Elite / Frontier Elite Plus

[Schwertl]

I don't know how the devil you figured out the masking device behavior but thank you so much for clearing it up.

I am really awful at the controls with Elite Plus (or is it because the controls themselves are awful?) and will seldom get an approaching ship into the front laser reticle before the joust is over. Almost all of my laser fire is from the rear mount. So given this, I don't think I would be able to use masking device much at all as you've described it. With the rear laser, it seems to just be a matter of getting the aggressor into the crosshair for a couple of seconds and simply blow it up along with any of the missiles it fires. It might even be a good way to get hitpoints quickly; poking the ship with the rear gun and waiting for it to fire missiles could earn up to 5 points per enemy without any significant effort or skill involved.

Another consequence of being awful at the game is that since dogfighting is such a chore, I like to focus almost entirely on trading and mining and drifting around aimlessly, so that's where my notion comes from on using the gear as extra cargo slots.

ADD: I thought about that missing cargo thing further, could it be possible in theory deplete ship's Cargo Hold to zero tonnes and then overflow it to minus tonnes to get bulk freighter Cobra MkIII with max 255 tonnes Cargo hold by scooping that many Thargons in an eternity it would take to get that many successful mis-jumps to Witch Space...

First 20 thargons to get it to 0 (when not using CARGO BAY EXTENSION), and then 255 thargons to get it -255. Trading in Elite Plus would finally become profitable career option. Lol.

Not being able to test this easily, my first guess is that regardless of whether the cargo tons are properly filled or whether they are bugged, once there are zero tons of space available, scooping thargons will return CARGO BAY FULL (and a likely collision) just like any other kind of scoop attempt in those conditions. I am also guessing one would be completely unable to sell the Cargo Bay Extension either, if you have bugged the maximum cargo space down to 14t or less.

I'll presumptuously make a third guess regarding the coding itself— that the cargo space bug probably does not occur at the moment you scoop the craft in space, but occur later, in the trade screen... possibly because selling any of the three commodities above Alien Items (Gold, Platinum, Gem-Stones) also do not increase your available cargo space, and there was a screw-up there.

Don't get me wrong, though. I would love to have 255 tones of available cargo space. Yes please senpai.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

Dear Schwertl

"Senpai", lol, feeling honored and ashamed same time for that. I have no deeper knowledge about the game other than what about 7-8 months of real time (24/7) playing the game in my life has practically demonstrated to me. The game was coded mainly in Assembly i.e. directly in/with machine language, that being the most probable reason so little is known about inner workings of the game. I am not certainly any kind Sempai in these things. The Dojo was once established by Commander @darrenc, who knows better.

I cannot really help on trader career related issues, other than just noting it is possible to make 15000 - 16000 credits per real time playing hour, if concentrating to optimize cash flow within and/or near some nice anarchic system's station shield perimeter by violently imposed and established "recycling center". Shoot, shoot, shoot, alloys, alloys, alloys, scoop, scoop, scoop. Dock when full, rinse, repeat. Low risk, high reward.

Generally on Elite Plus economy: If being perfectly honest, the process of equipping ship to minimum necessary setting (Fuel Scoop, Fore Mining Laser, ECM-system, Extra Energy Unit) for a grinder shouldn't take more than 15 minutes from the starting Jameson at Lave, and I'm sure it is possible to do under 10 minutes. And after that you need money only for Galactic Hyperdrives. At 3 hours of game play money becomes totally meaningless, you just cannot buy anything anymore, other than stuff you possibly use (fuel, missiles, energy bombs, escape capsules).

Honestly, I cannot anymore remember those distant days when combat was any kind problem in Elite Plus, I just cannot relate with Elite Plus trader problems. There was never any serious hardware related issues with game speed in this respect since 386SX and MS-DOS 5.0, early-mid '90s, and DOS-Box emulator has been working fine ever since things turned upside down and typing '"exit" in DOS became vogue.

If someone knows how to 'force' Witch Space mis-jump in Elite Plus, that knowledge would be really nice to have. I do not expect anyone would test possible cargo capacity overflow related things by playing the game, and scooping sh*t tons of thargons, in Witch Space, but someone could maybe do something with that by researching with Hex-editor and testing some .CDR files. I don't bother. At least of now.

Take it easy Schwertie. Do just what feels fun. And ask if something comes to mind.

 

[Schwertl]

The 9th Galaxy

When you jump from the 8th Galaxy, there is exactly a 300 in 65536 chance that you will end up in Galaxy 9. That's just under a 0.5% chance. There doesn't seem to be anything special about the Galaxy - there is no Raxxla. It is just another procedurally generated galaxy like the other 8.
...

If you really want to get to galaxy 9 in Elite Plus, you can either load/save a commander and keep hyper-driving from Galaxy 8 until you get there, or you can hack the EXE. The code that decides whether or not you reach Galaxy 9 from Galaxy 8 looks like this:

seg000:7455                 cmp     ax, 12Ch
seg000:7458                 jb      short seg000:745F; 9th galaxy OK if AX < 300
seg000:745A                 mov     CurrentGalaxy, 0
seg000:745F                 mov     al, CurrentGalaxy

This compares the value in the AX register, which was generated pseudo-randomly, to 125 hexidecimal, which is 300 in decimal. If AX was lower than 300, the Jump if Below instruction will cause the 'Reset Current Galaxy to zero' part to be skipped.

It's nearly seven years late, but thanks for posting your method of patching the exe. I went to the ninth galaxy and was pretty much similarly unimpressed with it as darrenc.

As for specific attributes of galaxy nine, I scanned all the worlds with an autohotkey bot and found the tech levels are suppressed by 1 point, similar to the situation in gal 2, 4, 6, and 7. These galaxies all have a tech range of 1-11, and a world needs to be at least average industrial to reach 10. Whereas, gal1, 3, 5, and 8 have tech range 2-12. In galaxy 9, there's only ten tech 10+ systems. It's a very depressing and backward place, full of human colonial louts and arts graduates.

There are 253 stars visible on the map. No idea where the last three actually are, but it's likely that their positions overlap with other stars, and I would need to get in range of them on the short scan to see the names. These missing stars are kind of weird, because given the number of coordinate points in a galaxy (is it 32768?) the chances of an overlap among 256 stars should be less than 1 percent. Though, I believe it happens once in the lower 8 galaxies as well.


I am still unclear about the conditions for entering this galaxy without a patched exe. Prior to reading this post I had only followed the rumors and made the attempt from witch space, and that did not work. But darrenc did not mention the witch space rumor anyhow, and said that it is merely subject to chance (presumably including hypering from inside a system), with odds being 300 in 65535.

So I reverted the patched exe and made another little autohotkey script to do some hypering out of gal8 and reloading, and went AFK for a couple of days.
It never reached galaxy 9 in 9500 attempts.
So, still flummoxed over this.

my fun spreadsheet:

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

I am still unclear about the conditions for entering this galaxy without a patched exe.

I've never been able to enter the 9th Galaxy naturally by chance either. Combined time used for attempts to get there from G8 must be around 10-12 hours by now. I visited the galaxy using Commander Darrenc's patched file but every and any of attempts to reach there without that "cheat" has been frustrating failure. There must be hundreds of attempts by now, if not more. Is there some special requirements for the 9th Galaxy aside the pure chance, I don't know.

So I reverted the patched exe and made another little autohotkey script to do some hypering out of gal8 and reloading, and went AFK for a couple of days.
It never reached galaxy 9 in 9500 attempts.
So, still flummoxed over this.

That's awesome! Brute force checking for triggers and statistics in Elite Plus, that's never seen before approach to the game. I assume that a commander needs all missions accomplished successfully, but because half-implemented Constrictor mission doesn't work properly, being without way to actually finish it, that could maybe prevent the jump to the 9th galaxy too. That's my hypothesis. Sample of 9500 attempts is rather big...

---

Schwerty, It feels really nice to see activity in this thread, and by someone who seems to be genuinely interested about the game to dig deeper in it.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

@Schwertl About those overlapping stars. Indeed, there are several cases in multiple galaxies where two systems are too near each other for making direct jump from one to other impossible. Commander must use a third system to get there. If I recall correctly, a system have 3 coordinates, X and Y, but then their coordinates also vary in their Z (0-0.4ly or 0.8ly, something like that), possibly indicated and denoted with different sized balls on a galactic chart. Not sure how it is in Elite Plus exactly, but overall system lists and data of 1-8 Galaxies are same than for example in Oolite.

Here, Oolite Interactive Map http://www.pcooper.net/oolite/OoliteInteractiveMap.html shows 3D map versions and you can rotate maps in all three dimensions.

Also, there are systems of same name there too. Are you sure your spreadsheet can make difference between systems of same name?

Then there are those cases of stars and entire star clusters over 7 light years from other stars making entry impossible without lucky witch space mis-jump (something I have never managed to produce in suitable place). Such systems exists in galaxies 3, 6 (big cluster), and 7. But that's other topic, unless there is easy patch to fix hyperspace range of 7ly to something greater.

 

[Arioch]

Then there are those cases of stars and entire star clusters over 7 light years from other stars making entry impossible without lucky witch space mis-jump…

Hi neo-Nothoria Infama - that’s just given me an idea for my current play of Elite Legend: there’s effectively a “Game Over” planet in the 8th map (Oresrati) that can only be reached via Galactic Hyperspace from the 7th map, and once you’re there you’re stuck - the tech level is too low to buy a new GH and the nearest stars are over 7ly away.

Because one of the new equipment items in Elite Legend is a spare fuel tank (with an extra 4ly’s worth of fuel) I might be able to do a mis-jump, refuel, and then jump again before the angry Thargoids melt me.

It will be a while before I reach that map, but something I will keep in mind along with finding Generation Ships and Raxxla when I get there
———
On the subject of mysterious planets - do they show up like on the Spectrum version, as in one planet perfectly overlaid on another?

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

planets - do they show up like on the Spectrum version, as in one planet perfectly overlaid on another?

Nope. On a galactic chart you can easily see them as separate systems and their names are displayed as separate too, but the chart cannot pinpoint the other one (probably resolution/truncating issue), that one in which you're not currently. If going to some third system within 7.0ly, you can use system name search function of the chart, lock it as hypersystem, and jump then to there, but in that case the other system of the couple becomes directly unreachable.

I've only encountered pairs of such systems. Never more than two.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

Dear Commanders

I got enormous inspiration because of this recent surge of activity in this thread, and I had to start playing the game again. I started new game with fresh newbie Jameson that became soon COMMANDER BOOTHILL. My key idea was to not get any pressure about playing style or is it particularly efficient as long as it feels easy and good. Something totally different than chasing distant goals tens of thousands kills away, or next hit counter overflow. I began playing to systematically track how many hyperspace jumps and possibly other things are required for triggering missions in Elite Plus. For that aim I abandoned both hit efficiency and income efficiency requirements in playing, not bothering how much real time is wasted as long as numbers of visited systems and made hyperspace jumps increase fast enough. Good compromise was to make enough money by opportunistic piracy and bounty hunting to ensure steady cash flow for few spare GALACTIC HYPERDRIVES. To get started enough fast I use 'speedrun' style start to get necessary equipment soon after the start (FML, FS, ECM, EEU, GBE) leaving everything not essential to a store ( took about 20 minutes to do). I tried to avoid more time consuming systems (Anarchies, Feudal states, confederacies) as much as possible while same time trying also avoid visiting same systems more than once. I always docked to systems' stations and saved the game. No Scooping fuel from stars, or making hyperjumps without visiting the current system's station as I tried minimize and control possible variables in triggering criteria of a task, as much as possible (to make it easy to count jumps, docks). Multiple consecutive dockings in same system were made only at LEESTI when equipping the ship, and only once I had to go through a same system twice during Commander Boothill's stardate #1. There was few minor 50-70 kills grinders in anarchies, but there was also systems without a single kill, or any income for that matter.

Most of deaths occurred during starting phases of the day's session, mostly due rustiness and absurd multitaskings (watching cross country skiing from TV while talking with Mrs. Boothill simultaneously trying eat cheese sandwich during manual docking procedure. etc.)

I reached and successfully completed the SUPERNOVA task today.
______


RUDIMENTARY LOG:
Commander Boothill
March 4th, 2023 (Stardate 1)

GALAXY 1

LAVE - LEESTI (5x Dockings / Poor 6, Average 10, A. Average 23 [D]) - DISO (Competent 40) - REORTE - RA -
AZAQU - EDINSO (Dangerous 90) - RAOROR (Deadly 169) - ESTEONBI (Tribbles=No) - TIINLEBI -
ANLAMA (+GHD) - RITILA [D] - RIREDI - ORESRI - LAENIN -
TIBIONIS - TEREA - RILACE - ONTIMAXE - BIRAMABI -
QUZADI [D / Bad Witch Space] - USRAREMA - ENTIZADI - USANAT (Tribbles=No) - GEERRA -
ANXEBIZE - MARIAR - RIBISO - VETITICE - INONRI -
XEERANRE - ENONLA - SOCELAGE [D] - ORORQU - RIINUS -
AANBIAT - REXEBE - USATQURA [D] - LEARORCE - TEEN -
ANBEEN - ORDIMA - EDORTE - REESDICE - XEER -
ARUSZATI - ANISOR - DIEDAR - TEESDI - ATREBIBI -
QUBE - QUQUOR - EDZAON - TIRAOR - USRALAAT -
ORESLE - DIORA - ARZASO - ATAGE - LERITEAN -
BIORIS - RARERE - ESGEREAN - RIRAES - ININBE -
BIBE - RETILA - QUQUOR (2nd time) - MAESIN - XEXETI -
ONLEMA (Elite 1003) ===> GALAXY 2 (-GHD)

...//G1 = 71 systems (70 unique systems visited), 70 Hyperspace jumps, 75 Dockings, 5 Deaths //...

GALAXY 2

ATGEATER - VEERGE - RAENONCE - SOBITE (+GHD) - USQURAVE -
ANESCE - DIERBEER - ERLAGE - DITI - ESRECE -
ARINES - BEUSED - USEDGE (1 Thargoid) - ERLAENED - ATZAGE -
ZATEBISO - ORARRA - TEZAEDED - ONATBEZA - ABEGE -
SOALEED - ORRIONTI - ESBETE - LARIBEBI - ANUSA -
XEABITI - ESCESO - ERGERE - ORORRE (1 Thargoid) - LETIBEMA -
INXEXEAT - QUTIRI (Fuel Leak! Scooping Fuel. Emergency: Supernova Task) - XERAQU (Task Complete)

...//G2 = 33 systems, 32 Hyperspace jumps, 33 Dockings, 1 Galactic Hyperjump //...
...//G1-G2 = 104 systems (103 unique systems visited), 102 Hyperspace jumps, 108 Dockings, 1 Galactic Hyperjump//...

to Complete Supernova Task.

March 4th, 2023: ELITE with 1307 Hit points, 38692.4 Credits

It seems to me that a commander must be in GALAXY 2 to get SUPERNOVA task triggered, thus possibly only G2 stats are relevant.

-----

Ah. Another Elite Commander played. Another full day of life wasted. To be continued...

RIGHT ON COMMANDERS! o7

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

@Arioch While roaming in G2 with Cmdr Boothill I encountered these two overlapping systems, ZAXERICE and DIMAATMA. They have different sized markers on a galactic chart centered and overlapping at exactly same spot, and there are no way to get DIMAATMA locked as hypersystem. If writing DIMAATMA using the chart's system search it locks only ZAXERICE, in both Galactic Chart and Short Range Chart. There is no way to get to DIMAATMA's system data screen.

So, I must correct my last statement on this topic. There are unreachable overlapping systems in Elite Plus.

Purely coincidentally Cmdr Boothill got MASKING DEVICE mission on ZAXERICE (when investigating the issue), and while overlapping unreachables aren't immediate problem with this particular mission, with THARGOID PLANS task it is in theory possible to get soft locked in the game (task accomplishment-wise) if RNG places the target system to... for example DIMAATMA.

Full logs about Commander Boothill's efforts of Stardate #2 will follow later.

 

[Schwertl]

@EliteMegaWeed
I'm familiar with Oolite, and certain elements of the star data are different. The x and y coordinates, government, economy, and race are all the same between Elite Plus and Oolite, but the tech level, pop, gnp, radius, and blurbs all seem to vary. You can check it out for Lave there— note how it's no longer famous for its hoopy casinos in Oolite.

In Elite Plus, native race does not seem to have any effect on the system, either; neither on the price of commodities nor the level of violent activity in the surrounding space (the latter being only as far as I can tell). The only thing that seems to affect violence is gov, and absolutely the only thing that affects commodity prices are econ+gov. Tech affects availability of equipment but does not affect any prices.

Also, there are systems of same name there too. Are you sure your spreadsheet can make difference between systems of same name?

Well, eh, the nice thing about the first eight galaxies was that one can retrieve the system names from the oolite wiki. The first eight galaxies do not appear to have a single overlapping name, though (?). In any case, the existence of a list from the wiki made it straightforward to make a script that would just type each star name in the game's galactic scan screen, examine what came up in the F11 screen, and put its traits on the spreadsheet. As for the case of overlapping stars that you mentioned, nope, the galactic scanner can't peek under them in elite plus in any case, so wherever they exist, they got written-up as a duplicate of the star on top.

As for the ninth galaxy, it is unexplored territory. I had to spend several hours bitterly retrieving the stars' names with the galactic scan reticle. To check that I did not miss any visible stars, I overlaid the game's galaxy map with excel's galaxy map. Ah, the life of a pioneer with no knowledge of assembly.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

@ Schwertl

It's damn good thing and refreshing that some one looks on the these map and other procedurally generated things deeper. Regardless of insane amount of time spent in the game, I never considered these matters that interesting to make any systematical survey beyond time consuming manual screenshot-copy paste mappings of G3 and G4 (in this thread). The main game playing focus was always (mostly) a hardcore grinding for more hit points i.e. Elite Plus combat and combat efficiency related things, thus many interesting details have probably escaped from me during all these years.

Current off-shoot Commander Boothill tries to fill that gap in perception and after completion of tasks I plan to go check the 9th galaxy more closely using Commander Darrenc's patched .exe -file. I am also producing new 'one-jump-to-go' savegame files for each mission.

I'm little bit sad that rational option of Trader career doesn't seem to really exist in Elite Plus as it is practically impossible to NOT to make enough profit for necessities if just aimlessly wandering across stars using only opportunistic piracy and bounty hunting strategy; that makes economy related things rather uninteresting to dig deeper, as it seems the best and fastest strategy is just always sell gathered loot in a system as soon as possible after docking and just continuing to a next system. The strategy doesn't even force extensive chasing of loot (cargo capsules etc.) to be able to create surplus income flow, and general, average profitability of the action.

Regardless, there is that cozy, familiar feeling in Elite Plus, that makes it fun to play, and easy to continue, even after being far past of a date of expiration.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

Commander Boothill's Stardates 2-4
March 5th-7th, 2023 / Galaxy 2

Continuing lazily in G2 without Galactic hyperjump to G3 to see does consecutive tasks are dependable on intermittent galactic hyper jumps: They are not.
Purchased some non-essential stuff for practicality and convenience (Aft Mining Laser, Docking Computers, Energy Bomb). Died 2 times for too greedy scooping, and voluntarily in bad-RNG Witch Space (could've been possible to leave using GHD). WS was 0.0ly from my target system and I had fuel but it wasn't possible to jump to the target, interesting.

LAESER - AATEMBE - EDSODI (+DC,AML,EB) - SOORTE - BEBEGE -
RAMAZA - XEISARE - ZARIA - LEGEARA - ISONZA -
TEONAN - RABIARCE - ERSOONVE (1 Thargoid) - SOREISBI - VERAVE -
ANENAT - ISBEUS - CEMABE - VEENAR - ATIUS -
CEERDIZA [D] - TIGEBERE - ESRILEES - ZAXERICE (Emergency: Masking Device Task) - ONATZALA (Task Complete. +MD) -
ISRAZA - MAENSO - BEEDBEON - ESZARA - ZAVEZAON (1 Thargoid) -
ZALAQURA - ERCETIDI - ENVEBE - ERRARA - ARRIES -
EDTIXEEN - CEBIOR - DICELA (1 Thargoid) - CEVERA - ATORAT -
ESTEBE (2nd time) - MAESARON - DIUSTE (D / Bad WS) - SOLAED - CERARE -
DITI (2nd time. 1 Thargoid) - ANVERE - USORON - LABILAEN (Emergency: Thargoid Invasion Task) - ARATUSZA (Fuel leak. Scooping fuel.) -
AMAXE (Task Complete. Archangel. + Anti-ECM Broadcasters)

Hyperjumps between the entry to GALAXY 2 and SUPERNOVA (Emergency) task: 31 Hyperjumps (32 if GHJ to G2 is included)
Hyperjumps between SUPERNOVA (Completion) and MASKING DEVICE (Emergency) tasks: 24 Hyperjumps
Hyperjumps between MASKING DEVICE (Completion) and THARGOID INVASION (Emergency) tasks: 24 Hyperjumps

Starting to see a pattern there.

Archangel Boothill, ELITE with 1768 Hit points, 48367.3 Credits

To be continued...

EDIT/ADD: that occurred witch space at 0.0ly from the target system made me think that maybe the WITCH SPACE is handled as a 'virtual system' (without Sun, Planet, Station) with random X and Y (within 7.0ly) coordinates. In this case these coordinates happened to be same as the target system's of the intended jump (DIUSTE). That means in practice, that when such situation emerges, the WITCH SPACE becomes the 'preferred' or 'primary' system for all navigation chart's functioning purposes. Similarly to these systems of 'overlapping unreachables' (talked in this very page of the thread). I don't exactly know anything else than how the game behaves in practice when '0.0ly to a target WS situation' occurs (for note that system was only possible system in reach with available fuel). Lucky bästärd, to be able to make this clarification/hypothesis.

ADD2: Further questions: What happens exactly if ESCAPE CAPSULE is launched in WITCH SPACE? 1. Generally in every cases? 2. Specifically in a situation there are no system(s) within a range of available fuel? 3. Where the capsule docks?

ADD3: I hate complications as a typical pipe brain. Had to test is it possible to dock in a destroyed space station of THARGOID INVASION task. Yes it is, by ESCAPE CAPSULE (Similarly to SUPERNOVA task's system, where this is also possible). That doesn't impact anyway to success in the mission. What bothers me now most, is the fact that there are some unknown RNG relating to a triggering of a task. It is not the [24 hyperjumps since the last task] -format, it is likely [24 hyperjumps + X number of jumps since the last task]. Also, Nothoria's ages old logbook entries support that assumption too.

Using purpose made 'one-jump-to-go' savegame bootinva.cdr (that nicely produced the Thargoid Invasion in the main line Boothill curriculum), I had to make several attempts to make it to the task when replaying the saved game onwards. Successful task completion was made and the answer to the mind iching question was answered with following manoevers:

USORON (site of bootinva.cdr. +EC) - USTILE (via) - USORON (via) - RAENONCE (via, scooping fuel) - USTILE (Emergency: Task) - RAENONCE (Fuel leak. Destruction of the station by lasers). -EB (to get rid of remaining Thargoid Invasion). -EC. Escape capsule docks in the station) - USTILE (Task Complete).

That was corollary test for what might happen in WITCH SPACE when launching the ESCAPE CAPSULE... and I hate RNG.

ADD4: LET'S PLAY ELITE PLUS: TUTORIAL: How to get started in 21 minutes.

Mildly drunken Jameson. 7th attempt (to produce video). o7

Hopefully nobody ever again will say it is somehow difficult to get things started and running in this game.
The Crash is the mightiest weapon in Elite Plus.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

FAQ: How to get Elite Plus running in your PC?

For newbies, not familiar with DOS, or DOS-Box.

Google 'Dos-Box'. Result: Dosbox.com
Download and install.

Google 'PC Elite Plus'

Elite Home Page - PC

(preferred site for every downloads) Ian Bell, you know. We are worthy only to play these damn games.

Elite Plus

Remember Elite Plus, an old video game from 1991? Download it and play again on MyAbandonware.

www.myabandonware.com

Elite Plus - Abandonware DOS

Elite Plus is a free open world vehicle simulation game designed by Ian Bell, David Braben, developed by Realtime Games and released by Microplay Software in 1991. Elite Plus runs

www.abandonwaredos.com

Elite Plus | Old DOS Games packaged for latest OS

Elite Plus - After the success of its prequel, Elite Plus is all set to entertain the gamers which its interesting and engrossing plot. It is a complete package of animations combined with exciting combat, warfare, and amazing sound effects.

www.freegameempire.com

and all.

The site's instructions for the game are here: https://www.frontierastro.co.uk/Elite/runeliteplus.html
For curiosity: https://archive.org/details/b1022001 (does not even mention the most revered, uppermost High Archangel of Elite Plus, Chris Sawyer as an author and "named person")

So, you install/installed ELITE PLUS to your PC. (INSTALL IT TO C:/ELITE+) You installed it into the directory of [C:\blahmagarrion876\system64\Adds\Gamezy\Devices\91-WS-Da-fck\] or whateva.

To get the game running,

1. You need click DOS-Box icon, to get to the DOS-Box
2. When in DOS-BOX, type:
mount k c:/elite+
k:
elite

to get the game running.

For those who ask why 'c:\elite+' or 'k:'?
To make things easy, and safe. On average nobody can mess anything in DOS-Box, if mounting Elite Plus game directory as K:

Play.

You can play, of course, online too with your browser at various sites and see does it pay all efforts. For most it doesn't. Lol.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

What this obscure gameplaying and speedrunning scene never gets is the Life around the game of Riedquat. As an example, Archangel's wife sits on a wheelchair, few more overflows and grinders before going straight to a process for debris onto an orbit of Tionisla.

So, fellow commanders, if an Archangel posts, what ever he/she may post, there won't be ever a situation a Jameson cannot reach the ELITE status, um, of, cgfk, in 2 hours...

I will get banned from this site when my mostly harmless loved spouse dies. And nobody can do anything about that,

I fear.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I didn't even get elite in this one. Didn't know that it had reduced requirements. Maybe because I played it on several platforms without "finishing" ever.

 

[Zieman]

What this obscure gameplaying and speedrunning scene never gets is the Life around the game of Riedquat. As an example, Archangel's wife sits on a wheelchair, few more overflows and grinders before going straight to a process for debris onto an orbit of Tionisla.

So, fellow commanders, if an Archangel posts, what ever he/she may post, there won't be ever a situation a Jameson cannot reach the ELITE status, um, of, cgfk, in 2 hours...

I will get banned from this site when my mostly harmless loved spouse dies. And nobody can do anything about that,

I fear.

Somehow it feels bad to 'like' your post, but it's the closest thing on a forum for a 'hand on shoulder, holding firmly, saying nothing' way of support.
Hang in there, both of ya!

 

[Schwertl]

Dear Commanders

I got enormous inspiration because of this recent surge of activity in this thread, and I had to start playing the game again. I started new game with fresh newbie Jameson that became soon COMMANDER BOOTHILL. My key idea was to not get any pressure about playing style or is it particularly efficient as long as it feels easy and good.

I like BOOTHILL's ideology. Relentlessly tracking jumps, relentlessly logging mission triggers, relentlessly not actually giving a damn about anything. Truly, he is One with Space.

 

[EliteMegaWeed]

Somehow it feels bad to 'like' your post, but it's the closest thing on a forum for a 'hand on shoulder, holding firmly, saying nothing' way of support.
Hang in there, both of ya!

Co-pilot is alive and kicking. For now. How supportive she is in these fields, remains to be seen. Tionisla shall wait, at least of a while. Hugs. I love you, Commander.

I like BOOTHILL's ideology. Relentlessly tracking jumps, relentlessly logging mission triggers, relentlessly not actually giving a damn about anything. Truly, he is One with Space.

"Truly, he is One with Space." Will be quoted on my signature, as this is highest honor one can get from peers. Elite Federation will always recognize the merit.

To the topic. It is inevitable, that PC Elite Plus will gather some interest among the global, trendy, and economically productive sub-genre of Jamesons that will come and take over the thing. For this to happen, it may take some time, but when these 16-stars under 7 minutes, or whole game series without a damage taken when playing on hardest difficulty finally recognize the value of ELITE, they will be naturally siphoned to the Elite Plus, as it is truly the only Classical Elite were you can reasonably speedrun anything.

We, old beards, can only follow when this happens. It is totally unimaginable that those same guys who can handle consecutive frame-perfect moves in a Mario, couldn't do that same with an incoming stream of Vipers, or at Riedquat... And of these assumptions are based on the fact this game is the only classical ELITE, where you can actually compete for 'How long it takes to become Elite%' category within reasonable speedrunning timeframes.

The Cycle will be complete when Chris Sawyer descents on this thread among hellishly active streaming 10-20 years old teenagers, for his recollections. The cycle will be complete when Carl Jobst makes a video about "On Frame Skips in Elite Plus speedrunning videos", when Summoning Salt decides it's time to install Dos-Box and go to Riedquat, or when Space Quest Historian goes out of topics.

That long I will stay... and verify.

Elite Plus (PC/DOS) - speedrun.com

Speedrunning leaderboards, resources, forums, and more!

www.speedrun.com

Free Me!

Right on Commanders!

 

[Dylldophlo]

As per a suggestion upthead from Nothoria, I have patched the original ELITE.EXE to add a hit-point counter to the game. The hit-point updates take the place of the "BOUNTY: xxCr" messages, in the form of "HITPOINTS: xxx". You will still get the "NO BOUNTY" message, but this usually occurs because you destroyed a piece of wreckage (splinter) before the hit-point message could be displayed. I have also increased the amount of time the message is displayed for, as I always felt the bounty messages disappeared too quickly.

I'm having trouble uploading files through the file manager on this forum, so you will have to download this patch through TinyUpload.

Also, to Nothoria's question about the Anti-ECM device. Does it do anything? YES!

It does just what it says on the tin - it prevents other ships from destroying your missiles with ECM pulses. Since the only other ships in E+ with ECM are stations and thargoids, this limits its usefulness. If you want to try it for yourself, fire a missile at a ship (or station) whilst within the station aegis (big "S" on the console). Without Anti-ECM, the station will kill your missile with it's ECM.

In addition, I have managed to decipher the format of the graphics in ELITE.GRF. If anybody is interested in being able to edit the original game graphics, let me know and I will work on making a utility to do this.

Is this modified EXE with the Hit-point counter still available somewhere? Many thanks

 

[EdzUp]

I didn't even get elite in this one. Didn't know that it had reduced requirements. Maybe because I played it on several platforms without "finishing" ever.

Still have this installed it's a great version of Elite