(12-02-2014, 10:37 AM)ProwlerPC Wrote: If you ever saw the original system layout that underlays Freelancer you might be surprised at how many systems can be made. All the links are static, however, and only through the use of an flhook or similar software running with the server will provide a way around this static layout.
Certain vanilla connections are mysteriously temperamental if you try and disconnect them... but otherwise, I find there's actually a lot of flexibility. Theoretically speaking, there's no enforced limit to the number of systems possible; I doubt anyone has actually tried to have thousands of systems. I doubt that such a setup would be very stable for a server, though.
big question being what happens if we put one outside of the visible grid
That's an interesting thought, trying to make a system outside of the grid. Back when I worked on systems we still hadn't overcome many issues that would crash the server when you entered the system, including about half the stars. I remember Dab being stuck on putting the JG to Okinawa in Honshu off to the side of the lanes so I assume in .85 we still hadn't overcome some apparent restrictions at the time. If we manage to circumvent these connections easily then it would make exploratory systems more viable and easier to place on the grid. As for entering twilight zone, I am curious now, I can't recall any group ever expanding beyond the center enough to reach the border of the grid as I always assumed it would have to be one system made after the other in a chain to do so. Ive never been motivated to try....till now. "Argh! He be going off the map, me mateys, there be monsters in them waters!"
Actually nothing special happens if you put system coords outside the view grid: at in-game map it'll be placed at nearest visible dot of the grid. However there are few quirks that let you hide the system off the map, and there hasn't been systems just for exploration, so I guess we'll see what happens.
(12-02-2014, 10:37 AM)ProwlerPC Wrote: If you ever saw the original system layout that underlays Freelancer you might be surprised at how many systems can be made. All the links are static, however, and only through the use of an flhook or similar software running with the server will provide a way around this static layout.
Certain vanilla connections are mysteriously temperamental if you try and disconnect them... but otherwise, I find there's actually a lot of flexibility. Theoretically speaking, there's no enforced limit to the number of systems possible; I doubt anyone has actually tried to have thousands of systems. I doubt that such a setup would be very stable for a server, though.
Layout can be handled fractionally, but that screws up some third party mapping programs. Position of a system on the starmap is a floating point value.
And that systems get screwy if you disconnect em is due to the various traderoutes that run between them. You need to delete those. A traderoute with nothing dockable for any of the factions using them at the end of one, will crash the server. Happened a lot back in 4.83...
Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.
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