Possible Freelancer Future Mod

Friends,
Have any of you ever played ProtoStar? It was released between Elite and Privateer. They had missions, commodities, weapon and ship upgrades, mining and salvaging, and crew stations.
There is nothing wrong with having an engineer, medic, weapons officer, supply officer and others helping out - either as actual players or AI.
Freelancer can expand its universe forever. How about expanding the ship and crew possibilities too?
I, for one, would like to tractor in someone's engines and other equipment when I defeated them in battle.

In the old ProtoStar, you could travel along the planet's surface looking for minerals, plant life, animals, other thing of extreme value.

Why not have the docking ring in the air so you could fly down to the planet's surface to find a landing pad. We have many palces to dock in space..so why not have different landing pads to choose from? Just a thought.

Do any of you youngsters remember ProtoStar? It may have been before your time. It was way before Pentium chips. My first computer I build had dual Z80 cpu's; one for the cpu and one for the keyboard. 4 bit CPUs were hot stuff back in the days before cellphones, DVDs & GPS.

It would be good to hear from some older and more experienced gamers on ProtoStar.

Question for the masses....?
Do any of you remember the H-8 computer? Or the H-89? Both were from Heathkit and were assembled by the owner. You had to solder most of the components to the motherboard. You had a choice of colors for the CRT - Green or Amber. I made my H-89 into an H-90 by piggy-backing the 1K memory chips, for a total of 56K or RAM. Of course, the 100K hard-sectored 5 1/4" floppy was essential for making games in Assembly Language.

For those of you who never had the chance to play ProtoStar, here is some info.

Protostar: War on the Frontier was produced by Tsunami Media. The game is commonly described as an unofficial sequel to the Starflight series.[citation needed] Updated 3D graphics, a faster pace of play, and enhanced musical scores are some of the primary changes from its predecessors.

"Protostar is one Tsunami Medias best known games. A bestseller in its time, this game is known to many fans as the forerunner to many, many other popular game franchises. The genre is generally classified as Simulation but it could just as easily be placed under Action and Adventure. I mention the latter because of the familiar point and click interface we all remember from the old Lucas Arts adventure flicks. The former is also named because of the occasional shooting and rapid reflexes that are needed in the game. But game is, and will remain, at its heart a space flight simulator.

Now, on to the plot:

The situation is surprisingly complex. You are a star cruiser commander in the far future. Earth calls on you for aid, because the Human Alliance is under attack by an alien race called the Skeetch. Your job is to encourage trade and friendship with the other powerful, but xenophobic alien species. If you can begin trading with them and using their militaries, you may be able to put a significant dent in the massive Skeetch fleet. Because the Skeetch will surely attack an important military leader such as you, you travel under a secret identity. Several corporations on the edge of the galaxy have refused to join the Human Alliance. You take an identity under the name of the largest corporation, Newfront. Because this company is not allied with the humans, the Skeetch will hopefully leave you alone.

The catch to all this is that in order for Newfront to allow you to use their identity, you must support them financially with some of your trade. You must also support the defenses of Earth regularly.

Okay, whew! Got that out of the way. At the beginning of the game, you are located at a large space station. You have to talk to the locals, gather information, and then board your ship. Dont worry about crew members; you will pick them up on the way (you have to pay them, too. It seems all you do in this game is pay, and not earn). On your ship, the controls are difficult to use and confusing, but after a while you get familiar with the controls and the crew stations. It is on this ship that you will spend quite a lot of your game."