Sadly, in a world which has embraced moral relativism and instant gratification, while denying all personal responsibility, you've described Human Nature as it's expressed on forums most everywhere. None of this is new to the CF community either, and our population has ebbed & flowed with cyclical currents of people who have greater or lesser respect for others. I am happy to say, however, that the current climate in the CF community is better now than in the past, and has a bright future ahead of it with people like those currently serving in key roles in GR and the SWAT Portal. Kudos to the volunteers (I won't attempt to name all of you for fear of offending the ones I miss); you are appreciated more than you know!! 
Posts by Centaurian
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Shiras Station is also not a prison, although it uses the same base chassis. I don't recall the infocard text ATM, but NPC factions use what they can to extend their base domain. It should also be noted that the central bases of Sekar, Enigma & Enyo have actually been evolving over the history of CF, so their current configuration is different from when they were established.
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"Cardamine, cardamine... everyone wants cardamine!" (Frequently heard in Border World bars & patrol lanes)
Smuggler or Trader? Both meet the needs of different markets, driven by supply and demand. Even an enterprising smuggler sometimes meets the needs of "legitimate" markets. Trade and commerce are the life blood of any culture/society/civilization. Political factions & rules change with the seasons, so what is encouraged today may be banned tomorrow! The smuggler is not bound by the structure and limitations of fashion, but merely takes a pragmatic viewpoint to meeting needs wherever they arise, if the profit is sufficient to offset his risks. The smuggler has no interest in taking sides in political battles, but may fight to the death to preserve his/her own independence and profits. In many cases, the smuggler also provides a valuable service to institutions, daring to transport materials too sensitive or hazardous for the Houses to attempt without repercussions. Smugglers also benefit humanity by the great lengths of exploration they are willing to undertake to provide new and valuable resources to more sedentary citizens.
Only over-zealous law enforcement and piracy present a real threat to the social order in Sirius and elsewhere, as police and pirates sometimes indiscriminately destroy smugglers' ships containing hazardous cargos. Next time the phage breaks out on your planet, you can thank one of these factions. But the next time you break out your inhaler, and chase it with a swig of rum, give thanks for the intrepid smugglers who make it possible to break the monotony of yuor factory jobs!
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That is good news, IMO! I look forward to testing the new configuration as soon as you've made the change on server-side. Even tho ships will now decelerate slower (with bigger risks for overshooting docks, etc.), it should also be easier to evade NPC's with the EK manoever. You're the best, OP!
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I think the addition of inertia was overdue, but the deceleration rate in Engine Kill is out of proportion. I agree with others here who point out that inertia has to work both ways to provide "realism", so the use of engines and thrusters would become as much a skill as the use of weapons from a PvP standpoint. So, if you use EK at full cruise speed, the heavier inertia of a frieghter or cap ship would demand some accurate timing on the part of the pilot (to avoid planet-diving at moors & docks), except in nebulae, where one would expect to see increased drag from the denser environment. The inertia setting feels right to me, but the open-space "drag" experienced in engine kill needs some correction.
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OK, so this thread is old, but I recently discovered that my trusty N50 speedpad became obsolete with Win7, so I was faced with a real problem playing CF! I can't speak for the N52 users, but Belkin no longer makes the Nostromo line, and I could not find newer drivers for Win 7. Solution: Logitech makes a gamepad even more versatile than the N52, namely the G13. It has all the same keystroke emulation and macro programming, but it is also backlit (4 colors), has and LCD display for a variety of functions, and its own memory, so the game profiles go with the device when moving from one machine to another (like for a LAN party). It set me back about $75 US with shipping, but it was totally worth it, and it looks to be set for years more compatibility. In fact, I discovered that I had to download the legacy drivers for my old comp, but it worked beautifully. Game On!
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Lots of activity on this thread for a couple of days, then... silence. OP is correct that historically people have failed to restrain themselves when discussing RP, so in this respect the community has failed to make meaningful progress on role-playing. I also agree that what we need most is for people to stick to the stated rules for the different licenses, and just play them straight & strict.
For example, when I am flying a ship with a smuggler license on it, I have NEVER switched characters just because a police ship was closing on my position. On the contrary, it is more fun to evade detection, or dock in time to sell cargo before being scanned, and innocently fly off with legal cargo! If a cop or pirate is lucky or tenacious enouogh to catch me en flagrante delicto, good for them! They may choose to accept a payment, or shoot me down at will; it's all part of the game.
I have been told that OP has banned monopoly market operations in my absence; if so, this is a disappointment, since I'm not aware of any problems or disputes that ever arose because of it. On the contrary, monopolies provide some logical basis for trading in BMG's by any RP faction, and additional opportunities for team play and interaction. IOC has only sporadically enforced our monopoly on Bio-Hazard cargo, and we are always willing to either "license" other players for this trade, or pay license fees to others for trade in their monopoly market.
In any case, OP's main point forever has been that discussion is always inferior to ACTION; good luck out there!
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Nice graphic, mate!
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@OP: nice to see you've got a new GF!!
I'm sure the new format will be crisp and inviting! -
Thanks to a PX mate, I got the warning just in time, so my LT is history
Just looking for a 1.9 download link, and any help people can give me on getting CF to install correctly on Win7. 
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Sorry to be so late to this one, but I have been mining Altair & IC since they opened ^^. The main issue being that distances are greater in those systems, and most ppl aren't patient enough to do it. This is also complicated by the dynamic economy, and finding a time when the return on the time invested brings the maximum return in credits. This is, however, another good incentive to increase one's exploration, so the trade values can be known on any given day!
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Good report, JD! Best wishes for your new career, and we look forward to seeing more of you in space!
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Congratz to OP once again! Further proof that Crossfire is THE most dynamic mod in the FL universe, and beyond! For this many consecutive top 100 nominations, there should be a special award category! :king: (voted again, of course!)
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I really don't understand what all the complaining is about. While it is true that there are occasional "super-routes" yielding massive profits in short time, profits from "legitimate" goods are also at record highs, especially alien organisms, diamonds, gold, engine components, and others. I have not experienced any problems with collecting escape pods, even doing random NPC hunting, although I have witnessed NPC's also tractoring escape pods; this is a first for CF 1.82, as far as I know. The (temporary) loss of wreck looting does admittedly remove millions of credits from the game that would normally be available to players, but I have not had any particular difficulty building 6 characters from scratch, without any "donations" from clanmates or others. I agree with those who have noted that all of the major RP's have the means of getting cash from other players in the pursuit of their roles, even if not all players will pay in equal proportions.
One adjustment I would like to see OP make is to adjust the randomizer algorithm to make the highest-paying routes be indexed to distance, so that the $100 million/hour routes would be eliminated. As I recall, when CF 1.7 was about to be released with new BMG cargos, the stated intent was to make the "super-routes" long and hazardous, to justify the profits by overcoming the risks. Unfortunately (but predictably, from a storyline standpoint), the economies of Sirius & Altair have developed quite apart from each other, and there seems to be little if any linkage between them when it comes to rewarding supplies of scarce commodities. In my view, profits should be indexed to scarcity of trading, or the number of systems to be crossed. So if commodity has to cross 20 systems between the seller & buyer, it should reward such a risk. The reason players do not run such routes is that there are too many shorter routes with higher profit over time. I am quite happy to settle for $1000/unit profit if I only have to run it down a single trade lane, and also reduce my initial cargo investment.
One thing everyone here should remember: OP has been working on this problem for a very long time, and if it were an easy thing to build a "perfect" economy, we would already have it. In fact, even though it is HARD, we already have the richest economy in the FL universe, and people are still not happy. A few years ago, I spent some time on another popular server, where it took me WEEKS to make the progress on a single character that I can make here in 24 hours of server time. Be careful what you ask for, you might not like the way your complaints are answered!
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Seqan: The point is that if a drop randomizer is active, then there will be a fractional probability of something dropping from one or more of these wrecks at any given time. It may take some time to establish if this is true at all, and if so, what is the ratio of drops to attempts. If a ratio can be established, it may then be correlated to some other known change. I now have characters in place to check 2 of the 3 groups of wrecks available for this test, and will likely put a third on the problem until some conclusion can be drawn one way or the other...
