The Shadow of Fear closed Beta now reached the Beta 2 Status. Appart from several bug changes we are proud to present the Ships of Sorin Enterprises as well as the Vanilla Tradelanes being back.

8836 got several Server sided Updates – mainly a maintenance Update with a few features just to keep you interested

Here is a how to play link..

The Shadow of Fear closed Beta comes with the core of the Mod. Currently playable are the Ships of the United Stars Organization within the new Plejades Sector.

The Plejades Sector currently contains five new major Systems, 40+ new Stations, 16+ new Ships and some unique effects.

Shadow of Fear keeps the Balance of the 88Flak Mod widely. Chris changed the Ships behaviors to a better playble version – so Capital Ships are much easier to move than in 88Flak.

Together with the effects of Itano Circus, the Elite Fighter Shippack auf Gizmo Studios, the HD Starspheres of Hunor and the HD Freelancer Planets of Radiant, aproximately a thousand new Names, Storie and Description entries Sof may give an idea what the Freelancer Engine is still able to perform.

The current Beta is a closed Multiplayer Version. The Singleplayer Version is not yet tested neither supported.

Focused on the insertation of several new planets, star surfaces, stations and Ships the Shadow of Fear Mod becomes recognizable with this step.

Ready to use Packs as well as unique stations and capital ship designs leaned on the Game Sins of a Solar Empire was implemented successfull. The planets and surfaces followed the way Radiant went while restyling the Freelancer Planets.

While keeping the eyes on an integration of the above named ships, planets was generaly done in the txm format for Freelancer which guarantees performance but is so far a more ambitious way to mod. Nearly all integrated planets was reworked with bump maps to get a more realistic look and feel of the mod. Saying this you should have a close look to the planets.

Digital Anvil must, while writing Freelancer, have planed a six sided planet surface – but did it only in a few examples within vanilla. Needless to say that Shadow of Fear Planets does use all 6 possible sides, so “a planet from behind” will have a different look than from it’s front.

The Station in the video, doesn’t find it’s way into the closed beta yet.

Hunor did a great work in recreating the vanilla Freelancer Starspheres in a most beautifull way. His Starspheres are plotting a real 3D look within Freelancer. This video is just a showcase of several vanilla Freelancer Systems, so you may get an idea of the final effect.

For a real feeling you need to play the Game.

The Krait light fighter is the first fighter being integrated from the famous Elite shippack by gizmo and griff. While griff originally is releasing ships and stations for oOElite he did a sidestep on releasing a few Freelancer Elite Fighter and station versions.

These models are marked not only by the old Elite feeling but also by a very detailed and accurate texturing. All models are comming with HD textures and lightmaps as well.

Together with the 88Flak grafical possibilities, these models are eyecatching.

Apart from the Mod holding 8 new Factions and 8 new Bots now, like shown in the Video as for example the USO (United Stars Organization) and the Coalition, it also holds now several new goods to trade with or getting them from placed wrecks all around the new Systems.

A major point for Freelancer always was the necessity to trade, mine, loot or whatever else you did for earning some credits. Shadow of Fear now tries the way to keep these types as balanced as possible. While having spots to sell ore for a pretty good price you also will earn much money from selling the loot of taken down human players or NPC’s since 88Flak comes allready with reality loots (that means, if you shoot down a train filled with a commodity – it will drop the cargo near to the amount it was transporting) you need to be faster than the NPC tractors.

Additional to this scenario you may also loot credit chips and kill tokens which can also be sold or stored. Introduced and balanced trading spots are last but not least – because they are offering perfect profits as well now.

The Nomads as evil, kinda robotic Race under the reign of the Dom’ K’vash are as well playable with all their Ships, Stations and equipments as every other House.

Ofc. it is fitting the Freelancer style, so you will be under constant fire of every human races ship.

Nomads in 88Flak does have special docking Bases in every Vanilla System so you must not fear to be outequipped soon – but of course apart from having the Nomad possibilities you will never be alone in space.

A feature of 88Flak is the wingman support. Of course it is also integrated into Shadow of Fear.

All around the systems are zones where you can hire NPC wingmen to protect you. A Wingman will attack a target which is acting hostile towards you. Of course nothing in Space is cheap, you will need to actively buy licenses so the wingmen will help you. Sometimes those Licenses are as expensive as a ship may be but hey, the wingman is risking his Ship too while helping you