a few questions

[Echo 7-7]

What happens when players disconnect or bring up the F1 menu? Are they made invulnerable or what?

You are not made invulnerable. That message is instructing players not to switch characters, log off, or otherwise disconnect from the server during player interaction in space. Pressing F1, unlike during Single Player, in no way pauses gameplay.

When I get killed and my cargo goes floating off, how long does it stay around? It almost seems like it is treated the same as spawn--if there are persistent mobiles (such as players or patrol NPCs) then the cargo stays around for a while but if die to generated spawn then the cargo disappears at the same time they do,
which is immediately. Or is it just on a really short timer?

It is a short timer, regardless of who/what killed you. However, if there are players within scanner range of the cargo, the cargo will not disappear (until no more players are in range, and the timer runs out).

FIY for whoever, some of the discovery maps don't show the patrol traffic routes in the nav screen, while some of the others do. Dunno if this is a bug or a design feature. I like to use the patrol routes to find things like bases and jump holes and it sucks when they don't show. Also some of the maps have NPC chat that is copied from some other sector that is completely non-sensical--omicron bartender talking about prisons in the Texas station like they are in the same place.

These are not bugs, per se. They are areas which are either not finished, forgotten about, or ignored. You will notice this only occuring in non-vanilla stations and systems. NPC patrol routes weren't drawn up; and the reason you see NPCs in odd places is because many bases are copy-pasted templates from existing bases, with certain elements changed; and therefore some NPCs came along with the base unintentionally.


Edit: Ninja'd.

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There was a sig here, once.