I’m at level 89 or 90, with full wall of weapons and gear, and most Challenges already completed. My goal is to hopefully complete all Challenges, including hitting Prestige I, III, and the others. My question is, once I activate Prestige on the laptop, and my weapon wall goes blank, do I automatically complete the Prestige I Challenge?
And how do I complete the next Prestige Challenge and so forth? Does the wall reset each time?
Yes, as soon as you activate Prestige, you’ll get that first challenge and lose all your weapons, tools and merces. Then you will need to fully repopulate all the non-Downloadable Content weapons and tools. Once that’s done, you can activate Prestige Level 2 on the laptop and so on and so forth. Each activation of the laptop will raise the counter on the Prestige trophy by 1 and completely remove all weapons, tools, and merces.
The wall will reset each time you activate prestige, but it’s worth mentioning that you can activate it at any moment of a campaign. What I like to do is activating it just before the final syndicate: that way if I manage to complete the campaign I’ll have a headstart with a legendary weapon and 30k merces, and if I can’t, I wouldn’t lose anything more than I would have by activating prestige at the start of a campaign.
If I’m not mistaken, you just need the weapons to prestige. The briefcase tools aren’t necessary, though you will lose whichever ones you have when you prestige.
Ah okay I understand everything now. Thank you, folks!
Before the final overall syndicate, or just the final showdown within the final syndicate?
I’m happy to be wrong about that. Chances are you’ll have all the tools fully restocked well before you have all the weapons on the weapon wall back so I just assumed you’d have to have the tools too.
Yeah sorry I meant final showdown. That way you can still use anything you want for the other missions in the syndicate, and even if alerted the final showdown isn’t too hard to do “naked” if you’re cautious and pick a map with strong civilian disguises like Miami or Paris.
Fun fact: If after advancing to Level 10, you don’t feel like collecting the items again to continue playing: Alt+F4 (or your console equivalent). Like all challenges, it is insta-saved as being completed - but the act of actually advancing your Prestige Level isn’t saved until you either exit to the menu or load into the next mission.
When you load back into Freelancer, you’ll be back at Level 9 and have all items once again.
Anyone have any efficient methods of prestige-ing? Would like to get the game 100%d by the end of the year, but I think that challenge is going to be very time consuming
I don’t know about efficiency, but I find that it’s best to ignore (as much as possible) the makeshift and street art weapons (if you have them) as they don’t seem to count towards Prestige. You may get to a point where suppliers have no available weapons to get beyond those so you’ll have to buy them eventually. I also find that it’s best to go to as many locations as possible and not favor specific ones. The supplier will eventually have an empty inventory if you revisit the same locations too often.
I’ve been buying them mainly because if I don’t, they tend to just stock them again and again.
Anyway thanks for the tips. I think it’s probably just a matter of doing it and trying to earn as many merces as possible
I try to get every “free” weapon first and don’t use the suppliers until then. Never buy any tools as you’ll get them pretty fast anyway. As soon as I have the weapons found in the maps I always buy the cheapest first (the more expensive ones I’ll get from the crates after the syndicate-takedown).
Here’s my sheet for all the free weapons found in every map (and all the prices):
I’ve been back and forth on the idea of activating Prestige again, but I really just don’t fancy the constant grind for all the weapons again 
I really do prefer playing Freelancer knowing I’ve got all my weapons at hand ready to use during the missions. I’ve unlocked all Safehouse cosmetics and got 100/100 on mastery, so I’ve got no reason really to activate another round of Prestige, a part from potentially aiming for Prestige 10 to unlock all the Prestige challenges? But at present, it’s not something I’m really fussed about. I’ve only ever activated Prestige once, which tempts me to activate again, but I then look I’ve got a long way to go before I get to Prestige level 10 and I love playing Freelancer with a full inventory. Maybe one day I’ll grind the Prestige challenges, but right now I’m leaving it for the foreseeable.
To acheive prestige level 10,I’d have to clear my weapons and mercs, 10 times?
Yes.
Welcome!
Good to know. Sounds like an incredible waste of time with no reward except trophies on a dusty basement shelf.
Yes!
Or, if you’re someone like me who gets enjoyment from playing the mode and anticipates playing it casually into the years to come, it’s an effective way of creating a little challenge during what would otherwise be very repetitious gameplay.