Hello everybody. I recently dug out freelancer and played through the SP campaign again, and now I am exploring some of the multiplayer stuff and specifically kicking around on the Discovery RP server. So I am new to the mod and the server and have some questions. I don't do a lot of RP, and don't do much MMORPG either although I did play Ultima Online for a few years, and I see a lot of similarities there.
Is it possible to launch the mod without using FLMM? When I try to load the regular shortcut, the servers show as incompatible and are grey, so I can't connect unless I use FLMM to launch the game. I'm running Windows 7 if that matters.
Is there a compatible/legal widescreen mod? I know about the command-line option, but since my shortcuts don't work (see above) I can't use that.
The MP game mechanics are kind of interesting. It seems like everytime I spawn, the game checks the current grid state for persistent objects, and if there are none then it will roll some dice to create spawn. So I am able to farm hostile NPCs by entering and exiting a base, as long as there isn't any other players or patrol traffic then I will probably get more spawn. On the other hand, jumping into a hostile sector with little traffic means I am likely to get met by dice spawn. Is that about right?
Are the grid sectors spherical or cubical? I used to know the answer to that
How prevalent is cheating? The game software isn't maintained by MS anymore obviously and there sure seem to be a lot of cheat messages...
The RP rules are on the honor system? I mean things like the allowed ships and weapons for an IFF, or the actions allowed by an ID... the mod doesn't seem to enforce any of that so I guess it is all voluntary compliance?
I must say that the whole IFF/ID scheme is the most confusing part of the game. At the lower levels the rep can change a lot--enter a new system and you show green to a faction you've never met, which may tip the balance on another faction that you were struggling to be neutral with. I am just waiting for my rep to shift me into another faction and suddenly be running illegal equipment... near as I can tell you can't be neutral and aligned (say a liberty-aligned civilian), but you have to commit to a faction and do a bunch of missions to max out rep, is that about right?
How do you alert an admin about willful violations for enforcement? There have been a couple of times when somebody has used the tradelane bug to trap me in a gate and kill me before I could break free, or has attacked me without warning, so I am just wondering about the enforcement options. Voluntary rules that are not voluntarily followed by everyone... it's like voluntary tax rates.
What happens when players disconnect or bring up the F1 menu? Are they made invulnerable or what? Curious because I was getting a lot of connection drops during NPC combat the other night and never came back to death, so I assume the game makes disco players invulnerable. I also see the server spam about don't press F1 or disco while interacting with other PCs, which seems to confirm this guess. Doing it for disconnects is understandable (wrong choice but understandable) and would make it nice if I could log out wherever I am instead of having to find a space port first, but I would be really surprised if F1 menu makes it happen too.
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?
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.
' Wrote:Is it possible to launch the mod without using FLMM? When I try to load the regular shortcut, the servers show as incompatible and are grey, so I can't connect unless I use FLMM to launch the game. I'm running Windows 7 if that matters.
For me the shortcut does work. (Win XP SP2)
You could try using this launchpad
Quote:Is there a compatible/legal widescreen mod? I know about the command-line option, but since my shortcuts don't work (see above) I can't use that.
Check the launchpad mentioned above. It supportes widescreen.
Quote:The MP game mechanics are kind of interesting. It seems like everytime I spawn, the game checks the current grid state for persistent objects, and if there are none then it will roll some dice to create spawn. So I am able to farm hostile NPCs by entering and exiting a base, as long as there isn't any other players or patrol traffic then I will probably get more spawn. On the other hand, jumping into a hostile sector with little traffic means I am likely to get met by dice spawn. Is that about right?
Phew, I don't know exactly. If you want to have a lot of NPC's, try it at Jumpholes. I always see a lot of them there.
Quote:Are the grid sectors spherical or cubical? I used to know the answer to that
Cubical? Not sure.
Quote:I must say that the whole IFF/ID scheme is the most confusing part of the game. At the lower levels the rep can change a lot--enter a new system and you show green to a faction you've never met, which may tip the balance on another faction that you were struggling to be neutral with. I am just waiting for my rep to shift me into another faction and suddenly be running illegal equipment... near as I can tell you can't be neutral and aligned (say a liberty-aligned civilian), but you have to commit to a faction and do a bunch of missions to max out rep, is that about right?
When you start a new character, the rep will always be the same for each faction you see the first time.
You should play around a bit with the "/restart"s to see what factions there are, and how they are linked to others.
Guard factions will always be hostile for new characters.
Your equipment has no influence on your rep, theoretical. But using unlawful gear as e.g. Navy would be out of role play.
It's nearly impossible to get all factions on neutral with you. So choose wise which you want to have on your side and which not.
If you do a mission of one faction, also other factions, allied with them, will increase.
Same when you shoot e.g. Xenos, most of the lawful factions will increase.
Quote: How do you alert an admin about willful violations for enforcement? There have been a couple of times when somebody has used the tradelane bug to trap me in a gate and kill me before I could break free, or has attacked me without warning, so I am just wondering about the enforcement options. Voluntary rules that are not voluntarily followed by everyone... it's like voluntary tax rates.
The problem is, that you've got that many. =D
What is actually good, that you're asking for. But most of us are quite lazy and would just like to say: "Just read everything in this forum and you'll get your answers."
Quote:What happens when players disconnect or bring up the F1 menu? Are they made invulnerable or what? Curious because I was getting a lot of connection drops during NPC combat the other night and never came back to death, so I assume the game makes disco players invulnerable. I also see the server spam about don't press F1 or disco while interacting with other PCs, which seems to confirm this guess. Doing it for disconnects is understandable (wrong choice but understandable) and would make it nice if I could log out wherever I am instead of having to find a space port first, but I would be really surprised if F1 menu makes it happen too.
F1ing is a rule violation. Do not do it during combat or interaction with others. You might do it when you're alone and no one will see it. Or if you'd asked/warned the people who are around you.
Some people think they would be invulnerable, but they aren't. It's a difference if you're fighting NPC's or players.
When you'll get a disconnect, your ship will go on flying through the space, so weak NPC's won't even hit you. But players will. They should. =D
Well you won't get a battleship killed with a fighter when it cloakes.
Anyway, you should make a screen and report it.
If it should happen accidently, just relog and apologize for disconnecting. I guess there's also a topic where you can say if you just got dc'ed. (Where, what time and in conversation/combat with whom)
Quote: 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?
Right, the cargo will disappear if there wasn't any other player near you. Or your cargo got destroyed by the sun, explosion, mine, or whatever.
But it does work, that you drop cargo at some station, dock, then change immediately to some other char who is docking at the same station and you will be able to pick the cargo with him up. I don't know how long the cargo stays exactly. But if there are always players near the cargo, it'll stay for hours. (See miners mining ore, or pirates killing NPCs at lanes -> floating bats/bots etc.
Quote: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.
Forget about the patrol traffic routes, I'm afraid, that they're not correct. You'll find NPC's nearly everywhere, so you won't actually need this. If you like to find bases with NPC's, just form on them, and maybe they'll bring you to their station/jumphole. I'm not sure, maybe some of these routes are correct at least. But I'd never thought about this.
Why chatting with NPC's when there are enough real players to chat with? =)
Is it possible to launch the mod without using FLMM? When I try to load the regular shortcut, the servers show as incompatible and are grey, so I can't connect unless I use FLMM to launch the game. I'm running Windows 7 if that matters.
i believe some of the FLMM versions will not run the mod properly. i personally am using 1.3 and it works with the mod fine. iirc, some of the more recent FLMM versions don't get along with it.
Is there a compatible/legal widescreen mod? I know about the command-line option, but since my shortcuts don't work (see above) I can't use that.
get a 1.3 FLMM release and use the command line options. there are some other minor bugs in the original dsace, but a fix for that was released. read more here and praise cannon.
The MP game mechanics are kind of interesting. It seems like everytime I spawn, the game checks the current grid state for persistent objects, and if there are none then it will roll some dice to create spawn. So I am able to farm hostile NPCs by entering and exiting a base, as long as there isn't any other players or patrol traffic then I will probably get more spawn. On the other hand, jumping into a hostile sector with little traffic means I am likely to get met by dice spawn. Is that about right?
npc spawn afaik depends on current server population, most npc spawn at low-player activity and vice versa. im not sure how the mechanics of this are handled, so ill let the people with more insight answer this one.
Are the grid sectors spherical or cubical? I used to know the answer to that
i assume you mean the system map. if so, they are squares;)
How prevalent is cheating? The game software isn't maintained by MS anymore obviously and there sure seem to be a lot of cheat messages...
discovery uses a flhook anti-cheat thingy. most of the time the cheat messages and kicks are caused by lags, however. for example if you enter cruise and experience a lag-spike, the server thinks you are cheating due to moving too fast. stuff like that happens. i suggest you dont use any mods that affect actual gameplay in another way than visuals. if you wish to, i suggest you ask on the forum or check here
The RP rules are on the honor system? I mean things like the allowed ships and weapons for an IFF, or the actions allowed by an ID... the mod doesn't seem to enforce any of that so I guess it is all voluntary compliance?
the mod / server itself will not limit you in doing these things, but i suggest you follow the guidelines on the ID cards. not doing so will probably result in some form of sanction after a player takes evidence of such actions and reports them - from equipment / credits change up to jailing ( there is a special system here for that ) and bans.
I must say that the whole IFF/ID scheme is the most confusing part of the game. At the lower levels the rep can change a lot--enter a new system and you show green to a faction you've never met, which may tip the balance on another faction that you were struggling to be neutral with. I am just waiting for my rep to shift me into another faction and suddenly be running illegal equipment... near as I can tell you can't be neutral and aligned (say a liberty-aligned civilian), but you have to commit to a faction and do a bunch of missions to max out rep, is that about right?
you start with a pre-set reputation sheet. the fact that you never met a faction ship does not mean that you will not be hostile/friendly to them. you will just have to work on making the repsheet fit your roleplay. usually when you gain an affiliation ( faction on full rep will flash yellow on the bottom of your repsheet, usually ) and dont do anything particularly hostile towards that faction, the rep stays. if you wish to NOT have it, use the /droprep command which will lower your reputation with the faction you have most positive reputation with.
alternatively, there is a way to acquire the Freelancer IFF, which has essentially no reputation links to other factions except zoners, and even that one is very dim.
[/b]How do you alert an admin about willful violations for enforcement? There have been a couple of times when somebody has used the tradelane bug to trap me in a gate and kill me before I could break free, or has attacked me without warning, so I am just wondering about the enforcement options. Voluntary rules that are not voluntarily followed by everyone... it's like voluntary tax rates.[/b]
server rules can be found here i suggest you read through them a few times and get to know them at least briefly. not by paragraph numbers, but you should be familiar with the content. reports of people braking the rules are made here i suggest you read a few thread in the Player Sanctions subforum to see what people like and what they dont. but don't overdo it - use common sense. that worked for me so far.
What happens when players disconnect or bring up the F1 menu? Are they made invulnerable or what? Curious because I was getting a lot of connection drops during NPC combat the other night and never came back to death, so I assume the game makes disco players invulnerable. I also see the server spam about don't press F1 or disco while interacting with other PCs, which seems to confirm this guess. Doing it for disconnects is understandable (wrong choice but understandable) and would make it nice if I could log out wherever I am instead of having to find a space port first, but I would be really surprised if F1 menu makes it happen too.
no, you will not be made invulnerable. in single player, the f1 screen paused the game. since this is a real-time multiplayer game, nothing besides your ability to control your ship changes. the 'Do not F1 out of an interaction' is a bit different. here, F1 refers to disconnecting from the server.
about the other thing, you can log out wherever you are, but i suggest you dont do it while you have other PLAYERS (human) on scanners. that could probably be misunderstood for an attempt to escape. you will stay in space one minute after you log out using f1, so it's not really worth it.
as for logging out in space and logging back afterwards, there's no problem with that. people do it all the time and no rule is covering it unless you are interacting with other players. you just might appear a bit off course after you log back in, since your ship will 'drift' through space. you will appear in the same system where you logged out, usually a few dozen clicks away from your original position.
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's a short timer. im not sure about the exact numbers, however. it's definitely not staying there forever, BUT neither does it disappear immediately after you move 2.4 K away.
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.
afaik the maps created by discovery do not contain patrol paths because they are mostly useless. as for dialogues with npcs in bars, that is because some stations are simply just copies of others with some data edited. blame human laziness. people mod the game for free and they have a life to live. give them a break;)
' Wrote: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.
' Wrote: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).
' Wrote: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.
Thanks for the info. Some more info/followup below
I'm using FLMM 1.31 and it works fine. I am also able to use the launcher. What does not work is running the game directly. The game starts okay but the 4.85 version number of the servers is red and the servers are greyed out. There are a couple of possible explanations--one is that the launchers are passing additional (necessary) parameters, another possibility has to do with the way Vista and Win7 prohibit some types of shared memory overwrites (but that doesn't explain why the launchers still work). Curious about why it doesn't work
Widescreen support works with the launcher, so I will use that instead of FLMM
The whole persistent versus dice thing... go to a hostile sector and dock. Now hop out and see if there is spawn, then quckly dock and undock again, and the spawn that was there 5 seconds earlier will be gone or will be replaced by new spawn. That is dynamic spawn, and is not persistent. HOWEVER if some other player is nearby then the server does not create and delete random spawn like this (also seems to be affected by NPC patrol traffic). So basically the game creates dynamic spawn if you are the only persistent mobile around. This is my observation based on limited game time so may be wrong, but near as I can tell it is accurate. It also seems to affect a bunch of other things (eg, cargo time--let yourself get killled and immediately respawn and exit the base, your cargo will be gone along with the dynamic spawn).
Some of the custom maps have accurate patrol routes in the nav screen (EG, Newcastle). I had assumed that these were generated automatically when the patrol routes were laid out but maybe it is an extra step. Anyway I like having them so consider it a request for whoever to review the maps
If you know a fair bit about coding or whatnot, the server could always use more FLHook devs, if you're interested in learning it.
EDIT: Also, the tradelane bug you're referring to is not really a bug, but an intended effect for queueing npc's along with players.
Using it is not sanctionable.
gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|
My problem with calling the shortcut directly is that it was still pointing to a No-CD exe that I was using with the SP game. Once I called the real freelancer exe directly then the mod works fine
![[Image: smuggler-threat-0-1.jpg]](http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x57/UrsusMorologus/Freelancer%20Discovery/smuggler-threat-0-1.jpg)
![[Image: Narcotic.gif]](http://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Narcotic.gif)
![[Image: tumblr_lyvivmGP711qk8923.gif]](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyvivmGP711qk8923.gif)