I don't know if this has been suggested before or if it would be practical as I know the number of gateways mods being created is dropping but here's my idea anyway.

Why not allow users to get mod gateways through Uplink rather than have them find a website themselves. In game, they could connect to a system called something like "Modlink Corporation". They then can create a user on that system and when they access through their user they connect to an online database via the Internet (in real life). This database would then provide the user with details of new gateways that they can choose to download.

Obviously the most difficult thing would be finding someone to host the database but perhaps a few nice words to modlink.net would be useful since they already host mod gateways on their site (even if they aren't compatible with Onlink).

I just suggest this as I thought it would be a prettier way of getting content into Uplink. May be even a similar thing could be done for LAN except you have to access a server called "Modlink Network Design Inc." which would work like the original Internic (click the contact info and it downloads a LAN). Although since they are a design company you would be able to see little info on what you're getting i.e. number of systems and such.

Once again sorry if this has been mentioned before, or if there are any spelling/grammar errors in what I have wrote. If there is anything I didn't make clear I'm all to happy to explain further, if I can...

Sounds like an interesting idea but I'm not sure that this would work too well, it assumes that you have a permanent connection to the internet while you are playing. Dial-up internet users that pay for the time the are online would be at a serious disadvantage for that feature which, in the long run, could prove rather expensive.

My solution: Both.

There could be a database of gateways which are downloaded when you ask to update them. Obviously, once a gateway is uploaded, if a change needed to be made the original gateway you would have to make a new one with that change. Otherwise peoples gateway definitions would be changed when they re-download. If something was removed from it, their gateway might have one to many CPUs, etc. Not good. I suppose you could make a spin-off gateway for each change, like if you wanted to add an extra 2 CPU slots, you could call it the OriginalGatewayName xCPU or something.

If a user was on dialup however (this is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of people, but they still need to be catered for), they could just go to the site and download the gateways manually. This would save them some downloading time because they would only download the ones that they want, when they want.

How About An In Game Gateway Make
Like You'd Login To a Company And Build A Gateway
And Then The Gateway Goes on Market
When Another Agent Buys The Gateway You Could Get money
The Catch Is You'd Have To Pay To Buy The Gateway you Just Created

Not a bad idea.

I assume that English is not your primary language, so I'll point out that in the English language, only the first letter of each sentence is capitalised, not every word, that is, unless the word is a name or place name (e.g John or London). Not trying to nag, just thought you might want to take that into consideration when posting.

If English is your primary language... lets not go there.

But definately a good idea... not sure how it would work, there'd have to be a way to securely upload the gateway from ONLY the Onlink client to a server. You'd also need some way of calculating the gateway's price automatically, so people don't make it 1c (or stupidly cheap). Then there would have to be gateway building interface, which inside Onlink might be tricky.

It might actually be worth it to do all this, it'd be an awesome feature...

No I was think that the request to connect to the internet would only be made when the user connects to that server in the game. Then when they disconnect from the server they are given the option of disconnecting from the net. That way dial-up users wouldnt have to be constantly connected.

Okay, for the downloadable database, that's fine, except we already have that with modlink. Other than the ingame part that is. The main advantage is having gateways that are already configured to be capable of RAM capacity.

As far as the "custom order" gateways... The simplest way to regulate price is to have a set amount added to the price for certain features, i.e. first cpu is included in a base price, next five add 2500 per piece to the price, or something along those lines. The main issue would be creating the image file for it and placing it in the folder. I don't believe it would be feasible to have a server on which to upload these files. An ingame server, much like the new software server that was added, would be a better idea. If it isn't too complicated to program. Then you would have a list like in Uplink ISS to purchase from.

Also along those lines, well kinda, it would be kinda cool to hide gateways in LANs and stuff, to be found and purchased or shipped to a new location. Or to make it more simple, have it create a remote server that is added to your list. Just a thought.

I also had in the future Gateway importing.. this:
Maybe in this case, I could do a "Build your own Gateway" thing?