[MOD] Freelancer Variations

[Kevin_Rudd]

It is with great joy that I can present to you the result of 2.5 months work and contributions from other people with Freelancer Variations: a mod which expands the Freelancer game mode to different versions of maps.

The primary goal was to add all bonus missions and similarly different map versions to Freelancer, the other goal was to give alternate times of day where no bonus missions existed. Adding to the times of day, I tried to bring as many low effort differences to the maps as I could. This mod works on the vanilla server and will work on Peacock when that supports Freelancer. If you’re on PC, you’ll have no excuse not to use this to play Freelancer! (Unless you get SDK crashes lel)

Freelancer Variations

Hitman Freelancer Improved with Mods

Installation

On top of the SMF mod being deployed as per usual, this is the first mod I’m aware of to make use of the Modding SDK by NoFaTe, this is required for the variants to actually show in game.

1. Get SMF
2. Get the SDK . Put the SDK in your HITMAN3\Retail folder
3. Grab the Freelancer Variations SDK Mod and put it in HITMAN3\Retail\mods
   3a) OPTIONAL: Grab the Sandbox Hantu Port mod if you’d like to play Hantu Port in Freelancer… literally a new map!
4. Grab the FV SMF Mod and install it using SMF Mod Manager’s “Add A Mod” button. In the options of the mod make sure “via SDK” and “Chongqing Noodle Massacre content” are ticked, then deploy of course
5. Go to the Variant Picker website to de/select the variants you want. You’ll mainly want to do this to pick which map slot you want the Romania passenger train and Hantu Port variants to use. Train can be used in the slots of Colorado, New York and Hawke’s Bay. Hantu Port can be used in the slots of Isle of Sgail and Hawke’s Bay. When you’re done, click “Generate” at the bottom and save the file in HITMAN3\Retail\mods, overwrite what’s there.
6. Launch the game! You should get a popup of the SDK, if the mods list isn’t showing then press the Mods button to bring up the list, then select FreelancerVariations and press OK.

You will now have Freelancer Variations working and active and you just play as you normally would. Some people can not get the SDK menu working in game… I don’t know how to help them. They might have a weird OS or weird version of the game (Xbox/Microsoft). It MIGHT be possible for you to manually enabled the mod by going to retail/mods.ini and adding [freelancervariations] to the bottom

Temporary SDK solutions to stop crashes

Solution 1) (Suggested by ProjektRF on Nexus)

For people having issues with SDK just crashing the game on launch I’ve had luck changing the Hitman3.exe to compatibility mode Windows 8 and it launched. I’ve seen others have luck changing it to Vista compatibilty. I guess play around and see what works

Solution 2) If you use a controller, disconnect it and do not reconnect until you are past the welcome screen, for some reason the SDK does not like it.

They’re working on a better and more permanent solution, thought I’d put this out there in the meantime

Known Issues

• Getting crashes from SDK (Unconfirmed if this is still happening in 2024)
  -After having taken a survey it appears bugs you might assume are part of this mod are actually part of the vanilla game: Showdown Suspects standing around doing nothing, Crash on entering map from safehouse, crash on returning to safehouse from map. Mention them to IO, not me.

Incompatibilities

• If you use Lighting Ultimate then turn off Colorado - The Vector and Chongqing options in LU and it will work. Only use GOTY version of The Author, not Vanilla+. Also turn off Isle of Sgail if you want to play Hantu Port. If a better solution is found I will update this.

General Principles

• Each map is meant to have at least one alternative time of day, and for slight difference I try bundle in at least one ET/Special Assignment with that time change
• If I had to make a new file from scratch, usually I remove the story targets and enabled their ‘dead’ logic to help it be slightly more immersive (It will be like the targets recently died)
• I’ve put little bonuses in where I could to keep things interesting. Mainly increasing the variety of NPCs, you may see some unexpected cameos.
• 7DS and Deluxe content was not to be added as variants

Notes

• If you have the Noodle Massacre mod deployed, you do not need the Noodle Massacre SMF option for this mod (If you have it enabled you’ll be deploying the same files twice)
• I was unable to verify every variant since Freelancer launched, there may be major bugs! Please comment any bugs you find in this thread (along with screenshots if possible)
• At this stage New York is not intended to get any variants at all being the only indoor map and having no extra IO-made content for it.
• Chongqing Noodle Massacre starts on by default in SMF and SDK. If you do not wish to play Noodle Massacre you may disable it in SMF’s options screen, then just use Piepie’s variant selector to unselect the two Noodle Massacre options in Chongqing. I strongly discourage you from doing this as it adds a lot more than just Chongqing Noodle Massacre changes, and in my opinion is a way more fun way to play Chongqing than having to go around the ICA Facility or Hush’ weird shit

Contributors/Credits

Contributions have been made by some other members of the modding community

@piepieonline granted this mod the ability to work on the vanilla online server via his SDK mod

@Kercyx came up with the following time of day changes: Night Dartmoor Garden Show (Fireworks by 2kpr), Night Dartmoor (with assistance from Ruddy), WoT Sunset conversion, Night Haven, Night Mumbai (with assistance from Ruddy), Berlin Easter conversion (with assistance of NPCs and crowds by Ruddy), Mumbai + Dartmoor Day conversion, conversion of existing ToDs made by Rudd into new format

@musicalmushr00m created the following time of day changes: Night Colorado (Lamp tweaks by Ruddy), 2016 Daytime Sapienza (Applying it to Landslide has meant some interiors may not look like how creator intended), 2016 Night Time Holiday Hoarders (Restored from 2016)

@Tony_Stark created the following times of day: Berlin Midday (Tweaks to indoor lighting means it may not look 100% as creator intended)

(If I’ve forgotten any contributions, which is likely, I will update)

The Variants
There’s a lot to go through, I suggest you go to the variant selector website to read them all
https://www.piepieonline.com/h3-freelancer-variations-configuration/

I will update/do a post with them all at some point though

Future Updates

• Bug fixes as they pop up
• Romania Passenger Train
• Hawke’s Bay festival variant

For now… have fun and explore a true world of assassination!

[Ecco]

I might have to a PC for this alone. Was really hoping for time of day changes in Freelancer. Especially night time for a lot of maps

[TECPlayz]

I really wish IOI had such variations in the actual game. It sucks having to play the exact same map with the exact same ToD, characters and their routines, it gets boring pretty fast. This mod makes everything feel different and fresh, it’s amazing. Good job!

[JoanInTheWater]

Amazing work!

What is the compatibility with Lighting Ultimate like? Anything to disable in Lighting Ultimate for this to work properly?

[Kevin_Rudd]

I think for the most part it should be okay. The LU versions will likely carry over to season 1 variations (besides obviously different ones like midday Paris), and they should just not carry over at all on Season 2 and 3 maps.

But you let me know

[Olipro]

Are these special assignments something you introduced from the ground up or is it an adaptation of a mechanic IOI created for freelancer but haven’t exposed yet?

[Kevin_Rudd]

I’m not sure what you mean by special assignments

[Olipro]

@Kevin_Rudd

I try bundle in at least one ET/Special Assignment with that time change

This.

obligatory twenty characters

[Kevin_Rudd]

IO made the ETs, IO made the Special Assignments

[Olipro]

Oh, the penny has dropped, Special Assignments are basically alternative map missions (such as Abiatti Sapienza) right?

[Kevin_Rudd]

No, Special Assignments are Special Assignments

[Olipro]

What’s an example of a special assignment?

[Kevin_Rudd]

Special Assignments Pack 2

[TheChicken]

Hitman 2 had a few extra missions in the Season Pass called Special Assignments

They took place at Mumbai, Santa Fortuna, Miami, and Whittleton Creek.

They were pretty small, basic missions though, basically re-purposed Elusive Targets with lots of kill challenges added.

[Sami_Shaikh]

This is the real freelancer

[Tetrafish_21]

I can see a potential PIA with night time and having to spot very small or hard to notice features like tats, necklaces, and/or earrings. But otherwise this is hella interesting.

[Kevin_Rudd]

So does the mod actually work for anyone else? People on Nexus keep complaining of deploy errors but I don’t get them on my end at all. I have is latest SMF, latest game on Epic (Shouldn’t matter), no other mods, and the default Chongqing option on (Please not you should NOT have the Chongqing option on at same time as the separate Chongqing Noodle Massacre mod, which is out of date currently)

Edit: I did not have latest SMF. Now I do, it doesn’t work.

Trying to come up with a proper solution but the fact it worked fine before the SMF update makes me think it’s SMF changing is the only way to fix it

[Kevin_Rudd]

Hi guys, after working with Notex and Atampy, an update for SMF and this mod have now been put out and the mod actually works!

Freelancer Variations

Future updates should be managed by SMF now

Now go forth and explore the world, and tell us what you find

[LandirtHome]

I don’t play on PC. And even if I was, I think I would have stick to the vanilla version for time being.

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But! I can see the work. Looks damn fine. @Kevin_Rudd Congratulations.

[Kevin_Rudd]

I completely forgot to mention; if you have Time Of Day Mod on, turn it off. It forces maps to have only one time of day, which ruins the random nature of Freelancer Variations, and probably causes crashes.

ToD Mod will be updated to be compatible… one day. Fixing bug with FV and adding new variants comes first.