Crossfire is a
pure RPG mod which was developed to add much more features to the Freelancer world and tell
a story leading back to Starlancer. I think that crossfire is the best mod in FL but it has
a very big disadvantage.
All these new systems... all these new ships... all these
weapons and features needs memory to run on a server. Thats why modded servers with all
those additions will always have the problem of lag if many people are online.
Crossfire
is good and it will continue to run on the crossfire server. There is no need to stop
something that is working...
But we are at the point that not many players can play
it online... coz i have problems to give permissions to use my mod on other servers (it just
wouldnt be a good idea to give it to any idiot out there... and i doubt that the ASF and CSF
will be happy about this)
So my idea was to create a new server for many players... with
less lag... less features but more fights. A pure RPG fight server.
Two weeks ago i had a
talk with XL-R8R about the crossfire mod and the upload... he was impressed and somehow i
have let the idea drop to create a pure Starlancer mod. With crossfire we told/tell the
story after the sirius wars and how the alliance find its way home... with Starlancer Reborn
we will tell about the 100 years of the coalition war.
How does it work?
its
quiete simple... we take the original FL and delete all ships... all systems... all news and
stories... all missions... everything that has something to do with FL... then we take the
SL ships from Crossfire... balance them so they will fit into the SL world... create new
weapons and equipment... and create 25 new systems.
its simple isnt it? 
But why
all this?
look Crossfire has over 100 ships and about 90 systems all this has to be
loaded by the server... and in connection with the current hardware and lots of players its
just the overkill for every processor no matter how good it is... maybe with a 64bit dual
processor it might work.. dunno
How exactly will Starlancer Reborn work?
ok this
time you dont need to post any request or other things coz its already clear how it will
look like
we will drop the sirius sector completely and instead of this there will be the
sol system with original data
sol will have 25 sectors (systems) and you can jump between
them via warp anomalies... long distances need to be passed with warpgates
12 sector will
be alliance territory
12 sector will be coalition territory
1 sector (the earth) will
be neutral
there also will only be 3 factions (one for alliance, one for coalition and
one neutral for the earth)
you join the server and can do a rephack on earth to join one
side
and then you have to fight for money coz trading wont exist... mining is also
possible but will take some time
you can get money for selling loot that will be dropped
by stations that you can destroy... with every serverrestart again
task is to defend the
own sectors and attack the opponent sectors to make money and get better ships this
way
its a complete new concept in FL
and i can imagine that the server will run smooth
even with 50 or more players on it coz of the reduced size of the whole mod
Quality
instead of quantity?
well again i think that quality is the most important... well you
know that my mods have a high quality (if not you wouldnt be here) but thats not my
problem
it would be crap to have thousands of noobs on that server and CF would be empty
then
im not totally sure how to do it to make both servers successful at the same time
but i can imagine several possibilities:
1. make starlancer reborn password protected and
allow the access only to experienced players that have played on CF
it would be like to
allow clans to recruit members on CF and train them and as soon those members are strong
enough they get the permission to play on starlancer reborn
2. make the server public but
dont allow ppl with low skills to stay there (O_o - not possible if you ask me)
another
reason for this is that noobs will have a problem to know what is going on there... they
wont know about the alliance or the coalition and how to play there
well i think the
first possibility is the better choice as long we have no other idea
how long
will it take to code such a mod?
well you know... im not that slow like the other mod
writers
but i have to update the whole SWAT-Portal first, create an OpenSP patch for
CF1.5, update the crossfire page, lead BG and possibly re-integrate an old SWAT-clan back
into the portal.
so i would say 2 months ... maybe less (most likely less)
but i will
need help... i will need a 2nd server and some1 who can run it under given
conditions
in the past we had pure fight servers... yes those with one or two systems
where you did pvps... how boring
in the past we had pure rpg servers... yes like
crossfire... very successful but it can only work with lots of ppl that help and work for
it
now its time to combine fight and rpg... many fights(not pvps) and roleplay elements
that dont need administrative work
and all this under the SWAT-banner
