User:Kazinsal/Freelancer: Broken Bonds

Freelancer: Broken Bonds is an in-development total conversion mod for the 2003 space trading and combat simulation game Freelancer. The mod is being developed and published by the Broken Bonds Development Team.

Gameplay and engine
Broken Bonds uses a modified version of the Freelancer engine. As a result, the core mechanics of spaceflight and combat are similar to those of Freelancer, while more advanced and tactical concepts have entered the game engine. The original physics and scale-related quirks of Freelancer are mostly kept intact to maintain a game-like sense of feeling.

Unlike in the original Freelancer engine, players are able to purchase and command capital ships in the main factions' respective space fleets. These ships can be customized with equipment from lasers and chainguns to railguns and torpedoes.

Plot and setting
Broken Bonds takes place in a fictionalized Pleiades sector of space, mostly concurrent with the date and events of Freelancer. After the original sleeper ships launched to escape the Alliance-Coalition War, remaining members of the Italian and Australian fleets and colonies made one last effort for survival by constructing the Invictus, a massive sleeper ship designed to meet up with the first five launched vessels in the Sirius sector. By sheer luck and determination to survive, the Invictus made it out of the Solar system intact.

However successful in their exodus, the suspended inhabitants of the Invictus failed in their goal of reaching the Sirius sector. Instead, their journey ended in the Pleiades, where the Italian and Australian sides parted ways to explore their new home. Six hundred years later, the Medicean Empire and Southern Cross Commonwealth are on the brink of war after many trials and tribulations to establish their respective interstellar nations.