New player difficulty (Multiplayer)

There are 30 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by SWAT_OP-R8R.

    Hello, so far was always hyped by freelancer and since i didnt found any alternative the past ten years finally tried it out again with some mods. :>
    One of the first once i came across was this one and it looks/is very promising.


    So played Singleplayer for a few minutes to get the feeling again and jumped straight on your mp server. Bought one of the beginner ships and mk3 weapons so i can just start and look for a bounty. Have taken one of the destroy station/bandits bounties.... they are my favorite. :D Anyways started flying towards waypoint (which is apparently not so long anymore from what i remember in my childhood years when playing it first times, guess got more patient) and encountered the first pack of 4 fighters.


    Well dont want to describe everything in battle so just the points which dont seem beginner friendly or are very annoying (Server had something like 8 players online, so guessed it was because the game is pretty old but well... think i was wrong), the fighters have some insane dodge rates, use all countermeasures so basically rockets useless atleast with 1-2 slots for them and spam 10-20x their shield/life nanobots/batteries. After a few minutes got used to the turn/afterburner burst and my mouse was like 75% of the time on the preshoot crosshair, still they seemed to dodge around 80% when they are not turning for the afterburner burst. Even dead range missles got countered by flares which is just unfun(Not me chasing them more like nearly crashing into each other from front). On the other side the player can even dodge more which is ridicilous.


    Completed some mission and hoped to buy some good weapons at some point, was nearby the amount at the end to buy a good ship/weapons, but got killed after 20 mins fight with a assassination target while being chased by 6 of his escort. Just for fun counted the times his shield was restored, and it seems level 10+ enemies can restore shields infight without delay sometimes and like every minute they can get full shields without using batteries ? Anyways it was like 50x + his ~2,5k shield got restored after it was fully destroyed, and tbh i was with the beginner ship and still same weapons. So its even more unrewarding if you try higher enemys and get punished even if you could have killed them 50 times.


    So my guess the beginning is just insanely annoying if you dont know where to get good stuff and later on its "ok" ? Only for multiplayer, singleplayer was pretty much fun on hard.

    Hello Rember_I,
    welcome to Crossfire and to SWAT community :)


    The difficulty of low-level NPCs is indeed annoying. The solution that works for me is:


    1) fly to New Tokyo and buy a Drake + good weapons (guns only);
    2) return to Liberty and take missions against Liberty Rogues (their bulky ships are easier to hit) and sell escape pods to prisons in Texas;
    3) once you make 600k-700k credits (which will be quite soon), fly to Custodian and get an Eagle + Class 9-10 guns;
    4) go to one of neighboring systems of X-3043 (e.g. Vega) or to Oasis for higher-level missions in which enemies will actually be pretty easy after the Liberty training; :)
    5) save some credits and get ship upgrades until you've got a fully equipped VHF.


    Of course there are other ways to start in MP, e.g. you can make easy money if you prefer trading over fighting. These guides can provide some more suggestions:
    https://swat-portal.com/forum/cms/wiki/crossfire/starter/
    https://swat-portal.com/forum/…crossfire/intr-smuggling/


    Hope this helps!

    Hi Rember_I,


    for CF SP (and first character in MP) is the best choice (on start) take heavy hitting slowly firing guns and learn how to use rapid-fire technique (more video guides here). Few hits and this now terrimble nimble npc dies (he is unable to restore shield quickly enough). With some practice you will quickly learn how to dealt with it.

    Thanks for the answers, will try buying the ship/weapons next session. ;)


    Uhm the "rapid fire" stuff dont looks "legit" or atleast not intended to work so? Would prefer some good ol holding down buttons. But good that you mention.... does other players use this in pvp ? :/

    Quote from Rember_I

    Thanks for the answers, will try buying the ship/weapons next session. ;)


    Uhm the "rapid fire" stuff dont looks "legit" or atleast not intended to work so? Would prefer some good ol holding down buttons. But good that you mention.... does other players use this in pvp ? :/

    Rapid fire was "a must know" in PvP here on server when I played ... doubt it changed :)

    Hey Rember. There are lsome really good rapid firing guns that get used by quite a few players in PVP and for NPC hunting. I use the rapid fire guns myself on all my ships. Trouble is they are harder to get and expensive. One such gun are the Coalition Gatts :) Very dangerous guns. Also War-sy propulsors are a great gun, but very hard to get at first. If you are on multi-player just talk with some of the higher level players, Most are glad to help someone get started, we are a friendly bunch on MP :)

    You will find the right equipement and the right ship for you Remenber and with a little bit time and patience you kicking any NPC's ass soon :) - also in MP. Don't hesitate to ask other Players for help. We all start in the same situation like you.

    Chars: Thomas_CF1, TL_01, TL_RC, TL_Trans, TL_BS

    Don't mind the time or amount of grind needed to get some stuff, and was ready to start another run after wanderers tips. ;)


    And hmm about the rapidfire "abuse", it seems like some old broken mechanic which is completely legit on this server, no problem from my side with this. But it would feel like playing unfair or not intended(while the 2nd one can make a game boring pretty fast) and that's nothing for me, dont like to play in such a way. Can guess it's very hard to change/fix codewise, and balance wise it was already used by alot of players over the years so most dont really bother changing it ?


    Even if this server has only fun as goal, which is completely fine by me, you always have a reminder other players have alot of advantage with this(Even if you only compete with others in the slightliest, you'll know you have no chance if you dont use it), at the same amount of time played*.

    Can you please explain why you see RapidFire as "abuse"? It does not add any further damage, it only differently synchronise yours weapons firing. CF and Freelancer mods still imo are mostly "safe" from different special hardware which is available these days for players. Playing other game helped me clearly understand that player success in competitive play (PvP) in today's games is mostly dependent on used hardware and not on skills (yours fingers coordination) like it is for RapidFire case. Beside this, in CF you can choose to do not use guns as main weapon (for PvP), because you have at disposal missiles which allows fly very evasive, while deal death strikes in right moments.



    ... and mainly, CF these days is about fun, it is like this for few last years so playing MP is mainly about having fun and enjoying this mod big universe.

    i use rapid fire only on NPC-s because in PVP i don't get it working (too many finger moves at once). especially on fast moving NPCs it is helpful to shoot with 16 or more shots per second instead the max. 8.33 provided by the guns. this works like a shredder on NPCs :D
    and btw. even if i dont use rapid fire in PvP i can proudly say, that i am one of the best PvPer at this moment :thumbsup: (ok, in fact, there is not much PvPing anymore on MP :( )

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    It only syncronizes? Hmm that would be ok, had just seen the first text in your video + the firing scenes. And in text the first sentence was "how to increase your fire-rate" so was alot irritated :D.


    It's not much of a hardware or skill needed "abuse", more-likely using a game mechanic where you already know yourself it's not intended to work this way. How they dealt in other games with something like this? It got fixed and (on some more rageous community games) abusers got resets or in heavy cases banned(which is kinda to hard punishment). And since this game wont get officially patched and this is a private server + mod, where it is also tolerated, there wont be any changes. This is just how i feel about it, even if it gives you the little 1% edge with syncronizing gun fire in ways like this, it just doesn't feel legit.


    Most common complaint i read, after such a weird game mechanic is discovered, is it's obviously the game developers fault for not fixing it and players think they now have a good reason to use it as much as they want.


    And yes way too much text for a small community server with a handful of active players.... it's just started the game again a day ago and dont want to discover something like this is possible on every server :/ + this mod looks nice, so even if some players have slightly advantages i just need to get better!

    Actually I think rapid fire was intended feature since FL features weapon groups.


    I didn't use rapid fire at all at first. Gatlings and WSPs already have good rate of fire. However I then set up half-salvo firing, a compromise between firing all guns at once and full on rapid fire. Relatively easy to set up and use, and really helps with weapons like Ther'hon Cannons and/or against nimbler NPCs, but not as impressive as full-on rapid-fire.


    As for starting... I usually start with buying a Dromedary on Planet Monoc in Custodian (requires safe cruise or high reaction time and CM dropper, safer analogue is buying a Swashbuckler on Rio Grande) and trade around NY, escaping engagements, Then I get an Eagle, loot a Ragnarok wreck in Death Valley (about 10M worth of financial boost) and get Nomad weapons from Freeport 7. Their main advantage is no energy consumption. Usually I avoid killing human NPCs before getting Shield Upgrade MkX, because Bundschuh are too easy to piss off.


    P.S. To refer to Denne's post above, I don't find guns anywhere near effective in PvP. But that's just me, and I can't PvP worth sh*t anyway.


    "Across the savage skies and through the fissures in the fields,
    The rumble of the engines and the trundle of the wheels,
    Through hell and horror trudge and yet their spirits never yield.
    Will they sing of these forsaken pawns of war?"
    -Miracle Of Sound, "Pawns of War".

    Wait so rapid-fire does increase your firing speed ? It looked like in video too but after reading it should only syncronize, it looked more like syncing shots, since the energy consumption was literally the same in non rapid-fire and active one on video.


    .... but it does not increase fire rate WITHOUT using more energy ? That would be certainly a heavy abuse if real.


    *Weapon groups feel more like to switch between anti shield/anti hull weapons and if it would be intendet, think there wont be a necessarity to make a video about. Since the other game mechanics are pretty easy/all explained while playing campaing. And improving your fire rate would be one of the first to be explained. ;)

    Hey there @Rember_I and welcome to Crossfire! :)


    As Dented said, we are more than happy to help new players out there :)
    So, feel free to contact me ingame (check my charnames on my profile), i can fly some missions with you if needed, or to train you in Arena, so you can get a better hold of it :)


    Fly safe!

    Basically how half-salvo firing works:
    I set up a weapon group with half of my guns. On most 2x9/4x10 ships I set it so it fires diagonal opposites (like Flakvierling 38). Then before firing I fire that weapon group and then instantly press and hold RMB, the rest of the guns fire while the group weapons are reloading.
    Rapid-firing is essentially doing the same for each gun individually.
    It does not modify weapons themselves, but it makes energy consumption more spread-out in time. However, you are also trading out damage per salvo.


    P.S. IIRC the weapon groups were unmentioned during the course of the game, I learned how to set them only from here.


    "Across the savage skies and through the fissures in the fields,
    The rumble of the engines and the trundle of the wheels,
    Through hell and horror trudge and yet their spirits never yield.
    Will they sing of these forsaken pawns of war?"
    -Miracle Of Sound, "Pawns of War".

    @Rember_I


    simple 4 guns fire (just press 1 button on mouse) is 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234 ...


    proper rapid (need skill to learn timing) is: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 ...


    There isn't any damage increase in time, it use the same energy. Difference is density of bullet stream. Skilled pvper can strafe between normal fire without taking damage, with full Rapid Fire he will be damaged. It's not any cheat or abusing game mechanism. Freelancer allows use fire each weapon (up to 10 weps) separately and this is it.

    It has never been considered a trick or cheating, it's a built-in feature since the original Freelancer. Guns or groups can be assigned to different keys, and one can either fire all guns by mouse button or use number keys to shoot just separate ones or combinations of them. Some players started using this to de-syncronize weapons refire rate and called it "rapid fire", and today it's considered a special firing technique. To my view, it only brings more trouble with weapon groups etc. and has no practical benefit; aiming skills are much more important than refire rate.


    Martind Forlon gave that advice because he already expected you to go on a "pro" level (and because we have those videos :D ), but I think it is absolutely not necessary to stuff one's head with techniques right at the beginning (or at all) - the game will be equally or probably more fun without it. Confirmed by my own experience :)


    I suggest you to simply play instead of reading/watching guides, and only turn to the latter when you get bored or want to slightly enrich your experience.


    See you in space! :salutes