The timeline has been altered so that the Tannhauser made landfall at 0 L.C. This makes things a lot less confusing, and has been done for a number of reasons.
'300 million people at once, on a fresh planet, can't work. No infrastructure, no farms, no food. The Tannhauser was equipped with plenty of supplies and colonization equipment, but it still wouldn't be enough to support the entire crew. You'd need 10 tannhausers filled with food, prefab houses, tech, and equipment just to accommodate all the needs of the 1 with people on it. Once the Tannhauser arrived at Neo Terra, in entered a geosynchronous orbit and transferred all of its power to supporting the millions of cryopods onboard. The Tannhauser's massive size prohibits it from safely being able to land on the surface.
The skeleton crew wakes up. They realize they have had mechanical issues with the historical and technological data repositories. The clock has reset itself. Last Contact.
Not everyone wakes up at once. It would be foolish for them to do so, and protocols were set in place to prevent such a thing from happening. The first people that wake up are the farmers and the leadership. They scout the geography of the planet from space, ferry themselves and the equipment down to the surface, and begin to prepare the planet for intense colonization. The leadership writes the founding charter of the Free Peoples of Procyon, the Libra Carta, and works with the farmers to establish large farms to feed the people.
After a decade, a stable farming cycle has been established. Next come the engineers, architects, builders, and workers. These are people who have signed up to work while the rest of the colony is asleep. These men and women that know they will live most of their lives setting up the planet for the rest of the people sleeping up in space. There are almost 30 million on the planet at this point. They're able to eat and sleep safely, the planet providing a copious bounty of food, working every day to bring the planet to full capacity.
Then comes the people who are knowledgeable in fields that enhance human culture. Scientists, cultural leaders, teachers, among many others. They establish the most essential foundations for mankind's future. Public hospitals, colleges, governments, technological institutes, and more. Most importantly, a space program is launched with the goal of providing the technology and scientific principles that allow for a complete settlement of the sector. The waking of essential 'planetary crew' continues to happen for another 25 years.
By the year LC 50, the planet is ready, and the space program is nearly complete. While some of the technological readouts and schematics were lost due to errors on the Tannhauser, the principles behind them were not. This leads to the creation of new ships and technologies that are unique to the Procyon sector. By this time there are 160 million on the planet, 150 million Colonists, 10 million newbirths. The time has come to awake the remaining colonists sleeping up above. 150 million freshly woken are ferried down to the planet over the course of a year. Once on the ground, they are briefed on what has happened, and let loose into the new society, free to choose their own destiny. By LC 52, every colonist has awoken. The culture shock is intense for some, as they reunite with friends or family members have aged dramatically during their sleep.
The gears of history begin to turn. After six years, the founding members of the ASP secede, using the developing deep-space exploration techniques to find new systems to settle. It was unbeknownst to the people Procyon just how quickly things would change...'
Neo Terra was rendered uninhabitable in 68 L.C. This means your character from Sirius can have aged anywhere between 30 and 84 years. However, there are strange effects in the aging of those who have been exposed to long-term cryo sleep. These effects will be explained in a further update.
I'd like to announce to those unaware that the Grand Opening of Neo Terra's Live RP begins tomorrow at 12 PM EST!
Many of us in the devteam have been hard at work attempting to create a vibrant and interactive set of backstories and lore for concepts to bloom freely from. In addition, a unique and original economy is in the works!
Alright, so we've bitten off a little bit more than we could chew within a few days. We are well aware that the Freelancer community is tired of false promises and disappointments, and the devteam has come to the conclusion that postponing the release a few more days would be detrimental to everyone. Updates will be very frequent (one every few days), and we hope you'll all log on to try the game out anyway.
The server will be opened some time between 10 AM and 12 PM Eastern Standard Time.
I have updated the first post with the additional lore. Please note that the lore is subject to change at this time, but should be plenty to guide your roleplay on for now. More information on the state of the lore is available HERE.
We will be releasing with a basic economy system and restarts for all factions. We are going to be extremely transparent with our developmental process so people can get a good idea of what is going on.
What we have in the works right now that can be expected within the next few days:
The completion of any unfinished lore.
New nav bouy models, arrow shaped, glowmapped, and color coded for ease of navigation.
The addition of ASP and TSC embassies connected to Gateway station in the Haven system, giving new players a better idea of the political climate in the area.
Holographic faction banners (the banner frames are currently in the game, simply switched off)
A fully fleshed out commodity system, complete with commodity refining (ores, gas, and some other items will need to be refined at POBs in order to be usable/sellable)
The addition of three new starter ships. The Swordtail multirole fighter, the Catfish freighter, and the Walleye science vessel. These ships Will be cheap enough to switch to with your starting cash, allowing for three distinct playstyles.
A role for science vessels in the game by giving them the ability to scan randomly generated anomalies, this will yield both random junk loot you can sell for cash, refinable items, and rare crafting materials.
Dockable asteroids not owned by any faction, allowing independent and outlaw vessels a place to base out of without relying on any other faction (note that these will not sell nanobots, ammo, or any other equipment or commodities. The most you will be able to do is repair your ship there)
What you can expect in the coming month or so:
Fleet chat, a chat mode that allows tagged ships to communicate with each other without entering a group.
The finalization of the balance system (Only fighter craft are fully balanced at the present time)
The Breach, a network of randomly generated systems that is wiped every month. Breach systems will contain exotic resources and strange enemies, and will provide tangible territory for factions to fight over. Breach systems will be capturable with the construction of a Rift anchor, a device that both prevents the Breach system it is constructed in from being wiped, and pulls it into normal space where it will recieve connections to the rest of Procyon.
The introduction and fleshing out of the crafting system, allowing for craftable codenames, ammo, and eventually ships.
Some models I've been doing in the past week, just to show we're working hard:
New Nav Bouy model, the glow color is changed depending on the faction.
Allied Stars banner frame
Confederacy banner frame
Dominion banner frame
Confederacy embassy model, work in progress
That's all for now. We hope to see you all in Procyon today!
As a long-time member of the community, I want to give my thanks to the Neo-Terra devteam for being so transparent with their process. While it's unfortunate that the mod isn't fully ready yet, I don't think any of us can say that we're disappointed with the incredible progress that the team's made in such a short amount of time. I'm also glad to have contributed in my own way by writing infocards, and I'll probably be spending all day today doing that rather than participating in the live RP test, because I'd like to see the mod become more polished just as much as everyone else would. To my fellow players: please, please check it out, because I honestly think Neo-Terra is such a wonderful mod and I think you'll all sincerely enjoy it. It's really a departure from what we're all used to, and I think that's a wonderful thing.
Some people were having an issue related to .pendingoverwrite files corrupting their install when updating the game because they had either a zombie fl process running in background or fl companion/fl stat whatever of opened.