Hello fellow veterans,
while I saw Elite first on an C64, I was only able to play it on an Amiga for the first time. And this experience lingered; it's still my preferred version (knowing full well that it's generally regarded as a bit -- lame -- compared to the other versions).
Currently, I am playing it on my PC with the WinUAE (SARA cheating forbidden of course!) and I am approaching my first mission (according to various sources on the Internet, the Constrictor mission is triggered at around 170.000 points).
Parallel to playing it, however, I am assembling all information regarding the Amiga version that I can find (for example, I already have a database will all planets and their descriptions in them; also their distances between each other), but I have some problems finding answers to some questions. Maybe you know some of them?
[I tried to contact Rob Nicholson, one of the original coders of the Amiga version, but the e-mail address I found is outdated and I am not sure if I spotted the correct facebook profile, so Rob, if you read this, please feel free to answer... ]
Questions:
1. What are the ship specifications for each ship (especially hit points: I found by experimenting, that e.g. a Thargoid needs 56 hits with a beam laser or 46 hits with a military laser; I suppose this yields an energy for the Thargoid of X and an impact value of the lasers of Y/Z -- but I'm not sure; I have compiled this data for most ships -- but I can only dream of hitting the Cougar with a beam laser - let alone pulse laser - to measure its energy).
2. Missions: I am confident that there are 5 different missions (I've only ever completed one), but when (exactly!) are they triggered? Which constrains must hold?
3. Triggering a mis-jump: I've read a couple of times that I have to set my climb to maximum when entering hyperspace to trigger a mis-jump. Doesn't work for me, though. Is there a way to trigger a mis-jump to witch-space? [I tried with Pause-Ctrl X -- and this seemed to have worked exactly once.... Must have been coincidence]
4. Talking about witch-space: I assume, the number of Thargoids you have to kill, before you can leave the witch-space depends on your rating. I think the numbers are 2 for harmless (or mostly harmless -- I forgot), and 14 for dangerous (somewhere, I wrote down the number for competent, but I can't find it right now -- 8, if I remember correctly). Correct?
5. More witch-space: Any tactical advice on how to attack Thargoids that come in packs from different angles? They are difficult enough to destroy if they are both behind...
6. I have read somewhere, that in some source code (though not specifically the Amiga version) the greeting "Welcome to galaxy 9" has been found. Is there an "official" galaxy 9 (hex-edit in sara forbidden)?
7. If I use SARA to generate a new galaxy, I know that bytes 0E-13 relate to that (0D only gives the displayed number of the galaxy). Can you provide more elaborate information on these bytes -- and on the cheat mode in general? [I know, which bytes correlate to which cargo and to which equipment; current game time, kill count, rating, etc. but it would be great to have a complete overview for once]
8. What exactly are the differences between Elite 1.0 and Elite 2.0? (So far I spotted Thargoid bounty == 40 instead of 15 and you can have military lasers on all sides (thankfully!!)).
9. Talking about credits for kills: Where, in the program files can I use a hex-editor to modify the credits for each ship? I would like to have a more "balanced" setting for credits/points, because 15 Cr for a Mamba seem too much.
TIA!
Cmdr. Stardust aka Philipp
Here are the answers we could gather so far (I will post new findings here):
1.: See page 13 of this thread. Thanks to Quelo!!
2.: The missions are "Super nova", "Constrictor", "Thargoid Documents", "Space Station", and "Cloaked Ship". So far, we know that the Constrictor mission is triggered after 1 intergalactic jump to galaxy 2 followed by 63 hyper jumps in the second galaxy. It is independent of the amount of credits you have and independent of the legal status.
The second mission ("Thargoid Documents") is also triggered after 64 hyperjumps (in galaxy 3) or supposedly after 1 intergalactic hyperjump to galaxy 4 and 63 hyperjumps. It also is independent of legal status or score. The same is true for all subsequent missions; they are triggered after 64 hyperjumps. Details about the missions in the thread below.
3.: Hold down left ALT while performing a hyperjump (I hold down ALT from the moment I press H until I enter witch-space). Works 100%. Thanks to Fangrim.
4.: Harmless: 2, Mostly Harmless: 4, Poor: 6, Average: 8, Above Average: 10, Competent: 12, Dangerous: 14, Deadly: 16, Elite: 18. Quick formula: Rating * 2, if "Harmless" is defined as 1. Time does not matter.
5.: Best is to use retro rockets.
6.: No "official" galaxy 9 in Amiga version. Ian Bell (paraphrased): We put it in, but no means to get there. In the Amiga version the 8 galaxies use the same "seed" with left rotated bits. Rotating again would yield the first galaxy again.
7.: --
8.: --
9.: Short answer: objects.img, see page 13ff of this thread...
while I saw Elite first on an C64, I was only able to play it on an Amiga for the first time. And this experience lingered; it's still my preferred version (knowing full well that it's generally regarded as a bit -- lame -- compared to the other versions).
Currently, I am playing it on my PC with the WinUAE (SARA cheating forbidden of course!) and I am approaching my first mission (according to various sources on the Internet, the Constrictor mission is triggered at around 170.000 points).
Parallel to playing it, however, I am assembling all information regarding the Amiga version that I can find (for example, I already have a database will all planets and their descriptions in them; also their distances between each other), but I have some problems finding answers to some questions. Maybe you know some of them?
[I tried to contact Rob Nicholson, one of the original coders of the Amiga version, but the e-mail address I found is outdated and I am not sure if I spotted the correct facebook profile, so Rob, if you read this, please feel free to answer... ]Questions:
1. What are the ship specifications for each ship (especially hit points: I found by experimenting, that e.g. a Thargoid needs 56 hits with a beam laser or 46 hits with a military laser; I suppose this yields an energy for the Thargoid of X and an impact value of the lasers of Y/Z -- but I'm not sure; I have compiled this data for most ships -- but I can only dream of hitting the Cougar with a beam laser - let alone pulse laser - to measure its energy).
2. Missions: I am confident that there are 5 different missions (I've only ever completed one), but when (exactly!) are they triggered? Which constrains must hold?
3. Triggering a mis-jump: I've read a couple of times that I have to set my climb to maximum when entering hyperspace to trigger a mis-jump. Doesn't work for me, though. Is there a way to trigger a mis-jump to witch-space? [I tried with Pause-Ctrl X -- and this seemed to have worked exactly once.... Must have been coincidence]
4. Talking about witch-space: I assume, the number of Thargoids you have to kill, before you can leave the witch-space depends on your rating. I think the numbers are 2 for harmless (or mostly harmless -- I forgot), and 14 for dangerous (somewhere, I wrote down the number for competent, but I can't find it right now -- 8, if I remember correctly). Correct?
5. More witch-space: Any tactical advice on how to attack Thargoids that come in packs from different angles? They are difficult enough to destroy if they are both behind...
6. I have read somewhere, that in some source code (though not specifically the Amiga version) the greeting "Welcome to galaxy 9" has been found. Is there an "official" galaxy 9 (hex-edit in sara forbidden)?
7. If I use SARA to generate a new galaxy, I know that bytes 0E-13 relate to that (0D only gives the displayed number of the galaxy). Can you provide more elaborate information on these bytes -- and on the cheat mode in general? [I know, which bytes correlate to which cargo and to which equipment; current game time, kill count, rating, etc. but it would be great to have a complete overview for once
]8. What exactly are the differences between Elite 1.0 and Elite 2.0? (So far I spotted Thargoid bounty == 40 instead of 15 and you can have military lasers on all sides (thankfully!!)).
9. Talking about credits for kills: Where, in the program files can I use a hex-editor to modify the credits for each ship? I would like to have a more "balanced" setting for credits/points, because 15 Cr for a Mamba seem too much.
TIA!
Cmdr. Stardust aka Philipp
Here are the answers we could gather so far (I will post new findings here):
1.: See page 13 of this thread. Thanks to Quelo!!
2.: The missions are "Super nova", "Constrictor", "Thargoid Documents", "Space Station", and "Cloaked Ship". So far, we know that the Constrictor mission is triggered after 1 intergalactic jump to galaxy 2 followed by 63 hyper jumps in the second galaxy. It is independent of the amount of credits you have and independent of the legal status.
The second mission ("Thargoid Documents") is also triggered after 64 hyperjumps (in galaxy 3) or supposedly after 1 intergalactic hyperjump to galaxy 4 and 63 hyperjumps. It also is independent of legal status or score. The same is true for all subsequent missions; they are triggered after 64 hyperjumps. Details about the missions in the thread below.
3.: Hold down left ALT while performing a hyperjump (I hold down ALT from the moment I press H until I enter witch-space). Works 100%. Thanks to Fangrim.
4.: Harmless: 2, Mostly Harmless: 4, Poor: 6, Average: 8, Above Average: 10, Competent: 12, Dangerous: 14, Deadly: 16, Elite: 18. Quick formula: Rating * 2, if "Harmless" is defined as 1. Time does not matter.
5.: Best is to use retro rockets.
6.: No "official" galaxy 9 in Amiga version. Ian Bell (paraphrased): We put it in, but no means to get there. In the Amiga version the 8 galaxies use the same "seed" with left rotated bits. Rotating again would yield the first galaxy again.
7.: --
8.: --
9.: Short answer: objects.img, see page 13ff of this thread...
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