Elite / Frontier Origin of ship designers and manufacturers for FFE

[madbilly]

Hi all,

As you do, I was getting nostalgic and browsing old FFE fansites and I came across the ship reviews on Jades' and Kelpie's sites, and the expanded Elite timeline on Mufossa's site and Alioth.net wiki. These all include ship designer and manufacturer companies, and they are also included in the expanded FFE manual. But, I can't find any reference to these designers and manufacturers in the electronic copies of the FFE manuals I have, nor in the game itself (as far as I've had time to look). Unfortunately I can't check my paper manual because it's in another country!

Can anyone shed some light one this for me? Are Perez Corp, Gupta Industrial Corp, Vega Line Corp, the Organisation, Michael Lanner, Imperial/Federal Navy/Military Research Directorates and their shipyards, etc. "canon" FFE or are they invented by fans?

Cheers

 

[Steve]

Hi madbilly,

Interesting question, and not as straightforward as I originally thought!

As you know there are three types of ships in the series up to and including FFE; those that have been there since the days of Elite eg. Viper, those that were introduced at the time of FE2 eg. Panther and those which came into being with FFE eg Saker.

Elite was very thorough in terms of the background of the ships. Manual entries refer to inservice dates and often shipyards as well. That changed completely with FE2; the ships index gives stats only, no background information at all. FFE improved slightly, but only occasional references to shipyards etc.

I have an electronic version of the FFE manual and was interested to find designer details for ships such as the Griffin and the Tiercel, because no such information is given in the printed FFE manual. Ditto for the Panther, where there seems to be no information in either the FE2 or FFE manuals. OTOH the Lanner does have a designer according to the FFE manual - Michael Lanner!

So, to answer your question, some of the organisations you refer are canon and others may have been introduced by fans. Mind you, I haven't checked the offical fiction that came with the games; there may be more answers there. I'd be surprised if there was enough information in the fiction to give complete canon details for all the ships though.

 

[madbilly]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the reply. Is the electronic manual you have this one? It is a fan-enhanced version of the official FFE manual, with the additions explained in the credits section. I think the origin of much of the ship manufacturer and ship designer stuff is Jades' website. I don't think any of the ship designers and manufacturers from Jades' site are in any of the fiction, except I did find Gutamaya listed in the story about Jaques, "All the Glisters... " by David Massey. I've emailed Jades and if I get word back I'll post it up.

If Jades did create these, the well done to him for embellishing the FFE story to the point that so many people consider it official (at least it has spread to many other FFE sites and many threads on this forum)!

Overall I like the fan-enhanced version of the FFE manual, I would like to see more backstory stuff published for ED.

EDIT: I've realised that there is some stuff in the ship descriptions and Bob's thoughts.

 

[Steve]

Is the electronic manual you have this one?

Yeah, the very same. I hadn't read the credits section to be honest; looks like they pulled in information from a variety of places.
I agree that embellishing the FEU is a great thing that should be encouraged. I don't get too hung up on whether it's canon in the strictest sense (ie. from the material that came with or in the game). I gather Elite Dangerous has re-written certain aspects of Elite history though [woah]