The RRJDS Guild, Game Servers and Freelancer Mod

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Welcome to the RRJDS Guild Website

Thank you for visiting us. Please take a moment and read at least this page, to see who we are and what we offer our players.

The RRJDS Guild

The RRJDS Guild is a group of friends who enjoy playing the online multiplayer Microsoft game "Freelancer" together, to our own high standards of Fairness, Sportsmanship, and Honour. We welcome all other players of both sexes and all nationalities and ages who like our standards and are willing to support them.

We operate our own gaming servers and run our own mod as well as other popular mods when we can, and we enjoy finding ways of improving gameplay for the players who join to play on our servers. Our purpose is to provide a good, friendly gaming environment for the majority of our players, who are of all ages from early teens to over-50's.

Roleplay On Our Servers

In roleplay we are a Mercantile Guild, with emphasis on building Guild wealth by in-game Trade and Commerce. We operate as a family business and we enforce our standards with both our own Guild Enforcers and with self-policing Clans and Groups. Our Guild and Clan Members teach, help and guide our players in our methods and expectations as well as in-game exploration, role-play and team-play for more participation and enjoyment.

Guild Members run profitable businesses and trade-routes for the Guild, selling information and equipment to players who are unable to obtain it for themselves because of bad rep, or who prefer to buy it. They also operate non-Guild characters and are often to be found in some form of "lawful" profitable activity such as freighter Escorts, mission Mercenaries, and Bounty Hunters, or sometimes "unlawful" ones such as bountied Fugitives, Outlaws and Buccaneers.

Our Guild has several Guild Elders and our Guild Leader. Important decisions are made democratically, and are not made by a single person. This ensures that all decisions and their repercussions are carefully considered. In real life our Elders are from the UK, the USA, Belgium, Holland, Australia and Germany, and this is a great benefit to our international players and server-cover capabilities. We speak several European languages (as well as a lot of rubbish!)

On our main server, named "An RRJDS 2.8 Mod", we run our own mod, which we have named the RRJDS 2.80 mod, and which was originally based on Crabtree's WTS Worlds version 2.40, but which has since outgrown WTS Worlds 2.40 to be much more stable and balanced, and with many more game enhancements and fixes. We are working on adding more 24/7 servers to run other mods under our standards.

RRJDS Server Advantages

  • Fairness, Sportsmanship and Honour are required of all players at all times.
  • All players have a big say in what we do, and can vote and state their opinion on our forum.
  • Team-play, role-play, and positive interaction with other players are encouraged.
  • Ambushing, piracy without warning, and harassment of other players is forbidden.
  • All Guild and Clan members are here to guide, assist and interact with new players.
  • Admins and server police have only the same ships, shields and equipment available to all normal players.
  • Good basic starting ship and starting money for Freelancers.
  • We run FL Shell with 30 templates, allowing players to join almost any NPC faction or to start specialised careers such as Trader, Bounty Hunter, Fugitive etc. More can be designed for server events or System Wars, or if several players request particular requirements.
  • Well-rewarded missions are available in almost all systems.
  • Abundant profitable trade routes are available for players of all skill-levels.
  • Players' statistics are updated several times per day on our website, and are also posted on the Global Player Rankings, so our players can see how they and we stand worldwide.

Gameplay Standards

The Guild has applied our high standards of gameplay on many servers prior to being able to operate our own server. Our standards are enforced and include the following:-
  • All Players must uphold our Three Pillars of Virtue:- Fairness, Sportsmanship and Honour
  • Roleplay, Teamplay and assistance to other players are encouraged.
  • Groups and Clans with sensible purpose and who improve player participation and enhance gameplay are encouraged.
  • Clan Wars and System Wars with a finite plan and timing are encouraged.
  • Tournaments, elimination PVP and similar combat activities with a clear winner and clear end are encouraged.
  • Hare-and-Hounds, System Chases and similar race events with a clear purpose and winner are encouraged.
  • Well-planned Open Server Events for all players are encouraged and are marshalled by Guild Members.
  • Sporting player-pirating and Buccaneering are encouraged.

What Is Not Permitted

  • Discourtesy to other players, harassment of other players, ambush-style pirating and perpetual PVP combat are forbidden.
  • Lone gaming is not permitted because it does not help other players to enjoy their gaming. Loners can play the SP game if they really wish to play alone.
  • Cheating of any kind, whether or not it is visible to us or other players, is not permitted. Even if it only affects the cheater, this is against our policy of Fairness, Sportsmanship and Honour.
Players can apply to become Guild Members if they decide they would like to be a part of our Guild and give us their time and practical skills to assist in our gameplay activities and our real work.

The RRJDS 2.80 mod

Our mod has been carefully designed in-house to expand the game as much as possible while at the same time to cater for as many player types as possible within the confines of the original game engine, whilst removing as many bugs, "sillies", incompletions and omissions as possible. There are good paths for not only the trigger-happy mercenaries among us, but also for traders, explorers, fugitives, outlaws, player bounty hunters, Buccaneers, pirates, and even miners too.

Here are the main characteristics:-

Systems and Ships

There are many new systems and new bases in addition to the original systems and bases. Factions such as the Borg, Centauri, Earth Alliance, Minbari, Narn, Shadows and Vorlons bring new challenges and advantages to the game. The Nomads are no longer the only real challenge out there.

In addition to the original ships, there are over 150 additional ships from Sci-Fi series including Babylon-5, Star wars, Star Trek, Wing Commander, Homeworld, Battlestar Galactica, and from custom designers such as XTS, Mancer and many others. These include many exciting Capital Ships, Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers, Gunships, Light Fighters, Medium Fighters, Heavy Fighters, Very Heavy fighters, and a large range of specialist freighters from as low as 35 units to over 13,000 units of cargo capacity.

Ship Characteristics Overview

In many mods, even fighters are capable of carrying huge and disproportional cargo amounts, and freighters have huge hull strength, and warships can turn as fast as or even faster than light fighters. This is clearly unrealistic in terms of what would be expected from "real" space ships in physics.

We set out for more realism, and we believe we have achieved it in the main.

  • Our fighters have excellent manoeverability, good shield and hull strength, and can mount weapon types according to their class. As would be expected, contrary to other mods, fighters do not have large cargo capacities - most of their small hull space is after all taken by weaponry, power and defence systems.

  • Freighters have huge cargo capacities but weak defences and slower handling, as would be expected.

  • Gunships, Destroyers, Cruisers and other large warships have much smaller cargo capacities than freighters of similar size, but immense defences and weaponry, again as would be expected.

  • And small ships cannot mount the huge weapons or power generators carried by warships and some freighters. Sorry to those who are already upset now.

    Brief Ship List

    Here is a brief list of just a few of the available ships, several have their own unique weapons:-
    • Borg: Cube, Pyramid, Sphere and interceptor
    • Minbari: Nial, Sharlin, Tinashi, Lintiria
    • Shadow: Crab, Hybrid, Fighter and Scout
    • Vorlon: Fighter, Scorpion, Dreadnought, Planet Killer
    • Narn: G'Quan, Var'Nic, T'Loth, Gorith
    • Centauri: Vorchan, Primus, Sentri
    • Earth Alliance: Omega Destroyer, Badger, Thunderbolt
    • Star Trek: USS Enterprise-A, D, E and NX01 variants, Voyager, Defiant, Peregrine,
      Klingon B'Rel, Destroyer, and Dreadnought,
      Romulan Warbird,
      • Brakiri: Avioki
    • Star Wars: X-Wing, Y-Wing, R-Wing, Z95, Sith Infiltrator, Jedi StarFighter, Nebulon-B Frigate,
    • Other: Starship Arcadia, TCS Vesuvius,
      White Star, Dark Star, Raven's Claw, Raven's Talon, Mars Flier
    ... and rest assured that there are many, many others.

    Game Fixes

    • A large number of crash-causing loadout and system problems fixed.
    • Planet rotation, base locations, and suns fixed.
    • Base rooms, dealers, faction bribes fixed.
    • Base characters incorrect names, faction allegiances, appearance and clothing fixed.
    • Bribes for new factions fixed.
    • Commodity Trade Prices for new systems fixed.
    • Docking for all stations and new ships fixed.
    • Station and ship cameras fixed.
    • Ship cockpits, camera views and bugs fixed.
    • Wrecks and cargo drops fixed.
    • Large numbers of other original game bugs and mod bugs fixed.

    Game Enhancements

    • All ships have been resized to be in proportion with each other, from the tiny X-9 Ghost and Gargoyle to the immense Borg Cube, Enterprise-D and Vorlon Planet Killer.
    • All ship cargo capacities realistic and proportional to the ship type and purpose.
    • Ship handling reflects the type, size and purpose of the ship.
    • Asteroid and Gas Miners are now dockable and launch is from the same miner.
    • Commodity pricing is rebalanced to make trading more satisfying.
    • New commodities expand multi-system round-trip trading possibilities immensely.
    • Destroyed ships drop human cargos as well as random equipment.
    • Weapon power and damage is more realistic.
    • Warships, stations and tradelane defences can easily destroy fighters.
    • New power, scanner, tractor and shield upgrades are available for purchase.
    • NPC loadouts and AI are improved to compete well with players of all skills.

    • Join us!

    Thanks for taking the time to read this.

    If you like the sound of what we are about,please take the time to download the mod and join us for a time, to see if you like us. If you do, register on our forum and let us know who you are, and tell us your opinions of our Guild, our mod and gameplay, we are always ready to listen and respond, and we look forward to hearing your views on how we can make gameplay even better for you.