Elite / Frontier Has anyone done a start to end no saves?

[Bikky]

When I say no saves, I don't mean literally not saving, but here's what I've done in the past.

On Elite, back in '94 at college, we did an Elite'a'thon. No lessons, each on a BBC B, started at 7.30 and finished at 5.30, NO SAVING, to see who could get the highest combat rating in one go.


Since then on FFE I've tried a similar, several times.

The Object is to start from scratch. Play without saving until its bed-time, or your eyes can't stay open, or mum/partner shouts to get off the damn pc. Then you can save. Next time take that save point and play from there. No multiple saves so that you can go back if something goes wrong or you miss a deadline or a hire. And WHEN (not if) you die... TUFF, start from scratch again.

The first go on doing this I started off at LAVE with the Mk3. It took me 18 attempts to get to a reasonable competent, before I flew into a ship taking off as I was landing near a star port to wait for a dock to free up. It was Stressful, and took a while, when I very quickly figured out using star dreamer on speed 3 and 4 meant you had time to manouvre if attacked, rather than speed 5 where sometimes you were shot the instant the dreamer deactivated. This was an attempt to just get a high combat rating.....

From there I tried other start offs, including the easy SOL start point on Mars. This had over 50 attempts, as I was trying to play the game, getting money, to build a descent combat ship. Then taking on the federal and imperial missions. With this I did get to Dangerous. It took months, and as with above, unless you were in safe zones, Star Dreamer was used on 3 and 4 speeds not 5.

Post up your attempts.
(going to see if i can get any version working on win7 64bit no luck so far)

 

[DraQ]

It's still better to save often in case of software/hardware/power failure. Saving often doesn't force you to reload.

And no, I haven't played this way, though I might be tempted to. The worst thing would be possibility of random mis-jump with drive failure.

 

[Bikky]

Yes, had that twice.... as i was pushing servicing to the limit in order to save pennies due to not taking risks on the stock market as much. I remember one, 2 ships attacked, hull went to 50%, no missiles as they cost money, and had a 5mw pulse laser.... jumped to NOT saftey.

Mis-jumped, still had plenty of fuel to make a safe system jump, as i was luckily in range... however drive was trashed

New game.

 

[turwhitt]

This would be impossible IMO.

There are too many unavoidable things that can happen, not due to pilot error.

Sometimes you can come out of stardreamer and die immediately to a baddie with an uber laser. Sometimes your docking computer crashes you into the dock for no reason. And of course there's always mis-jumps.

 

[Bikky]

Not impossible, just extremely hard. But its fun (stressful) seeing how far you can get, and the relief making it through combat and to dock knowing you would go back to the beginning if you failed... It was like the excitement of your first snog (not as good as first nookie though hehe)

As a result, as I said before, in dangerous systems, star dreamer on 3 or 4, not max.... this gives you chance to be in combat mode before the baddies get chance to shoot first.

Docking was another lesson hard learned, I let the computer get me close, then i finish...... although a trick i did learn was to position myself so far away, put the docking computer on.... then hit 5 on the star dreamer

 

[DraQ]

This would be impossible IMO.

There are too many unavoidable things that can happen, not due to pilot error.

Sometimes you can come out of stardreamer and die immediately to a baddie with an uber laser. Sometimes your docking computer crashes you into the dock for no reason. And of course there's always mis-jumps.

Only misjumps are independent of your actions.

Combat can generally be won, docking and landing can be done manually, or, at least approach can be performed at low compression, with manual on standby.

Well, you can crash into an asteroid but chances are next to 0.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Yep, done it a few times, also sonetimes play to see how high a elite rating and credit balance I can get in a couple of years in game time.

 

[Riedquat For A Dream]

Wow I thought I was the only one to have tried this! It's the only way I play FE2 now. Can't recommend it highly enough, it totally changes the way you approach the game. At first it's like a hitting a brick wall, but once you get used to it it's incredibly immersive and I for one can't go back to playing it any other way.

I got up to an Asp from the Mars start once. It's heartbreaking when your pilot dies and the tombstone comes spinning. But you must be strong and immediately delete the save and start again. No exceptions.

First thing it forces you to do: Learn to fly without autopilot. That thing's going to kill you. This is a breakthrough as the game is even better once everything is on manual. You'll never use autopilot again! You can also then start from Lave and downgrade to a Viper. No autopilots available to buy at Lave, but the ship can take some hits so combat becomes more forgiving.

Second thing: it forces you to get good at fighting. Turns out it wasn't the pirates crashing into me, it was me crashing into them. Turn ENGINES OFF and use small bursts of thrust. You'll not see another midair collision again.

Third thing, always take spare fuel. As said already, misjumps are rare but FATAL otherwise. Always take at least a couple of extra tonnes. It also comes in handy if you need to do a runner from an Imperial Courier.

Fourth, NEVER fly straight towards a planet/spacestation. Always aim high, that way if you're overshooting then you don't have to do a panic hyperspace with the spare fuel before you smash into the proverbial immoveable object.

Fifth, you learn how to deal with the bug where you can see a starport 'through' a planet. Now I never plough head-first for a planet starport. Instead I always go low over the planet's horizon. On larger planets, even when I'm sure I'm on the right side, I do a check to see that the distance from the starport is less than the distance from the centre of the planet!

Sixth thing I learned: how to avoid fights. With autopilot off and a fast ship you can pull off some crazy sine wave-esque flight patterns that throw all but the nimblest of pirate ships off your trail. I've got through to Riedquat's starport without a fight on occasion by doing this.

NOTE: You have to fly using Stardreamer on level 4 to do this as mentioned already, at level 5 the game stops ships passing you in their tracks, when in reality they should have overshot and hurtled past you. This is pretty advanced stuff as you have to judge your speeds just right. It's all about constantly using your rear thrusters, right up to getting close to the target planet. If you get this wrong it can result in the pirates bunching together; i had 15 or so attack me at once because of this.

And lastly, don't forget ship maintenance!

 

[Geraldine]

If you get this wrong it can result in the pirates bunching together; i had 15 or so attack me at once because of this.

Actually I used to do this on purpose as I loved getting into a mega hairballs, especially so when there are so many ships, they shoot each other in the scramble to get to you. Learn to dance!

I have said this before, the stardreamer when used correctly, is one of the best "weapons" in the game. Once you learn how to use it and understand how its use impacts upon the game, the possibilities for fun increase greatly!

But yes, great tips there Riedquat

 

[potsmoke66]

at least one who dared to follow the suggested idea in FE2's handbook

that's great and respectable, fellow (if it's true, i assume it is).

you made it to dangerous without reloading? incredible...

yes, like draq and thurwitt posted you can easy die of whatever stupid reason.

but, well if i have a pause from pioneer, i will give that a go.

on the other hand, there is no proof, i mean you would have to record your game to make it proof, else it's to easy to just tell, imo.

but 12hrs of gameplay need a lot of GB recorded. except very low quality,but i guess that would be already enough to make it proof, you just had to see o.k, he never reloaded. in 20 times normal speed, i don't like to watch 12hrs FFE. but then again you could "cheat" some frames, hm not easy.

i will check if it's possible to read such from the saved game, you could read if one has cheated, so i guess there is a small possibility to see if one reloaded a game. we have three timers in ffe counting permanently and this is saved to the savegame , some of "unknown function", i wouldn't be surprised if it's possible to compare them.

i'm pretty sure one is the actual sessions duration
but i have to make that proof first.

 

[Bikky]

Ahh I think there might be a slight confusion here....

Back at college in 89/90 it was elite we were playing. One person did make it to Elite, He was deadly at the end of the 12 hours, but only about 15 kills off Elite, and stayed on the game for another 10 mins. His speed on the controls in dock to buy and be back out was unreal... Sad in my opinion to know the exact controls that quick. And back then recording was to tape

Since then my tries haven't taken just 12 hours, more like they've taken over 12 months. I'd used a single save game, started off in ROSS154 (easy start), and did much trading around the safe systems to get credits for big ships and many armaments. To get to dangerous in FFE probably took me 2 1/2 years. I didn't play this commander all the time, but it was regular.

I'd learned my lesson well about the easy dying, so the caution used was like that you might use if this were real world scenario, and you were actually trading out there in the void. In fact to keep my attention on the tedium of playing as safe as possible, i'd actually put FFE onto my works laptop to play at, while my safe commander was running on the pc. This meant using 3-4x star dreamer wasn't a tedium as i was playing on the laptop too This also helped by being able to fly to systems in a reloaded commander to find out how long it took baddies to get to you, and whether I could survive it. So I suppose in that respect I did cheat a little. If I went somewhere on the laptop, and died time after time after time, then I never took my real commander there. Well if i'd had a Puma with 100 Sheilds and 20Mw's all round and hull auto repair I would of. As it is I had an Asp with Class 3 Military. Giving me space for 2 more sheilds. It was a heavy combat ship with manouverability.

 

[Geraldine]

Personally, I never bothered that much about the ratings. Instead, I concentrated on doing as many crazy things as the game would allow. In the end the ratings took care of themselves.