Greetings ppl.

Hello and well met. I'm a newer to these forums and thought I should say hello

I'm an avid fan of 2 types of game, fantasy hack and slash and anything that tries to be Elite.

I played Elite on the BBC, acorn electron and archimedes and I really thought that it was the be all and end all of this genre of game. It's one of my favourite genres and I adore open endedness and the freedom to do what YOU want. I played elite and its variants in PC and found them to be in the same spirit as the originals but always lacking; either in playability or in fun.

I keep a close eye on any games that try to take the crown from Elite as the best space trading game but nothing seems to have come close, I keep wondering why software houses can't seem to get it right.

Anyhow recently (..and a fair bit behind the times) I find the following on offer Freelancer from micropoo and X2 from egosoft. I download demos of both and enjoy both but still think there are elements missing. I eventually get round to buying Freelancer and I will do the same soon with X2.

Here are my thoughts on Freelancer.

Very enjoyable game. I really appreciate how the developer has tryed to make a game where you can use your mouse to effectively pilot your ship. After a recent slew of this genre of game it was highly refreshing to find a game where piloting and combat in space were ENJOYABLE! Not the case with the others including X2. The others seem really clumsy and hard to get to grips with after playing FL. After that FL trails off. The sounds and ambient music are nice and work OK. The graphics are nice too and coupled with the music give the game in general a nice "feel".

But it lacks.

The last versions of Elite on PC were TOO realistic - Solar sytems that were well calculated, speeds relative to moving planetary bodies, space combat that was so clumsy you had to have a degree in astrophysics to become a good shot etc etc. FL, I feel, takes it to the other extreme. Combat and flight are fun, but everything feels too 2D and "on the same plane". This is obvious when you have system maps in 2D. Planets, stars and stations are all on the same 2D plane.

The variety of weapons is adequate but in equipment we are lacking too. I would have like to have seen manual docking with a docking comupter as a widget you could buy to automate the task. The planet docking rings are a cop out too. It should have been manual with another widget necessary to enter planets atmoshpheres - planetary shielding. I forsaw planetary shielding and a docking computer as the requirements for landing on a planet automatically. Another widget - a gravity polarizer - should have been in there too. Combat is too easy as it is and relative spacial veocities should have been used when this was not equiped. IT would make things a damn sight harder but it would be in keeping and be an incentive to players to save up the creds to buy a gravity polarizer.

Whats with the freight ships???? I've tryed them all, and they are ****. Let me explain.... I got the humback after completing the SP version. I can forgive it's handling, I can forgive its agility but what I cannot forgive is its sheer not-worth-it-ness. I tryed lots of trade runs in freight ships and found it almost impossible to frieght cargo without getting killed by the 3rd group of pirates. The freight ships are cumbersome, don't have the correct hull/shield specs to hold off a half hearted attack from pirates and just plain "cant do it". Switching to turret view (which I guess is supposed to be the freighters strength) and taking out hostiles robs your ship of of directional manouverablity, leaves you open to all sorts of nasty fire and missiles and gets you deaded in the blink of an eye (I wasnt using **** weapons either!). I can only assume that Anvil did not do thier homework properly. Can someone please post if I am wrong and tell me how to make a freight ship worth while without having to turn tail and run every time a band of well equiped pirates shows up. Thanks!

I'm currently level 23. I did the SP missions and died twice. I completed the SP missions in the Anubis although it got rough several times (...you know... having shields at half, hull at 10%, no nano's or batteries and flying around hoping that no one fires on you or hoping that some little poo ship flies close so you can blast it and hope that it releases nanobots ). That aside though, I wondered what I wanted to do after completing SP. I got the humback thingie, blew all my money and had a poor time of it, I eventualy got back into a valk fitted with sunfrenzy 1's and am enjoying it again. I got enough faction with the bounty hunters to buy reavers (at deshima station) , but I didn't realise I needed to be lvl 26 to buy them .

I've read what ppl think of the best ships and have come to the tentative conclusion that of the 3 VHF's the eagle is the most agile, the sabre is the best weapons wise ( because it has a front facing turret) and the titan steers like a dead cow on acid but has the best overall armour. I don't want to turn this into a bestist thread so please correct me if you feel Im wrong but dont turn this into a "best ship" thread.

Trade. I've flown aroud the systems a fair few times and I've come to the conclusion that Dublin->New berlin with Gold and New Berlin->Leeds with diamonds is the most lucrative round trip trade. Usually I buy gold from the Hood in Dublin for speed but mining 50 tons of gold close to graves station does not take long either, then its all profit Engine components from Honshu planet to freeport 4 (I think its freeport 4, the one in magellan anyhow) is good but its a long route. Anyone what to suggest better?

OK, now for some questions. I searched on the forums here but didnt really find any satisfactory replies. I guess if you want to buy the titan youve got to have the corsair faction. Whats th quickest way to get corsair faction?

..And for the Sabre, it seems to me you need outcast or hessian faction, whats the easiest way to get these?

Thanks for any info!

XOR