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Ok,let's see. This FAQ is for the game Freedom Force. It includes a general over-view of the lesser known features of the game and character information.
I'll pass on what I know as I find it out.

Contents:

1. Game/guide overview:
Basics
Character creating
Attributes
Traits
Powers
2. Characters:
Core characters
Optional characters
3. Level guides
4. Enemies:
Minions
Villians
5. Contact info

1. Game/guide overview:

Freedom Force is a real time strategy game with RPG elements and a pause time feature. What all that means is,generally,the game takes place in real time (as real life time passes,so does game time) and relies on your strategic abilities to see the heroes through the missions. The RPG elements are that your heroes gain new powers and abilities as they gain experience by going through the levels. The pause time feature means you can pause the game and issue orders to your team,but nothing happens til you unpause it. The game also quick pauses when you use the right click menu with a character and unpauses when you make a selection from said menu unless you used the main pause feature. If you hold down the right mouse button,you can move the menu around with the mouse til it highlights what you want. You can find out more about the game's features as you play the first few missions which have lots of information on features and game play.

Basics:

As I said,the in-game tutorials offer a pretty in depth review of your controls and what your characters can do. So right here,at least for now,I'm going to go over a glossary of terms so you can understand this guide better and some basic strats. If you have any questions about game play,feel free to e-mail me at the address below and I'll see about adding it here.

The right click menu/power level menu - Refers to the menu that pops up when you right click with a character selected. This menu lists availible,compatible powers for what you've got it clicked over. For example,right clicking on a boulder will show the same options for attacking as well as the option to pick it up if the character is strong enough. The menu that pops up when you right click on a power listed in the right click menu is refered to as the power level menu.

Overpower and overcharging - Overpower refers to when someone with the Hot
Head trait preforms a more powerful than usual attack. It's basically the same as overcharging,only it's random. I also don't know if getting an overpower attack will push it higher than level 3. Overcharging refers to when you select a power from the right click menu and right click again to set it's power level. I refer to these levels as underpowered (the lowest option),normal (the default setting),level 2 (the one above normal),and level 3 (the highest setting). Thus,when I say,a level 3 overcharged Tongues of Flame,I mean the
Tounges of Flame skill set with the power level menu's highest setting.

Canisters - Energy X canisters are found in pretty much every level. They come in 4 flavors: Experience,prestige,health,and energy. Energy is the most common,it allows you to use your special powers more often as your EP meter refills faster as well as giving you a full tank right off. Prestige gives you a prestige bonus of 100 points per canister. Health gives you a full health meter. And experience gives you an experience bonus.

CP,XP,HP,and EP - Character points (CP) are points awarded to your character at a level up that can be used to buy new powers and abilities. You get 600 CP per level. XP is experience points. You got a set amount per mission. 300 for active team members,200 for non-squad members,and you can gain bonus points by finding experience canisters in the missions,worth 300 experience points *to the team member who picked up the canister*. You need 600 XP to level up.

Hit points (HP) tells you what your character's condiction is. The lower the
HP bar,the less he has. You can get an exact amount,in numbers,of HP a hero has by holding the cursor over the hero. HP can be replished by special abilities,health canisters,and Heroic Deeds. EP,energy points,is what your heroes use to do their heroic thang. Each power has an EP cost. Low power skills,like a basic melee attack,cost little or no energy. High power skills,which can really put the hurtin' on someone,can cost your entire EP meter. You can check EP cost against your current EP meter by using the right click menu. If the EP meter on the left side of the menu flashes red when you put the cursor on a power or power level,you don't have the EP to use it. You can still force your hero to use the power,but you take a chance that the power won't work or,worse,leave the hero stunned. The more power you need to use a skill safely,the greater the chance it'll leave you defenseless.

The EP meter refills over time,so as long as you don't tax your powers too much,you've nothing to worry about. Flying characters should note that while airborne,their EP meters refill slower. So if you need your meter to refill faster,find a safe place to land and recharge.

Heroic Deeds - See that medal on Minute Man's portrait on the bottom left of the screen? That's not a knot-tying badge,that's how many Heroic Deeds he can perform. A Heroic Deed is a special action your characters can take to do something far beyond his normal abilities. 1 medal = 1 Heroic Deed. The more medals you have,the more Heroic Deeds you can perform. You usually get more
Heroic Deeds by having the "Heroic" and "Extra Heroic" traits. The "Unheroic" trait takes away one of your medals. Heroic Deeds break down into 3 choices:
Heroic Recovery,Heroic Remedy,and Heroic Revival. Remedy heals your character back to full health,like they'd picked up an health canister. Recovery removes any statis effects your character might be suffering from like stasis,stun,or acid burn. Revival refills your EP meter instantly. Don't ask me,I didn't name 'em.

Basic strategy - It's always a good idea,when starting a new level,to pause it and look the level over. Although enemies will not appear until your heroes get to a certain distance from them,canisters and other items are always visible. You can also think about how you're going to approach the level and set up your troops. After you've done pretty much everything else,it's also a good idea to sweep a level for any stray bad guys to help pump up your prestige. Some canisters are in hard to get to places because of some unseen flaw in the map. You may have to destroy something to get to them or come at them from a different direction. Also,never assume a member of your team's doing his/her job. Pause and check on them occasionally to make sure they're doing their part if they have to split up.

Also,for characters who use grenades,like Ant and Liberty Lad,it's best to target the ground about halfway between the character throwing the grenade and the place you want it to explode. This has worked very well from me and turned
LL and Ant into my main group stompers. Try it,you'll like it.

Character creating:

Freedom Force offers a very nice character editor that allows you to make your favorite comic book heroes for use in FF or create all new heroes and maybe some villians. ;) You can also load up new skins and models for use with these new characters. To put new models in,simply make a new folder,or directory for us old school comp geeks,in the data\art\custom_characters directory in your Freedom Force directory with the name of your new model. In this directory should be the model files and a "skins" subdirectory. This directory is where you put the directories for the various skins the model uses. All models need a standard directory for the default skin. All skin files for a single skin go into a directory under the skins directory in the model's directory.

So,to add a new model,you'd open the Freedom Force directory,go to data\art\custom_characters,make a new directory with the new model's name and put your files in that. To add a new skin,you'd go to data\art\custom_characters\(model's name)\skins\ and make a new directory there and place the new skin files in the new directory. It's simple once you know where to put everything.

After that,it's a simple matter of choosing powers,traits,and attributes.
You can custom name powers if you want,but remember to choose traits for their effect,not their name. But the best way to make a good character is to see how the game makers set up their characters to better understand how it all comes together. That's in the next section. For right now,let's just look at the options availible.

Attributes:

Attributes determine a character's universal skills and abilities.
Strength,speed,agility,endurance,and energy. Strength covers lifting ability,throwing damage,smack down damage,and melee attack damage. Speed determines running speed. Believe me,a slow character can be really hard to work with if s/he doesn't have a distance attack. Agility determines dodging. A high agility can make a character all but untouchable. It's also a factor in how often you hit someone. Endurance largely covers hit points. Energy is how fast your energy meter recharges. A fast recharge rate can help alot with high energy cost powers.

Traits:

Traits add new powers or give your characters weaknesses. Weakness inducing traits can give your characters,well,character,as well as lowering their prestige cost. You'll just have to read up on what each trait does.

Powers:

Your character's powers are the other special abilities,attacks,and defenses they have. Because there's so many and you can make your own custom powers,I'm not going to bother to list them all. But it's a good idea to look them over as they're used in the characters Irrational made.

2. Characters:

Freedom Force has 2 kinds of characters built into the campagin. Core characters and optional characters. Core characters are characters you will be given by the game at no cost. Optional characters,like player created ones,are bought with prestige points,but you don't have to have them. Optional characters do have special scenes in the game,so if you want to see all of them,you have to get the character. It should be noted you can do what I did,level up all your characters evenly,or train a certain set of characters to be your strong arm. Either way has it's drawbacks. Mine won't let you see the final set of powers on most of the characters,but the other leaves you pretty screwed if one of your powerhouses can't join the party. Still,all your characters get XP,whether they're in the squad or not once they join the team,so you'll probably not have to worry too much about being saddled with a loser as long as you power up the right abilities.

Core characters: (in order of appearance)

Minuteman: Dressed as a Colonial trooper,Minuteman has a very Captain
America look to him. And,also like him,Minuteman is mainly a melee fighter who works best up close. Though he has a distance attack,the Minute Missle,he's largely useless at long range and not a good choice with foes who are hard to get close to or engage in melee combat. But make no mistake,few can match MM at melee combat,being as he's able to take out a thug,or even a number of thugs,in one hit. Throw in special abilities like 300 percenter (triples damage) and you've got a nasty little powerhouse. I suggest following the game's advice and getting him the Minute Missle ASAP. He also has the disciplined,heroic,and extra heroic traits,but the last 2 aren't really necessary. I'd suggest using the points for those to pump up his skills.

Mentor: If Minuteman is the quintessentual meleeist,Mentor is the quintessentual support character. His only offensive power starting off,psyche-slash,takes a bit to start up. With an unhindered foe,he's going to take damage if he's not knocked out of doing the slash altogether. As such,it's best to use his slash as a last resort or after you've hit the enemy with cortical suppression or have them stunned by a teammate. His electron beam attack,which you can get later,is a good,if EP expensive,ranged attack. It's especially powerful against Shadow's darkmen. In stages with lots of enemies,instinct dominance can cut down their numbers or at least slow them down. Outside of that,I didn't have much use for Mentor as all his attacks use alot of EP or have some kind of requirements. Also note I never got him to where he can use his modulating beam,so I don't know how good that is. If you do take Mentor into the later levels,it'd be a good idea to give him levitate and partner him with someone with the ability to transfer EP or accelorate his
EP regeneration.

El Diablo: Somewhere between Minuteman's melee abilities and Mentor's long distance attacks lies El Diablo. Though he leans more towards Mentor with his melee abilities somewhat on the sucky side,he makes up for this with extremely high powered long range attacks. Though Tongues of Flame is a decent skill,Inferno and Hellfire are where the real damage is. Inferno alone will have him dominating most battlefields single handed. Like Mentor,this can drain his power reserves quickly,so a walking battery like Man-bot or another character who can speed up his EP regen is most welcome. Just be careful in places where civilians like to get in the way as his higher power skills have a wide blast radius. His swift punch attack is quick to hit,but takes a while between punches,so hit and run is the best way to use it if at all and be sure to overcharge it to get rid of weak foes quicker.

Man-bot: A goofy name,but a useful hero. He's slow,his Focus beam attack is hard to hit with at longer ranges,and his Wallop tends to miss alot too. But get this boy a lamp post and LOOK OUT! I don't call him "big daddy smack down" for nothing. He'll slam dinos,clones,most anything goes flying when he takes the big swing. And Focus can be used on robots for a nice confusion attack in addition to it's damage. He also has various EP recharging skills,making him a walking,or if you buy the trait,flying,battery for fast burning characters like
El Diablo and Mentor. Just try to avoid going at it bare handed with anything other than robots.

Alchemiss: With explinitives like "Peaches an' cream!",Alchemiss soon grated on my nerves. Still,she's got some nice support skills and her arcane bolts do