I want to ask few questions. I recently had an idea of setting up a new freelancer server with its own rules and mod structure, with one vital part of this idea being... new ships. The problem is I don't know how to create models, nor I have time to practice in order to produce something as decent as I need.
My goal in this department is to bring ships from another game to Freelancer. That game is "G-Police". I already got exquisite model of AG-60 Havoc gunship, made by some fellow from blender forums (at first I was about to collaborate with him in order to make this "G-Police" mod for Freelancer together, but unfortunately I lost contact with him shortly after he gave me the Havoc model and I sent him screenshots for Venom gunship for him to to model... guess the quality of my screenshots did NOT impress him:P), but that's it. I still need a heckalot of models to make this mod... and SERVER happen.
So here's the first question - is there any place where I can find somebody willing to volunteer and model these ships for me? Assuming I will provide screenshots and any visual information needed to model those ships, which I can possibly acquire (I still have G-Police so it shouldn't be a problem). Alternatively, where should I search if I'm looking for ship modelers who would like to cooperate with me in order to create this mod? (I'm also looking for someone who would be capable of doing something cool with ALE editing).
Another question - There's a certain policy I want to do with Freelancer's universe in my server... and I want to know if it's good or bad idea. Because... my goal is to SIMPLIFY the gameplay in terms of factions and weapons. So that's what I would like to do:
-Remove lots of useless factions and leave only the main factions (houses, police, main criminals)
-Balance out all the houses (this would NOT mean all factions are equal - just that you won't necessarily find better equipment the farther you go from the start. Liberty = Rheinland = Order in terms of technology)
-Generalize weapons and equipment, and add new types instead. What does it mean? This mean there won't be Justice MK1-3 and Vengance MK 1-x lasers. There will be only "Laser MK1-x, Railgun Mk1-x, Microbomb launcher MK1-x" and so on.
Reasons?
What I'm trying to achieve is to create server with struggling player factions capturing each others' systems, blowing up each others' outposts and generally being at war. This is implausible if... let's say there are 20 players on the server and they all spread around 10 or so factions per house (sorry, I totally forgot how many there was).
The reason for the weapons policy is simply... that I like it, and think freelancer's system is stupid:PIn the end our ships end up spewing rain of bullets in all colors of rainbow, which I can't even identify at first glance... or alternatively everybody flies with Nomad or Coded weps.
Either or that way I need someone to help with all of this.
Oh, and just a quick question at the end - any idea if player owned bases are possible to implement? I heard 88Flak did it... but how?
