Decades ago this game was one of my few coping mechanisms I had during my first painful attempt at college. I beat it, and it is one of my few fond memories from that period. When I came home, I shared it with my little brother and he also really enjoyed it. The other day marked 14 years since my little brother passed away. I've been wanting to replay it for a while, and I figured now was a good a time as any.

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Some details...

I own both FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 on GoG (and FreeSpace on disc).

FreeSpace Open is an open source project that has been improving the FreeSpace 2 game engine for years. It supports total conversion mods, but for FreeSpace related material it requires a legal copy of FreeSpace 2.

Knossos.NET is an excellent launcher tool for installing FSO and mods for it.

The FreeSpace Port mod makes the first FreeSpace game playable in FSO. The FreeSpace Port MediaVPs provide some nice visual upgrades.

Custom Controls:
Pitch/Yaw - Elecom Huge Trackball
Bank left/right - A/D
Forward/Reverse thrust - W/S
Afterburner - Space
Full stop / Max throttle - X/Shift+X
Match Speed - B
Toggle Auto Speed - G
Primary and secondary weapon fire - left and right click
Cycle Primary Weapon / Change fire rate - F/Shift+F
Cycle Secondary Weapon / Change fire rate - V/Shift+V
Countermeasures - C
Cycle Target / Nearest Hostile / Auto target toggle - E/R/T
Cycle Subsystem Target / Stop Targeting Subsystems - Q/Z
Equalize shields - Tab
Open Comms - Left Ctrl