FriendlyFire wrote:
You do realize Unity has a free version right? You pay for advanced features.

What is this “pay” that you speak of? Is it available on usenet?

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It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce a number of updates to 24/7 Procyon Dedicated’s client-side enhancent package, ProcyonHook. Originally released in September of 2008, ProcyonHook introduced a large number of extremely useful and innovative features to the Procyon server. Though development on ProcyonHook stalled for a length of time, it has since resumed at break-neck speeds, bringing with it a number of features that have recently been developed and released:

• In-Game Clan Management and Chat

Working in conjunction with our own heavily rewritten and reengineered version of FLHook, ProcyonHook features in-game clan management through the /clan command, and the addition of an entirely new chat channel for clan members, allowing for members of a clan to stay in private communication without the need for constant group invites, as well as through the duration of the game’s random missions.

The clan system’s benefits do not end with the new chat channel however - we have a number of other features currently under development, such as the ability for clan leaders to mark other clans and - eventually - individual players as being friendly or hostile in game, allowing for easy target identification in battle. The clan accounts (and their soon-to-be synchronization with our web-based Clan Database) will also enable us to offer clans specific rewards and motivations for owning and holding systems against hostile clans - something that we plan on capitalizing heavily upon for future enhancements and features.

• In-Game Alternative Start Packages

Those of us that have played Freelancer for a long time can probably agree that creating new characters with the exact same starting ship, location, reputation, and so on can get a bit monotonous - ProcyonHook gives players the opportunity to mix things up a bit by adding the ability to select from one of several starting factions when creating a new character. The current faction line-up (which each package featuring unique starting locations, ships, loadouts, reputations and such befitting the faction for which it is named), which we plan on expanding heavily upon in the future is as follows:

_- Xeno

• Rogue
• Outcast
• Liberty Navy
• Liberty Police
• Bounty Hunter
• Universal Shipping_

In addition to standard starting packages, we also have plans to introduce special high level starting packages, which will become available for use from time to time, featuring factions like the Blood Dragons, Gas Miners Guild, and the ever respectable ALG Waste Disposal.

• Superior Widescreen Support

There is no shortage of widescreen mods for Freelancer - unfortunately many of them are configured in such ways that the changes they make to a player’s field of view are downright absurd - to the extent that many of them could, and should, be considered cheats in and of themselves. ProcyonHook addresses this by enabling all widescreen resolutions supported by a user’s configuration to be selected from the in-game configuration screen, while enforcing proper settings that do away with blatant advantages in combat. Being forced to edit Perfoptions.ini by hand be damned.

• Final Word

These are the three most significant features that we’ve added, developed over the course of the last month… and they represent only the tip of the iceberg - our to-do list for client, server, and web-based enhancements is only nearly as long as it is mind-boggling in scope.

We invite anyone interested in the finest vanilla Freelancer gameplay possible - powered by a solid and 100% stable system in conjunction with a high-speed fiberoptic line - to download ProcyonHook and give 24/7 Procyon Dedicated a try.

Screenshots

Thought I’d take the time to mention a few things we’ve been cooking up over at 24/7 Procyon Dedicated. The first, seen in action below, is a custom cloaking system that we’ve built from the ground up for the Anubis fighter, which can be purchased by players running our ProcyonHook client-side software. This system is unique in its functionality, created with the goal of keeping the added cloaking device balanced and unobtrusive within the context of vanilla PvP combat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-F7N77uZTo

Our goal for the cloak was to ensure as clean an implementation as possible. The cloak functions, as you can see, via a normal in-game hotkey that can be configured within the options menu - when used, this hotkey triggers the cloak activation sequence, in which a new HUD element appears displaying the cloak’s charge up status. When activated the cloak drops the player’s shields and gradually drains weapon energy - which, when fully depleted triggers the player to uncloak.

In addition to the recently added Anubis cloak, we’re also working on improving our dynamic lighting system. The video below shows our established weapon projectile lighting, and also gives a preview of the experimental engine lighting that is in the early stages of development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNsJI9TBbug

One thing we’ve recently implemented as a 100% server-side feature that does not require use of ProcyonHook is our revised nanobot functionality. This change - as can be seen below - changes the default nanobot behavior of instantaneous healing into gradual regeneration, reminiscent of the repair droid item removed from Freelancer during it’s development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU8HcvtdPMQ

These three videos are only the tip of our proverbial iceberg - our to-do list is roughly five miles long, and features a number of things that have often been written off as impossible - such as the ability to construct a clan-owned station in vanilla space that can be interacted with by players not running any sort of client-side modification at all. More to come as it develops.

Finally, on what do you expect people to play your upgrade? It likely will be incompatible with most mods out there. It may even cause compatibility issues with vanilla servers. Are you strictly expecting singleplayer use?

This is, I think, the most important thing that has been asked in this thread.

As someone that runs a vanilla server, and already has enough problems with people running so-called “patches” that do nothing but cause problems that are immediately blamed on the server…

Let’s just say that the concept of having a “patch” that would create outright incompatibility would drive me half insane.

Call it a mod, and distribute it as an FLMM modpack if you plan on any changes beyond that which is purely graphical. Please.

Theres various patches to be sure, and many mods, but wouldn’t a centralised vanilla “update” serve to benefit everyone?

Only those interested in playing playing with mods in the first place - and even disregarding that, what you are suggesting could very well introduce a compatibility nightmare for nearly every server and mod currently in existence.

Is the “Unofficial 1.4 patch” something that should go in, or would you rather include the Quickfix? What about JFLP? Hardware update?

I feel that this little bit right here needs to be specifically highlighted, considering that not all of the so-called unofficial patches are universally supported or approved of. What works on server X won’t always work on server Y, and may end up getting you banned outright from server Z.

Give people Crazy’s list server, the GLS workaround (as a failsafe), FLMM, and the resources needed to go from there.

Perhaps a link to a simple server index site of some sort that contains barebones information regarding registered servers - ie the mod they use (if any), requirements for the mod (like the SDK, if any), website URL, and other such information would be better than trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink into one single package - easier to manage, and it’d keep the filesize from becoming astronomical.

As far as I know we’ve never had any issues with increasing the account limit - our server is 100% stable, and we’ve never had any issues with character corruption or any other unusual behavior that would suggest any manner of problem that could stem from that particular modification.

I will admit however that it is possible that Zephyr found and managed to work around some potential issue or another having to do with it, but I couldn’t say for sure.

Geh. Worked rather nicely in the news preview.

Made a quick edit I’ll fix it a bit better when I’m back from work.

Depends - probably possible with some FLHook wizardry, but probably not otherwise.

Much appreciated!

Wodka would be the man for that, I think. Hopefully it’ll be a fairly brief issue, as Procyon is currently unlisted due to an IP change last night, and the submission form appears to not be working. :S

adoxa wrote:
@Sion: Fair enough, I’ll add it to jflp.dll and keep it in mind for any future hooks.

Thank you, it is very greatly appreciated.

As mentioned, or own hook works in the same way (it can be unloaded without problems), but takes this one step further by applying only a bare minimum of modifications to the game unless connected to our own server, so as to minimize the potential for our hook to clash with another - something I think that everyone in the Freelancer community that does work with client hooking should keep in mind to some degree or another.

Again, thanks for hearing me out.

I like where this is going - it’s probably about time that we got around to implementing an RSS feed for Procyon’s server news… this provides some good motivation to do so.

Major props for another good idea.

I guess I could add the necessary “undo” code on unload

If you could do that, it’d be really awesome, and appreciated - with client hooks being on the upswing, it’d be really nice if they were all capable of such things, as it’d be very nice if a client-side anticheat hook were able to simply unload unrecognized libraries upon connecting to the server it’s linked with, without fear of side effects.

As for 8-way strafe, well, if you already disallow vertical strafe, it won’t work anyway.

Aye, we’re just starting to get a bit wary of the potential for… ‘unfriendly’ client hooks in general to spring up in general - I probably didn’t do a very good job of communicating that however.

At any rate, I apologize for the semi-derailment.

Regarding the DLL portion of your mod - do you know if it can be forcefully loaded and/or unloaded without causing the game to crash and burn?

ProcyonHook, a client-side element for the server I help run is designed first and foremost as an anticheat solution - given the addition of eight way strafe to your DLL, we’re probably going to have future versions unload any unrecognized DLLs upon connecting to our server (restoring them once the player has disconnected).

ProcyonHook itself is designed to be able to be loaded and unloaded as needed without causing any problems, however we’ve noticed during testing that the same cannot be said for many other client-side DLL hooks.

Any information that could lead to peaceful cooperation between the two DLLs would be appreciated.

HunterKiller wrote:
Shouldn’t Vanilla Freelancer Servers be included as well? There are many out there that have great RP that are not modded. No favoritism should just be given only to modded servers. It was the Vanilla servers that impressed many to make the additions for the game in the first place.

Equal Opportunity here. Correct?

As stated, equal opportunity was given - Procyon, which made the list (apparently with time to spare, no less) is vanilla through and through.

Given the fact that vanilla gameplay is at this stage often overlooked in favor of modded gameplay (for some reasons that I agree with to a certain extent, and others that I disagree with very strongly), I’d like to thank Roo for helping to give us the chance to get our name out in ways that probably would not have otherwise been possible.

24/7 Procyon Dedicated

Hosted on a fiberoptic internet connection, Procyon is a vanilla Freelancer server that boasts what we’re frequently told is the smoothest player vs. player combat and general gameplay possible for Freelancer players across the entirety of North America.

Featuring vanilla gameplay that is untainted by such things as Paralyzer Missiles, Champion Shields, or Capital Ships, Procyon is the perfect server for any player looking to enjoy the original gameplay that made Freelancer what it is.

Utilizing a custom version of FLHook that has been rewritten almost from the ground up, Procyon offers a number of unique features that expand upon and enhnance the core vanilla gameplay of Freelancer without changing and reshaping it into something it was never intended to become.

In addition to a wide array of server-side features made possible by FLHook, Procyon also utilizes an optional client-side enhancement component called ProcyonHook, which offers enhanced graphics and a number of other features that provide subtle improvements to the game. In addition, ProcyonHook works as a client-side anticheat solution - players using it are able to see who else on the server also has it enabled, and can feel confident in knowing that they are playing clean.

It is with no small amount of confidence and pride that I can consider Procyon among the best PvP oriented servers currently available - a sentiment that nearly every player on the server that I’ve spoken to preemptively agrees with.

don’t care for the orange

Bah. The orange that graces this site is the greatest thing that has ever happened to The Starport!

Only women, children, and mongrels the world over would ever think to disagree.

@Zero000:

Don’t get carried away with complicated ideas that no one will have time to implement. Start with something as simple as possible and make it happen fast while you still have some momentum.

Somebody understands.

@w0dk4:

There are some very bright lights in this community and if its all that bad, why are there still as many people playing this game as back in ~2006?

Because the game is good, and there is typically a pretty decent sense of community around most individual servers - it’s only the greater Freelancer community as a whole - specifically the interactions between the large ‘community’ oriented sites - that are unpleasent to look upon.