I believe there's a thread floating around someplace where somebody spelled out which things are server-side and which things are client-side. I don't remember where it's at, but I can tell you that any new ships you add will require clients to have the ships too. At least, that's been my experience. I just tried the nomad fighter mod that comes with FLMM, and if the client tries to buy the ship the nomad fighter replaced, he gets booted.

I have become one with my computer. It is a feeling of ecstasy...the perfect blend of logic and emotion. I have reached...Nerdvana!

I did a similar thing with Broken Oath, the whole thing was just an exercise in what was possible. That ones a server side mod, you might want to give it a go.
Basically, you can change the population of zones, add new ones or add new patrols. But you can't move around either nebulas or asteroid fields.
You can add encounters and create custom ones with unique ship classes (all of the details of what is spawned where is controlled by the server).
You can add entries in Faction_prop.ini and npcships, again because its run by the server.
You can add capital ships to systems by following through Nephilim's very handy tutorial. As long as the ships are already from the vanilla game, its all ok.
What you can't do is change the market side of things. If you were to add ships to pittsburgh then you would only see them if you are running the mod. That part is client side. The same goes for equipment and commodities.
You also cannot add equipment and if you make changes to their abilities things are going to get messy.

Much appreciated guys. So in general, gameplay items can be adjusted without any effort on the clients, but "things" will require them to have those things in their game.

@Mace, thanks for the lead on Broken Oath. I'll download it and give it a try.

Thanks again

MXE

@Mace

So if I understand, things will go haywire if I simply increase a damage value for a weapon or speed for a thruster. I am further assuming that ship upgrades like those in Rebalance and Chips excellent work in Evo are out (for server side). But.... I can add ships to the NPC's/encounters and those will show up. Does this apply to weapons? If I am understanding your last line this does not work.

Is the basic rule player must use unaltered Vanilla FL items, but you can add and/or enhance NPC items. Lastly, no altered or added items in the markes side.

Apologies if there are two similar post, my wonderful dialup timed out and I didn't see my response to Mace.

MXE

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Is the basic rule player must use unaltered Vanilla FL items, but you can add and/or enhance NPC items. Lastly, no altered or added items in the markes side.

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Yeah, that sounds about right. You can add entries to factions and give them new loadouts as long as the equipment is in the original game.
Ship upgrades would be new equipment and that would be client side. You would also need to add shiparch entries to allow the equipment to be mounted, so they are no go.
For the weapon/thruster the equipments abilities are client side. I'm not sure what would happen if you are running the mod and meet a client who isn't. Thats what i mean by messy. Either way, the person who dosen't have the mod would still have the basic abilities.
You can make changes to mbase to control base populations and the level of missions. If you're adding entries, you could use the ids_name of the faction as the name of the person (as you can't create new ones).
When doing Broken Oath I thought, how about adding new solar objects or fields (then refering them to existing fields). But, they didn't show up. I did take damage from an oxygen field, but the field itself wasn't visable.
Likewise, you can't move existing objects. I tried that in Gammu. It clearly wasn't impressed and crashed to desktop.
Hope some of this is useful, if you need any more input i'm happy to give it.

there are about three server side mods in lancers you find them i have posted in my forums under tools you need to start you own server. one is harder missions in manhatten great mod it comes battle ship missions where you either the bounty hunters and rouges have a battle ship base in which you have to blow up then theres the one by chips this one changes money and reps stating location and opens all jump gates then throws nomads in the mix great mod my web site is in my sig so its easy to find my forums ok .

richard I don't see a link to your forums on the website...

Once again thanks to all.

@Mace, if I have problems I'll be sure to yell, but I usually try to pound my way through problems before I cry Uncle. Thanks for the offer.

MXE