Elite Universe Editor (6502SP, BBC Master, C64)

[MarkMoxon]

Hi all.

I'm delighted to announce a brand new release for the BBC Micro: the Elite Universe Editor.

Full instructions and download links can be found on the project website.

home-screen.png (5.68 KiB) Viewed 3816 times

The Elite Universe Editor allows you to create your own playable universes in classic BBC Micro Elite. It works on the BBC Micro with a 6502 Second Processor, and on the BBC Master (128 and Turbo).

The Universe Editor lets you customise pretty much every aspect of the Elite universe, from the ships around you to the seeds used to generate the game's systems and galaxies. Here's what you can do, all within the original game engine:

• Compose your universe by placing ships, planets, suns and space stations anywhere within the local bubble, with a fully featured 3D editor that uses the game's original interface and key presses that will be familiar to players of BBC Micro Elite.

• Edit the many different attributes for each ship, such as AI, ship personality, speed, turn rates, laser fire, missiles, E.C.M., station type, planet type and so on.

• Save and load universe files.

• Play your universes by jumping straight into the game engine with your chosen universe laid out around you. Build a scenario and watch it come to life, or load one of the sample universes that come bundled with the editor, like the iconic screenshot from the back of the box.

• Edit the galaxy seeds to explore the 281,474,976,710,656 different galaxies that the engine supports.

The Universe Editor is a "mod" in the real sense of the word - it modifies the original Elite, which is still present in the Universe Editor in its full form. When you play a universe file, it drops you into the game itself with your current commander loaded, as if you had been there all along.

I have also released a GitHub repository containing the fully documented and buildable source code for the Universe Editor, so you can see exactly how I modded the original Elite:

https://github.com/markmoxon/elite-universe-editor

It's great fun. I really hope you like it!

Mark

[Lardo Boffin]

Blimey! Sounds awesome!

[vanekp]

wow amazing work

[marcusjambler]

Fabulous idea... And fully implemented too...

[0xC0DE]

Awesome as ever!

[DutchAcorn]

Wow. That must have been a lot of work, and it shows.

I love the way you have adapted the original game interface as the interface for the editor.

Amazing work!

[MarkMoxon]

Thank you all for the kind words!

Wow. That must have been a lot of work, and it shows.

I love the way you have adapted the original game interface as the interface for the editor.

Glad you like it, that bit turned out pretty well. Luckily the dashboard turned out to be a really good UI for editing the ship attributes - makes sense, I guess.

In case anyone is interested, I’m hoping to add the same editing tools to the Commodore 64 version, which should mean that Beeb and C64 owners could swap universe files. Not sure whether anyone will, but it’s an interesting prospect!

Mark

[Zalaga]

Thank you for your time to make this available for us, stunning work

[Iggypop]

Elite in the headlights !!!
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/almost ... editor-mod

[trixster]

Blimey, this is quite amazing! I need to sink some time into this at the weekend

[maniacminer]

Nice work! Commander Jameson will get dug out of retirement for another blast through user defined space this weekend

[controlbreak]

Wow good work!

[helpful]

If you want the chance to chat with Mark over a pint about his amazing work on Elite, join us at ROUGOL on Monday!
viewtopic.php?f=61&t=25842

Bryan.

[MarkMoxon]

This isn't strictly a BBC update... but the Elite Universe Editor is now available for the Commodore 64 as well as the BBC Micro. Here are some links:

• Info: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_un ... ditor.html

• Download: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_un ... loads.html

• C64 instructions: https://www.bbcelite.com/hacks/elite_un ... re_64.html

• Source code: https://github.com/markmoxon/elite-universe-editor

I've shared the same source code between the two platforms, so the functionality is identical between this version and the original BBC version. You can even share the same universe files between all three versions (BBC Micro with 6502SP, BBC Master and Commodore 64). There can't be too many programs where you can swap save files between a Beeb and a Commodore 64!

Here are some pictures comparing the two platforms, starting with the BBC version:

home-screen.png (5.68 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

The ship ID poster from the BBC version:

slot.png (7.1 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

The editing dashboard from the BBC version:

dashboard.png (2.24 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

And the BBC editing screen:

planet.png (4.97 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

And now the Commodore 64:

c64-home-screen.png (5.37 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

The ship ID poster from the C64 version:

c64-slot.png (6.59 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

The editing dashboard from the C64 version:

c64-dashboard.png (2.31 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

And the C64 editing screen:

c64-planet.png (4.2 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

It's also interesting to see the differences. For example, the Beeb's space view is much bigger:

boxart2.png (6.69 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

compared with the exact same universe file loaded on the C64:

c64-boxart2.png (5.77 KiB) Viewed 2865 times

Apologies for posting this non-Acorn heresy, but hopefully it's of interest!

Mark

[shifters74]

Thanks Mark!

All version of elite are interesting (even the current PC one) but being able to modify the C64 and BBC versions is gonna be fun!!

Thanks for the hard work.

shifters