ELITE appreciation thread

[AJW]

What are your thoughts on Elite? Any Acorn version.

Should there have been a sequel? If so what should it have included? Is Elite-A what it should have been or something different...even more?

People say the Elite sequels on other platforms were disappointing. If so what did Elite have that they didn't?

[Samwise]

What are your thoughts on Elite? Any Acorn version.

It's Elite.

People say the Elite sequels on other platforms were disappointing. If so what did Elite have that they didn't?

Ian Bell.

[alchresearch]

I thought Frontier was great on the PC. It was fast, smooth and YOU COULD LAND ON PLANETS!

It gave you far more freedom to roam about the stars. You could buy mining gear and mine a planet, or just roam the galaxy looking for interesting stuff.

I liked to do a "Star Trek Voyager" and hold down ALT to force a mis-jump in the hyperdrive so I'd end up hundreds of light years away

[Moist_Mog]

Fantastic for it's time and you have to wonder why there still hasn't been a 2000s version...

I'd be interested to know if anyone ever mastered the art of docking... i.e. able to do so most of the time without crashing, as opposed to the once or twice I made it without a docking computing!

[Samwise]

Presumably you're referring to the original ...

Fantastic for it's time and you have to wonder why there still hasn't been a 2000s version...

There have been a number of open source fan remakes (latest being Oolite). Commercially, tho, Bell & Braben fell out over the state Braben's two sequels Frontier and Frontier: First Encounters shipped in. Braben even sued the publishers for pushing them (well, particularly F:FE) out in that condition. I think he's probably wisely holding off another sequel until circumstances conspire to let him do it justice. His company isn't the largest of development houses, so tackling a project of that size these days, would be very challenging.

I'd be interested to know if anyone ever mastered the art of docking... i.e. able to do so most of the time without crashing, as opposed to the once or twice I made it without a docking computing!

Of course. Can't be Elite without having mastered that that.

Commander Samwise.

[alchresearch]

Fantastic for it's time and you have to wonder why there still hasn't been a 2000s version...

There's EVE or X2: The Threat.

The latter was called "Elite for the 21st century"

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/136892/ ... oduct.html

[AJW]

Fantastic for it's time and you have to wonder why there still hasn't been a 2000s version...

There's EVE or X2: The Threat.

The latter was called "Elite for the 21st century"

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/136892/ ... oduct.html

Which one's better? What do they have that made Elite so revolutionary - immersiveness?

[alchresearch]

EVE is an online game. I beta tested it years ago.

X2 is pretty cheap these days and well worth a look. In fact I'm going home to play it shortly.

[Moist_Mog]

For 'it's', read 'its'...!

Just thought of another - got really into Privateer 2: The Darkening in about 1997 and managed to get to the end of the story (I think) and at that point it becomes pretty much free-for-all.

Pretty impressed that you mastered the art of docking as despite taking out dozens of pirates with hardly a scratch, I'd always then end up crashing on attempting to dock manually... until a saved Commander from The Micro User came to the rescue!

[Samwise]

For 'it's', read 'its'...!

You know you can go back and edit your posts, if need be? (tho it adds a note that you have done so).

Pretty impressed that you mastered the art of docking as despite taking out dozens of pirates with hardly a scratch, I'd always then end up crashing on attempting to dock manually... until a saved Commander from The Micro User came to the rescue!

Docking wasn't too hard, provided you lined yourself up correctly before you started your approach. Now, moving from an analogue joystick over to a digital one - that adds some excitement.

Sam.

[retroclinic]

I thought Frontier was great on the PC. It was fast, smooth and YOU COULD LAND ON PLANETS!

It gave you far more freedom to roam about the stars. You could buy mining gear and mine a planet, or just roam the galaxy looking for interesting stuff.

I liked to do a "Star Trek Voyager" and hold down ALT to force a mis-jump in the hyperdrive so I'd end up hundreds of light years away

I also liked Frontier because they adopted the "correct" inertial motion of spaceflight, instead of simulating in-atmosphere flight. Something which they do in the new remake of Battlestar Galactica.

I know it's not Elite, but for good space combat on a modern PC, Star Wars Galaxies has a very good spaceflight simulation - again tho, it's an online only game.

Mark.

[AJW]

Surprised noone's mentioning the story development of Elite 3 (&2?).

Seems like most people would want:

online multiplay
land on planets
some kind of storyline

for an Acorn Elite sequel.

[Moist_Mog]

Thing is, I always thought I'd lined myself up pretty well and was rotating at the same speed as the station etc... only for a large explosion and the 'game over' screen to pop up...

Bizarelly enough, I had an even lower success rate with a joystick than I did using the keys...!

[Samwise]

Flying too slow actually made it harder, IMHO. It was about lining yourself up properly, which was easily done provided you flew far enough past the space station, towards the planet - the vector graphics made it pretty simple to see when you were on target. Then it was a matter of matching the rotation and flying in at a reasonable speed. Now, if you traded in your analogue joystick for a digital one, like I did - well, that adds a certain amount of spice to the proceedings. Still achievable, tho ...

Sam.

[alchresearch]

I'm bored with X2 now. Anyone want it for the cost of postage & packing and the cost of a bar of chocolate?

[Winston]

Elite is still the game I like to play the most on my BBC Micro. The BBC version, was, without a doubt the best 8 bit version. I also think the BBC version has the best sounds (of ALL versions, not just 8 bit), even now. The sounds really brought a feeling of tension when being attacked by half a dozen pirates; no newer version comes close soundwise. I like the way the sound builds to a creschendo of racket when the fight's at its peak, the sound of ECM mixed about with screaming laser hits and the terrible crashing sound of your hull being rendered to slag.

I do enjoy FFE, I felt it had more depth, but Frontier/First Encounters aren't really the same thing as classic Elite.

As for remakes, let me plug Oolite, which is excellent. It's not player centric. Like ArcElite, you can end up encountering other battles. I've seen three way free-for-alls in Oolite of epic proportions. http://oolite.aegidian.org . It's also the only Elite-like game that has been written natively for Mac OS X. (It now also runs on Linux and Windows, guess who did much of the work for the Linux port...)

[Samwise]

Ooh, a contact for the linux support, eh? Might have to find some time to give it a proper whirl. Been on my todo list for a while ...

Just playing with my linux MAME console atm, tho.

Sam.

[AJH]

I'm suprised no-one has tried to create a patch to give BBC elite the extra missions that the conversions had. I read that the people doing the conversion were encouraged to create their own missions for that specific platform.

[sixxie]

Can you switch to and from joystick control? I tried it the other day (found old voltmace in a box), and the only thing it made better was docking - everything else was easier with the keyboard.

[Samwise]

Can you switch to and from joystick control?

Press K to toggle between keyboard and joystick.

Sam.