'Incoming message'

[Urbanski101]

Does anyone remember this from the original Elite?

If I recall correctly it was extremely rare but also hugely exciting to get one of these messages.

One such message sent me on an epic hunt for a prototype ship that had been stolen and need to be tracked down and destroyed......I loved that mission kept me thinking/active for weeks before I finally found it.

I'd love to see this in ED, I know we have the bulletin board for missions but this sort of personal approach really adds depth. It should still be a rare occurrence and slightly random but how cool would that be

 

[Calebe]

I love the idea. I remember that as one motivating factor those special missions.

Calebe

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Am I dreaming or on the Amiga version of the game could you end up actually flying the constrictor rather than blowing it up?

I am (almost) sure I remember flying in it, before my save got corrupted in my Amiga 1st playthrough.

 

[Maxeren]

Does anyone remember this from the original Elite?

If I recall correctly it was extremely rare but also hugely exciting to get one of these messages.

One such message sent me on an epic hunt for a prototype ship that had been stolen and need to be tracked down and destroyed......I loved that mission kept me thinking/active for weeks before I finally found it.

I'd love to see this in ED, I know we have the bulletin board for missions but this sort of personal approach really adds depth. It should still be a rare occurrence and slightly random but how cool would that be

Great proposal! FD listen to the man!

Have some rep...

 

[trekman]

Does anyone remember this from the original Elite?

If I recall correctly it was extremely rare but also hugely exciting to get one of these messages.

One such message sent me on an epic hunt for a prototype ship that had been stolen and need to be tracked down and destroyed......I loved that mission kept me thinking/active for weeks before I finally found it.

I'd love to see this in ED, I know we have the bulletin board for missions but this sort of personal approach really adds depth. It should still be a rare occurrence and slightly random but how cool would that be

I remember playing that mission on my BBC back in 1984 like it was yesterday.

Am I dreaming or on the Amiga version of the game could you end up actually flying the constrictor rather than blowing it up?

I am (almost) sure I remember flying in it, before my save got corrupted in my Amiga 1st playthrough.

Your right Mad Mike in the Amiga version you could fly the constrictor but in the original BBC version of Elite you could not since it was still a prototype. In the original game I'm certain you could only fly the Cobra MKIII but since it was 30 years ago my memory might be failing me.

 

[Tiggo]

even better: let this be done via voice or text comunication in supercruise! or on unidentified signal source: a lonely trader puts you on a special mission or a special military vessel etc.

and you get more hints on other signal sources etc. etc.

endless possibilities.

 

[AlexRyder]

In the original BBC version and most other versions of Elite or Elite + you could only fly the Cobra III as far as I remember. The "Incoming message" only happened twice on the original version... First was the notification that you had to kill the Constrictor. This I remember very well because of two things..
1) You needed to have military lasers to kill it
2) You got a Naval Energy Unit for completion I think

I also remember laughing at the way the game was written as at the time I was playing around with a hex editor to modify my savegames. I found the byte that controlled the type of lasers I had installed and set it to "FF" which gave me pulse lasers that obliterated my target with a single shot, except the Constrictor which would only die if your lasers were actually called "military" and not if they were just uberpowerful.

The second Incoming Message gave you the Thargoid mission but I can't quite remember what that entailed except maybe killing a lot of them.

 

[Matt168]

On the original BBC releases, the missions also only appeared on the disk version of the game, as did military lasers and a handful of the ships. We started out with the tape version and I remember looking through the manual with envy at all the goodies (and baddies) that were not available to us.

My dad acquired a disk copy later and I remember him telling me that he had been sent on a mission to track down the Constrictor. That was the most amazing thing I had ever heard of in a game.

 

[Tiggo]

good old times ^^

 

[Faerie]

If memory serves, the "Thargoid" mission was you had to destroy a space station that had been taken over by the thargoids. I think you had to put a missile in through the docking bay after fighting your way through a host of thargoids. Not easy !