Posts by darkwraith007

The previews for the various characters, audio, and cursors is missing from the usual post. Might be nice to update that so people can preview them before installing the CrossFire v2.0 mod.

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Ofc such things are here, it need only some little searching ... : 2015 Nostalgia Of The Year (or Century) , Finished SP CF 2.0, few words , CF 2.0 SP feedback ,

First thread is a gushing thread with a handful of posts. Other 2 threads are completely unreleated to multiplayer and are therefore irrelevant.

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For SP its present in non-scripted situation and cannot be changed bcs its the same system like is in MP. This rules banner like you say IS NECESSARY to be right in space after player undock, bcs NO ONE reads readme and many not bother to visit portal. This wall of text is there purposely and make perfect sense for us

OPR8R specfically stated it isn't present in SP. A reinstall of the mod fixed the issue I was having on my end with that part. That's fine.
They don't wish to remove it from MP and they've stated they want to keep it to make sure people know the rules. That's also fine. I have no issues with it.

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It is players fault that they do not check launcher ... its OFC much more as only start SP or MP. These who look little on it may find link named "Starter Guide" ... and now maybe less wonder why is such wall of text in NY ...

Whenever you begin a sentence with 'it is the players fault' you need to stop and think for a moment. It is not the player's fault if they don't interact with the launcher in ways that the creators of the launcher would like for them to do. I've already spoken about the Starter Guide and how it lacks some key information for those who want a combat-oriented start on the game. Having the guide integrated into the mod itself as an in-game tutorial area (or even some text blurbs) on Manhatten would help with making it easier to use for newbies. One thing people don't realize is that having an in-game tutorial/guide for these types of things helps with immersion instead of having to alt-tab to a website. Just sayin.

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Player can do basic neutral char in ... hmm 60 seconds (ok, it may need 120) when in mod, it could be enough check CF wiki, there are quite easy and understandable written guides how to do it. And if player get zerged, he maybe start search info how to fight better? ... in launcher are included combat video guides created for new players ...

Again, you blame the players instead of offering a solution. Telling them to check the wiki or check the forums will take them outside of the immersive experience. An in-game guide on these types of things would be far more useful. What will happen to people if they get zerged is they will uninstall and go play another FreeLancer mod or another game altogether. There are far too many gaming choices on the market to deal with these issues. Players just want to jump in and shoot stuff, not study guides/videos just to be able to destroy their first NPC ship.

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But cmon! ... lets take a look what will happen when you will here type New York ... (click on it as link and a surprise )

Having it available within the game helps with immersion and there's little to no new coding involved with having a static NPC that makes the info offer.

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There are in MP many ppl helping regularly new players. But could be that this new player need to ASK ... ASK a question or ask for help is the best way how new player can learn many thing in very short time. (point player into CF Wiki is also not bade idea ... yes, also to this is link in launcher)

There are little to no people playing MP. They're always in different zones and cannot hear System chat and do not respond to whispers. Have you tried? No you haven't because you don't care and want to just spout out bullshit. Players will ask and then even if they get a response and IF it isn't a troll/hateful response, then they may just act like you and be told 'go watch the guide and go read the wiki' instead of being provided some direction or an answer to a simple question.

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Universum channel is restricted to server staff (Admin, GR, EMs).

Yes it is restricted, but there's little to no need to keep it restricted due to the server having less than 20 players that play on the server at any one time.

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... here dunno what is meant by this.

You quoted and responded to something that you don't understand. Why are you responding again? Announce Blurbs is not difficult to understand. It refers to the constant system Announcements going off around every ~10 minutes or so.

I've been very polite/neutral in my tone. The only harsh criticism that I have is the constant chat-blurb announcements every ~10 mins or so. As I stated before, they seriously detract from the player experience. Just because all of ~10 people that actually play on CrossFire are ok with it doesn't mean that it isn't something that could be changed.

As far as the other stuff, it is the title of this thread: Feedback. Good feedback includes both positivity and criticism and that is what I feel I've done here. Not everything is sunshine and roses 24/7.

All of my suggestions have been responded to, but the Announce spam every ~10 mins is the one thing that I take issue with and I was hoping for it to be modified. Either longer duration (30+ mins) or removed altogether in favor of integrating the announcements into the existing rule blurb board when you exit Manhattan.

When you and others like you are politely telling me to shut up and leave, then you will get your wish. Considering your peak players are lucky to go past 10 online at once, it seems that telling people to leave will only result in an empty multiplayer experience.

Admin or not, they should be willing to listen to and acknowledge open feedback to something they have publically released.
And if they aren't happy with feedback/criticism here, they can include it on their rules board

It was Helloween that was the one running the Conquest server as a test. It was an 88Flak server but with server-side scripting to enable a primitive Conquest mode.
The basic idea was that any player could destroy a solar object (like a base) and then when that base respawned (about 10 mins later) then it would be under the control of the faction that the player was representing at the time.
For example, a player equips a Liberty Police tag/license on their ship and goes to blow up Rochester Base (Junker Base). When it respawns, it would become a LIberty Police base and there would be a ton of fighting from the confused Pirate NPCs (which lead to some hectic fights). It created the impression of a living, breathing, and constantly evolving world.

The problem happened where this wasn't restricted at all so things happened like a player wanting to troll and conquer all of New York for the Xenos. There weren't any hard limitations put into place. It was just a test server and a short-lived experiment.

I may have the released mod files for it somewhere, but I'll have to dig around for em. It was just an interesting concept and I figured it might be nice to have on this RP-heavy server.

EDIT: I found my old post from 2013 on these very forums mentioning it. Whoo

The announcements are not once an hour. The announcements (various ones) are about every 10 mins or so. It seriously detracts from the player experience, especially in combat. Even in most F2P games, I don't get a pop up announcement every 10 mins. And when I do, I don't tend to stay for long.

You mentioned you put that rules banner there for a reason, so perhaps an announcement banner can also be placed there for these repeating announcements (or add it to the rules banner) instead.
There should be a way of 'hiding' announcements from the main screen and having them only show up when you open the chat window.

Newbies would start with neutral reputation because their first encounter with a hostile Xenos/Rogue would leave them destroyed in space. Repeatedly. And then they'd quit. And the servers would remain stagnant without an influx of new people.
At least starting with a neutral reputation (in MP) would allow newbies to 'restart' their character if they went in guns blazing and realized too late that the AI is significantly more difficult to fight than before. You're comparing the mod to Vanilla but you should realize that this mod is as far different from Vanilla as you could imagine. I find it curious you use the 'Vanilla' blurb when nearly everything in the mod has been enhanced to be more than just Vanilla. It isn't 'cheating' to start with neutral reputation on a Multiplayer Server using a custom non-Vanilla Freelancer mod like CrossFire.

Buying maps in New York is for those who would WANT that option. Those who want to explore can explore and those who don't want to explore the starter system can pay a bit of creds to make it a bit easier to start trading/exploring other areas. I'm not saying this would be in EVERY system but only in New York (starter system).

I did read through the Starter Guide and it isn't nearly as helpful or as useful as people may realize. It is ok but not ideal. It presumes and mostly mandates that 'you must do trading' to a new player who may want to just do missions and destroy NPCs instead. It doesn't provide any decent hints/tips on where to go or what to do in regards to getting a good combat-ready ship or what is a waste of money.

I'll do a quick blurb that may hopefully help things out.

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Head to Colorado System and find the BattleShip Rio Grande near Pueblo Station & Planet Durango (western Trade Lane Path).
Buy the StarBlazer and get some nice upgraded equipment. After this, you may optionally visit Alaska system in New York for some viable upgrades.

That right there gives more information & better information than the Starter Guide. It took me quite a bit of time to dig through and find the Ships listing on the wiki and compare the various ships to find those that newbies can afford and which have superior firepower for the money. In this case, the StarBlazer has better energy efficiency and more power to fire weapons compared to a Defender. As a nice bonus, it also handles a lot easier to dodge & evade enemy fire.

If you are worried about spam when the server barely holds ~10 peak players lately, then I don't know what to say. It might be easier to allow for all the players on the server to speak to one another. If spam happens then those players can be warned and subsequent violations would remove Universe Chatting privileges for them. I'm sure you can handle the huge influx of all of 20 players that ever play online lately. You want community but you don't want people to talk to one another despite having all the modding tools available to handle it very easily. If this were another mod with hundreds of players online at a time then I could understand how much of a burden it might be.

And I guess the typical response that I should expect from all this is 'if you don't like it then leave'.
If the people here want me to leave MP for good then I'll do so, but I hope it doesn't need to be that way as I'd enjoy playing alongside others once I rank up.
Telling anyone to leave or shut up or whatever will only leave emptier servers and a stagnant experience for everyone.
CrossFire has nowhere near the number of players of a certain other mod and every new player is even more valuable than people realize.

Surprised there are no megathreads for feedback. Some intial newbie thoughts.

-The 'rules' banner in New York is really not necessary. Considering how few people are playing and to attract more players, it may be wise to just stick a ReadMe in the CrossFire directory (or the launcher) and have the players agree to it before launching MultiPlayer each time. The current placement & implementation of the 'rules' banner creates quite a negative and sour impression of the mod itself. It is even present in Single Player for some reason (!?) which makes zero sense.

-Even better would be including the 'Starter Guide' within the Mod itself, perhaps as a Neural Net post that the players have when starting up. Not every player is going to read the forums for the first time and know the way to get better equipment so that they don't get beaten up by NPCs all the time. It may not appear to the veterans here but NPCs are far above and beyond significantly more difficult to fight than in Vanilla. That will put off a lot of new players if they aren't aware of how they are 'supposed' to start off (trading) until they get money for a good ship.

-It would be really helpful for newbies to start off neutral with all factions by default until they start choosing sides. This way they can only blame themselves when they get zerged by Liberty Rogues or Xenos and obliterated in their starter ship with pea-shooters for guns. This allows them to trade or to make enemies/friends with whomever they like. Instead of starting off friendly with the Police they'd have to blow up a few criminals to gain their trust first.

-Dedicated Hint NPC on Manhatten. For a small fee (2k creds) they will reveal all of the New York map with JumpHoles and everything including what bases sell which items. This is optional to put in but would really help with newbies who want to get a head start on the game instead of manually exploring the starter system. Get an idea of trade prices and start making money right away.

-Newbie Night. Once a week hold a newbie night to help those who are under Rank X (pick one) with any questions/hints/etc and advice. Just a simple Q&A session for a few minutes.

-Universe Chat. It may be useful due to the low population to permit/allow Universe Chat until the population increases to a certain point and remains stable.

-Announce Blurbs. Please let us turn them off or at least not have them visible on the screen. If there is a way to do so then I'd love to hear about it (maybe 'Turn off HUD' in Multiplayer keybinds?).

EDIT: The strikethough points have been resolved (aka not changing) but the remaining points are still valid concerns. The announce blurbs seem to be less spammy than they used to be (take about twice as long between blurbs as before).

So this thread:
Crossfire 2.0 Clanbases + Conquest System

I experienced the Conquest System when it was initially developed and released by Why485 (the same person who worked on 88Flak) and it was working on the 88Flak server as a test a few years ago.
Unfortunately without any rules, things kinda went haywire and the entire New York system was taken over by Xenos as a joke. That kinda irked the new people a bit and things fizzled out when things weren't reset.
Even more unfortunately, the 88Flak server is poofed and so are the forums and everything else, only the releases on ModDB are what remains of the project. What a shame

I was hoping that there could be a daily event with Conquest for players outside of a clan.
Basically the clans get to attack and take over territory (not clan systems but regular systems) as part a coordinated effort while those outside of clans would still be able to do so but would lack the organization and specific bonuses of
a clan. Not every player has the time or dedication to be in a clan so it may help to get new/casual players participating more.

Allow players to fight for a specific faction that they are 'friendly' with. Players of the same faction would be grouped together. At the end of the battle (in one area), the victorious faction would take over that zone for a week. Clan systems and Home systems like New York would be exempt but every other system around the Home systems would be up for grabs. The winning faction gets 10% costs for goods/services while the losers have to pay a penalty of double the usual prices and limited item selection if you aren't friendly with that faction. Naturally you could just get friendly with the faction to bypass this but if there are enough players fighting for different factions then we can have a real 'tug of war' going on.

This all may take a bit of time to implement but it is more of an RP-friendly structured version of the initial experiments on Conquest Mode that were carried out years ago on the 88Flak server.

I'm not familiar with what the death penalty is; otherwise I would go ahead and type it out as you requested.

All of this looks wonderful

Awesome! So HeIIoween decided to release their Conquest mod? That sounds wonderful
The brief time that it was active was a lot of chaotic fun on the 88 Flak servers, although the Xenos being in control of all of New York kinda pissed off all the new people
We'd made the suggestion that 'home planets' like Manhattan and so forth shouldn't be able to be conquered. Their docking clamps can be destroyed (and looted) but otherwise it won't change loyalty to another faction other than Liberty Police.

This isn't an 'easy' mod. It is purposefully designed to have a certain skill-level requirement in order to proceed.

We're assuming the player has completed the single player vanilla campaign. Even in Vanilla, the end-game wasn't as easy as people thought it was. It was just easily exploitable AI. But if you ran off and got focused you could get shot down very quickly. In fact, many of the 'Escape from Rhineland' missions in Vanilla campaign were so tough that I did have to do the 'invincibility cheat' via modifying that Difficulty Scale thing just to get past that one part.

Some of the situations they put you in during Vanilla campaign were Kobiyashi-Maru style 'no win' scenarios unless you run off and hide to regen while your allies did most of the dirty work. It wasn't very well-balanced, but it was sufficient enough to present a challenge for people at least. I just wish the difficulty had been more dynamic rather than static. You play better? Then the enemies learn and adapt to become harder/stronger/faster. If you keep dying then you might be presented with a token to take half damage or double your shield/hull durability (only with the starter ships).

For CrossFire, a certain level of difficulty is to be expected, but I do believe that the 'newbie token' to help out against the starter NPCs (and only usable in the StarFlier) might have helped make this mod more accessible. The token could even mention and promote the multiplayer as a way to learn from other players

Some minor quibbles...

-Combat guides needs a link to a page with more info

-Trade goods also needs a link to a page with more info

-Replace the commas with periods. Mathematical calculators specify decimal points with periods. I understand there's EU tradition and all that, but sometimes we need to make adjustments to fit the metric standards. I still can't believe how anyone can think it is ok to have something like 12 million look like "12.000.000,00" instead of "12,000,000.00" being the norm. And for those worried about periods and decimals being mixed up, English grammar pretty much mitigates a lot of that issue by saying it isn't ideal to do it that way; better to have at least one word after the number or to spell out the number. So in the above example if I wanted to I could just say '12 million'. That would be it.

-Mention that the player trying to even out reputation with pirates might want to try the 'hit and run' tactics with the containers. Blow up the containers fast and then get the hell out of dodge!

-Mention what happens when players die and what the death penalty consists of.

---A minor quibble about the mod itself, but some of the clan-specific and custom systems have mines nearly surrounding the 'entrance' to the system that makes it a pain in the ass to get anywhere or exit back out to the regular systems. Perhaps we could have a 'mine detonator' type of device that we can throw into a minefield and have it detonate all the connected mines? Then they could force-respawn in like 30 seconds or something.

So much bad information in this thread.
Before speaking, people need to do their fucking research.

This is a good article on how Vsync and Triple Buffering work when it comes to video games.
It also explains that the best course of action is to have BOTH enabled or BOTH disabled.

Vsync with Triple Buffering = smooth and nice framerates ; otherwise, if you enable one of them without the other then your framerates will suffer.
You can also disable both of them, but you'll still have screen-tearing issues. *shrug*

Now ignore the people that give bad advice. Just experiment and do what is best for your game. I wouldn't bother setting it in graphics control panel. Stick with setting it in-game (or how I do, which is to use DirectX Overrider to force both of them on).

Not sure if the issues here have been 'fixed' yet...but I only play Single Player for now.
So I downloaded 1.9 via the link previously given in the thread (straight from SWAT Portal downloads section).

As long as I prevent the patching process, I can play in Single Player just fine.
Only after it patches (and I go into Freelancer, then exit) does it cause issues.

Once I let the game patch itself, I do what the instructions said with going into the game and then exiting out.
It only works fine ONCE, but after that it refuses to work at all after that first time and will just give me an error if I try to run it again.

There's nothing in the error log that shows up. Just says
'CFLauncher has stopped working'
'A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program'

Then the green arrow with 'Close the program'. No details, nada.

So my testing has shown that something in the last update (the difference between what is in the downloads section on SWAT Portal and the most 'updated' version) is what has been causing the issues.
Is there a manual patch available for those of us who keep having issues with the launcher's auto update?

Or just let me know if I can skip the update since it won't affect Single Player in any way.

EDIT: This isn't a major issue for me. I think I'll just skip whatever updates are downloading and play only Single Player anyways.

I sometimes wish I knew German so that these language issues would be less of an issue.
By 'standard' graphics, I wasn't insulting X:Rebirth in any way.
It is a good thing that X:Rebirth will be able to run on a wide variety of PCs.
The X:R developer has the priority of gameplay and discovery before pure graphics. I like that

I'm hoping CF 2.0 works out well for everyone.

From the depths of the void, I return.
A little birdie informed me of your situation, SWAT_OP.

I'm humbled by your first post wanting past grudges to be left in the past. That is a fantastic step forward.
The entire Freelancer community has done so much and the 10 year anniversary of Freelancer means that we can look forward to a brighter future.
I'm very excited for both the X:Rebirth and of course the darling of crowd funding with Star Citizen. I'm incredibly happy that RSI had the foresight to allow people to donate directly rather than going through KickStarter, thereby avoiding having to pay a ton in KickStarter fees.

I'm very conflicted when it comes to wanting CrossFire 2.0
In the past prior to Star Citizen and X:Rebirth, I'd have supported it wholeheartedly.
But now? X:Rebirth is releasing soon and looks to take some of the best ideas of Freelancer possibility and expand it beyond comparison. Star Citizen seems to be focusing on glitz, glamor, and tons of fancy graphics with moveable parts. A noble endeavor, but incredibly pricey to do all of it. X:Rebirth pretty much has 'standard' graphics that don't require a high-end computer just to get it running. The sheer amount of gameplay is damn mind-boggling.

So I don't say all of this to try to knock CrossFire. Not at all.
I'm just saying that perhaps CrossFire 2.0 can be the last 'content/story' release for the mod, with the rest just being bugfixes and patches.
You're very well aware of the limitations of the engine. I'm sure you're also well aware of how much potential that this community has if you can get a prototype together to KickStarter something unique in a for-profit capacity that is not bound by the IP restrictions or engine-limitations of staying with Freelancer.
After CF 2.0 (if the community here is willing to support you to complete it), then I'd sincerely suggest putting a prototype together for a KickStarter to make your own space game either in the style of Freelancer (controls, story focus) or something different. With the current market being amiable to Space games, perhaps we can see a resurgence of this genre.

You hold the last call. The community here is very dedicated and loyal, but we must look at reality as well.
Most of the people who used to play have long since moved on to other adventures, both in r/l and to other games.
When New Vision mod for Deus Ex was released, that's basically what I've been playing solo.
Alongside that I've dabbled in PSO2 and a few other RPG Maker XP games like Vacant Sky: Contention.

The climate has changed. The winds have shifted.
All great stories must eventually come to an end.
If you do release CrossFire 2.0 with or without the help of the community, then it must be for your own reasons rather than for a need for the community to do X amount of activity.
I'm hoping that I'm not the only one feeling that is is unreasonable in this environment to make such a demand of your community. You can request it. You can request donations. You can request help/assistance. However, actually *demanding* that people play the mod on the MP server may be doing a bit much and actually drive away potential new players.

Let your community know whatever it is that you feel you need. They seem more than happy to help out.
I'm very glad to see that CF has a very strong fire in the hearts of the loyal playerbase here.

If it were up to me, I'd add in some single-player story, do a ton of bugfixes, call the new version 1.9 FINAL and let the mod be played and enjoyed by the community. The new graphics will help. The new stuff will look nice, but by the time it all falls into place...the market will shift to the newly-released games. All that stuff you wanted to do in 2.0 could be redirected towards your own prototype. Basically anything that isn't specific to the Freelancer IP can pretty much be used/reused as needed.

Good luck to all of you. Hope to see this mod still alive and kicking at 2.0 in the near-future

Hello everyone,

I will be going 'offline' and not returning to these forums. The 'reception' I received here has made me realize I don't wish to be a part of the community here.

'Destructible Universe v1.0'
That's the mod I had come here to get, and I was able to find the 1.0 version via the downloads section. Many thanks for hosting the file, SWAT PORTAL.

THIS WAS NOT CREATED BY ME! Full credits are listed in the description when you click the link.

If anyone wishes to contact me please do so via e-mail.
Its darkwraith007 AT hotmail DOT com

-Wraith