Elite

[Kosta]

Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review and Download (if available) (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/113)

[gregor]

versions of Elites for different types of comoputer plus some aditzional data may be found here on one of the founders page:

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/

[Danny252]

The manual dosen't show the proper instrument display.. I can't even find a space station!

[Tom Henrik]

It takes some time to get used to the controls in the game. You will need to pratice a lot. I can't actually help you with the controls, as I use a laptop. (So my keys are different from yours :wink: )

As for the space-station, it is the red box with a slit in it. (Look at the screenshots from the game). The docking procedures can be found on page 22 in the manual.

[Danny252]

yes I know what it looks like(and yes I did crash into the one whenre u start) but it says something about a compass do direct you to a space station. Huh?

[Danny252]

It seems from the Elite page that the manual is for a different version..

[LotharGR]

In Elite Plus ( or Elite 2 ? I don't remember ) there was a option of docking automatically in space stations by giving a small amount of money. But in Elite 1... you have to do everything by yourself

[gregor]

when i got a spectrum simulator on my computer the first game i looked for was elite. i never played it before. and i was very interested in it because i read about it in a magazine. anyway guess what the major problem was for beginners? docking procedure. a real problem. i managed to dock only a few times. then i quit playing. but later versions Elite 2 (final frontier) and 3 (first encounters) usually already gave you the automatic pilot with the craft. so docking really wasn't the problem. also in later versions you can land on the planets, take fuel form suns etc..... i just haven't figure out how to pirate the ships good and how to follow them arround in galaxy.
Elite plus is just remake of original Elite.

[Danny252]

In Elite you need a fuel collector to get fuel from funs and destroy trade ships and use a fuel collector to get their cargo bit

[Anonymous]

yes I know what it looks like(and yes I did crash into the one whenre u start) but it says something about a compass do direct you to a space station. Huh?
The "compass" is on the bottom right of the screen. You need to get that dot in the middle of rectangle and then you're moving toward the station. Also, you can skip some travel time by pressing J (works only if no ships are around you). But if you want to play the REAL elite, find Acorn archimedes port and emulator (RedSquirrel).

[Vahlto]

It is a good thing Abandonia has delivered a version of Elite for downloading! I love the game, eversince I played it on my Acorn Electron, ages ago!

The version that I find the most 'playable' is Elite - The New Kind, which can be downloaded here: http://www.downloadfreegames.co.uk/games/d...oad/newkind.zip (http://www.downloadfreegames.co.uk/games/download/newkind.zip)
I changed some wave-sounds (for instance the crappy laser-sfx and explosions) for some better ones, and altered the colours on the main scanner as one can see here:
http://picserver.org/view_image.php/29T54IJW97DS/p.png

(If you would wish to use this image, you should make it a 256-colour bitmap.)

[RandomNY]

Awesome site you guys have. I used to play ELITE on my Commodore 128 for hours, if it wasn't for the need for sleep, it would have been days straight. It always amazed me how many galaxies were in that game with hundreds of planets to trade with.

:ok: :Brain:

[Lord_Scather]

And all the galaxies and Stars are based on the real starcharts, too.

Only I think they invented most of the far-away planets. Nevertheless, the stars are all named exactly. really. go and ask some astro-scientist. :w00t:

same goes with Frontier and First Encounter (Elite 2 + 3)

addition: the stars than can be seen from earth and ARE named, that is

[dr_st]

Uhm... At least in Elite 1 - the stars are TOTALLY NOT named after real planets. It's just pseudo-random jibberish. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to squeeze it all into like 74K.

Speaking of Elite - does anyone know if there's a way to finish the game? And what's with the 9th galaxy? I know that there are 8 galaxies normally, and hyperspacing from Galaxy 8 brings you back to 1. But if you look inside the EXE file you see a string like "Welcome to the 9th galaxy!" Is this a bogus, or is there really a way to get there?

[Lord_Scather]

Ok then...but in Frontier and First Encounter, they are...


But....all the systems in Elite HAVE names, so what's the difference in them being real ones, 72k or no??? :blink:

[kieth]

Where is my C64? Awsome game theat bringd=s back my beginings with computers. I won't tell how old I am.

[MV75]

Originally posted by LotharGR@Jun 5 2004, 06:50 AM
In Elite Plus ( or Elite 2 ? I don't remember ) there was a option of docking automatically in space stations by giving a small amount of money. But in Elite 1... you have to do everything by yourself Buy a docking computer and press D from memory. It will auto dock then. :)

[stype]

i used to play this game when i was a kid and i got to the elite status
and then something strange happend...

they told me that i have to take some people to some planet because this one
is going to explode, and when i flew out from the space station i had a fuel
leak, and so i couldn go to hyper space and i died, i even played a saved game that i saved few days ago and the same thing happend .....i could never play the game anymore....

can someone explain this?

[dr_st]

Originally posted by stype@May 31 2005, 11:33 PM
i used to play this game when i was a kid and i got to the elite status
and then something strange happend...

they told me that i have to take some people to some planet because this one
is going to explode, and when i flew out from the space station i had a fuel
leak, and so i couldn go to hyper space and i died, i even played a saved game that i saved few days ago and the same thing happend .....i could never play the game anymore....

can someone explain this?
Yeah, it is a special mission. You need to buy this thing called "Galactic Hyperdrive" and hyperspace into the next galaxy (for that you don't need fuel). The fuel leak makes it so that you have no chances of surviving, unless you escape to the next galaxy.

[stype]

should have taught of it myself back than.....damn

it happened to me again just yesterday after i red your post, im playing elite all over again these few days, only now i play it with a cheat, cause im not in the mood playing
6 months to earn some money for the real eqipement, that galactic drive costs money....

anyway i did it , but now i have to do it all from scratch because i saved the begining position over my saved game .... still thinking should i hang myself or just jump of the building...



and one more question .....how many galaxies are there....i got to galaxy number 5 and then i lost the freakin savegame file :cry:

does the game have an end?......i remember playing it for year and a half back then....

[gregor]

judging form experince from other elite games i don't think there is an ending.

or is there? :w00t:

[dr_st]

As far as I know there are 8 galaxies and no end. If you hyperspace from Galaxy 8, you get back to 1.

[Zham]

Originally posted by LotharGR@Jun 4 2004, 08:50 PM
In Elite Plus ( or Elite 2 ? I don't remember ) there was a option of docking automatically in space stations by giving a small amount of money. But in Elite 1... you have to do everything by yourself
It was in elite+ you had option to pay small fee, or you could buy a automatic docking computer, but it was a high price on that.

In the start of elite+ you got 100 credits and the fee to get automtic landing was 50 credits.


In Elite+ it was a real killer to try to land by manual contol, and no way to save until you had landed.

In Elite2 and Elite3 it was called automatic pilot, and it was super easy to dock by manual control on a station, to land on a planet was harder if you tried manually. You had also the option to save while you where landing or docking.

A major plus was the steering control was much easier on elite2 & 3.

[whatshisface]

I've never played this game, but i absolutley hated driving a little box around and fighting little boxes. is this game much different?

[PrejudiceSucks]

I recommend getting a more modern version of this then, like Freelancer.

It's not that different from your ideas, but on the other hand, some people find it fun, in a soothing kind of way.

[SimonC123]

love the game - but can anyone tell me how to save games?????
ta

[ToneLeMoan]

Originally posted by Lord_Scather@May 13 2005, 04:12 PM
"But....all the systems in Elite HAVE names, so what's the difference in them being real ones, 72k or no???* :blink:"
The difference is that the planet names in the original Elite were all generated using a discrete but reliable seed. This would generate a unique name constructed from word parts (eg. LAVE = LA + VE). There was a list of name parts, probably no more than 32 or 64, each planet name was a string of 2 or 3 of these. The advantage of this method was that the planet names did not have be stored explicitly. A big saving on memory (2048 planets x 10 characters in its name = about 20KB).

This was especially important in the Acorn Electron/BBC versions of the game. The machine had around 24KB of memory free excluding the sceen memory. Truly the programming feat of the century!

[velik_m]

Originally posted by PrejudiceSucks@Nov 20 2005, 11:37 PM
I recommend getting a more modern version of this then, like Freelancer.

It's not that different from your ideas, but on the other hand, some people find it fun, in a soothing kind of way.
or get a remake of Elite called Oolite: http://oolite.aegidian.org/

[Guest]

Originally posted by dr_st+Jun 1 2005, 07:37 AM****</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (dr_st @ Jun 1 2005, 07:37 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> ******QuoteBegin-stype@May 31 2005, 11:33 PM
i used to play this game when i was a kid and i got to the elite status
and then something strange happend...

they told me that i have to take some people to some planet because this one
is going to explode, and when i flew out from the space station i had a fuel
leak, and so i couldn go to hyper space and i died, i even played a saved game that i* saved few days ago and the same thing happend .....i could never play the game anymore....

can someone explain this?
Yeah, it is a special mission. You need to buy this thing called "Galactic Hyperdrive" and hyperspace into the next galaxy (for that you don't need fuel). The fuel leak makes it so that you have no chances of surviving, unless you escape to the next galaxy. [/b][/quote]
In fact, the fuel leak happens before you dock to the station. You have two ways out. One is described in the above post using the Hypergalactic drive (did not know that myself until today :D ) The other is by flying to the sun BEFORE you dock, scoop your fuel from the sun with your fuelscoop by just skimming the surface of the sun keeping your temperature just below critic, and then returning to base and dock. Then, when you get your mission you still have full fuel and you can jump to the next star immediately after leaving station (be sure to have your destination locked) and receive hero-status. :angel:
In all other cases, you die :cry:

[OsoSober]

The first thing i do when playing elite, is

1. mark the center of the display where the laser targets is, with white out
2. Sell the pulse laser, and purchase fuel scoops
3. find some cargo, either by pirating or using missiles use both missiles
4 redock manually (pretty easy to do ) sell cargo to purchase more missiles and
the pulse laser again. stay in the lave system until you have the credits to repurchase the pulse laser

5 jump to a system that sells docking computers and repeat the process until afford to buy one, then docking is a brease.
note, when docking with a station alway active the docking computer from infront of the station, if from behind, it will line you up with the rear of the station, and you will crash into it.

the first thing i do when i enter a system is head for the sun to get the fuel.

and yes, i have been in the 9th galaxy, once years ago on the original game.

OsoSober

ososober@hotmail.com

[dr_st]

Originally posted by OsoSober@Apr 8 2006, 05:45 PM
and yes, i have been in the 9th galaxy, once years ago on the original game.
How do you get there?

[Guest]

From (distant) memory, there was a special UFO trader flying around somewhere in the ganme as well...

...Never met him myself, but apparently he was hidden in the code somewhere. Moves around too, since no one had apparently managed to come across him.

Ah well, another one for around the campfire, eh? ^^;

[akira]

i just put this game on my laptop and the controls are kinda different and it looks a bit different to some stuff in the screenshots in the manual. well anyways my space bar fires instead of a, and i cant find anything to slow down/speed up so i cant dock and therefore cant get very far in the game LOL. anyone have any ideas?

[Guest]

9 galaxy... if you still see this hyper jump once hyper jumping (just sfter you press the button) start going up and hold down the key, you go to a galaxy full of blood thirsty ufos

[Steve UK]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Guest @ Oct 27 2006, 06:03 AM) 263760</div>
9 galaxy... if you still see this hyper jump once hyper jumping (just sfter you press the button) start going up and hold down the key, you go to a galaxy full of blood thirsty ufos
[/b]


I don't recall a 9th galaxy as such...... but am (partly) familiar with what you describe. Occasionally... like 1 in 50 times......... a hyperjump would malfuction and you'd end up in the middle of nowhere.... no planet, no docking station. Perhaps you can get there deliberatly by pressing the buttons you describe - or maybe I did that accidentally - but I always thought it was a random thing.

Anyway... within a minute or two you'd be attacked by a large fleet of (I can't believe that in a lengthy thread about Elite nobody has mentioned them yet) Thargoid ships. For those who don't know, a Thargoid "mother" ship would spit out lots of baby ones... so an initial attack of 3 or 4 ships would soon become 20 or 30 of them. The small ones died easily, but were very manouverable and hard to hit.

It's been 20 years or more since I last played it..... but I THINK the only escape from the above scenario was to find the sun...... and sun-dive to scoop enough fuel to hyperjump out of there.

Great game: if it were modernised and thousands of players from around the world could do battle/trading in the same galaxies online they'd be needing Elite Treatment Centres for addicts.

[gregor]

Something like EVE online?!?! Or maybe battle cruiser millenium or somehting like that...

Or the offline freeware Privateer Remake or Vega Strike ? well they lack the realistic physics of Elite 2&3...

Still Elite 3 with imporved graphics would be very nice. especially with some co-op option.

[Ironlion]

The date is wrong on the website. The original Elite was released in 1984 on the BBC Micro.

Speaking in the strictest terms, this particular version was released in 1987, and was Programmed by Real Time (being based on the original BBC-B cassette Elite Programmed by Ian Bell and David Braben).

I just wanted to make note of this, As one of these two correct dates should be used rather than that other one :3:

[Luchsen]

Fixed.

[THE FMS IS COMING]

well i have downloaded this game (along with may others:ouch:)
but one thing i don't get is when you start
(after the cracked password protection) it says

COMMANDER JAMESON
system: leave
hypersystem : leave

ect ect ect....:dislike:
what do i do after this:whops::doh:
i tried keyboard mashing (an old method of getting SOMETHING done)
but all i found out was that pushing escape was that it came up with this:
DISC/CONTROL DEVICE: KEYBOARD
press key for disc or device options

L...load commander K...keyboard
S...save commander M...mouse
D...delete commander J...joystick
C...catalogue disk E...exit to DOS

help!:what:

:jason:

[Luchsen]

Did you read the manual? I guess you didn't. ;)

[The Bloodhawk]

This is one smooth game for it's time. Blew my mind.

[Guest 23]

Hi,

I was an avid Elite layer back in the day and very excited to get this version and run on DOS BOX.
All works fine except, after hyperspacing out of Lave to another planet , there is no spacestation. I have circled/orbited at close distance the planets in Leesti, Diso and few others, and there just is no spacestation. Unfortunately without trading the game isn't playable. Please help - I love this game so much!

Kind regards,

Tim

[jamotide]

Hehe, you have to fly to the planet first, put it in view and press J for time acceleration, it only works when no ship is near you.

Also 2 days ago David Braben started a kickstarter for Elite 4, it may finally be happening!

[guest 94]

Hehe, you have to fly to the planet first, put it in view and press J for time acceleration, it only works when no ship is near you.

Also 2 days ago David Braben started a kickstarter for Elite 4, it may finally be happening!

Sorry, but I do fly to the planets, (using jump where possible) and then around the planet at close altitude but no spacestation ever come into view or on the console (S) scanner.

[Guest skippy]

Hehe, you have to fly to the planet first, put it in view and press J for time acceleration, it only works when no ship is near you.

Also 2 days ago David Braben started a kickstarter for Elite 4, it may finally be happening!

I saw the Braben announcement, but that seems a long way off. Also why bother, when we already have the excellent Oolite? See www.oolite.org or Elite Wiki pages.

[Egbard]

does anyone know where if possible to get the original unhacked files from?

when i playe dit from floppy, it took more than 1000 kills to get elite status, also, from ian bells own site, it suggests a total of 6400?
so i was looking for original files, /unhacked files, i dont mind using the copy portection from the manual

[Raexer]

I remember Elite very well. It was 1 of my favorite games that I had for Commodore 64 about 1989. I had hundreds of C-64 games, but Only a short list of them got regular play. Elite, Wasteland, Pool Of Radiance, Hillsfar, Legacy of the Ancients, Three Stooges, Rocketeer, Oils Well, Dig Dug and a few others round out that list. I forget what rank I had achieved in Elite before I got rid of all my C-64 equipment, but I was over a hundred planets into trading career and my ship had huge cargo hold upgrades with military lasers mounted on all views. I may download 1 of the elite emus soon and give it another go.

[marko river]

Same here. Few times I even carried my C64 with me in case I'm going somewhere for a few days. I was so hooked up on Elite. The feeling was... I gotta find that music I was listening to on audio tape while playing. I loved sequels with bigger background story and options, and then modern space games... but somehow the feeling wasn't the same. I guess it is because of age. You don't need much options and graphics if ther is imagination working, I guess.

I think I reache "Dangerous" status or something like that. Few times I tried "conquering" the planet, actually satelite. Ther was a local legend that you had to destroy some big number of guarding ships from satelite that are spawned if you shoot at it. And then you would get the message that they surrender and you would get lot of resources and something.... Anyway I tried it few times and escaped the system when things get out of hand, so it speeded up my kill count. I think I never went further that dimension 2 or 3 because I couldn't finish the second mission with that army ship. I think of replaying the game but I know that's impossible as adult, too much time is needed.

In all those hours and hours of playing, something happend only once to me. I was on my way to planet after jump and some object appeared. It was yellow in radar so I expected a pirate ship, but it was too small. So I went closer, because I wasn't firing at me... When I got close enough I saw it was some irregular object I never saw before. I spent quite some time flying around it and eventually decided to try picking it up. It turned out to be alien item which I carried for a while not knowing what can I use it for and eventually sold it. The fact that it happend so rarely thrilled me back then.

Awesome, awesome game. Too bad I never got to play MoonFall and Mercenary

[Simonius]

I was able to save and delete files in the game, but couldn't load a game after I saved it- it just kept giving me an error. I played in DosBox and copied the save file around, thinking it was a directory issue, but the fact that the game was able to delete the save files means it's a programming issue. Sadly, I deleted the game.

[Nilex]

So I just encountered the same Loading error issue. Thought maybe it was due to cracked copy protection so I tried true 1987 vanilla but same error occurs.
Cause is too complex for me to try and explain but at least the solution is easy. Download the fix from here (by ripsaw8080, who else):
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=142211#p142211
and run ELFIX.COM before ELITE.COM. This will enable loading the commander save.

Catalogue listing still wont work however. The price of advancing our technology too far :)