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Today I finally got around to ordering my BBA from Nintendo.com, and also purchasing a keyboard adapter from Ebay. I'm not sure when these items will arrive, but we have yet to order a router, and once we get it there'll be some rather tricky wiring to accomplish first. I estimate that I could be online in two weeks, give or take.

I think it's time I asked a few things about online play. I chose to put these questions in this board, because the majority of them deal at least somewhat with hackers:
1. Most importantly: which ships and blocks of the US and EU servers are safe? By safe, I mean more-or-less hacker free. I mean, obviously US Vega 01 is not safe... but the others, I dunno. I have been online only twice; once I simply went to Altair 9-1 briefly for a trade session, and the second time I hopped around Altair several times in one night, played a couple games. Apparantly not all of Altair is safe - I met a couple people in block 02 who threatened to FSOD me (not that it would've damaged me, much, but that isn't the point). Then later, the friend whose HL I was borrowing pointed me to Altair 4, where his group apparantly hung out most often. Hmm... at any rate, I've never been to any other ships.

2. I've heard that the plus version of PSO does not include the double save, which apparantly means the lobby-reload corruption glitch doesn't work on plus players? Is this true? Has it been proven (is there someone here who has survived this glitch because of using plus)?

3. How many of the people on this board hang out mostly on the EU servers, and how many on the US servers? I think I could see all the servers when I got online last... which means theoretically I could skip over there and play with you folks sometimes. Are there fewer hackers on the EU ships (logic seems to suggest so)?

4. What do people tend to play most often? TTF is a popular choice, obviously (although that room in the mines with all the sinows... *shudder*). Is Cmode really that hard? Is it unlikely to get an S-Rank the first time you play it? Or is there a lot of leeway on this? It seems to me that you'll have to spend at least some time communicating... and on that subject, who tends to have TIME for Cmode, anyway? I don't know anyone who has 7 straight hours to kill playing PSO... :ermm:

I will probably have more questions once I actually get my equipment and try to set it up (especially since my current configuration points to my friend's SN/AK instead of my own). Here are some of the things I hope to do online... just for kicks:

1. TTF, and lots of it.
2. Ruins runs, maybe... I need a new Spread Needle but playing Ruins with my HUmar/Purplenum is a pain. Maybe if I lead Ruins runs with that ID it'll be easier...
3. Tower! I can't even make a dent in Epsilon at this point, but maybe I'll have better chances against the tower enemies if my main role is freezing them (I wouldn't dare take anyone but my RAmar into tower at this point)
4. Trading... I'll be posting a full tradelist in the trade forum when I get my equipment, but I hope to trade as much as possible when I get online (if anyone is interested, I can easily pipe a bunch of different things, and I do it quite often actually ).
5. Cmode? Maybe... :ermm:

1. just hop through the ships thats the most safe way, empty block to empty lobby, never stay in lobby 1!, and actually vega 1 is pretty dead

2. I do know someone who survived a lobby corruption, and she was on plus, and I've been told that you dont get the double save if you make the game, not sure about that though

3. I play on the US servers every night normally around 7Am GMT

hope that helps

Answering Q4, but specifically about C-Mode...

C-Mode comes in sections, specific stages. You can do all of them at once, or bit by bit over the course of a few days. Once you beat a stage, you can go back and go over for a better time.

Avoid all US ships, theyre all hacking scum (sorry but other nationalities use the US ships to hang out and hack on to its not just the americans). On the Dreamcast version when they recently re-opened the servers they wouldnt re-open the US one because they said thats where hackers come from, I think thats says alot.
Avoid all crowded ships, find a nice remote Japanese ship/block/lobby and arrange meeting times with your own mates. Trust me its not wort the concequences.
In a lobby, hackers can still do a re-load on plus but because it only saves once it just saves normally and then you get FSOD. It's annoying, but you just lose meseta cos its lobby FSOD, unlike game FSOD where you lose unequipped and un banked items to.
If someone makes a game, and you enter, and they activate then, the FSOD glitch or code, you will come down straight into the first save, then there will be the gap, in that gap you will get FSOD causing corruption or FSODX, because an FSOD in between the double save acts like an FSOD or power cut directly in a save. If you make the game, you still double save, but theres no one to FSOD you, is there? Even if they come in behind you and deal you an FSOD they can never be fast enough to get into the doublesave before you finish it completely. Thus, if you crate games, you can avoid FSODX but not FSOD.
Don't get lippy with the hackers, it's not a good idea, i tried it, I can't go online now. Well, not untill I network my GC to my PC for backup anyways.

But I thought PSO Plus doesn't have the double save... yeah, you said that you just get FSOD in the lobby, right? FSOD I can handle; I have backups. The way I understood it was, if you get hit by that code, non-plus users get corrupted, but plus users just get FSOD'd because the save process is already over. At any rate, there's no one on the JP ships I know... I'm not gonna go there... maybe the EU ships if there are a lot of people from this forum there...

Namillus: You can redo the stages? Like, if you got a bad time in one level you can just redo it and lower your time?? Wow... that'd be awesome... hard to believe though...

you can redo any of the stages yes, and I'm not sure about the plus thing

I am pretty sure there is no double save on PSO+