ICTW is designed as a complex multiplayer game.  As a beginning player (or even a veteran) it can be hard at times to see the overall picture or the forces working within the game.  Victor's notes provide an insight into the structure and purpose of the game.

The primary goal in Total war is to change the game play of Freelancer and make it more of a multiplayer game and less of a single player online game.  At the same time, we have been putting considerable effort into making it a new, challenging experience.  You cannot play Total War like you play vanilla Freelancer or many of the mods out there.  This has been accomplished with a number of significant changes:
 

The ships in Total War have been completely rebalanced and are not what you might expect based on the original game versions of the same ships. The ships in Total War have been completely rebalanced and are not what you might expect based on the original game versions of the same ships.  Yes, I know, I said it twice but I did that because a lot of new players completely misunderstand what that really means.  Let's start with the ship classes:
 

• Light Fighters - Light fighters in Total war are small, agile and fast as you may expect from a light fighter.  They are exceptional ships for dogfighting other fighters since they can use their speed and maneuverability to pick and choose when and where they want to fight.  On the downside, they have small cargo capacities and relatively weak offensive capabilities all packed into a fragile shell.  Essentially, they are hard to hit but easy to kill if you do hit them while at the same time it is easy for them to hit their opponents but they lack the weaponry of the heavier ships.
   
• Medium Fighters - Medium fighters have replaced the original game's "Heavy" fighter class (a.k.a. Elite).  They are well rounded ships capable of dogfighting although they are not as quick or agile as the light fighters.  They are also well suited for attacking stations, weapon platforms and capital class ship although they are not as heavily armed or armored as the heavy fighters.  If you are looking for a ship that turns well and travels fast this is not the ship for you.
   
• Heavy Fighters - Heavy fighters replace the original game's "Very Heavy Fighter" class, mainly because I thought that was a horrible name for a ship class.  These ships are flying tanks capable of withstanding and dealing out astonishing amounts of damage.  They are very well suited to assault roles against large targets such as stations and capital ships.  Although heavily armored they are at a serious disadvantage in dogfights with their slow speed and poor maneuverability.  This class of ships is not designed to be used as a dogfighter, get used to that idea very quickly as a light fighter will literally fly circles around you.
   
• Freighters - Freighters are the typical support ship in Total War.  Available in a number of configurations they are normally well suited for either trading or "gunship" activities.  Each freighter has it's own advantages although they all share some common characteristics.  In general, freighters are slow and tough with a lot of room for cargo.  Armed with an array of guns and missile launchers they can be extremely effective in combat.
   

The basic idea behind the ships is that there is no "best ship" in the game.  What is best for one person may not be the best for another.  Each ship has it's own advantages and disadvantages, this holds true for the different classes as well as the ships of the different factions.  As a result, buying a new ship simply because it is bigger may not be a wise choice, likewise staying in a small ship will not guarantee success either.  However, none of this means it is not possible to fight light fighters while flying a heavy fighter and it doesn't means you can't kill capital ships in a light fighter, it just means that each ship is different and sometimes different may not be the same as better.

In addition to the fundamental changes to the ship classes there have been similar changes to the weapon classes.  The original game gave use 10 weapon classes and 10 turret classes, with each higher class being progressively better than the previous.  That system is no longer in use with Total War.  Instead, each faction (or affiliated group of factions) uses it's own weapon class(es).  For example, the Liberty Rogues have their own weapon class, so they can use their weapons on their ships but they can not use the weapons of the Liberty Police just as the Police can not use the Rogue weapons.  In addition to these faction limitations there are some addition classes within the main factions' weaponry.  There are light, heavy, assault and heavy turret weapon classes available to some factions.  The classifications restrict certain weapons to use on certain ships, so a light fighter belonging to the Liberty Navy can use Liberty Navy light weapons but not Liberty Navy heavy weapons or any of the Rheinland Military weapons.
 

The shields work in a similar fashion to the guns.  There are three sizes of shields available to every faction and each shield size has a number of variations.  The shield sizes determine which ships can mount them and the variations of each shield size determine the strength, regeneration rate and power consumption.  Ships can use smaller shields than their maximum size as well, so even though your freighter or heavy fighter can mount a heavy shield you don't need to, you can choose to mount a light or medium shield instead.

Shield damage resistance is also quite a bit different than it was in the original game.  To start, there are no more "Graviton, Molecular and Positron" shield types, instead there are faction shields types.  This means that your Liberty ship can only mount Liberty shields.  As a result a certain degree of protection against "friendly fire" is available to the Liberty and Rheinland teams as their weapon are less effective against their own shields.  Additionally, the shield size will determine how well it will protect your ship from weapon damage, light shields are easies to penetrate while the heavy shields are considerably tougher.  A nice balance has been achieved with this as well, since the light fighters are quick and agile it is harder to hit them but their shields are weaker so it is easier to damage them when you do hit them.  The inverse is true with heavier ships, they have reduced speed and manuverability but their shields can withstand more hits before they fail.

It is EXTREMELY important to note that no shield, no matter how powerful and expensive will offer you total protection against even the weakest of opponents.  A ship with the cheapest weapons is still quite capable of damaging a ship with the toughest shield, it will be difficult but it is possible.

 

It is also important to note that the weapon damage versus shield types has been redone to offer higher protection to the military shields and less to the civilian and pirate shields.  This means that the weapon infocards are not entirely accurate when they say they do "x" amount of shield damage.  There are also certain weapons that are almost completely ineffective against shields.  This can get confusing with the automatic values displayed along with the infocards which will indicate a certain "shield damage" value and it means the players will have to read the infocard text to see important information with a number of weapons.

The weapons themselves are all completely new weapons.  Each faction's weaponry is balanced against their appropriate opponent's weaponry.  So, despite what the raw numbers may lead you to believe, some of the weapons, such as the Police Weapons, are actually better for certain tasks, such as hunting pirates.  Many of the weapons are available in different versions, with each different version representing an improved version of the original.  At first glance the most common noticeable improvement is the increase in hull or shield damage.  Some of the weapons also gain increased firing rates, velocities and range as well.  There are also other effects that are not readily noticeable through the weapon stats alone, this is very intentional as it adds a certain degree of speculation and personal preferences to the weapon selections.  Just as in real life, certain people will find certain weapons to be more to their liking than other weapons even if they have identical stats.  This was achieved with hidden settings for the weapons such as it's turning rate and true "shield modifier" damage.

The actual number of new weapons averages out to 15 per faction.  Some factions do share weapons making the actual number of available weapons as high as 30-45.  The Military, Police and Corporate factions for both the Rheinland and Liberty teams can share their weapons within their team.  So, a Rheinland Police ship can mount both Police and Military weapons if the player chooses.

The game takes place within a total of four systems.  The first system, New York, is separated from the rest of the game completely and is not even remotely close to the original game's New York system.  There is no way into New York except by creating a new character and the only way out is buy paying for a "bribe" with the faction you wish to join once you have earned enough money.  As a result, New York serves as a training area for new players, allowing them to gradually experience the changes of the mod in an environment that is considerably more forgiving than the rest of the game.  Experienced beta testers have been able to afford the bribe out of New York in as few as 2 1/2 hours or play while the average time is right around 4 hours.  However, New York is not a boring system filled with easy encounters, it is fun as it's own separate "baby" version of the main game complete with three warring factions, fully functional trade routes and a variety of bases to visit.  There is no reason to rush through New York on your first time playing Total War, if you fail to experience every aspect of the gameplay changes in New York you will be at a serious disadvantage when you arrive in either Texas or Hamburg.

Liberty is based out of the Texas system.  Texas is not like the Texas system in the original game, it has new bases and a whole new environment.  As the home of Liberty it is a safe haven for Liberty players with well defended bases and an abundance of friendly NPCs who are more than willing to assist you with hostile targets you may encounter.  There are a number of established trade routes within the Texas system making it possible for small groups of merchants and lone freighters to continue trading even if there are no escort pilots available to help them with the more challenging and rewarding routes.  There are also plenty of missions against and encounters with the Liberty Rogues to keep new pilots occupied as they try to earn the reputations and money needed to upgrade their ship and/or equipment.  In general, Texas is a relatively safe place for Liberty players with a few scattered zones of heavy rogue activity that can provide a challenge even for the established players.

The Liberty Rogues are also based out of Texas although they are hostile with the Liberty Team.  New Rogue players will find a variety of missions and random encounters to keep the occupied.  Since they are based out of their enemies home system their life can be very difficult, even so the low level Rogue players should find that the space around their base(s) is not excessively difficult allowing them an environment where they can earn the money and reputation they need to purchase better ships and equipment.

Hamburg, located on the opposite side of the game universe, is to Rheinland what Texas is to Liberty.  Hamburg is also the home system for the Red Hessians who are hostile with the Rheinland factions.

In the middle is the vast wasteland and battlefield known as Bering.  Bering is extremely hazardous and may proove to be too difficult for many solo pilots.  Large patrols, pirate raiders, freighter convoys and Battleship/Cruise assault groups are in abundance throughout the system.  You can rest assured that your next encounter will be hostile when you want it the least. There have been a lot of questions about the way player & team points and scoring works win Total War, so I'll try to explain as much of it as I can here for everyone.  Some of this is subject to change and some of it is intentionally obscure.

Your performance rating (PR) is based on a number of things and is used to set your in game "rank" tag before your name (e.g. Cadet).  The primary factors in your performance rating are the points you collect (war, neutral & economy).  The largest penalties you will incur are from dying and failing or aborting missions.  The Liberty & Rheinland players will gain the most PR by collecting war points from the opposing team and the least by purchasing economy points.  The exact calculation is 3x War Points, 2x Neutral Points and 1x Economy Points, so having 10 War Points will increase your PR by 30 whereas 10 Econ Points will only increase you PR by 10. 

PR increases for kills can be seen by looking at the player stats details where their ships killed are listed.  The number behind each ship type is their PR increase for all of the kills of that ship type.

There is no positive PR value for missions completed, there is only the negative PR penalty for failed and aborted missions.  Yes, this is harsh and it's staying that way to discourage a number of exploits and make it easy for us to spot players using them.

Player deaths will be explained in more detail below, but in short they apply a -20 PR penalty per death in addition to the points lost.

 

Player deaths apply a number of effects to the players.  First, your performance rating will drop by 20, this is a permanent penalty on your rating.  Also, you will loose half of your economy points (no less than 5) which are converted back into money for you to restart with at thew rate of $15,000 per point.  So, if you have less than 11 points you will restart with $75,000 and loose 5 points.  In the end, this means a player death is a minimum -25 penalty on your rating although 5 of those points can easily be recovered.  In addition to the loss of economy points you will loose a percentage of War & Neutral points, this is done to scale the penalty so that a death is more harmful as your performance rating increases.  Yes, this means you can target the leading players of the opposing team and cause some significant damage to the team score, more on that later.

 

Points are little more than simple commodities that take up no space in your cargo hold.  They come in three flavors and can be collected by destroying enemy targets or purchasing them from your home base.  Points are carried around in your cargo hold until the server maintenance cycle runs at which time they are removed from your cargo and added to your (semi) permanent stats.  If you look at the player stat pages at http://www.ioncross.com all of the points shown for the players there are points that are no longer in the players' cargo holds.  Points you have in your cargo hold don't really count until the maintenance cycle executes, so yes, you can kill a player prior to the maintenance and cause them to loose a lot of points.
 

Economy points serve a number of purposes for both you as a player and your team as a whole.  Economy Points and War Points are the only points that are counted towards the total team score and they have an equal value there.  Economy points are also used to determine your starting money after a player death.  When you die you will loose half of you current economy points (as seen on the stat pages, not including any in your cargo hold) or 5, whichever is greater.  Those "lost" economy points are then cashed in at the rate of $15,000 per point.  You may never drop below -10 economy points, this basically means you can die twice without buying any economy points, if you die more than that you will restart with no money and will be forced to delete you character and start over in NY.  Having negative economy points will hurt your team score and this will affect ship & equipment availability so you should always try to buy enough points to keep yourself above zero.

 

War and neutral points are collected from enemy targets in combat.  In general, a war point comes from a target of the opposing government and neutral points come from opposing pirates.  Neutral points will have no effect on your team score but they will bolster your personal performance rating.  War points will provide the largest increase in performance rating for non-pirate players.  In addition to the scoring purposes, collecting war points will slowly increase your standing with the military, eventually allowing you to access restricted areas and equipment not available to most other players.

An exciting feature of ICTW is its dynamic economy.  Transport ship losses and the total Economy and War points held by a faction determine current equipment prices and bounties in the systems..