From what I've seen, most people that come to play here love Freelancer and enjoy the game in general. The problem comes with negative encounters within the playerbase and forced changes that usually drive people away after being left with a feeling of 'why bother even try'.
The game could be popular enough to keep people online again, it just needs some serious development of the mod. As in, set aside stats and changes to star systems, to put some time into developing how the mod is played in general. We could be playing a much more in depth game, a far more open ended version of the mod completely. We're fine on ships, weapons, etc. for a while. Come up with some new things to do! What we need to be able to do, is all that has so far been prohibited.
Without a system to ensure cyclical activity, meaning there can always be goals to work on as groups, there will always be a ceiling for activity here. New players won't notice it until after the 6 month mark, maybe make it to a year. After that, there is one elephant in the room problem: There is not that much to do with all those ships you earn and prepare. Nothing keeps it going, nothing drives consumption and therefore activity. Without that, you can't just log on anymore and find encounters, since no one logs as much in the first place, as there is not that much point. I can't believe how factions can still function at all. I've seen it over and over, yeah it still happens one gets big and built up. Then they hit the ceiling and (like IMG, the Core) it fades away with little to do with your space fleets and reinforced bases. What a waste!
People frown on pixel empires and making the place more like Eve, but still don't have any better solution to put forth themselves. When I say that, opening things up might, at best, double our current population, it's unlikely this place will get that big like Eve. But we could open up the possibilities and take the population boom, regardless of any potential drawbacks. Many have repeatedly said that letting player driven outcomes set changes here would be disastrous, but how can it get any worse than a steady loss of interest? It was never true.
Organization is the key, I say let whatever factions can succeed, build their pixel empires, and use a common system to keep it fair. I guarantee, I'd bet my life, if this place adopted a system that uncaps faction level moves (within a framework of options) we will go back to higher levels of activity on average, and never be shy of community involving events (that also propel story in small ways). Allow that, and factions will be fine again in a couple of months. A lot of people can play here still, they just need to see real change to draw them back.
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