CF1.6

When you're placing stations, there's any way to place them in closed locations, like an bigger complex, or an hollow asteroid, so that people needs to navigate trought corridors to reach them? Just like in the game Descent, or like the Outer Dyson Sphere corridors.
I have lots of fun navigating on that corridors again and again. And i bet that i'm not the only one

idea:

is it possible to create a selection menu like u did before with the chars (trent, juni, king...) where you can select between different interfaces? like green, silver, red or the old blue interface?

Another interesting idea:

What about fuel for ships? Maybe H-Fuel...would make it MUCH more realistic

So would running out of fuel in the middle of combat.....realism should only be tsken so far....then it's too much.

Nah, by Sirius time you know that technology has come to the point that we have powerplants that provide it's own recyclable energy.

Donations Inc. has moved it's headquarters to Sirius several weeks ago, and has just now spotted a one of a kind opportunity to once again meddle subversively with local politics to enlarge their profits in the new environment...

(A couple unsorted suggestions and observations of a newcomer. We are aware that with 1.6 in the works some of the below might simply already not apply any more, but this is beyond our knowledge and we act with best intentions. We are deply apologizing beforehand for statements that have been discussed earlier and overlooked during forum research, ideas that have already been ruled out as impossible to code and formulations that contain some irony. This is a highly addictive mod, and all of the following should be understood as an attempt of being constructive, not offensive.)

- a word of warning: the sound sample used for the "bullets whizzing past your ear" effect when going up against coalition fighters contains tremendous peaks that are quite able to damage a more expensive loudspeaker system, let alone being terribly annoying.

- coalition turrets could do with some custom fx, given they're the most powerful turret mounts.

- the train container system seems to follow a somewhat half-hearted concept, atm it's little more than a decorative bonus really. Containers could either be "empty", say quite expensive "cargo volume upgrades" that allow for ~1000 extra cargo volume units. Or, expanding on the current way of implementation, the containers could be the main source of income, with much bigger amounts of money involved and some reasonably large profit margins... and the train only having a comparably small "free" cargo space for generic commodities.

- cargo volumes could be tweaked to generally reflect the outer appearance of the ship better, say, bigger ships should have bigger cargo holds and vice versa.

- some general documentation of the crossfire mod would surely be appreciated and save both you your potential customers tons of headaches. A ReadMe or webpage manual with some basic explanations of the additions made to the retail game, which upgrades can be mounted on what ship for example ("Noob warning: don't buy a shield upgrade for your train, you'll only lose 70% of your money..."), that like. During my "career" the most frequent response to my questions, even from server police, was "read the forums". Now, let aside that this was only helpful in less than maybe a third of the various cases, imagine calling a helpdesk with something like, help, my video recorder exploded and all you get is "oh, it's all in our forums" and muffled sniggering. You get the picture. Some people start building letterbombs after a treatment like that.

- an ounce of polish is worth a ton of additions. While introducing another two digit number of new ships, how about a thorough review of the existing ones? Two thirds, if not more of the people online fly a Shroud, does it have to be this way? On the one hand you have ships with excellent stats, some even with all lvl10 mounts, that are either clones (Deimos) or have the charming visuals of a flying ikea kitchen unit (Seething Fury, Ceptyr) or some rush-job texturing (Elder...), on the other hand you practically waste some sleek designs with comparably high-detail texturing because of stats that are nothing short of too much of a desas... drawback to accept in trade for good looks (Raven's Claw...)

- which brings us to the tricky thing that balance is in general. Crossfire appears to be a grown, not a designed project. It has reached a point where PPC's are as common as dirt on the streets and Nomad guns put down as a kind of fun commodity at best. Now, everybody flying the same outmaxed ship with the same number of uber guns mounted might be an effective way of guaranteeing fair chances during server events, but it's strikingly odd that with all the talking and discussions and most curious tweaks in the name of balance the most powerful guns have not a single drawback and are even more so freely available. Big, bigger, biggerer, biggererer. It has something of the common tv show issue, "we already saved the town the country, the world, the galaxy, the universe... where to get an even more impressive bad guy after satan himself has ben slewn twice?". Unfortunately, we currently don't have any solutions to offer.

- missile-only weapon slots could make for some diversity, be an interesting means of balancing out an otherwise extremely powerful ship, given this is possible to do.

- it seems that almost all of the work on this project is done by a single person, which would easily explain some mildly uninspired copy'n paste actions (identical commodity settings in several new systems, rushed ship texturing, extremely similar or non existent short text descriptions of ships, planets, items etc). The community size looks promising, how about outsourcing some of the minor tasks?

- server events are a great idea. period. the very reason to come back and login every day the schedule allows for it. elaborating on the existing ones is surely not a wrong thing to do.

- "even when its ready it does not mean that i will release it then. i said i will release it when this community does fix its probs". While egocentricity in measured amounts befits a skilled artist, statements like this could help a seasoned public relations manager to crying fits.

- the escape pod system has certain flaws, but this has been discussed extensively in other threads.

- how about replacing the battleships with gunboats? Would retain most of the "big hunk" feeling while solving some of the obvious problems like docking, weapons, camera clipping, difficult maneuvering aso

- weight reduction kits might reduce the mass of a ship, but regarding this as useful is a serious case of self-deception, since they do in no way increase maneuverability/affect the turning speed, that which is what one really does expect from them before the purchase.

- some systems (sovietskaya...) are big enough to activate autopilot and go read a newspaper. There sure a reasons. I read on some clan webpage that they're using "gun runs to coalition space" as some kind of punishment. I recon that was the original intention behind it...

...

maybe some more later on

regards
- Don

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- a word of warning: the sound sample used for the "bullets whizzing past your ear" effect when going up against coalition fighters contains tremendous peaks that are quite able to damage a more expensive loudspeaker system, let alone being terribly annoying.

I agree with you there, but it has to have some sort of identifyabe mark to them

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- coalition turrets could do with some custom fx, given they're the most powerful turret mounts.

What kind of modifications? Level change, projectile visual change? Be more specific...

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- the train container system seems to follow a somewhat half-hearted concept, atm it's little more than a decorative bonus really. Containers could either be "empty", say quite expensive "cargo volume upgrades" that allow for ~1000 extra cargo volume units. Or, expanding on the current way of implementation, the containers could be the main source of income, with much bigger amounts of money involved and some reasonably large profit margins... and the train only having a comparably small "free" cargo space for generic commodities.

The pods are supposed to help protect loot is what I hear. As for increased bay space due to external items, I dont believe I have seen that yet in the global community.

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- cargo volumes could be tweaked to generally reflect the outer appearance of the ship better, say, bigger ships should have bigger cargo holds and vice versa.

The whole size=volume apperance of FL is messed up all over. Ever noticed that you are about 1/100 the size of a normal planet in space and when you are docked you are 1/1,000,000,000? Plus, bigger ships = more equipment to help handle non-controlable ship functions, so cargo space is acually a comfort on ships.

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- some general documentation of the crossfire mod would surely be appreciated and save both you your potential customers tons of headaches.

People dont read the forum for the serverrules, and then they wonder why they get banned when they do something wrong. What makes you think that people will read the readme? They see the description on Lancers, download it, and then play it. Yes it is our, (the veterans of Crossfire), duty to help out new players and such but all the way to the point that they are so ignorant to leave the mod cause they are too lazy to type in a link? Explore, adapt, and learn. Life of a scout and explorer. Trust me when I say that I have heard of worse servers out there with poor help.

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- which brings us to the tricky thing that balance is in general. Crossfire appears to be a grown, not a designed project. It has reached a point where PPC's are as common as dirt on the streets and Nomad guns put down as a kind of fun commodity at best. Now, everybody flying the same outmaxed ship with the same number of uber guns mounted might be an effective way of guaranteeing fair chances during server events, but it's strikingly odd that with all the talking and discussions and most curious tweaks in the name of balance the most powerful guns have not a single drawback and are even more so freely available. Big, bigger, biggerer, biggererer. It has something of the common tv show issue, "we already saved the town the country, the world, the galaxy, the universe... where to get an even more impressive bad guy after satan himself has ben slewn twice?". Unfortunately, we currently don't have any solutions to offer.

The PPC is the Alliance's, the CGG(Coalition Gatt Gun), the Blaster and Cannons are the Nomads, and whatever weapons OP has for the DV is theirs. I doubt OP will be introducing any new types of weapons. As time goes on and players settle down of course items like the PPC are going to be seen more. Nothing you can do there.

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- it seems that almost all of the work on this project is done by a single person, which would easily explain some mildly uninspired copy'n paste actions (identical commodity settings in several new systems, rushed ship texturing, extremely similar or non existent short text descriptions of ships, planets, items etc). The community size looks promising, how about outsourcing some of the minor tasks?

As OP will prolly tell you the life in the modding community is one of competition and reputation. Think it would look good if he went and asked one of his rivals if he could help him? Thats why you have volunteers from the community itself to help in those minor tasks such as the Database, the infocards(which I need to get started again), and other security measures against cheaters

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- how about replacing the battleships with gunboats? Would retain most of the "big hunk" feeling while solving some of the obvious problems like docking, weapons, camera clipping, difficult maneuvering also

People wanted BS's, OP gave them BS's. Gunboats are going to be an addition in 1.6 from what I hear.

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- some systems (sovietskaya...) are big enough to activate autopilot and go read a newspaper. There sure a reasons. I read on some clan webpage that they're using "gun runs to coalition space" as some kind of punishment. I recon that was the original intention behind it...

big system, lots of stuff to explore. It's to make you be interested into what is on the other side.

Oh well, seems I've got to elaborate a bit, to clarify a couple misunderstandings.

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...identifyable mark

- I was criticizing the technical, not the artistical aspect here, you definitely shouldn't have to turn down the speakers in the middle of a firefight because of overmodulations.

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... coalition turrets ...be more specific

- I meant new sounds and visuals, since atm they are identical with the neutron blaster.

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The pods are supposed to help protect loot is what I hear...

- And another case of hearsay and speculation that a documentation could clarify once and for all.

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...cargo volumes

- I am sorry if I don't see the connection between the gameplay necessity of unrealistic stellar object sizes and distances, and the simple possibility of adjusting the relative cargo capacities to the ship model dimensions a bit better. Upholding the illusion of realism whereever easily possible still beats throwing common sense out of the window altogether.

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People dont read the forum for the serverrules, and then they wonder why they get banned when they do something wrong. What makes you think that people will read the readme? They see the description on Lancers, download it, and then play it. Yes it is our, (the veterans of Crossfire), duty to help out new players and such but all the way to the point that they are so ignorant to leave the mod cause they are too lazy to type in a link? Explore, adapt, and learn. Life of a scout and explorer. Trust me when I say that I have heard of worse servers out there with poor help.

- Now this is rich... let me recapitulate so I can understand it, and sorry that I have to strain the video recorder comparison a bit longer than expected: people don't call the helpdesk before starting to use their new video recorder, and wonder why it doesn't work properly, so it's their fault. Why I think they are going to read the manual that comes with it? Right, let them figure it out themselves! It's much more fun to arduously wrestle your will upon a piece of hardware that doesn't do what you want it to do, or altogether lose it in the process and throw it out the window in a fit of anger, losing tons of money. After all, there are korean video recorders out there with even worse manuals...

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The PPC is the Alliance's, the CGG(Coalition Gatt Gun),...

- Sorry, there seems to have been a total misunderstanding. I wasn't asking for even more guns. I was only whining and lamenting that the introduction of the PPC has more or less rendered the entire gun range lvl1-10MK1 utterly superfluous, save the tizonas and some relic weapons. If you shut down the all-loadout planets I doubt anybody would notice. But that's only part of the problem I wanted to point out: Crossfire feels like it's supposed to be played with an outmaxed char, most of the CF ships so far are near-identical super VHF, and the small rest is not used for obvious reasons. It's never a good idea to make the spectrum rookie-to-veteran chars so broad that a veteran is utterly invincible, no matter the skill level difference.

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As OP will prolly tell you the life in the modding community is one of competition and reputation...

Oh, it's uncool nowadays to form modding teams? You have to wait for volunteers instead of doing some recruitment? Sorry, must have slept through that.

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big system, lots of stuff to explore.

Millions of cubic miles of utterly empty void = lots of stuff to explore. Right.

Here some ideas from me:

- i'll be happy to see gun/s using ammo - maybe like the coalition gattling gun but no more than 8.33 or what there were the fastest refire rate of original weapons due to the lag. And maybe ammo will be carieed in cargohold?!

- new weight reduction kits - i mean more expensive and more efficiant maybe MK4 and so on ... Also they seems not to work on BS as good as on trains i guess becouse BS have low mass (maybe thats one of the reasons they spin that easy?!)

Yes, fast and strong guns with ammo would be really fine, maybe the coalition cattling???

I've liked the idea of more weight reduction kits, but why would you want weapons with ammo? For what i know, none of the guns are projectile based, just energy based, and as said before, just imagine that 8 centuries in the future they've created an self-recycling power plant for the guns, wich is the case of FL.

You appear tense. Maybe try some breathing exercises.

I'm honestly taken aback a little by the tone and manner of your response, especially coming from an admin, as I was really trying to keep it civil. I probably overestimated your age by roughly a decade, pardon me, the leetspeak and cheesy anime should have been an indicator. A habit of instantly taking arguments to a personal level can quickly break your neck, try to remember this when you run into people that aren't blessed with sheep like patience and in situations where it concerns more than an irrelevant computer game modification. If you wish so, you will not see another line from me, and of course as admin you have the right to last word.

regards
- Don

About lag, on my yesterday's tests on every file, i've run on cf with some dlls corrupted, as they were only for resources, freelancer works (to my sorrow) with others not. Well, however, seems that a corrupted resource dll means lag and server problems.
If you want OP i can try to investigate client side potential problems to the server, maybe there is a prevention for this too.

Donator,
No arguments please, but consider that if ppl on a customer attention line would say what they think it will be quite worse, but they cant, here there is not such compromise, you are talking like you are a customer and this is some sort of company you bought something, neither true, so you got your answer, not a bad one i think >>"A habit of instantly taking arguments to a personal level can quickly break your neck"<< seems to me that you began that kind of line, please, consider that this is just for fun and non profit.

Yes, to know how to check your FL files would be great, but please if you do it, explain well how it works, Im a noob in such things, and I´m not the only one.........

Hello m8, about the flipping problem I am really interested on that problem. The reason is the miner and from last event I understood Petrus troubles. Some of the players dont bump the miner on purpose but there is a lot of confusion and smoke to try to keep the distance from it. So I do understand them and I know it is not intentionally. I dont know if FL has same code as Jumpgate does where they considered weigth and mass in some physics equation since we dont have inertial moment here but we do in JG. However, I can see that same trust on different ship with different weight especification do have little impact. So this could also affect miner speed (which I think less that 29 will be hell ) SO I dont know if we could work a compromise without affect other ships for instance...

Anyway, this flipping problem affect big ships and it shouldnt cause of mass ( if we do have these 2 variables, weight and mass -which are not the same by definition- the problem would be easy to solve)

On another point, the datastorm issue have been working out on other servers where what they did was, in some way, keep the system layout, but all name and base location where change from you datastorm file after you run it. Also, you can not find any wreckage on DS. What method they used I dont know cause Im not a coder. Theis method has been also implemented to avoid the use of Freelancer explorer tool.

ANother anticheat I have seen around and I think is what some people/cheaters use here to get the uber weapons, is a check/comparison file amount the server wreckage and the client wreckage. SOme people exploit that by changing client wreckage outcome. Another thing I found out is that when you mod a client side you still can login and play as long as you dont get into the stuff you put in on your side. I use to do that to test and find out a good config for my ship in single player but Im not allow to do that anymore cause I find out that in some way, eventhough you dont use it online, still this produce lag. SO I advice if there is a way to check client side for unathorized modded version of an original to be implemented...

Anyway, hope this help...

RG...out