CaptBogdanowich

Very very long time ago, I catched one of the moments when Tekagis was at its peak : the summer of 2006. I was playing Tekagis like 8 hours a day and using Skype as TeamSpeak. Then it took just a few months for me to lose interest in it.

Here's how it happened. Don't blame me for what I'm gonna say. It's just the ramblings of a player.

Tekagis' top version ever was 5.26. Remember I was flying a Xenon Omega with 3 Rapport shields, 12 Thor Hammers and 4 Photon torpedoes. It was overpowered, but it wasn't a top maneuverable ship. And the server was overlwhelmed by players that created a plethora of clans. Think it had more than 30 active players at the time.

5.27 - 5.29:

Xenon Omega loses the 3rd shield.

The Ebonhawk powerplant is slightly nerfed (probably in the same attempt to cut down the energy support for Thors).  Wild Fire was also a powerful weapon, but, like Tekagi Alien Laser, unusable due to power requirements.

New shield replaces Rapport.

And that would have been enough.

The mod had a huge gameplay, because it was fueled by theorycrafting : powerful ships like Xenon Omega or impossible to catch ships like Pirate Zephyr ? Lightning strike weapons like Thor Hammer or slow, costless weapons like the Arclight Cannon ?

This was what fueled the server, but the modders - Ringy and Uni (RIP) decided a fatal approach, almost governmental.

And what governments do ? Governments do the opposite of what people want.

Should Tekagis be frozen at 5.26 - 5.27, would have never died. And those players that loved such an "unbalanced" mod like Tekagis were on the site,

generating traffic, clicking on ads, etc.

1. Government decided to take the theorycrafting controversy away

They came with unique, master blaster weapons: "one weapon to rule them all". And we remember the Eliminator, Aquamag, Protector Trader Turret (and few in the same generation). They had better range, damage and energy consumption than the previous two competing classes - Thor and Arclight. Even Arclight suffered, as "government" ruined the Arclight/Silver Fire ratio found by our clan used to equalize shield/hull damage.

One major element of gameplay was thrown to trash. Also not to be discarded that Protector and its gun counterparts had crappy visuals compared to previous top weapons.

2. Hike in repair costs

That would have been decent, unless coupled with 3.

3. Introduction of Phantom

Randomly appearing, great damage dealing, and ginormously shielded. Fighting the Phantom meant decreasing equity as a result of huge bills. Killing the Phantom with lots of Silver Fire rendered ships unable to face other enemies due to lowered hull damage. So, you were either equipped to deal with Phantom OR with anything else.

Phantom bribe came late, but the game was still lacking theorycrafting. As a result, players that tried to come back to the mod, expecting that "perhaps this time they made it well", were getting out fast.

New ships were introduced - but the "freighter issue" was never solved. You can't have a huge WhiteStar that has less armor than a pesky fighter just because it's *not allowed* to have Ultra Hull.

People left server, as citizens that leave their country because of the government. Think by 2010 Tekagis was completely dead.

Moral of the story : If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

To me the modders' policy was impossible to understand. This type of approach: "if they like that, let's kill it"! In this pursuit of "balancing". No, it doesn't have to be balanced! Life is not balanced! What kind of gameplay can be in a mod where the best choice is common to everyone ? And they implemented this rapid succession kill even without regarding the popularity of the server.

And I would bet, that if you run two Tekagis servers, a 5.26 versus any other version, 5.26 will get more players.

I've been looking for a "Xenon Omega" feeling ever since, and played a lot of mods. But something lacked, each time. And it added to the overall and gradual decrease of Freelancer's popularity. I can't even explain to myself how the greatest mods have vanished, only to leave room to boring mods.

But perhaps Star Citizen will reignite that great feeling of flying and fighting in a ship that you love!

P.S. I'm trying to collect the older great mods of Freelancer. Does someone have 5.26 or 5.27 client version ? Also the old Solurus Systems, the one with beam weapons before it was ruined by Lancer ?