I've already mentioned a few things, but I'll mention a few more.
Firstly -- The age of freelancer isn't an issue. Yes, every game steadily declines, but there are plenty of equally old, and even older games that I play which are still very active. One such example is Warcraft III, kept alive by all the awesome custom maps, models, icons, textures, and such made by people like myself who work together to keep that game alive. Across the different servers, it usually has a total of 100-200k people on at a time. And the graphics on that game are nowhere near as good as freelancer. Oh, and should I mention Diablo II? Practically an antique, but that won't stop people from playing it.
My point is, while every game steadily declines over time, that is not the biggest problem. Even incredibly old games can still be active.
Along with things I've said in previous posts, here are some of the problems:
1: The "here-and-there" enforcing of rules. New players who want to just play and do whatever they want are quickly banned because this is an RP server, not a PVP server. This causes us to lose the PVP community. Then people who go around habitually PVP-abusing people are not dealt with, causing us to lose the RP community. If you're going to have rules, it has to be all-or-nothing. If you do nothing, we keep half the community. If you go all the way, we keep the other half of the community. But if you go halfway, we will gradually lose everyone until there is nothing left as both sides of the table get sick of it.
Here's my idea to satisfy the PVP-lovers who don't want to RP. There are plenty of roles that can be roleplayed with guns. Wars between factions is a great way for PVP-lovers to satisfy their need to pew. The RP-ers can RP a bit, and once they've initiated the fight, everyone else in the groups can have at it in a healthy war where both sides are ready to fight, and won't be upset by the engagement.
It would be a good idea to, every time you see new players attacking, first you tell them it's an RP server, etc etc. And if they sound like they don't want to RP, they just want to PVP... then point them towards gallic royal navy, liberty navy, rheinland military, any police faction, bounty hunters guild, etc, so they aren't attacking miners, civilians and transports who weren't already looking for a fight.
Another problem is the insanely long distance between updates. People like seeing new things in this sort of game. It would be a good idea to have mini-patches on a more regular basis, which would change the v0.0x, and then have your big patches less frequently changing the v0.x0.
Another problem is the lack of funding. I strongly believe that the forums should have advertisements. Anyone who can't stand to see a little bar at the top and bottom to help fund this community doesn't deserve to be part of it anyway. With more funding, the server could be better maintained.
A huge problem is the DDOS attacks. These aren't easy to deal with, and can't be controlled, so there isn't much I can say about them.
There is also the problem of publicity. We need more people to know about the mod. As others have mentioned, the possibility of machinimas. Perhaps offer special rewards to people who can put together good films of the mod and post them on youtube. Have an admin rate them, or something. This could apply to any sort of major contribution, actually.
5/5's would receive 100 "Disco coins". 4/5's would receive 50. 3/5's would receive 10.
Then these coins from contributing could be used to get things like:
Defiler: 1000 coins.
Barge: 500 coins. (Maximum 1 per person, and when the first 5 are won, no more, cuzz we don't want the server getting full of barges)
UAU MkX - 2.75x Hull, 25 cargo: 300 coins. (Yes, I know these don't exist, but it'd be neat.)
Dynamic SRP Request: 200 coins.
$100,000,000 in-game credits: 10 coins.
Explanation of "Dynamic SRP Request":
This would be something where the winner could make SRP requests without the fear of losing 400 million credits every time the admins don't like his idea. With the "Dynamic SRP request" prize, the winner could speak with an administrator until they come to an agreement on an approve-able SRP. Additionally, there would be no starting time, only playtime, requirements on the Dynamic SRP, so players who have been around for a long time, but want the idea on a specific character that they've been playing actively but made less than 6 months ago wouldn't be excluded. This is the big killer, because most people who come up with a roleplay idea and make their character aren't going to want to wait half a year before they can even request the SRP for what they want to roleplay that character as. Some particular ideas aren't properly role-playable without the SRP.
In fact, I'll CnP this post to a new thread, with more detail and better formatting since it'd be a thread rather than a comment.