How do I play FreeSpace online?
Back when FS1 was released you had two methods to play online. You could play an IP game or you could play using Volition’s PXO system. The main drawback of playing via IP was that unless you were playing a networked game with people on the same network as you you had to find out the IP addresses of the hosts PC and enter it before you could even see their game. That meant you could only play with people who already knew you. PXO on the other hand gave you a way to simply host a game and have it announced to everyone else on PXO. Unfortunately as PXO aged it became more and more hassle to keep running and eventually it was taken down by Volition after it became too much effort. As a result you can only play FS1 & FS2 Retail via IP games. However the SCP had the source code for the game well before PXO went down and FS2_Open lacked multiplayer because the PXO code had been removed to stop people using it to cheat. This meant that a replacement for PXO already existed in FS2_Open before
