I'll keep this bumped, too. Another couple of quick and dirty ideas:
Many people probably play with Immersion's pirated version of the game. The crack for the game is a new freelancer.exe that has some modifications to disable the CD protection.
FL doesn't seem to care if a cracked or retail version of the game is connecting to a cracked or retail version of the server. I found it odd that the MP key you're issued has no effect on the registration status of the actual copy of the game you're playing. Most other games offer you a Key that you use to authenticate with some global server and if someone else has that key, you can't log in to play.
My thoughts were maybe the cracked copy ****s around with the FLserver.exe in some way, especially since a server has no way of knowing if an internet user has the retail version, or the cracked version. Of course this logic doesn't stand up for a LAN player with a retail copy who's still experiencing crashes, but it's an idea..
My other idea relates to when I first got the game, I had DirectX 9 installed from about 7 weeks ago. I was unable to connect to the global server... until I went to
www.microsoft.com/directx and re-downloaded/re-installed DirectX 9. Many other people have also had this problem.
Then it magically worked, even though it shouldn't have given me a problem to begin wtih. Almost like they've made minor updates to DirectX9 in the past few months since it's initial release. Maybe this weird bug/feature/version difference has something to do with it?
Finally, I've noticed that Elite and E2 and some other 24/7 servers (Dark Times and McMahons South Tower) always seem to be up, and I've played on them for hours and hours without getting booted. Can anyone from those servers share their crash experiences/pipe line/hardware specs?
---
The only thing I like more than pie is having more pie than I'd like.