Well, you can still have the cruise engine for use with the "go to" or "dock" commands, but you would do away with it for free flight use. If you fear you're going too fast, simply turn off the hyperdrive for a moment to slow down and regain control. I do this frequently in asteroid fields. I speed up to ~800 and then slow down for a brief second to adjust my angle and avoid any coming asteroids. Doing so, I probably average a speed of 600 through asteroid fields.

Thought it would be fun when you go "Yeeeeeeeee-ha!!"

Unless someone plants a bomb on your ship, and it was set to explode if you slow down to 300

Here is an old concept. What about adding engine maintenance. In the old days you had jump engines and the feul load and engines detrmined your jump distance. Constant use of unrfeined feul would cause Misjumps. Unless you bought an engine that could handle unrefined feul.

umm.. i think you need to expand a little on that like what about refined how much would it cost?

how much could u carry?

does it take up cargo space?

and also are u talking about the warp drive that mike i think is trying to figure out how to do

if your not wasted the day is

if mike does add feul and that fun stuff it might u might want to maybe make designated hardpoints on the ship for feul tanks and u can buy dif sizes and maybe even add a something like nanobots to make quick fixes just on the engine so u can make it to were u want to go without stoping

if your not wasted the day is

Any plans to play with maneuverability a bit? It'd be great to have LF's that are actually more maneuverable than HFs and VHFs and HF's quicker than VHF's(currently this is only the case with the patriot and drake from memory) to give people reasons to use these ships...

Fuel? Aaarggghh! But i wanna fly ... forever .. and ever .. and ever .. until I die of old age without a refueling. Do you have any idea how expensive the weapons would be in the next version? I cannot even afford decent ammo for missiles until I get a million bucks!

Well instead of adding inflation and causing the Prices to jump up to counter too much cargo space, add a NEW cost. Fuel to use. Make it like a perishable item that disengages the engine if it is not in the hold. Now you have to buy H-feul everywhere. It's not necessarily a commodity any more. takes no space (ie your feul tank)and larger ships carry more or maybe use more. Thruster use causes it to go down faster. you could buy larger feul tanks as upgrades(that take cargo space). People might be using engine kill more often. especially if it meant Fuel didnt go away when the engines were off. Hyperspace burns it twice as fast but not Trade lanes.(well you do have two engines)

You could top off in a nebula Very Slowly, or you gould risk dying by surfiing the sun's corona.(you used to do Gas Giants in Frontier and elite)For free fuel.

Hmm maybe there are two types one for transport as a commodity, and one for use in craft.

There would need to be a recovery system in place, if that were the case. Otherwise, a player who runs out of fuel could wind up very, very bored. Imagine if you were stuck out in the middle of nowhere, with no fuel to get to a base. There isn't even a self-destruct option.

Hey, I have been reading these mod forums and checking out mods since freelancer came out. I have just a few things to say. The rebalance mod is the only thing keeping my interest in the game. It stinkin rocks.

Another thing, about the big ships having docking problems. A long time ago(not sure how long), there was a battleship mod, that featured mooring capabilites. The mooring actually worked. The ship would moor like the rest of the capital ships. The dialog was even correct, saying "Ship whatever you are clear to dock on moor #". And, NO, I don't remember who did it, but i did find it on these forums.

I agree with the prices going up = bad. Fuel is a perfect way to make costs go up. Long trade routes take lots of gas, requiring many stops. And fighters on missions are always close to bases so no fear of running out. Only problem is what happens if you run out of fuel. Having to resart you guy because he's stuck in space would suck. On the other hand, you could make it so that once you run out of fuel, you simply get hull damage, similar to radiation damage. This would allow you to get gas when you run out, and help motivate people not to run out. You could also make fuel drop as loot, to help you last through those extra long dogfights.

I also think that fighters really should not be able to make any money off of trading. The best fighters should have virtually no room for cargo, just enough to carry all the equipment they need. And the best frieghtors would be worthless in any fighting. This would also provide a need for teamwork and motivation to raid convoys in groups. There is no point attacking a transport if you can only hold like 20 cargo. But say you have a transport with you. This would provide the multiplayer experiance that people want, but also allow for you to get a crazy fighter or freightor and chance it going solo.

I think you have done an amazing job with the mod so far, and all my ideas are just suggestions. Being that i just play and don't do any of the real work.

oh and on a side note, READ THE README, THAT IS WHAT IT IS FOR. I am tired of reading questions about where to get something that is tolled in the readme. Those readme's can be very helpful. SO READ THE README BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS!!!!!!!

Winston, very nice ideas, first YES the missiles can be made and will take cargo spaces in future versions(not 1.6b since is already sent). lets say in fact 5 cargo units per 50 missiles(0.1 per missile), so for a full load 10 cargo space will be required...this is an excelent balance issue now...how many missiles should i take? 50 - means 5 cargo occupied or 100 and have 10 cargo space ocupied therefore not being able to get loot. also for torpedoes the space occpied will be 1 cargo per ammo unit, so for 20 torps u'll need 20 cargo space, this will really make HF and VHF's have a reall need for extra cargo space.
yet another reason for a big cargo space, for freighters and gunboats, will be that intend to make commodities take different cargo, for example construction machinery and engine components will take the most space, 5 cargo space per unit, then H-fuel, Sivler, gold, niobium will tale 2 and smaller one like (s)crap metal , water, oxygen will take half or even 1/4 cargo space. So mostly freighters and large transports will be adequate to carry big volume cargos, while fighters and smaller ships will carry low volume but high VALUE items.
Btw, i WILL give Griskard credit as I always do when somebody deserves it, since he implement this first, even if i had the idea too for quite some time.
About the fuel idea, its nice but quite hard to implement since i don;t know if a connection can be made between the engine kill and the lack of H-fuel from the cargo hold...maybe hard code will be required and that;s not for us to do.
but maybe...i can link the H-fuel commodity to CRUISE, so when u'r be out of it, u'll no longer be able to use the cruise facility...this is easier to make, and more realistic since an engines should consume much more fuel during an overboost like the cruise mode really is. this is true for modern day jet-engines as will.
DavidY, i already played with the maneuvrability of the newly added ships, making most of the HF and VHF's less maenuvrable than the LF class. i know that some more tuning is required here, but since last days i was quite bust i did'nt do any in 1.6b
also got a very interesting sugestion on mail from Henk heuris, it was not the only one but ctached my eye and imagination as well:
"Online, clans are forming everywhere, and they have nowhere to call “Home” if you know what I mean. I have an idea that I read on one of the freelancer forums that might make for interesting gameplay.

What if a clan could construct a base, and store their excess money and weapons on this base. This might be a battleship or proper base. This base must be able to be destroyed by other clans, or npc’s that are enemies with the specific clan. The base should obviously cost a bloody fortune, and should be able to have an incredible amount of shields and hull, and should have a lot of BIG, EXPENSIVE guns. The base can be either AI controlled so that the computer shoots automatically when someone shoots at it, or are enemies with it, of you could make it that the base is not stationary, and is being controlled by a player from that clan.
The player must be able to send out a fleet of star fighters when the base is being attacked. And the star fighters must be AI controlled."
As u see this could be a long term project and could bring FL into space strategy area as well, but...tell me what u think, i know i like the idea.
until soon, see you all arround, keep you'r wings of imagination up and keep bringing those ideas.... thnx to all, i think a litlle modding comunity is developing inside my mod's thread, and that's not bad at all.
Michael.

I found the mod with working mooring, it is "Wanderer's Liberty Dreadnaught mod (with mooring, and beam and missile turrets)" (19kb). Found on the FLMM forum.

great idea Mike i would love to have that have different bases that u can build and stuff also hire people to build it or buy an existing one u would include fighters to protect the base and u could even buy more to protect it

winston thats a good idea bout not jaking up the prices and having to be able to buy feul also external feul tanks? hardpoints just for them and what about ships that go fly around and u can buy feul from them somehow the eisiest way would be to have the ship drop it and u tractor beam it abourd

if your not wasted the day is

When you add the ideas for building bases and the fueling idea together, this starts to sound like Darkspace. I've already requested the addition of Engineering and Supply ships in the "new ship ideas" thread.