Elite / Frontier Elite Forever Update !!

Added recommendations to History page and requested downloads on the Download page...plus a few minor tweaks here and there...

Feedback on the downloads appreciated....Compiled them myself so i hope they work ok for you....BTW...Read the instructions ;)
 
Just gets better and better! More content for me to have a nose through :)

I'd be delighted if you put a link to my site on yours; I'll do likewise...
 
@Synchro - nice job and great to see the addition of the Downloads as i suggested. When E4 is around i can assure u that the modding community for the single-player aspect will kick off im sure...!

@Steve - ive been using your site for a long time, probably the best place for Elite related resources all the in the same place i reckon.

Im currently playing around with First Encounters FFED3D version of the game and im looking for any good mods or homebrewed alterations to the game... can anyone point me to where i can find stuff or maybe sned me what theyve done themselves?
 
@ende

from "start" :)

phew, i would have several uncompleted hacks for FFED3D, to the dislike of steve i delayed all that because of pioneer. (in fact when i looked at what is lurking around on my HD's, i guess 10 to 20 various versions of the .exe. one fixes this issue, the other another, sometimes they counteract and it's very difficult to get them all working in one. you do something, perhaps you like to enable all "eagles", in return you get 10 new problems to solve. to root around in the binary is "dangerous" somehow).
finally i guess "dreamzzz" "retired" from FFED3D, i guess i know why and also i guess i know why there is no surce code (it's with a very high chance a XNA6 or 7 gamestudio project, now perhaps he used... ah, you can imagine, else it would be no problem to share the XNA project files).
it's also sad i have no same interested friend next door, to do this in a team would make it more pleasing. once i really would have liked to get rid of such like the missing "Eagle MKII, MKIII", i can clearly see a solution, but it's a whole lotta work to do so. i would have to rearrange many original models of FFE to make it possible, means to hack them into the bin of FFE in FFED3D, limited "space" is the main problem, i can remove this or that sub-model, because they aren't needed in FFED3D, i.e. the landing gears, i could use the "empty" model to hack a new model... theoretically i could design a new ship in any FFE, but that's really intense work.
but also this is two years ago and i fear i forgot a lot of things since then.
certain things are unsolvable in this way, but i would have liked to solve it.
i.e. i miss missiles, scanners, text, or other sub-models on certain ships in FFED3D, or to get more precise, i.e. a scanner only appears if you have missiles mounted to the cobra3, that's a big leak of how FFED3D calls the model routine in (JJ)FFE, such i can't solve with hacking the FFE part in FFED3D (yes and no, i could turn it "headover" but then it's simply vice versa, you see no missiles before you have mounted a scanner, somehow the first sub-model in row has to be called to enable the rest of them. and even "worse", for FFE the order plays no role, certain ships have one as first in row other a different one. and "super difficult", in FE2/FFE you "count" words to call a sequence, they are not adressed, you have to count very precise if you like to change such).
i would need a source or like i said the original project files, to have at least a chance to do so.

but since i have a working PC again, i could work on them if i find some spare time for it, hmmm... perhaps i will need a kick in the ASP.

but you wil understand now why i got bored of hacking FFED3D,
sorry for you and sorry for steve who always liked my hacks and lunacy.
 
...what brings me to the "corner cases". ;)

i have robbed the "orbital city" from FFE, for a pioneer mod, first i see now why it's unused in FFED3D and it has shown me what i always thought,
the scale of the models is often wrong in FFED3D.
thus simply because the three parts needed to build the "orbital city" are scaled each different in the models export, this shows exactly, the scale of FFED3D is wrong.

has given me a headake back when i hacked it, i was always searching for a comparing scale between how the models are scaled in the bin of FFE and how they are scaled finally in the models export of FFED3D, the scale is often if not always WRONG in FFED3D.

yet another thing i can't solve (or not without a comprehensible scale, of course if i knew the system exactly i could change it in the bin until the scale in FFED3D is proper) with hacking the FFE part in FFED3D.

so this is the reason now why the "Conny" is bigger as the ASP in FFED3D, but i'm convinced in FFE they are scaled proper.

i assume they (he) took a general scaler for all models, while in FFE each has it's own scaler, this because coordinates have to be integer values and to reach a certain size you have to scale each separate.
still i'm also not sure if the scaling values are a multiplicator, or a address or pointer (count words) to a table (which i assume, it's very often used in FFE.
means when you have a value "12" for a scale that won't probably mean divided or multiplied, this i found out, the values, you have two scalers, won't result in no way in a useful scale, so there is only one possibility left, it will point to a value in a table, but i don't know where that table is to find, unfortunately, not yet. i assume "dreamzz" neither got fully behind this and so he used a general scaler which fits more or less).

that's another new dislike i found in FFED3D and actually i have no good idea to get a finally comprehensible scale for the ships in FFED3D resp. FFE.

but if you like i would have some replacement ships and a few suburban buildings, not really fitting ones, or again i would have to hack the original FFE model to get a proper collision mesh.
but personally i didn't minded to much about that, well i probably got hit on the "wrong" part with the replacement "Krait", who cares? if they even didn't cared about the proper scale?

i would have to port them first from my PC to the MAC to upload them.
 
Last edited:
Hey Potsmoke, good to see you round here again :)

I'm not saying there isn't a lot that can be improved in FFED3D but I think most of the really bad bugs have been squished. Personally, the only one that really irritates me is where the bombing/photo target doesn't appear unless you hyperspace into the system using JJFFE or GLFFE.

Let's face it, we've got at least 16 months before ED is released; gotta have my fix of FEU somehow. The new Russian project seems to be further delayed... :(
 
another chance would be to roll back FFED3D, i mean to do the same in a new way.

but i guess i'm not the right guy to do this and pioneer has simply priority for me.
 
Why can't I get into Pioneer? I download every alpha and give it a little go, but I'm back playing FFED3D within minutes :S
 
@steve

yes, i remember this issue somehow, on the other hand i'm not sure i did reconnaissance missions, or not?...

it can be related to "whatsoever", but ok, i can snoop for it, next month.
let's see if i didn't find a reason and finally a solution for it.

actually you see i never had problems with the button textures, now i have a new machine and a NVIDIA card and i have this problem in certain resolutions
and i can run FFED3D only with "aspect fix", while before with the ATI card that problem has never appeared to me and "aspect fix" wasn't needed. i could have stretched the screen to any size as long as i didn't got under a certain resolution.
at all, but that's something different, i feel, even if i own again a NVIDIA, somehow the ATI cards are better.
also because my new machine has a "weak" build in ATI GPU, but for certain things the "weak" build in GPU is better as the NVIDIA card which is otherwise a very powerful one. but, and i always felt this, the NVIDIA is a bit "stiff". and mostly 2D applications run not as good or are less flexible as with the ATI GPU, this i experienced with running old games via DOS-Box, i can have far better smoothing as with the NVIDIA, settings like "MAME3x" for a smooth upscaling are dirty blurred with the NV, while when i use the build in GPU, it comes out very nice and looks
almost as if the game wouldn't be 320x200. but it's a known issue that NVIDIA cards are not good in 2D.

somehow similar to... hmm, i never could get in contact with the thargoids in FFED3D, when starting the same savegame in FFE/GLFFE it was no problem.
 
Last edited:
well steve, don't mind

i guess personal flavour, nothing else.
somehow i understand you, pioneer is still far from beeing a real game,
while FFE you can play for real, you have everything which is important for it.
all kind of missions and things to do, this is the part pioneer leaks still most of i feel.

recent graphics are a nice thing, but they never make a game to a game, this is the thought of a modeller.

in fact, it's true, i get more fun out of playing good old FE2 in the miggy version without any textures as playing pioneer.
it's not relevant for gameplay to have nice graphics, it's a goodie, but not relevant.

i "met" german devs who stated also: "i would sometimes rather like a game in raw polygon style like elite as many other we have today".

i miss the "roleplaying part" of this it leaks really, but you know it's also up to the community to write them.

further, hmmm... to many cooks? i mean ideas drift for the game, one see's it in this way the other in that way.

unfortunately, i feel, Tomm is sometimes to kind, loud mouth like i am, well i would clearly predict what i have in mind, he never does so.
but as the project starter i feel he would have any right to do so.
i would never criticise the longings of a project starter, to me it's still Tomm's game. if he would long for something, it's clear to accept this.

i feel it misses a Boss, one who clearly predicts a direction to go.
any good wagon needs a leader horse, else...
"democracy" or "brotherhood" is a fine thing, but a project needs a leader.
two or three people might work well in a team as "brothers", especially if they have similar ideas, but as soon as you have a bigger team you need a boss, else all goes astray.
that's valid for the construction site as well as for software development.
overall i feel they are not far from each other, it's a different matter but hmm, construction is construction.
i guess a software project is a "organism" likewise a large construction site is a "organism", it needs a brain, a liver, a lung, some arms and legs. all has to work hand in hand but you will need a boss, that mustn't be particulary (but preferably) the brain, but it needs a boss.

greez from the "foreman" ;) with the loud mouth, you need that to get a bunch of workers doing the right thing. sometimes you really have to shout else nothing goes and they only lurk around, well that's fine i like that to,
"but now boys, let's get back to work!"

or it ends in this game: "the one who moves first has lost", also called by us "Mikado".
a game which is very often played on the construction site, lol.

i like our swiss way of direct democracy much, but even the swiss say sometimes our elected federal councils are like "kindergarten", i mean they also leak sometimes of a leader, 7 people and they have the right to vote against each, it can take a very long time until a decision is made.
a king, as the extreme opposite, can't be criticised and you can't vote, his word is order.
 
Last edited:
Hi Potsmoke thanks for the reply :)

It sounds like u have hacked FFE alot and u have alot of ideas that u want to play around with sometime soon. It would be great if the FFED3D project was reborn and continued and the game was brought even further into the here and now by updating, upgrading and expanding it. Maybe with the rediscovered interest in Elite more people will be up for helping out :)

Ive played around with the simple files and improved some of the basic parts of the game, sounds and images. It would be great for someone to show me how to re-skin the existing ship models because im happy to sink time into photoshop, but thats about my limit of what i can do! lol

I guess my only input would be to playtest so im happy to check out any FFE configs u have lying around :D
 
Just did a update since the vid was released...i decided it needed lots more stuff to keep the punters interested :)
its up again now but only just...you may have to refresh as you go :)

Im still not quite happy but il get there ..
 
Hi Potsmoke thanks for the reply :)

It sounds like u have hacked FFE alot and u have alot of ideas that u want to play around with sometime soon. It would be great if the FFED3D project was reborn and continued and the game was brought even further into the here and now by updating, upgrading and expanding it. Maybe with the rediscovered interest in Elite more people will be up for helping out :)

Ive played around with the simple files and improved some of the basic parts of the game, sounds and images. It would be great for someone to show me how to re-skin the existing ship models because im happy to sink time into photoshop, but thats about my limit of what i can do! lol

I guess my only input would be to playtest so im happy to check out any FFE configs u have lying around :D

I created and uploaded an FFED3D launcher and game...One download mods included ...its a lot more tidy to get and play now
 
Website just gets better and better. Nice work!!!

p.s can anyone recommend a site to download a free 'rar' dearchiver program ? My security system keeps flagging one's I've found on the net as being potentially dodgy!
 
Back
Top Bottom