (I already knew VB development), which came in handy
later for modding and my personal projects.
 How To Use
1. Download and run the installer. It's
set to install in the FF game path. The default is the path of the original CD
release: C:\Program Files (x86)\Irrational Games\Freedom Force
If you are playing with the Steam version of Freedom Force, you should change
it to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Freedom Force
If you have installed Freedom Force in some other path, use that.
2. Run the EZ Danger Room and select Options such background music,
difficulty, time of day, or "watch only" from the pull-down lists.
3. Click on foes in the Foes Available list and use the
Add button to put
them in your danger room. Also, you can check the four Hero boxes to turn
members of your squad (selected in the FF game) into foes.
4. Use the Objects Available list to add objects you can use to your danger
room (powerups, tnt, etc.)
5. When you are done, Click the Save button. This creates a
python script file called AFFMAP.PY in your game's Missions\Scripts
folder.
6. Start or switch to Freedom Force and create a new MULTIPLAYER
game. Once you have installed the EZ Danger Room Tool, you will also
have 13 additional multi-player maps to use (all the Danger Room Maps begin with
AFF). Select one of these AFF maps.
7. NOTE: If you try to make another danger room, you will WIPE
OUT your previous one. If you wish to save it for future use, rename the file
AFFMAP.PY to something else. To use it again, just rename it to AFFMAP.PY.
8. CO-OP PLAY - In order for co-operative play to work properly, each person
in the game needs to use the identical Danger Room settings.
 You can either both
create them exactly on your PCs ("add two thugs and three troopers", etc.) or
better yet, have one person create the settings and give them to all other players.
Yes, that's unwieldy, but this is what we had to do in 2002! The
settings are stored in AFFMAP.PY in your Missions\Scripts folder. NOTE: If all
players except 1 get all their heroes knocked out, the level will end (the way
multi-player games normally end).
9.
IRRATIONAL'S DANGER ROOM - Later versions of FF (starting with v1.2)
added a built-in Danger Room option. These later versions are probably what
you have as modern computers only work with the later versions. However some
people still preferred EZ Danger Room's more aggressive AI. To use it in Irrational's Danger Room by
clicking Danger Room on the main FF menu and choose one of these two modes:
- DangerRoom-Alex's Freedom Fortress : foes act a bit more aggressively
- DangerRoom-Alex's Freedom Fortress-Watch Mode: sit back to watch the
carnage
Version
History
v1.0 (28Apr2002)
v1.1 (29Apr2002)
- Choose from some lighting options (Time of Day)
- Automatically figures out scripts path, so no need to keep setting it if
you haven't installed FF in default path
- A few more difficulty levels
v1.2 (1May2002)
- Resized maps with more accurate numbers
- Added ability to add custom heroes to your danger room (to use this,
remember that FF orders your heroes alphabetically, so you should remember
that as you check boxes)
v1.3 (5May2002)
- Improved custom foes AI to have them fly
- Adjusted map sizes again (since maps aren't all perfectly square)
- Keep count of baddies killed and display status messages
v1.4 (17May2002)
- Added Freedom Force heroes to list of possible enemies
- Added Objects list to let you include powerups, gas tanks, etc.
- New "Watch Only" mode lets you just sit back to watch the carnage unfold
- Custom Foes will now attack cops also
- Added a few new background music choices & fixed Defeat music to play only
once
- Renamed all Danger Room maps to start with "AFF" in multiplayer map list,
making them easier to find
- Optimizations to all code (UI & Python)-makes it all a little faster and
more stable
v1.5 (18May2002)
- Co-op play - AI now attacks every human player in a Multiplayer game
- New Option to double your heroes' hit points (like in single player
campaign)
- Updated UI
v 2.0 (25Jan2003)
- updated GUI
- optimized / modularized AI code
- Five (5) new maps: Frozen Park, Ice World, Park Panic, Shadow Lair, and
Tower for use in Multi-Player, EZ Danger Room, or Irrational's Danger Room!
- Add-ons to Irrational's Danger Room to use EZ Danger Room AI or allow
Watch Mode.
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