Posts by Aldebaran28

I have just retired from Freeworlds and Freelancer Mod Development, but had full plans to implement it into the forth coming Freeworlds mod. I am ensuring that this passed onto the correct people in Freeworlds development for Freeworlds 1.66 shall need it thanks Louva.

It is a pipedream though. The trouble with ´mega´ mods is that you can only take things so far. Different mods have different physics, different ideas, different balancing, etc.... combining it all into one mod would be an undertaking that would require more than people might realise. Whose way of ship balancing would you use? Whose commodity formula would you use? The other thing to remember is that mod makes are a proud bunch of people and prefer working with their teams. Mod team leaders would find it hard to work under someone elses direction, even though they are more than capable of exchanging and running ideas past one another. And don´t forget the saying.... too many cooks spoil the broth. If you have too many of the developers working on one project, arguements would ensue into the direction to take it and the mod would most likely end up as such a mish mash of stuff, that instead of being a clear and consistant mod, you would end up with a horrible juxoposition than just didn´t click together correctly.

I can´t answer for the entire Freelancer community this, but I can give answers at least from a perspective of Freeworlds: 1 Judging by the Freeworlds Community alone, our player base is probably close to stagnating. We lose some, we gain some. There is continually new people getting involved as older vets step out. What is always nice though is that quite often, older names and vets spring up from time to time and return. That said, I also know Freeworlds is starting to bloosom in non-English communities as well, and there is a growing community with specific French and German speaking Servers for Freeworlds, even if the English speaking (which is still a combination of many different countries, not specifically countries where English is the primary language like the UK and the States) is at a more stagnant level with the numbers of players. For Freelancer as a whole, I have heard from some on these forums a grumble that their communities are shrinking and that they are finding it harder and harder to maintain numbers. Maybe Freeworlds is an exception to the rule, though I suspect other big mods like TNG and Evo also have simalar sorts of draw and larger resources to pull from. However, we still see posts on Lancers Reactor from people saying, ´Hi, I´m new...´ and then go onto ask all manner of questions from how to mod, to how to use mods, or how to access internet servers because they have never done it before, which suggests there is still fresh interrest in Freelancer and it´s modding community even now, several years after it´s release. 2 I know of three mods currently under development, though obviousily there is far more out there. These two being the new Freeworlds 1.66 (Star Wars based TC - evolution of the Freeworlds series, completition expected within the next month or two), FL: Combat Evolved (Halo based TC - alpha has just been released) and Tides of War (another, new Star Wars TC approaching, or is, in it´s Beta Stages). 3 I imagine you mean in reference to newer, more up and coming mods in relation to their struggle to get noticed in the presence of the vets. I will admit, it must be difficult for any new mod to get any exposure in face of the larger vets. The trouble is, players want mods which give them more than others, and the veteran Mods have been slowly expanding with each new version, so naturally, most of the big mods, like Evo, TNG, Freeworlds, Tie-Universe etc.... are going to offer more than say some new mod that has just been released, has maybe two new star systems and half a dozen ships. If I were a Server Admin, I would want to run a mod that is popular, and in honesty, those that have had the experience of time to get balances correct, bugs worked out, and quality content added are the mods people are going to gravitate towards. In light of this though, as difficult as it maybe, it doesn´t mean that it is impossible for new mods to get recognised. Both the Tides of War Mod and FL: Combat Evolved mods I mentioned above are gaining a good fan base already and plenty of interrest, yet in terms of the mod age, these two are still relative new comers to the whole mod scene in comparrison to the vets. It is all about having a good and original idea that others will like and having a team of people who are willing to see it through and getting it produced. Even though Tides of War for example, is another Star Wars mod, for example, they have chosen to take a different tact to that of other Star Wars mods like Freeworlds and Tie-Universe, in that they are basing the entire mod around one particular period in Star Wars history (the Rebellion Era). This has drawn some people to it who are interrested in roleplaying pilots in that era of star wars history where as Freeworlds and Tie-Universe are more liberal with their timeline basis. Indeed, this idea has grown so popular, that recently Tides of War started a side project in development beside the main mod called Tide of War: Clone Wars, which converts the mod to the Clone Wars era, to allow people to roleplay as well in that era instead if they so choose. It is possible for newer mods to get noticed still, but it needs determination and good ideas to keep it going, in much the same way the vets emerged from the sea of small mods that were produced in the first year of Mod Development for Freelancer. I hope some of that is helpful. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

*sigh* it has been mentioned umpteen times on this site now across various threads and the front page. Main sites to try include: http://www.freeworlds.org - USA 24/7 Server (however, their server is not functional at the moment) http://rp.kurbaga.com - RP 24/7 Server, where most people play. This address may change though in the next few days as the server and forum are changing hosts shortly. http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/?mforum=fwt - Development Forum for the Developers and Testers of the new version of the mod (1.66). Non-Developers and Testers can see some of the latest news and images from the new mod here. EDIT: Oh, and I am not aware of any servers still running 1.64 at the moment. Most are running 1.65 or 1.65 with the 16.60 patch. Within the next month or two, I suspect most will switch over to 1.66 when it is finished and released. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´ Edited by - Aldebaran28 on 10/6/2005 9:26:43 AM

As Chips asked, have you read the sticky? Or even read what Chips originally said? No one will take much notice and offer to help unless they see first what they are dealing with. Post some pictures of your work so far, using somewhere like imageshack to host them and then click forum codes when you make your next post for the code to post images in thread (don´t make your pics too big or too small though - too big will just take ages to load and too small means people won´t be able to see them properly). If you are not willing to do that, why should people be willing to help you out? Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

Thats essentially it. Most modded servers have the name in their title and most also change the version number, so you can´t access the server anyway without the mod installed (as the mod changes the version number on both your side (client side) and the Server Side). You will not be able to connect to servers which have a different version number to the game you are playing. Standard Freelancer is v1.0, while mods can have a number of wildly different version numbers. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

An internet connection. At least at 56k, but you will be laggy, so a much faster (broadband speed) would probably go down better. And thats it for playing standard Freelancer online. If you want play on some of the modded servers however (and there is quite a few out there), you will also need a copy of Freelancer Mod Manager (FLMM) which can be downloaded from this site, plus which ever mods you wish to play (again, most mods are available from this site and there is a large selection to choose from. Some of the most popular include Total War, Evo, Next Gen and Freeworlds). Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

The Dreadnaught can dock at special dreadnaught docking rings at Kuat, Coruscant and Bastion (situated behind the planets). We have changed this for 1.66 however, so that several stations have capital ship docking moors and planets have skyhooks where capital ships can dock at (especially considering that there is ~50 capital ships in 1.66, including the star destroyer and several varients of the mon cal destroyers). As to the type of background you are asking, try searching this site here for something called the Freeworlds 1.65 visual enhancement patch. I believe you will find this will produce the effect you are after with the 1.65 version <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> (I released it about a month ago). We have already included this in 1.66 as an option upon mod loading and the tests have shown it to be working fine. For other news of Freeworlds developments, check out the Freeworlds Development Teams forums at: <A href=´http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/?mforum=fwt´ Target=_Blank>http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/?mforum=fwt</a> EDIT: The Visual Enhancement Patch can be found here: <A href=´http://www.lancersreactor.org/t/news/comment.asp?ID=3234&amp;category=Freelancer´ Target=_Blank>http://www.lancersreactor.org/…4&amp;category=Freelancer</a> Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´ Edited by - Aldebaran28 on 9/28/2005 11:19:10 AM

I am as much in the dark over who has done this as anyone else. One of my mod team found on the net a Freeworlds 1.66 mod for download (which is quite strange in itself, as even the test mods are not called Freeworlds 1.66 and the mod is unrealised to the public as yet) and realised it´s potential danger. I am not sure what type of file it is, but it is apparantly 150meg and contains a bat file that goes through and deletes several important windows files. This leaves me to believe that is someone who has at least read a topic here in Lancers Reactor a while ago. Why? Because in one topic I mentioned I was looking for a self-extracting exe type file for Freeworlds instead of the normal FLMod zip file (for certain reasons clear in that thread), and that it´s approximate finished size at that time was guess would of 150meg (it will be very different in size to that with the continued development). And now this has turned up with the same characteristics but with the potential to harm peoples PC´s. That is the only time that that estimate was given. Coincidence? However, all I can say is hopefully we caught this in time to limit as much damage from this potential abuse. At several main freeworlds sites and also here we have made it clear that when Freeworlds 1.66 is finally released, that you should only download it from an authorised source. To repeat what is in the news, these sites include: Lancers Reactor, the Freeworlds Development Forums, the Freeworlds RP Server Forum and the Freeworlds-FR Server Forum. People should not download the mod from any other location when it is released. I find it very sad that some twisted individual has developed this, especially after all the hard work and sacrifice (and I really do mean sacrifice, you guys have no idea), that has gone into making Freeworlds 1.66. But what is probably even sadder is that this individual who has done it is probably thinking they are big and clever in doing so and laughing at the amount of trouble they have caused so far with it. I pity such a person. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´ Edited by - Aldebaran28 on 9/26/2005 6:44:58 PM

Another option is to learn how to type on an old Davorak style keyboard (it´s a different key layout). That´d confuse them. Many moons ago, when I was a young lad and the idea of a megabyte of ram was a glint in the milkmans eye, I remember learning to type on a Davorak and it turned out I was quicker on a Davorak than a Qwerty. What made it all the more harder to learn though was that my actual keyboard was a Qwerty, so I had to memorise from diagrams where all the keys were. Confusing. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

I´ve had this same problem in the past with several CMP´s and I have never got it to work either. I don´t suppose there is any way to change the LOD setup in the CMP file using either of the UTF style programs is there (i.e. reference a normal LOD setup and there LOD setup and see whats different and then convert their LOD setup to something more ´normal´). Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

BlackHole, I too have seen some of the information regarding the moon landing conspiracies. Some of it is rather compelling as evidence to be honest. All I would say is do some research first into them and then make your mind up before you shoot your mouth off. For myself, I am a hung jury on whether the original moon landers truely happened or not. And before you continue to blather on about ´facts´, a lot of the moon landing conspiracies are based on the facts of science itself, not the facts of what we are told and shown. Interresting video though, and certainly a good concept. It certainly makes sense to combine the original apollo technology with more modern technology when building a new moon landing vehicle, however: 1 I feel that they should consider the splash down option used by the original apollo´s rather than the land based landing shown in the video. Sea based splash downs, despite the danger of a sinking landing module, seems to me still to be the safe option over a land based landing for such a re-entry capsule. 2 I think NASA are being optimistic with fitting four men in space suits into the moon landing module of the scale shown in the video. It seems more to the correct scale for a two man operation (with a third man acting as support) like the original Apollo Vehicles. 3 Two alternative approaches for a launch mechanism are shown. Maybe it is me, but method two seems to be a bit too long and narrow to be completely safe for a launch vehicle. There is very little to provide stabilisation on that model during launch. Option one seems more interresting, with reusable launch rockets, simalar to what is currently used on the shuttle program, and also appears to be more aerodynamically stable. 4 It saddens me to see such rockets still being used by NASA as primary launch vehicles in future designs. They burn Waaaayyyy too much fuel, and to be honest, are incredibly cost inefficient. There are alternatives, which would not only be more effective, but also cheaper, if only research was finished on them. 5 NASA should really be looking for cross national co-operation on such projects. The international space station has shown this is possible (with the American, European, Russian and Japanese space agencies working together on it), albeit that it has also highlighted the difficulties too with co-operation between multiple agencies (namely that it one agency encounters difficulty, they can delay all the other agencies parts in the project. Ironically, NASA is the main culprit in delays with the International Space Station). Now we know what the pit falls are, it should be easier for future co-operation projects to work around them for a greater final output of goals. Returning to the moon is a good idea. People have mentioned research etc.... but has anyone else also considered that that a permenant moon base will actually be able to make some things cheaper here on Earth? Or what resources can be aquired from the Moon? Satelites for Earth, for example, would be cheaper to be built and launched from the Moon than from Earth. Why? Because Moon launches require a very tiny fraction of the fuel and material cost that an Earth launch does (thanks to the moons lack of an atmosphere (launches do not need to fight atmospheric friction) and the lower Luna gravity (~1/4 Earth Gravity)). Yes, they would have further to travel to get into position, but in space, as most people should know, you just need an initial impulse to get an object moving, or stopped, which means the in space cost will probably be around the same as it is for an Earth launched satelite. In fact, it will probably be cheaper, as it will be far more easier to get the satelite into the correct position first time with a Luna launch. Good idea, but NASA but does need to really think hard about how they are going to achieve it. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

Freeworlds is far from dead. The singleplayer 1.66 will be out when 1.66 Multi-Player comes out (it is built into the new 1.66 mod). The 1.66 mod will be out when it is out and not a day sooner (i.e. it will be out when we finish it. We have finished development, but we are going through the process of balancing 300 odd ships, 250 odd commodities and finding all those bugs that need to be eliminated before release). Those links you have provided are the old Freeworlds sites that have not been used for a long long long time. Current links to Freeworlds sites include: Freeworlds Development Team Forum (the forum responsible for Freeworlds 1.66 Developer, includes images from the new mod being worked on): <A href=´http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/?mforum=fwt´ Target=_Blank>http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/?mforum=fwt</a> Freeworlds RP Server (the most popular Freeworlds Server - requires a patch that can be downloaded from the site itself): <A href=´http://rp.kurbaga.com/´ Target=_Blank>http://rp.kurbaga.com/</a> Freeworlds USA 24/7 Server: <A href=´http://www.freeworlds.org´ Target=_Blank>http://www.freeworlds.org</a> As to Boba Fett in the Nexus Bar, you must have a problem with your copy of the mod, because he works fine as far as I know in most people´s versions of 1.65. The Quad Laser Sound issue is also solved at the RP Server site if you check the posts in the Suggestions and Help Section. Hope that is all some help to you. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

The Ashes in the Urn are the ashes of the first set of wickets used in the first international game between Australia and England. Hence why England and Australia play every year to win those very same ashes that are stored in the Urn.

Yep, the ´Poms´ have finally won the ashes back. A very good game played by all, I have never so much into Cricket as I have this week, it has been fantastic to watch and see our boys pull it off. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

If you are into the Star Wars series of games, then some mods you might want to try are Freeworlds, Tie-Universe or Tides of War. My personal faverite, for obvious reasons, is Freeworlds. The 1.65 version is still available for download from this site, but is coming upto a year old. 1.66 is something else though completely, though we haven´t quite finished on the development side, we are not far off now. You can see some screenies of Freeworlds 1.66 during testing in the Mod Art and Freeworlds News section at the Freeworlds Development site: <A href=´http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=fwt´ Target=_Blank>http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=fwt</a> Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

Erm.... didn´t Trent and Juni flee Liberty via a forgotton jump gate in the badlands near Icarus Station rather than the normal Jump Gates? My memories not so great though, it´s been a veeerrryyyy long time since I last played vanilla Freelancer. Freeworlds Mod Developer Author of Modular Station ´There is no Good nor Evil in the universe, just perceptions and circumstances.´

We are working on this for Freeworlds 1.66. The model is in production and will be included in the Mandalore Star System upon release of 1.66 along with the G-Wing which we have built already (the shuttle craft you use in KoToR to transfer from the Mandalorian Camp on Dxun to Iziz on Oderon). You can see some high definition renders of the upcoming Freeworlds ship models, including several from KoToR and KoToR II at the following link: <A href=´http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=268&amp;mforum=fwt´ Target=_Blank>http://www.phpbber.com/phpbb/v….php?t=268&amp;mforum=fwt</a> Edited by - Aldebaran28 on 8/30/2005 5:41:20 AM

Sorry, I never heard of Frost Works, I only know FW = Freeworlds. Bit of confusion there lol.

Yeah, but the problem we have is that as much as I try to drum it into the heads of the NR pilots that firing missiles around the WaveFront (one of their own bases) may not be the best idea nor delibrately trying to set it off by directly firing at it and getting the skies raked with 32 Turbo Laser cannons (which always makes an interresting situation to fight in as you have the dodge the other players and the wavefronts huge laser blasts), they still do it. Also, we have bribes at the nexus to set their factions up to begin with, but there is a number of players who have cottoned on to the fact that the Smuggler bribe will make them neutral to all and take that instead of their own bribe. We don´t want to take the smuggler bribe out because it is needed for the Smugglers, but we need to find a way to stop others from taking the wrong bribe and keeping them inline with their faction. It´s just ideas, thats all at the moment.