Uhm, .I'm in dainn 2 l-point, just after following a marauder....but now the mission seems bugged: the freighter it's just immobile and there no way to get it moving :/
Anyone else have this problem?

Oops. I can probably re-write the mod to remove the objectives, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to get around to doing it. They won't cause any harm if you just leave them though.

Of course that's why it's always a good idea to keep a backup of your saves before trying out any mods or fixes. :-(

I'm more annoyed by the Dainn L-point remaining in my contacts list actually... but in fact I'm starting to wonder if the mod did work the way it was supposed to: I do get the mail from Hoffer saying we can't rush in and need an alternative plan and that he'll keep me posted, but I've flown out and in of the base a couple of times and still don't get a new mail, and according to the walkthroughs I've seen I've done all the other quests...

All the mod does is set the global variable that marks the mission as complete, which should get the act scripts to trigger the next mission. Of course with I-War 2 the acts are fairly complex scripts, so there may be other prerequesites that need to be met before the next mission will trigger.

I own the original retail version of this game and this bug has plagued me for years. I go back to replay this game every couple years because it's GREAT...but I usually get stuck on this mission and quit.

This time I decided to persevere through it and I'll just say that there is a chance at successfully completing this mission without skipping it, or using savegames.

There's nothing special to do except keep retrying it.

Do these steps to make it the easiest it can be:

1) Start the mission by hunting down a marauder in Firefrost. I find this easiest when I sit at an L-point and wait for a distress call. Wound a marauder enough and he'll break off and fly to that L-point (most of the time). Then you have to protect it while it goes through the L-point. Better if the L-point is lightly trafficked.

2) Now that you know about the Daiin-II L-point, fly back to base and save your game.

3) Launch again and fly to the Daiin-II waypoint.

4) In my experience it makes no difference when you head towards the Junk pile. I always wait until the instant the marauders show up on radar, but I don't think it matters. Wait there until the freighter arrives.

5) If it comes to a stop, just load your last savegame and try again. No amount of waiting, blowing up ships or anything else will make the mission proceed from here.

6) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the freighter actually moves past the end of the L-point exit. For me this was about 1 in 10 times it would actually work right.

7) Formate with the freighter immediately. Most of the time the corvettes won't notice you. If they do, you'll take an LDSi missile as the freighter leaves and you'll have to destroy them. You should be good at 4-on-1 marauder attacks by now ;)

8) Follow the freighter to an asteroid of some kind. STOP FOLLOWING IT IMMEDIATELY. Break formation and come to a stop. You need to let the freighter go or the patrols will find you and you'll get swarmed by about 15 missiles all at once.

9) Work your way around to the left of the asteroid and all the ships. Eventually a freighter (probably the one you followed) will break off towards you and enter LDS towards the Daiin-I L-Point. Timing this can be tricky, but if you watch the target speed indicator you can see when it's starting to accelerate and then just slam on F7. You should be golden from here.

10) You'll make your way to the Daiin-I L-Point, and keep the freighter targeted as it goes through. Now the mission is over and you can head home.

11) The usual shortcut of "hit F8 on Lucrecia's base" doesn't work in this mission for me. You have to fly the entire way home, through some fairly crowded L-points. Be very careful of freighters not clearing the L-Point, because you don't want to smash into one and explode just as you've almost gotten away free and clear. Once you've docked, save and backup your savegame file just in case!

Wandering off and coming back again seems to work too.

That could well work, as the mission would probably clean up the ships when you left range and respawn them when you re-enter range.

I tried that a few times, but when I came back no ships appeared. Granted I didn't try this very many times, so I have no idea what the success to failure ratio is for the "wander off" method compared to what I described above.

It's possible I didn't wander far enough away, or stay away long enough. I was able to get through the mission eventually, so hopefully everyone else can too. It's a shame to have to skip over that mission because it's a pretty important plot element.

I just finished the game yesterday and it's a blast. The only complaint I've ever had about IW2 is that Act 3 is pretty linear and doesn't do much to incentivize exploration in the Gagarin cluster.

Oh and Ravenger, maybe you know the answer to this question that has ALWAYS bugged me about this game:

MINOR SPOILER WARNING:

How in the world is your base + two megafrieghters supposed to squeeze through that jump accelerator? The base alone is at least 3 times the diameter.

I did ask that question during development. It was sort of glossed over :)

They stripped it down shipped it through and re-built it or something, yet still left it in a half demolished state. That'll be it :)

Yeah, the end comes fairly quickly. And if you do take your own time to poke around, there are whole systems that are all but empty of anything but planets. It left a lot of room for expansion for a third game that, unfortunately, we never got to play. Still love the game but feel a little sad about what never was. I'd love it if someone were able to resurrect the series.

I think they put UPS labels on them and the package handlers then drop-kicked the ships through.

There was originally meant to be an Act 4 where you take the corporate fight all the way back to Earth, which is where the events at the end of Act 3 (minus the actual ending) were supposed to take place.

Due to time and budget we had to cut Act 4, write a new ending to act 3, and cut down on the amount of content in the later systems unfortunately.

Does the engine / game system, then, allow for relatively simple mission and campaign creation? I don't recall there being a scenario editor, but how difficult would it be to create campaigns from scratch for addition to the game?

It's not trivial, but it's perfectly possible.

All in-game missions are scripted in a C like language called POG. There's no editor - all positions are decided relative to other objects. To do a mission based around a space-station you'd place all the objects relative to that.

The scripting SDK and the multimod mod allow you to do virtually anything you want via scripting - at least anything that the game does via scripts, you can do too, with enough work.

There have been a fair number of scripted mods for I-War 2, including once called Torn Stars which has its own cluster and Elite style gameplay.

Thanks for the insight Ravenger. I always figured something like an Act 4 must have been left out. As terrific as the game is, it always felt slightly incomplete.

Any idea who owns the IP these days? I know this genre is pretty well out of fashion now, but I feel like if someone could develop a robust flight stick for consoles it could come roaring back. Or even a halfway decent control scheme using standard gamepads.

I'd plop down 60 bucks for IWar3 in a heartbeat.

Here are some hints to (maybe) help you through the bugs plaguing 'Corporate Holdings' and 'Wolfs Lair'.

Corporate Holdings:
Before starting the mission jump to the regular Dagda L-Point where Kiwi will initiate a conversation and rant about Maas. Exit the system when he is finished dock to your station and save. You may have to skip through the conversation otherwise the game glitches out before you can jump back. Afterwards the mission went through for me without problems.

Wolfs Lair (or how to defeat a glitch with a glitch):
First you need to discover the the Dainn-II L-Point. Then start from your Base and travel to the Prestur L-Point (aka the Dagda Backdoor L-Point) in Mwari. Manually jump through to Dagda. Immediately engage the Autopilot to the Daninn-II L-Point, which should take through the Dagda system and to the main Dagda L-Point. If you are lucky the game gets glitchy as you jump out to Firefrost and begins to stutter (without crashing). Now the freighter should leave from the Daninn-II L-Point.
Fighting is pretty hard with this bad framerate so try your best not to get detected.

I did not test these methods extensively, but they seemed to work for me.

@Ravanger: I-War is still one of my favorite series, thanks for your continued support :)

The previous idea for completing "Corporate Holdings" does not work reliable unfortunately.
I had the same problems again on this run.

New solution:
Edit the .ini file of the small fuel transporter to give the transporter lots of hit points (or use the attached mod, rename jpg to zip).
Jump into the Dagda system via the Prestur L-Point.
Quickly destroy the mines.
Quickly jump out of the system (jumping manually should be fastest).
Wait for the transports and sometimes the Maurader attackers.