Elite / Frontier Problem with difficulty of Hi res JJFFE - different to standard JJFFE?

[jonboy99]

Hi guys,
I played the JJFFE version of FFE a few years ago and got pretty far, loads of missions etc. Recently felt the urge to try it again and got excited to discover the hires D3D versions, which look amazing.

However i'm starting the campaign from scratch, and decided to take a simple journey as described in an online manual of flying to Jenning's hollow. But in the hires d3d version I get shot out of the sky by a beam lasered pirate every time before being able to get to land (it drags me out of autopilot and no way can I defeat him in my basic ship).

However in the non-D3D, plain old JJFFe version, autopilot always takes me uneventfully to land, no pirates (just as the online guides suggest should happen).

Are the D3d hires versions deliberately using different gameplay difficulty levels? I'm really just looking for a prettier version of the original game, but gameplay just the same.

Thanks for any help
Jon

 

[Steve]

I'm not sure where Jenning's Hollow is but if a system is safe in JJFFE it should also be safe in FFED3D.

Are you using FFED3D-AJ? That's by far the most recent and best build of the game, with virtually all the bugs removed.

One last thought - don't try running the HellMod version of the game! The finanical rewards are greater but the danger level everywhere is insane

 

[jonboy99]

Thanks Steve. After a bit more gameplay time I realised I had just forget how darned difficult the game was when just starting out! I'd just got lucky a couple of times when playing the 'original' jjffe.
Now on AJs version. I'd got caught out by the map-ship explosion bug in the latest version but all fixed with a config file tweak now. It's an amazing mod, looking forward to many happy wasted hours!

 

[Bounder]

Major tip here:

- it's really worth taking the time to set up the config file with a decent keyboard layout! Whatever key combination you're most used to using in other 3D games can be set in FFED3D.

You can even set up a HOTAS to use exactly the same controls you use in ED (if you play ED of course)

Personally, i use W and S for both discrete control of forwards and rear thrusters in "Engines off" mode, as well as to increase / decrease "set speed" in "manual" mode. Then A and D for left / right thrust, Q and E for rolling, and LShift / LCtrl for up / down.

Then i use mouse to control yaw and pitch, with the pitch axis reversed in the game settings so up is up and down in down. With this setup you can run absolute rings around the AI, dodging their fire and missile salvos while keeping the heat on 'em.

So much so, i now have to buff the AI with Buffet to get any real challenge from 'em...

 

[jonboy99]

Excellent tip, thanks Bounder. I'd not even thought of setting up the strafe controls properly. Seem s a bit like cheating after playing a fair bit of the original elite (TNK) recently, but i think it's just a necessity as traditional controls just aren't going to cut it while i'm in such a wimpy ship.

 

[jonboy99]

OK, another question - i've set most of my controls as per Bounder's instructions above, but i'd like to try with the keyboard alone rather than mouse. However the game controls still seem to react quite fast (quite sensitive), making it difficult to target ships using the keyboard. Compared to my install of the plain old JJFFE, the keyboard controls react about 150% of normal speed - hovering above a planet, I can do a full rotation in 2secs in JJFFED3DAJ, but original JJFFE takes 3 secs (in the same start ship). I've tried fiddling with the keyboard delay etc in the config file but it doesn't seem to do anything I can detect.
Any tips on getting a slower reaction speed?
Thanks
Jon

 

[AndyJ]

Hi Jon,

The repeat delay and rate values are just for controlling the speed of text input for the commander's name and for save games.

It's likely to be horribly off-topic and infraction-attracting for me to discuss my own unofficial build in this section of the forum, so I've quoted your qestion and repsonded in its own thread here. Hope that's OK with you - this forum area is only meant for discussing the official releases of the games.

But this looks to be a bit of a can of worms when comparing the unofficial versions...

I wonder if anyone does have an old working DOS machine that they can try the original FFE on & report back the behaviour?
It will need Elite-control method enabling in options for roll on keyboard. Head well into space from the start position and come to a stop. Align the sights just to one side of the sun before rolling to get a clear indication.
How quickly the default Saker MKIII ship can do a roll in space when using keyboard? And after a few rotations, when you release the key does it stop immediately, or continue rotating a little while? (A video would be even better!)

Cheers!

AndyJ

 

[jonboy99]

Hi Andy,
Unfortunately I can't answer in the other forum as I don't seem to have permission to do so. But that's fine as this isn't a very useful answer anyway probably. Although I don't have a DOS machine that isn't buried deep in my parent's basement, it feels to me like Frontier (elite 2 not FFE) (which runs fine in my dosbox) has a very similar keyboard response to JJFFE, and also elite:TNK.
My excuse for this fairly useless post is that i'm in a pleasant saturday afternoon drunken haze, but I have a hopefully optimistic feeling it might be somehow useful. And also my last response until I sober up...