I like Gallia as it is now, minus Anjou, Artois, Auvergne, Corse, Franche-Comte, Savoie.
Not to mention that the other systems need to be scaled down and the crapton of undockable planets removed (there are lots of them, eye candy indeed, but not worth the space). Please don't remove the other systems instead of scaling down
I understand the whole Tale of Two Cities-esque plot that Gallia has going for it, and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the lore. I also understand that it wouldn't be fun if Gallia was suddenly deleted or if Gallia actually succeeded in conquering everything.
However, from a gameplay/content standpoint, Gallia feels...tacked on. I know this is a mod, and an excellent one at that, but just looking at Gallic content vs. the other content in the game, Gallia doesn't seem to blend in with the overall tone and aesthetics of Freelancer as a whole. Just looking at the models and textures, Gallic ships look oddly shaped in comparison to others. While this problem isn't unique to Gallia, I feel as if Gallic content seems more at odds with the game and mod itself.
This fits in quite nicely with the pre-existing Liberty theme, and looks in line with the look of the game. I wouldn't be surprised if I had seen this in the Vanilla game rather than the mod itself.
The textures look off and warped, and the shape looks a little odd. The ship is too bulk in some places and too thin in others.
I don't want to continue because it'll seem like I'm bashing on the modelers and devs, and far be it from me to do so, but this isn't so much an issue with the modeling and texturing itself as it is an issue with theme. Even the music seems totally at odds with the rest of the game's music; it's jarring to hear smooth piano jazz when the rest of game is atmospheric space music.
tl;dr: Gallia is nice, but it's poorly themed and sticks out like a sore thumb.
Characters:
Silus_Bank - Captain of the This End Up, a Libertonian Bison Supertransport. Marick does odd shipping jobs for DSE, but usually is found plying lanes between Liberty and Kusari.
Profit_Inc - A stolen IMG Waran bomber that now stalks Libertonian space in search for loot and credits.
Well, I think the Devs wanted to be intentional about making Gallia feel like a totally different place than Sirius that developed all on its own, hence the different architecture style, ship style, and even music (which I actually like quite a bit).
The "problem" with Gallia, at least as it stands now, is that is is a way OVER-developed area for what is now such a smaller player base. There's too many systems, too many bases, too many factions to be adequately populated now. If we had a 300+ population server, no problem. Heck, Gallia could probably be its own stand-alone mod, really.
The Guard System cull is a great start towards fixing things, overall, and I guess I'd like to at least see where that takes us before jumping on the "HEY, WHILE WE'RE AT IT, #DELETEGALLIA, #DELETECONN" bandwagon.
Why remove systems if no-one visits them regulary, but yet visited for one reason or another. Its just 3MB of bunk on your hard-drive. Is it really that problematic? I don't think were doing justice to places like Franche-Comte when some use "empty systems" as the cause of losing contact with people. If people go to a system, others will follow - thats how this work, thats how humans work. When freelancer was first released I wanted to take a look at it because some reviews suggested that it is indeed "unlimited" in space. It turns out its limited, with 50 systems or so. Id like to see new places and bizzare planets to keep me intrested in freelancer. You can debunk gallia all day long but sooner or later, you will either get bored of visiting the same places and possibly complain about it, or leave without saying anything. Gallia is not the problem, the problem is you. The game allows you to reach so many places and what do you do? You stay in your comfort zone, So whos blame is that, gallias? give me a break.
Because, Zen, there are already plenty of empty systems in Sirius, that we don't need a whole other sector of more empty systems. I'd rather see more activity in THOSE empty systems than spread way the heck out in the arse end of the universe.
Or, as someone suggested, maybe keep 1 or 2 of those systems and re-purpose them as new "frontier" space with no trade lanes, no bases, and maybe some new fields and stuff to actually discover, but not as buffer systems one must go through to get to where they actually DO want to go.