Posts by Franco428

If your looking for a fast way to oblivion, try making my pirate punch:

1 quart of 151 rum
2 cans of (Goya) Cream of Coconut
2 quarts of orange juice

Mix well, cover and put into freezer for three hours. Keep in freezer until depleted.

It goes down smooth - cold at first and then heats up when it hits bottom - too much of it will leave you wondering what happened to your clothes - I've been there and it ain't pretty.

I recommend that you do not consume more than six ounces over a four hour period, and no more than ten ounces in a night. A four ounce serving over cracked ice lasts long enough to get a buzz and still mingle with the opposite sex.

The first time I tried it, I did about three 8 oz glasses. I was still wasted the next morning.

Fortunately, I no longer drink like I used to...I quit drinking when I retired from the Army. Besides, drinking American beer after living in the Netherlands for 13 years with access to local and international beers, was like drinking water.

The beer I liked most was Carlsberg Elephant Beer. Although, the Belgium Chimay beers were potent as well.

A Risen Beer from the "Golden Swan Tavern" in Achen, Germany was great with meals. But, Octoberfest beer sampling was one of my favorite sports. Got thrown off a train to Garmish-PK once for excessive celebration. If you've been to Munich in October, you know what I mean. Cheers!

I used to think that spending money on big toys was a waste of time. Then, I realized that life is too short not to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I've worked hard at every job I've had and now in my later years, my body is just about worn out. It's the milage - not the years that kill you.

My Flight Sim display is awesome. However, the total number of display I could have with my system is six. But, that is a wee bit too much, even for me. I did see the nine screen display at the Matrox website...gave me goosebumps.

Right now, I'd like to play Freelancer in multiplayer with three screens, but I can wait until someone smarter figures it all out. Even Microsoft refused my requests for the display source code to expand my game play. I think they have written off Freelancer. Too bad for them.

I must say that the efforts put into the Crossfire Mods has been the best I've ever seen. Even some of the game companies could not acomplish what has been done. SWAT Rules it all!!!

Check out this picture of the Crossfire Logo in Triple Screen view...Still working on the rest of the "issues."

I did get the 3840 x 1024 to work once, but Juni's outfit was stretched across one full screen. Nothing sexy about something that wide.

Although...somethings were meant to be seen in ultra-wide view...like a 14 point buck with a 500 gr slug closing in on it at 300 yards. With ultra -wide view you can see the look on its face and the crap shoot out its butt at the same time.

A strange thing happened on the way to start the 1.81 game.

I saw my CF cursor in the upper left corner and no start up music at the Load Game Screen for OSP.

I discovered that if I moved my mouse as if I had the cursor controlled - to the upper left corner and did a Left Click, the CF cursor came on-line and the music started playing.

With everything that could go wrong, this is not a big problem, but could be confused as a OSP game hang up or bug.

Most of the little things that happen in OSP can be worked through on your own.

Several of my so-called bugs were fixed by reinstalling the 1.81 program over itself two or three times. Seems that some of the "copy" functions are slower than the buffer.

If you have many errors and can't get the program to run, re-install with the Mod Manager without deleting the previous try. If it works for you, great. If not, you can always post it in the forum and have someone either help you or laugh with/at you.

There was a Serenity Firefly ship mod, but it was too small.

Now, if you want a heavily armored, ugly ship, try the BullPup III. Build like a tank and has a cargo of 400. Twice the armor of most heavy fighters.

With two Cannonball Missile launchers, and Diamondback guns, most will avoid you. The missile effects are odd. I've used every heavy hitting missile, yet the Cannonball seems to get to its target and do more damage most of the time.

I 1.7 the Coalition Gatling Gun noise made my wife cringe. Had to resort to headphones.

As much as I wanted a real Firefly that should be the size of half a train. No one has built it yet.

The old space game ProtoStar has a ship with a crew. Now that's what a Firefly class ship needs...a crew. Doc, preacher, lady of the evening, gun nut, wing nut, pilot, captain and clown.

Can you imagine flying in multiplayer with a crew...and everyone having discussions on how to play the game. you would never get out of space dock.

BullPup III - big ugly and dangerous.

3840 x 1024 works on projectors and widescreen displays. Works best with the Matrox TripleHead to go digital edition and three 20" LCD monitors. I can take a picture of my set up if you don't believe it really works. But, check out the examples below and get the Modders working on 3840x1024. You won't believe how awesome the images are!

Video Examples
http://www.matrox.com/graphics…aming/en/downloads/video/

RPG Examples
http://www.matrox.com/graphics…gaming/en/games/zone/rpg/

List of Hundreds of supported games
http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming/en/games/#

The Triple screen adapter from Matrox is awesome.

See for yourself:

Video Examples:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics…aming/en/downloads/video/

RPG Examples:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics…gaming/en/games/zone/rpg/

List of Hundreds of supported games:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming/en/games/#

I use 3840x1024 in my MS FlightSim X and it is a totally different experience.

I want to see Freelancer / Crossfire mod to be more that a great game, I'd like to see it as the best space RPG Mod ever.

a resolution of 3840 x 1024 should not be that difficult since Freelance has a 360 degree view.

I know there are modders out there that have thought about it. Look at the above examples and tell me it cannot be done and I won't being it up again.

Can YOU imagine 3840 by 1024 over three screens.

I see my flight sim that way. With the Logitech 5.1 audio I'm in RPG / SIM heaven. That is until my grandkids come over and want to play on granddad's game computer. Like that will ever happen

My Seitek Foot pedals, Yoke, Throttle and Joystick make most games realistic. I want that for Freelance/Crossfire.

Comments?

Franco428
Virginia, USA

Had to load 1.8 twice. I elected not to restore backups and went ahead a loaded 1.8 again. It worked the second time. The problem was copying a OpenSP M07 mission file from the Installer to the Freelancer program file. I figured that overwriting the file twice may get through the failed to copy error and it did.

I decided to play on OpenSP to see if I could find any bugs.

What I noticed was the time delay in the OpenSP start up screen was 2 1/2 minutes. At first I kept trying to start the Crossfire Game. Then I went to get something to drink and when I got back the preview movies were playing. I closed it out and opened Crossfire again. Waited 2 1/2 minutes and blam! there is was...the start up movie. I can live with the slow start up as long as I can ESC key through them.

That brings up settings...I decided to deactivate the shader and activate the old video card option to see what effect it had on triangles. No triangles! In fact, no video problems at all. Even though I have a 1 GB PCI video card, the no shader and older video card option worked perfectly.

Later on, the ESC key option, to quickly get through the movies did not work, but the game started after everything played. Annoying but not a big problem. Could be my system too.

Had a crash after leaving Malta and going to the Outcast burial site to recover weapons. On the first ship to give them up, I hit "B" to tractor everything in and poof...exited to desktop. Tried it again and only tractored in the weapons one at a time. Worked just fine. Found the second ship and tried the same procedure. As long as you tractor in one at a time, no problems.

I selected a Bullpup III for the heavy armor. So far, I've tried several different trade routes with no problems at all. All of Custodian worked well. Gates, docking rings and base docking worked like the 1.7. I repeated the landings on each of Custodian's dockable locations at least ten times each, boring but there were no problems, no triangles and no crashes.

I started going to each of the Crossfire Gates to test them as well. No problems so far.

The only thing I did notice was the bribes did not seem to help. I wanted to upgrade a weapon and I needed to be "friendlier" to the group. Paid the bribe, exit the planet and returned. Still could not purchase the weapon even thought I was +0.7 or above with that group. Bribed again and no change. I was max'd out with the Reputation for that group but no change. Bribes did not work with the Outcasts, Britonia Police and Cryer. Will check the others tonight after work.

Transit'd through the "Corridor" and made it to New London. As soon as I selection a location to move to, the game crashed to desktop.

If you want the error codes from the pop-up "send report to Microsoft," which I never send anything to them, I will write them down if y'all think it may help in the debugging.

I figure the best way to debug is to beat a system over and over until nothing happens, then move on to the next. If you rather not have my input, just let me know. I feel odd not including the technical problems from the debug software, but I didn;t see anyone else sending it and I didn't want to overwhelm OP with too much tech talk.

On the MOTY 2009 - Vote early and vote often!

Cheers, Franco428

I am just happy that I woke up this morning and I was still breathing.

Some folks have a lot on their plates and some not enough. I couldn't do what OP does, so I wait. If an elephant daddy can wait 2 years to see what he's made, I can wait longer than that to see what someone else has created.

I used to program in assembly language, but I am lost in Mod development. I can offer suggestions, but the grunt work I have to leave to the pros. I salute them all.

To those of you who are frustrated with the 1.8 wait. You obviously have very little else in your lives. If you are bored that bad, go play with yourself until you forget why you were bored. Then come back and enjoy what you have. If you hear each tic tock of the clock, then you have issues well beyond waiting for the 1.8 mod.

If you played every open player mod and every multiplayer mod until you were exhausted, then you may have something to bitch about. Until then...be happy that you're not old, homeless, hungry or crazy. A good day for some of us is waking up. Simple huh?

Try making games on a 4-bit mono-color computer. That was easy compared to the MODs of today. You Modders are awesome. And, I for one, do not care if you take your time to do it right the first time out. Just, do it before I die, okay?. That gives you about 30 to 40 years, I hope.

I will be glad to spread the word! When you get ready to announce to the world that Crossfire has what everyone is looking for, it would be a pleasure to help others find the light!

------------------------->

After 1.8 is released and everyone is "pickled tink," a small suggestion. It may have been mentioned before, but I feel it's worth the additional face time.

To get and keep the attention of players from all over, I suggest that updates be regulated to single or small features.

For example, instead of upgrading everything in a Mod, find one thing new to update or introduce it each couple of weeks or months. A new ship added here and there, or a new shield, weapon or missile system, will keep the game exciting and fresh. Boarding a disabled ship and taking everything including engines would be fun. Have a self-destruct to counter that would "balance" the play.

Also, certain ships and/or equipment should have a end of lifetime "time limits." For Example, the "Mod Engineers" (SysOp), could announce that on a certain date a specific model of ship will no longer be supported. The weapons and other systems will stop working on that model of ship. So, you have to go buy a new ship. We have automobiles that go obsolete, why not ships?

Changing one thing in a Mod should be easier than make a whole new mod. If everyone knows that every three or six months something will change ( sooner if y'all can get the manpower ), it will bring people back and they will stay.

The same Mod day after day, month after month, etc., won't hold the imagination of some folks very long. A changing Mod that grows will attract both young and old minds.

So much effort went into the 1.8, it should be around for many years. If every year a new system is "discovered" that would be awesome. Other players may be looking for new or ancient weapons that change the balance in some systems. Having a weapon that only works, for example, in a system with "Red Dwarf" sun, makes it a challenge just to go there.

Trying to do too much in one big Mod, takes too much time, if you don't have a lot of help. New mini-mods to 1.8 can be vetted through the SysOp and voted on by a committee or the original designer. Once submitted, you get credit in name only for your mini-mod and the thanks of everyone, including Bunny.

We will soon have thousands of downloads for 1.8 and everyone will be excited...for a while. How long depends on the complexity of the 1.8 mod, and how much it challenges each player.

I would rather see the thousands who will come and play 1.8, stick around for the next episode, and the next, and the next...just like a daytime soap opera or Harry Potter book series.

What comes next in the Mod is what keeps the imagination on fire.

I hope to be playing a version of 1.8 in ten years from now. Only, it should evolve like the rest of us. Older, wiser and more sophisticated. Well....two out of three isn't bad.

Does anyone feel that this approach should draw new and previous players and also retain current players?

I welcome your comments on my suggestions.

Thank you for your time reading this.

Happy New Year to all!

Franco428

(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.

The five button InteliMouse is perfect with Freelancer. My dock and go to buttons are with my thumb, my Nav Map is the scroll button. You can assign any keyboard keystroke to the button on the mouse.

Getting out into space is the only thing that will bind us together.

We need to join together to build, explore and expand our values out into the void.

"...into the void... was a phrase from Ming as he spoke to Zarkov and Flash Gordon (the movie). I've always like it's ring....into the void! Much better than "into the unknown."

What phrase would any of you use to describe heading out into deep space? And don't say "to infinity and beyond!"

Just an exercise in what YOU would say IF you had the chance to go out there!

I finally got rid of that weird avatar and decided to use my over-the-hill picture. (That picture has the Washington DC Cherry blossoms in the background.) Being over 60 is actually a relief. Most of my family, well over a hundred years ago, lived well into their 80s, 90s and 100s. I plan to live to be 135 at the least...God willing and the world doesn't end first.

My wife thinks that Freelancer is just another game. She reads a lot. That is like me saying that her IPod is just another gadget. Come to think of it - it is. You can't play Freelancer on it, right?

Freelancer is a totally absorbing electronic universe that I can escape into when I need to clear out my head. My book of CF system charts is my handy reference. I can ease myself into a Freelancer game and forget things that really bother me.

Do I think I'm too old for Freelancer? Not by a long shot. This game and the people behind the Mods, keep me young at heart, my mind active and looking forward to the next update.

I don't believe you can ever be too old to play Freelancer.

I know that I must grow old, but no one ever told me that I had to grow up. Just consider me a young man - twice removed.

May you all live to be old enough to be young again!

Freelancers - I salute you all!

I've posted this thought on a different thread, but it stands out as being the fundamental step to keeping Freelancer alive and well.

Keep the Single Player improvements coming! Single Players become Multi-Players. As the young folks (under 30) get acquainted with Freelancer and its Mods in Single Player, they will find a Multi-Player Mod that suits them. Or, they will continue to download the Single Player mods and be closet Freelancers.

As long as they keep playing SP or MP, Freelancer will continue. Some Mods need to die to make room for others. Once you've made it to the top of Mount Everest, who wants to go there ten more times? Why? New mods, new ideas and NEW PLAYERS is what we need.

New players don't start in multiplayer. Some do, but the most of us do not.

Give us more Single Player action and see what happens. Reap what you sow!

Single Player is the seed of Freelancer's future.

My thought was not on what's in the game but how it is played on different computer systems.

I have a Matrox triple screen system that is used by hundreds of software products, flight sim being the biggest. Having that wider field of view is AWESOME!!!

Improving the graphics, backgrounds and outside views in flight make the game more realistic.

Landing on planets under pilot control is much better that the auto-pilot used by Freelancer. I know it can be done, I've seen it in one Crossfire system - almost. The planet landing through the docking rings brings you out to almost the ground and you fly most of the way to the port. Not good enough.

To play an expert game of Freelancer, give controls for either auto-landing or full pilot control. The number of crashes will be high initially, but we will learn and appreciate the landing difficulties of going from zero gravity to gravities from .5 to 2.5.

And one more thing...make the bribes selectable to what we need or want and not random stupid bribes to something that is so far out there that we have to look up to see who the bribe is for. Change the level of bribes depending on how much you want to spend. For example: 10K for a little bit of help and 100K for a lot of help...or something like that.

Think realistic!

If I went into a bar, I'd want a drink first, then a companion, then a shower and then food. Business comes after I had a little bit of rest and relaxation. Heck, I'd pay credits to watch a Gondork pork a Feldman - just kidding. Think about what traders, pirates and soldiers want in their ships, stations and home bases.

Look at the Protostar game. Crewmembers! What a concept. Medic, engineer, cook, avionics tech, weapons expert, cargo master and astro-navigator. Maybe a pet or two. Even a deadly pet like Flinx has. Don't know Flinx - read Alan Dean Foster, SiFi Writer.

There are so many ideas that Freelancer could go on forever. Its not like there is no one playing the game anymore.

Upgrades to the Single Player brings Multiplayer folks to the clans! Believe it!

Quote: "Are you a robot? No
What game do we play? Freelancer
Who makes NSU? Nightstalker
How difficult is that??"

That was the first set of answers I tried. Its not that I'm that old that I cannot understand simple instructions, I just got frustrated when correct answers in the correct locations cause a negative result.

The variations of answers did not go well either. I was hoping for a lock-out so I could logon again and give it another try.

However, after attempts to logon to other well-used sites and my userid and pswds were not accepted, I had to look elsewhere for the problem.

I apologize if my frustrations boiled over into the forum.

It was my computer's fault creation that caused my logon difficulties. I had recently update my computer motherboard, memory, CPU and SLI video cards and found I had to install a water cooling for my CPU and Video cards because of excessive heat. Seems that nasty heat was causing great problems with my connectability and with other things. I also installed two external exhaust fans for the rest of the components.

Seems my computer system became smarter than me, and refused to work in the heat. Bios heat shut-down and audio alarms are all working at last. I have build every computer system I ever owned and this last one needs tender loving cooling. My first computer was a Heathkit H-89 with a memory mod that gave me 56 K of RAM. It had two Z-80 CPUs - one for the motherboard and one for the keyboard. But that was probably before most of you were born. Assembly language and a modified Unix OS was a killer to program and we had only two color choices Green/Black or Yellow/Black for our displays. You young folks probably do not remember the joy of going to 4 color displays, and then 16. Elite was awesome until you got too close to the Sun while refueling. I didn't buy Win95 until the sequel for Privateer came out. Now that I'm done with my history of computing, I'll get back to playing Freelancer with the Mods I like.

Best Regards to the folks at the Swat Portal and to all the Mod'ers of Freelancer. To the Nightstalker folks...let's just say your site is awesome. I never use my forum identity for any Mod websites. Keeps it nice and friendly that way. Thank you all for your time.

After trying to register and not knowing the super duper secret answers, or not typing them in correctly...I decided that if you are that anal about verification you obviously do not need someone like me on your website. How many ways can you spell Night Stalker's Universe? NSU? NiStUN?? Typing it full out didn't work either - caps or lowercase!

Since you were trying to eliminate the robots, you could have mentioned the verification procedures and resulting answers at some point in my quest to register. Give me a frapping hint at my third of fourth try in registering.

What do you guys want exactly?

I apologize that we did not read every entry in the boards, but a registration that anal probably can do without me and my buddies. We'll stick with the normal folks.

If you have that many problems with your site, we do not need them as well.

Since I always try out a MOD in Single Player first...I guess I'll have to pass up this MOD.

Too bad...it sounds like a great MOD.

I have played every Single Player MOD produced so far. Some are great, some fair and some stink. But I tried them all to see what is coming around the corner in the future.

FL Advanced Mod is one I'll never use unless the SP or Open SP is available.

Here is the Cover and Back of the software package.