Elite / Frontier Elite Legend - ZX Spectrum 2021 - best 8-bit Elite?

[amigacooke {macOS}]

It’s a Mk 2 beam laser so better than the old version, but I found the military lasers to be too fast at melting enemy ships - with the increased frame rate of this version I also found myself zapping dropped cargo pods before I could let go of the trigger. I still do with the Mk2 Beam, but only now and again - and every time I seem to do a Clarence Boddiker quote from Robocop (“You…you burned the %#&*ing money!”)
Edit: Actually, you’ve given me a ship outfitting thought - the Cobra can fit 4 different weapons (one for each “view”) and Elite Legend allows you to “rotate” the weapons. In practice it’s a bit like having fire groups; currently I’ve got a mining laser in the rear view and rotate it to the front when I see an asteroid. Now that I’m getting Thargoid invasion missions I might install a Military Laser to one of my spare slots and just use it when doing AX station attacks.

Thankfully I didn’t enjoy its tender mercies as I got Elite in the Supreme Challenge double tape box set

It’s funny how what seemed normal then, in retrospect I’d not consider now. I’m not talking about Remlok, but loading the game from, loading saves from, loading saves to, cassette tapes. I guess the rich folks had micro drives , but the uncertainty of loading and the agony of loading the correct save was the best incentive I can remember not to die in game

 

[Arioch]

It’s funny how what seemed normal then, in retrospect I’d not consider now. I’m not talking about Remlok, but loading the game from, loading saves from, loading saves to, cassette tapes. I guess the rich folks had micro drives , but the uncertainty of loading and the agony of loading the correct save was the best incentive I can remember not to die in game

Only being able to save to tape while docked and docking at crashing into a station were the best incentives for buying a docking computer

With this current playthrough and the ability to flash save at any point, I attempt manual docking every time - my daily run consists of jumping to a new system, fighting/mining/scooping my way to the safe zone, kicking in the emulator fast-forward function to get the station in visual range, then finally manually docking (flash save first!) and trading/planning for the next destination. Ideal for a short play of an evening - unless I go to an Anarchy, then it’s half an hour of grimacing and muttered swears

 

[Arioch]

Thargoids have been attacking again; the last mission in the original Speccy game is now a recurring event. It's not too difficult unless you have a long system transit or meet stealthed Thargoid ships - I was lucky in this event to only have a few interceptions and only meet standard ships.

Source: https://youtu.be/utMRQQv06hc

Next time the bugs attack I'm going to attempt to stay and notch up a few AX kills - I reckon if I detonated the Q-Bomb a few seconds later I could've taken out the remaining three ships after destroying the station. The cloaking device could probably give me a little breathing room too, though I'm wary of using it too much - if the Thargoids manage to drop my shields then they can chew through the Cobra's power banks in seconds and attempting a hyperspace jump might take too long.

 

[Arioch]

I saw another new thing last session (unfortunately I didn’t capture any video as things were a bit hectic): while being attacked by a pirate wing, a neutral NPC ship (a Python) happened to be flying past and was engaged by the pirates - at which point the Python launched 3x Vipers which then proceeded to absolutely obliterate the baddies in seconds

I’ve seen big pirate vessels launching Kraits/Adders/Sidewinders but never anything from a “goodie” ship. Seems like the sort of thing that will catch out players indulging in a bit of one-sided ship-to-ship trading