Check the graph for Jolt.co.uk on the Top 5 server activity chart, does that seem like a regular freelancer server behavior when compared to other large servers? I don't think so. I went through the forums of the biggest servers and so far 118 really is the record. But I may be wrong, of course and maybe the Jolt.co.uk serves for a really large group of players who all start playing FL at the same time, no matter that it's 5 am in the morning and next day is a work/school day...
Thanks for the link to that program.:D
OK -- you're right that something weird is happening with the Jolt server. Most of the time Jolt has 10 players or less, often none, but sometimes it is completely full. Maybe somebody is attacking the Jolt server and filling up those player slots.
Unfortunately, I can't prove that I've seen servers which actually had 128 players filling 128 slots, but I did see that in 2004-2005. I played on the Armageddon Evolutions server when it had 120-128 players out of 128 slots, but it died in 2005-2006 (when I wasn't playing Freelancer due to computer problems), along with the Evolutions mod (hardly any servers run that mod now). The raw server is still around, but the raw server forums are down (I just checked, but I've listed the link in case anybody wants to try). Raw used to be an active server with dozens or even scores of players, but it is usually empty now. I don't know why.
Solaris used to fill up at 128/128 when it was a vanilla server. I became an SP (Server Police) there before Solaris became Solaris Evolutions. I stopped playing Freelancer in early 2005 due to computer problems, after which Solaris Evolutions died. One of the Solaris admins brought it back for a short while as Solaris_Resurrection Discovery and I was an SP on there again. I remember that admin mentioning that Solaris used to fill up at 128/128 when a new player asked about the history of the server.
