I've been playing Crossfire v1.7, Sirius SP, for a while now and have explored every vanilla system (that didn't cause a crash, anyway) and hack-explored the CF ships. Since CF 1.8 is on its way, I thought now might be a good time to share some thoughts from a Freelancer newbie trying out CF. So here, in no particular order, are some observations:
[Ships]
.Quality control is, IMO, desperately needed. Some ships are nicely detailed, others on par with the lower end of vanilla Freelancer (like FL's Eagle and Titan), and still others are "WTF?" -- (apologies to the creator) like the Mayfly. I'm sure the Mayfly has its own place concept wise, but it could use a bit of work to bring it up to par aesthetically.
.I wouldn't mind seeing vanilla FL ships somewhat redone or replaced entirely. The lower end quality models like the Eagle-type ships, for example, could be replaced by a 3- or 4- ship set from the new models. I think Crossfire could raise the bar for FL mods by more ruthlessly exercising quality control, and not being afraid to change existing models.
.More sets! The vanilla FL Dagger-Stiletto-Sabre is a fairly good example of an "evolution" of ships, and I think it would be nice to see more of that sort of thing. It enhances the experience of the game by more tightly distinguishing factions. With enough ships, even every vanilla FL faction could have their own type of ship, even if some are offshoots of another (e.g., kusari corporations might adapt kusari naval ships?)
.Many ship models appear to come with a gun (that is, either a turret or a stick that is part of the model) but this item does not disappear once the actual guns are mounted. I recommend those pieces be either removed from the model, from the model after it is bought (is this even possible?) or "pasted over" by a mounted gun.
.Many ships cost more than 2 million credits. So why bother even setting a level limit on it? At about 2.5 million credits, the pilot is already level 38. Unless the rank is extended, just set everything to level 0. If they can buy it, they're probably already at the required level.
[Ship Classes]
.There is an opportunity to revamp Freelancer's ship structure into a much more flexible and customizable system by extrapolating the Power Generator and Weight Reduction systems. For example, suppose *every* ship starts out more or less Very Light (and should be given a visible rating for the buyer), has a standard low Power generator, and all hardpoints and turrets are capable of Class 10. If you add more Power, you reduce carrying capacity and add weight (and thereby affect agility), but you can then have a more decent rate of fire on your monster guns. If you add Weight Reduction, you reduce carrying capacity but increase agility. To balance things out, make (hardpoints + turrets + torpedoes) correspond to the starting weight.
.I believe Wing Commander Open SP Freelancer does something similar to this.
.If power has a definite cap, then ships can have a lot more hardpoints and turrets (and maybe sell some dummy guns so that pilots can more conveniently select which hardpoint to use), since they can't fire all of them anyway. The general 6/1 limit is boring.
[Bases]
.There seemed to be little rhyme or reason as to the distribution of commodities and equipment. Occasionally I would come across (for example) a shield upgrade or power generator... But why? Why this base and not others? And why only one, and why it's particular level?
.Way too many commodities. Way too many. There are several ways of handling this, such as: (1) Regional commodities - limit the distribution and good-buy locations of certain products to certain areas based on availability, demand, and role they play in the local economy. (2) Import/Export specialities - Correspond goods bought and sold more strongly to the base or planet faction, purpose, and background. Also talk about it in the bio and in NPC chats in the bar. (3) Trim. Especially the "black market goods". At present, they are just the same item with different prices and different names. There isn't even a writeup of what each item is or its relevance to the game world.
.I recommend also more pervasively spreading out the new ships and ship equipment from Crossfire into the existing Freelancer markets. Otherwise, Sirius plays far too much like normal Freelancer that the mod is practically invisible. With so much new infrastructure, there is a great opportunity to enhance basic FL gameplay that even new players will find Crossfire a good mod to install before playing any FL.
.Since Crossfire updates files every time it starts up, there is an opportunity to periodically change the market data, providing a more organic market experience. But this might be too much work, unless the file can be auto-generated (say in Excel, with a random-number function for the price multiplier, and then exported as .csv into an .ini).
[Crossfire Systems]
.I highly recommend you get them all out of Sirius. Vanilla FL Sirius is not terribly cluttered, but the introduction of CF systems there makes it a spaghetti. Have one gate access one starting Crossfire area, and nothing else anywhere else.
