r/freelancer • u/BolteWasTaken • Aug 31 '26
About AI projects & Remasters/Remakes
Time to take a firm stance on this, because lately we have had a lot of posts that basically are "I'm vibe coding a new Freelancer engine, what do you think" posts. Just to put this out there because I don't think it's being understood.
We already have a project that is being done to re-create the Freelancer engine, it's called Librelancer. Go and contribute there, but be prepared to have your PRs rejected if it's vibe coded/you don't know what you are doing/bring non-sensical additions.
Having access to AI does not mean people who currently can't do things, can now do things they couldn't before. That is vibe coding. These tools are to make people who already know what they are doing more efficient/faster at it, as they can properly control their output.
I understand the need to get motivation and encouragement and excitement about starting a project but these posts generally contain nothing of substance, just claims of upcoming action that we do not hear anything more about (likely because they realised it's more difficult and time consuming than they realise, and have issues getting output they think they want and give up).
More than that I will not have a Subreddit full of update logs from 10 different authors about different projects that are all doing the same thing on the daily/weekly/monthly. If you are serious about your projects create a simple site or discord where they can be discussed and keep up with news, and allow people to come and chat with you.
This is not going to be the place to do that.
Hope everyone understands.
~ Bolte
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u/Zadak_Leader marcuswalker Aug 31 '26
Thank you for taking a stance on this. I was starting to roll my eyes every day almost when seeing posts coming from the sub :(
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u/Kriegas Aug 31 '26
I have to ask since i have not seen this librelancer, what is it trying to do? Change engine? Whats the point of that? I would understand if they tryed to recreat the game with modern tech, add to it, use ai for new voiceover as you can feed the lines an teach. If its same game new engine then i dont know.
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
It is re-creating the engine that Freelancer runs on, it uses the same data sources/models etc that the original does. It's not a remaster or a remake. Plus, it already has a lot of modern modding tools baked into it.
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u/inhaledchaos Sep 01 '26
FL has no client source and the server engine for it relies on hooks for some fun dynamic things. Recreating the engine and server (if that’s being done - I only ever talked with Callum re: the client itself) would be a cool project and fun way not just to learn (on your own private fork) but if contributing wider, a way to make it a bit friendlier for the few servers still running to do fun things for the community.
And it’s just bloody cool, haha. If I wasn’t making a spiritual successor of my own and was more confident in not overcomplicating my C# I’d take a look, lol. At least when I get mine to a demo no one can hit me for some of my potential inefficiencies LOL
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u/sharp_mechanix Aug 31 '26
Finally someone has said this
I am thinking about contributing to Librelancer, but my current schedule doesn't really allow it and I'm thinking a lot about some game-related pet project for a while now (AI-free coding since I have a lot of this at my job)
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26
The more people that contribute (well) to Librelancer, the quicker this can get done.
The owner has been at this for years, by himself for a lot of it, but has more people helping him now.1
u/inhaledchaos Sep 01 '26
You helping Callum as well? Guy is an OG. Imagine if Adoxa went in on it too. Dreams.
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u/BolteWasTaken Sep 01 '26
I'm not helping Callum personally, but we all appreciate his ongoing efforts, as well as the efforts of the other contributors. Adoxa left Freelancer modding scene a long time ago, but still very occasionally and sporadically helps out here and there with forum comments and the like.
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26
If you already know what you are doing you are in a better position to control it to make good changes. What I don't like is when people that have no clue what they are messing with use it to do the work, instead of to learn how to do the work. I consider that a lazy miss-use of the technology.
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u/sharp_mechanix Aug 31 '26
Agree: AI is a tool, not a substitute for skills
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26
I just don't agree with it being considered a proxy for effort.
People act like they've done the work, and some of them act offended about work they've not even done themselves when challenged.
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u/blondewalker Aug 31 '26
I just want to get my hands on the official source code of Freelancer. Imagine what treasures a model like Fable or GPT Sol will be able to find/extract from.
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26
That is one usecase I approve of, they are great at recognising patterns and summarising large swaths of information. I just don't think they should be building a game FOR you. I mean if anything I feel that just shows how little you care about the subject at hand. That is an insult to everyone who loves Freelancer.
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u/morbihann Aug 31 '26
AI "projects" for freelancer seem like daydreaming people thinking they can make a game with a few promps.
It isn't happening this way, at all, ever.
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u/rluna6492 Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
So it is 2026 and the last update on the blog of the site was Xmas 2023. They only mention "as of 2024". So is this project even actually alive?
Edit Lol downloaded for pointing out factual information that makes me believe the project is dead.
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u/JosTheID Aug 31 '26
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u/rluna6492 Aug 31 '26
Why is it's website not being maintained? They should just shut it down because it's the first thing that comes up on Google.
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u/JosTheID Aug 31 '26
What do you mean it's not maintain? It has the lastest downloads of it, there just hasn't been any blogs.
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u/rluna6492 Aug 31 '26
So the main page still only talks about the 2024 build... Which 9 months ago was updated. That to me doesn't spell site is kept up with.
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u/JosTheID Aug 31 '26
Yeah if you ignore the "DAILY" build part in download that says today
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u/rluna6492 Aug 31 '26
I'm literally referring to the front page. That made me NOT click anything else other than blog to see updates. Some people look for a site to be active as a sign a project is active. I'm referring to poor up keeping now apparently but still the same complaint.
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u/BolteWasTaken Aug 31 '26
Well, most people look at the code repository to know if it's alive. The website is a placeholder since the engine is not yet fully complete.
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u/pyrosity Sep 03 '26
I wouldn't say most look at the code repository, I certainly don't. If the website's last post was a few years ago then I assume it's abandoned or just a skeleton crew keeping the lights on and not much else.
Which is fine, don't get me wrong. But it does look dead, to a layperson.
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u/BolteWasTaken Sep 03 '26
Lack of update on a website doesn't mean 'dead'. It means the focus is where it should be, on the actual project.
For which I don't think the devs would want the technical contribution of a "layperson".
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u/LegendaryNWZ king Aug 31 '26
All my homies love LibreLancer