Elite / Frontier Playthrough of Frontier Elite 2, predecessor to Elite Dangerous.

drew

drew
For any of you who are interested, I'm commencing a playthrough of Frontier Elite 2 (the second game in the Elite franchise) over on twitch.tv/drewwagar at 1pm today and continuing for several weeks.

Drew Wagar's History: Frontier Elite 2 (FE2) | Canonn Research Group


Frontier Elite 2 is a game from 1993, 16 bit and running on DOS. :)

Cheers,

Drew.
 

Arioch

Arioch
I missed the last few minutes but I enjoyed the rest of the stream - always fun seeing someone else demonstrating the things that keep me coming back to the game.

One thing you seem to have forgotten when trying to figure out what to trade - there’s an Economy tab when looking at the System map. Here’s the relevant bit on the Frontier Quick Start Guide pamphlet from the box on my shelf:
6277E5DE-1ECA-4A16-AF4E-D13F95B3DD4F.jpeg
 

gunbladelad

gunbladelad
One thing I did suggest in the stream as well is to pick up any goods with a negative price (Radioactives & Rubbish) when you run out of funds for everything else - and ditch those the moment you've jumped into the next system - it adds just that little extra to your funds early on.
Even if you're not one for dumping, you should buy Radioactives from the black market in Sol and sell them in Banards Star - you'll keep more than half the money you were paid to take them (although you would keep 100% of the cash if you simply dump after jumping)
 

Steve

Steve
Bizarrely, one thing which has never occurred to me, in all my years of playing the Frontier Elite games, took place on Drew's stream at the weekend. It's looking for the ads on the bulletin board where someone is willing to pay twice the market price for a commodity, buying a load at the local stockmarket and then selling them to this person for a 100% profit. Perhaps I've never been devious enough! 😄
 

Arioch

Arioch
Steve said:
Bizarrely, one thing which has never occurred to me, in all my years of playing the Frontier Elite games, took place on Drew's stream at the weekend. It's looking for the ads on the bulletin board where someone is willing to pay twice the market price for a commodity, buying a load at the local stockmarket and then selling them to this person for a 100% profit. Perhaps I've never been devious enough! 😄
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I’m pretty sure the only time the rich buyers turn up on the BBS is when the items they are after are out of stock - the only reason the Fruit&Veg were available for Drew to buy was because he’d just sold them to the market.

One thing that is possible is playing the stockmarket - if an item is low in stock then (if you’ve the space and cash) you can buy all the remaining stock and Stardream to the next day when the price should go up. The profit isn’t much, but it should cover the next day’s docking fees plus a bit extra. I’ve only done it a few times when I’ve docked close to midnight, but it was worth it for the “oh it does work” feeling 😁

When I started my current FE2 game last year I managed to pick up this wee book that had lots of stuff I didn’t know about:
B64F6862-3C6D-4602-884A-51072C61B2AD.jpeg

...plus it fits nicely in the game box!
 

Steve

Steve
Arioch said:
I’m pretty sure the only time the rich buyers turn up on the BBS is when the items they are after are out of stock - the only reason the Fruit&Veg were available for Drew to buy was because he’d just sold them to the market.
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Ah! That'll be why I'd never noticed it before. I was thinking in the back of my mind that those ads only appear on the bulletin board when there is no stock in the usual market, but seeing Drew buy the stock before reselling it made me think I was mistaken. I obviously missed the bit where he sold the cargo first; there's always too much going on at home to watch every second of the stream 😕
Arioch said:
When I started my current FE2 game last year I managed to pick up this wee book that had lots of stuff I didn’t know about:
View attachment 196450
...plus it fits nicely in the game box!
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Yeah, it's a great read. Let me know if you ever find the Mirage ship 😃
 

Arioch

Arioch
@drew - Mentioned in today’s stream - a bit of further lore regarding the Cobra Mk2, taken from the FFE manual:
94CC57EC-4CAF-4CC6-8981-99977F34D756.jpeg

Also, DOSBOX has a built in key-mapper function (CTRL+f1) which allows use of joysticks or gamepads with FE2 - worth investigating as I’ve found combat much easier since doing so.

Edit: just seen the last bit of the stream that I missed; congrats on Mostly Harmless.
The ratings go up thusly: 0, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 1000, 3000, 6000. Just a few to go then! 😁
 
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Arioch

Arioch
I’ve just caught up on the last bit of the stream I missed - Below Average, Right On Commander! 😁

There was a slight mistake in the chat regarding pirates: they do all spawn on system entry - you can go into the local map and see them all - however some of the coloured blobs may actually be wings of three ships that are only resolving as one dot. Not all the ships may reach you (especially in the Cobra Mk3) but a quick look at the system map after jumping and zooming out gives you a fair idea of the ride you’re about to have.

Also, a quick combat tip: never retro thrust directly at an oncoming enemy - they’ll get a good lock on you. Thrust away at a slight angle then blast them as they are about to fly past or when their beam laser has overheated.
 

PurgeTheXeno

PurgeTheXeno
So what i'm getting is that even-numbered Cobras are cursed. XD

That said, i think i've finally found a good use for my Cobra 4. If only i had a good name for it...
 

Arioch

Arioch
Watched the bit I missed from today’s stream - Drew asked the question about multiple attackers and the chat answered correctly that you can get them, but not if you use maximum StarDreamer.

I’ve managed to occasionally get a pair of attackers this way but usually one of the ships goes whizzing past at a great rate of knots so it’s not too dissimilar to normal solo encounters. The fantastic Isinona did a video about 8 years ago of a 5v1 dogfight and said in the comments:

“The game really got interesting when I worked out how to evade pirates (note this has to be done without using top time acceleration, as you mentioned). The knock on result from evading them is that they tend to bunch together behind you. If they then catch up with you again then these sort of 5v1 battles can occur - not all the time, but quite often. I once tried to dodge my way through an anarchy system and I kid you not it resulted in something like a 15v1 battle.”

I’ve not been able to figure out how they manage to evade pirates - I’ve tried manual flying all the way to a planet but that didn’t help. They played the GLFrontier version of the game which is based on AtariST code - maybe there’s something you can do in that that you can’t in the PC version?
 

gunbladelad

gunbladelad
I'm guessing evading pirates probably requires you to locate them when you enter a system and choose a route that would prevent them from intercepting you - but if they're between you and the only spacedocks in the system, then you're going to get a fight regardless.
 

Arioch

Arioch
gunbladelad said:
I'm guessing evading pirates probably requires you to locate them when you enter a system and choose a route that would prevent them from intercepting you - but if they're between you and the only spacedocks in the system, then you're going to get a fight regardless.
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I’ve tried this morning - I set a course out from the system orbital plane, away from the pirates, and while they all ended up behind me they were still strung out over several million km’s. They eventually intercepted me one at a time as normal. I’ve also tried “kiting” a pirate - let it intercept me then I burned away towards the next nearest pirate, and while I escaped several times from the first ship I couldn’t get it close enough to the second.

On the System map I can autopilot select enemy ships but not centre the map on them - I think with the Amiga & ST versions you can do so and even zoom right in on the vessels. I might download GLFrontier and see if I can succeed there - I might just be peeing into the wind with the DOS game 😅
 

gunbladelad

gunbladelad
I guess the downside is that pirates will have had a week to prepare for your arrival (as jumpclouds manifest for a week both sides of a jump) - meaning they'll have had time to get up to speed for intercepting you.
 

Arioch

Arioch
Great to see (or rather hear) something new in the game this week, even after playing for so many years. I’ve since checked a few different hours and the chimes are always the same, but still - the clocks chime!

Although the Universal Time thing makes sense for the game’s interstellar trade, I’m not sure it’s ever addressed in the lore. Human’s circadian rhythms would probably still be based on a 24 hour cycle even on other worlds with different day lengths, so I suppose having anachronistic Roman numeral analogue clocks on prominent display might make a bit of sense 😁

Either that, or the Galaxy wide popular religion of the 3200’s is The Church of Proper-Day Stints.
 
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