Elite / Frontier Frontier: Elite 2 - but flying more like Elite / Elite: Dangerous

[Kayvan]

Well congratulations for making it all the way There And Back Again - I hope they let you in eventually xD
That the equipment starts failing well before a year is up is really a bummer. When it happened to me once I think it was exactly after 1 year.

Also hats off for vanquishing all those psychopaths with nothing but a 1MW pulse. I couldn't hit anything with that for the life of me and therefore only ever left the safe systems once I was able to kit out a combat ship with beam laser.

 

[Arioch]

Well congratulations for making it all the way There And Back Again - I hope they let you in eventually xD
That the equipment starts failing well before a year is up is really a bummer. When it happened to me once I think it was exactly after 1 year.

Also hats off for vanquishing all those psychopaths with nothing but a 1MW pulse. I couldn't hit anything with that for the life of me and therefore only ever left the safe systems once I was able to kit out a combat ship with beam laser.

Thanks (as an aside, your Hobbit reference has just coincided with me discovering “The Tolkien Edit” fan-cut of the films - https://tolkieneditor.wordpress.com/ this morning, so I know what I’m watching tonight!).

I dropped back to a 1MW Pulse about 2 months ago as was too proficient with a Beam - having to land accurate single shots meant I had to manoeuvre a little bit more (I’m using Elite control method in space) and had the occasional “proper” dogfight to boot - and back in post #41 proved I could take out a Panther Clipper as well

 

[Bounder]

...which is a type G star with 292832.96 Earth Masses. I tried to do the same with Riedquat, another type G star, but passed through the 1.29m km distance measurement and finally impacted the surface somewhere around 1.26m km from the core. This is a bit odd as Riedquat has a mass of 334670.16 Earths, so should be bigger than Orerve

More mass = denser, smaller star.. it's realistic!

 

[Arioch]

I’ve decided that it’s retirement time for my FE2 Commander - I think I’ll leave a military career to any offspring they have. Speaking of which, they’ve now got just under 32 years to meet someone nice, get them knocked up, and have the child grow up enough that they can pilot a Saker MkIII in the year 3250

As I did with my ZX Spectrum Elite game, I’ve left my Cobra MkIII in what I think is the appropriate place:

From Robert Holdstock’s The Dark Wheel:

"The best way to see the wreckplace at Tionisla is to approach it from the Sun...Tionisla itself is a bright yellow world, and the cemetery is always between the planet and its star. As you fly close, the whole strange graveyard seems to be expanding from the circle of the world behind.”

Although the Tionisla graveyard isn’t modelled in any of the games, I reckon I’ve parked in roughly the right place. Correct system, at least

Well then, that’s that. Bought the game in ‘93 and I’ve actually reached Elite status in less in-game years than it took in real-life years

 

[Zieman]

Although the Tionisla graveyard isn’t modelled in any of the games

As you probably well know, not in official ones.
But there's an addon for Oolite that adds the feature.

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks for posting these Arioch. It has been an awesome read. You have reavealed things about the game that I never experienced way way back. I used to have the book you posted a picture of (secrets of frontier elite) in Drews thread. I think I may still have it, if I didn't package it all in when I sold my A4000. But, it'll be in a box in my Fathers loft. And he's too old to be rooting around for that now (though I'm sure he would if I asked. daft old sod). But it is so long ago now, I don't remember a damned thing that's in it.
I keep thinking I'm going to find the time to have a play through of my own, but it just ain't happening. If I had time for that, I'd be playing ED. But I haven't touched that since 08/15.
Ah well, I'll have to watch/ listen to Drews streams until I break, and make time.
Any plans for FFE ?
Thanks.

 

[Arioch]

As you probably well know, not in official ones.
But there's an addon for Oolite that adds the feature.

Although I’ve never played Oolite, I saw the Graveyard in one of Drew’s streams and it looked fantastic. If/when we get a zero-G EVA expansion, I think it’d be an ideal time to add it into ED.

Any plans for FFE ?

After a lot of farting around with the various versions around these days (and some very helpful advice from AndyJ) I’ve commenced a “warts and all” play through of the original DOS version of the game, patched to 1.06, which I’ll start a separate thread for in a few days

 

[Zieman]

I’ve commenced a “warts and all” play through of the original DOS version of the game, patched to 1.06, which I’ll start a separate thread for in a few days

Remember to start it with the Jjagged Banner stint.
IIRC you could do the very early statue transport (or somesuch) mission if you don't waste your time on Soholia medicine run too long (1 or 2 sorties tops, don't remember for sure, there's a quide somewhere - Jades site?) and swap in a military drive, might need swapping ships to Eagle to get a bit bigger range.

So, all missions are doable in the same run, except being the assasin of Dentara Rast or the assasin of the assasin is a choice you have to make. Cobra mk III with class 3 military drive makes the Dolphin & Hitchhiker missions doable timewise on same run too. And some INRA stuff that was probably supposed to happen after Thargoid stuff won't work, no matter what you do.

Too bad many scripted missions are time sensitive, so you need to know when to be where and what to do, to a) succeed and b) to spot when the game has bugged and you need to reload an earlier save.

 

[Arioch]

Remember to start it with the Jjagged Banner stint.
IIRC you could do the very early statue transport (or somesuch) mission if you don't waste your time on Soholia medicine run too long (1 or 2 sorties tops, don't remember for sure, there's a quide somewhere - Jades site?) and swap in a military drive, might need swapping ships to Eagle to get a bit bigger range.

So, all missions are doable in the same run, except being the assasin of Dentara Rast or the assasin of the assasin is a choice you have to make. Cobra mk III with class 3 military drive makes the Dolphin missions doable timewise on same run too. And some INRA stuff that was probably supposed to happen after Thargoid stuff won't work, no matter what you do.

Too bad many scripted missions are time sensitive, so you need to know when to be where and what to do, to a) succeed and b) to spot when the game has bugged and you need to reload an earlier save.

Spoilerz! OMG, WTH, I can’t even, etc etc...!?

 

[Bounder]

I’ve decided that it’s retirement time for my FE2 Commander - I think I’ll leave a military career to any offspring they have. Speaking of which, they’ve now got just under 32 years to meet someone nice, get them knocked up, and have the child grow up enough that they can pilot a Saker MkIII in the year 3250

Congrats on an epic voyage!

Incidentally, for any fans of The Expanse - i'd been wondering why Naomi and Marcus's son only seemed a few years younger than them.. was this some kind of thoughtless casting anachronism? No! - if mum & dad are out there ploughing the space lanes, criss-crossing the entire system at constant thrust and thus undergoing massive accelerations, all while the nippers are back at home in a non-inertial reference frame, then not only would biological age differences between generations become compressed.. they could even conceivably invert, of course.. and in the extreme example of the Elite universe, if Jameson fathered kids back on Lave, he might end the game multiple generations in their future..

Just imagine Frontier: Elite with realistic time compression and procedural aging - changing cityscapes, even plate tectonics and stellar evolutions at the extreme scales..

 

[Bounder]

Thanks for posting these Arioch. It has been an awesome read. You have reavealed things about the game that I never experienced way way back. I used to have the book you posted a picture of (secrets of frontier elite) in Drews thread. I think I may still have it, if I didn't package it all in when I sold my A4000. But, it'll be in a box in my Fathers loft. And he's too old to be rooting around for that now (though I'm sure he would if I asked. daft old sod). But it is so long ago now, I don't remember a damned thing that's in it.
I keep thinking I'm going to find the time to have a play through of my own, but it just ain't happening. If I had time for that, I'd be playing ED. But I haven't touched that since 08/15.
Ah well, I'll have to watch/ listen to Drews streams until I break, and make time.
Any plans for FFE ?
Thanks.

I have my copy of SoFE right here (complete with the Dillon's price tag (any relation to Tony Dillon, the author, i wonder? Or else weird coincidence eh..)).. along with every boxed copy back to the BBC-b cassette..