Apparently I misstepped here. I guess folks don't ask this question w/o getting flamed up the Yin Yang. All I'm really asking is a basic 4-6 step plan so that I can start teaching myself. I still think there should be a sticky comprising this that is pinned at the very top so that idiots like me won't have to make themselves so obvious.

Well.... we do get an awful lot of people asking redundant questions. Maybe I'll write a "Newbie FAQ" so people will have a slightly easier time getting into the swing of things. To answer your question though, you may just have to wing it for a while. My best advice is to continue looking around and to down two things: Download FLMM (FreeLancer Mod Manager) and several mod files for it (many posted on the stickied FLMM thread and some included with it, including three I made ) Second, download the *.ini file decompressor. There's one called BINI, but there's also one called "BiniQDU" which automatically uses BINI in a nice neat package. Get that one. Start looking through the ini files located in the "Freelancer\DATA folder on your hard drive. You'll notice a lot of values that you won't recognize and some you can just figure out from the names. This is not a complex game, at least not at that level. Once you become a little bit comfortable looking through *.ini's then try looking at a few tutorials concerning modifying ship statistics. FYI, the cmp that you were asking about is a file pertaining to the wireframe and hardpoint data for ship hulls. 3db, ini, cmp, and dll are the most prevalent and important file endings. The ending "*.flmod" is a custom ending created for the FLMM (see above) that automatically installs the mod contents of the file to the FLMM directory so you can use it. That's about it, I'll see if I can figure out a decent way to write a small FAQ.

KEEP TRYING!!