Throw back thread how did you make money in Elite II and III, what other activities did you do?

Muzz UK

Muzz UK
A little bit of fun and a throw back to the older Elite games for the vets here. I played far too many hours of Elite II and III in the 90s. During the 2000s I would still install and revisit every now and then. I found my game play nearly always followed the same pattern lol. I remember as a 11 year old being confused as to why I couldn't land on certain planets and then my brother showed me they were gas giants ha.

How did you make you guys make your money? I used to start by doing fruit veg, animal meat and computer runs from Sol to Barnard's Star and back again. Once I could afford a Lion Transport, Tiger Trader or ASP I would upgrade my ship depending on mood.

Once I built up enough cash for a bigger ship I'd start trading illegal goods to Daedalus in Sol as you could bribe the police :-D

Eventually I'd get bored and travel to the imperial systems and get myself an Imperial Courier which I consider the coolest ship in those older game. Personally don't think the new courier has as much character. I would then return to Federation space to do assassinations. I played about with hyperspace forced mis jumps and did practice plantery landings and dropping off the MB40 mining machine but I was never lucky enough to find more than water, minerals or low value goods.

Did anyone ever go long distance and see how far out they could get? For such an old game even in the early 2000s there was still a lot to do. I would like to say the crime system was pretty good and being denied docking permission and chased off by the police was pretty fun.

Another fun thing to do was buy a Panther Clipper load up with shields and plasma accelerator and see how many police ships you could kill.
 

Non Grata

Non Grata
Fly nothing bigger than an Adder. Not allow myself to do the liquor/luxury goods computers/robots thing. Never do A B back to A - always on to C. Never reload save. Then just see where it takes me.
 

redstar1

R
I dread to think how many hours were spent in FE2 over the years. Used to do a lot of trading between Sol and Barnard's Star taking farm machinery one way then robotics the next. Trading ships until I couldn't get anything bigger. Used to fast forward time waiting for a bulletin board message paying double for robotics :D

After fortunes had been made started on the rank grind. Lots of courier missions from the naval stations at Eta Cassiopeia then into recon and assassinations. Took forever getting to Elite but I did manage it.
to jettison it and it would
There was also a cheat on the Amiga version where you could click just to the right of something to jettison it and it wouldn't jettison but still gave you the cargo space back. End up with -30000 and a cobra mk3 with 1000 shield boosters and a large plasma accelerator. That was always good for a laugh.

I rolled into Ceos for the first time last night and saw all the delivery missions... had a pang of nostalgia for that:)

I LOVE this game.

Edit: Got the system wrong. Who still has the map from FE2? :D
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
Barnard's Star to Sol, Mars trading bulk stuff (robotics/luxury foods).
Boring, but allowed to buy ships i wanted to test out.
I was 8/9 years or so back then.
 

Muzz UK

Muzz UK
babelfisch said:
I never played the original games. You may now burn the heretic.
Click to expand...

Elite III First Encounters with the various fixes and graphics mods available online is worth a play. Most people would get a good 15-20 hours or more out of it just doing the basics and story.

I never actually played first encounters until 2008 but it was so much better than FE II... though I never played a bug ridden copy per say.
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
steve_muzz said:
Elite III First Encounters with the various fixes and graphics mods available online is worth a play. Most people would get a good 15-20 hours or more out of it just doing the basics and story.

I never actually played first encounters until 2008 but it was so much better than FE II... though I never played a bug ridden copy per say.
Click to expand...

I played First encounter, but you know when your ship constantly gets destroyed while docking,
in the first 5 hours, that is not a good impression. (Bugs, Bugs, Bugs.)
 

JonesTheFilm

JonesTheFilm
I played original Elite & Frontier:E2 but not First Encounters.

As far as my memory serves (which is not particularly well most of the time) when I wanted to make money back then it was only by trading, finding one of those routes where you could buy-low/sell-high in both directions.

Interestingly in Elite Dangerous trading is one aspect of the game I've pretty much ignored.
 

Zak Gordon

Zak Gordon
Hey! my kind of thread :)

Basically i 'play it my way'.

I might start by doing the safe trade grind (Merlin to Mars/Barnards Star to Sol etc) just to get a better ship (once i was at an Asp, i considered that job done). Mostly it was a mix of various things.

In FFE (and now FFED3D) i love doing the Wiccan Run at game start, then making my way back to Sol for safe trade routes. I might just start doing military jobs (coupled with any trade/passenger trips that match the destinations) if my ship is set up for that.

I LOVE reading the various in game journals and trying to visit locations they mention etc. But mostly i mix it up depending on where the space-wind blows me :)

I LOVE hearing the winds whine and whistle on a strange alien world, looking up into the sky and seeing the sun set and the start come out, then firing off into the black to follow any object in the sky near enough to jump too. The contrast between the cold lifeless gulf of space and then zooming (seamlessly) down into a planets atmosphere to dock is something no other games have really created as well imho, Sure newer games have better graphics, but not the 'unlimited' scope that Frontier or FFE have in this respect; the pure mind food and adventures these games can conjure. Magic :)
 

Bounder

Bounder
I'm still playing FFE, in lieu of any comparable successor.

Earnings are just a bonus - what drags you in is the "GTA" playstyle - full access free-roam, with no transitions besides hyperspace.

The quality of the spaceflight especially - arcade action with real physics and gravity - no matter what you're doing, trading, combat or just joyriding, it's addictively absorbing, with as much depth and realism as you wanna peel back - you can fly everywhere and anywhere on autopilot, FA-on or FA-off, switching fluidly on a whim, swerving through gravity fields, in and out of orbit, watching continents zip by in LEO, or cutting the grass at 30 km/s with a melting hull, it's just gaming crack, that no game since has come close to touching..

I tend to take the highest-paying missions - stacking and daisy-chaining wherever possible - but as much for the inevitable action as the cash - getting multpile gangs of assassins after you at the same time is where it's at, the more contracts on your head the better.

I ignore the storyline missions and in-game journals, don't care about the thargoid stuff or flying the Argents Quest etc. - although it's worth killing Dentra Rast just for the ensuing heat it brings down on you... Mostly though i'm just running contraband and anyone on the run from whoever. The occasional bounty or military mission, sometimes explorer for quirky or extreme systems...

That's your basic deadbeat Elite veteran's lot in life, i think, until there's some kind of FE4 on the horizon. Crossing all digits that's one of FD's upcoming productions..
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
I really don't remember. I only remember the general excitement of playing a unique game like Frontier: Elite 2.
I also remember buying a Panther Clipper and modding it into a flying fortress no pirate could hope to defeat.
And I remember landing at a high G planet with great difficulty and then discovering that I was not able to take off anymore.
It was frustrating at the time, but also epic. That is why I still remember.

I also remember how exciting it was to scan the wakes of an assassination target and follow it to the system where I had to kill it.
I hope we will get those types of missions in ED too.
 

Bounder

Bounder
taotoo said:
Fly nothing bigger than an Adder. Not allow myself to do the liquor/luxury goods computers/robots thing. Never do A B back to A - always on to C. Never reload save. Then just see where it takes me.
Click to expand...

See? This guy knows the coo.

A cobra fits a neat loadout, but you're gonna lose it all the first gangbang you get into. A fighter or interceptor gives you the agility to dodge and evade as well as dish it out.
 

Muzz UK

Muzz UK
Iskariot said:
I really don't remember. I only remember the general excitement of playing a unique game like Frontier: Elite 2.
I also remember buying a Panther Clipper and modding it into a flying fortress no pirate could hope to defeat.
And I remember landing at a high G planet with great difficulty and then discovering that I was not able to take off anymore.
It was frustrating at the time, but also epic. That is why I still remember.

I also remember how exciting it was to scan the wakes of an assassination target and follow it to the system where I had to kill it.
I hope we will get those types of missions in ED too.
Click to expand...

Open world and game size is something I always look for in any game. Elite II, III, Daggerfall, GTA and Morrowind literally had more of my time than any other games. Freedom in games is a big draw for me because i want to be able to go and do things I choose.
 

Watcher

W
Trading for the most part.
In the later games I also tried following along and getting involved in the story and getting some cash that way which was fun.
 

Komemiute

Komemiute
Honestly, and this comes form a guy that literally wasted hours by thousands in both Elite II Frontier and III First Encounter, I can't go back to play the old ones.
Even more strangely Elite (1984) is easier to grab again for me.

Why?

Mostly the first Elite was way more stable, II and III had more features (loved the adoralbe gringeworthy videos of the bases personnel) - and especially the III has very good planetary graphic/landing , for the time.

That said a lot of gameplay doesn't really cut it anymore. (Mostly talking about Elite II here)

1st- whenever you jumped in a new system you ended up at the very far outskirts of said system and you had to rtavel all the way back to the core. WHile this wasn't really terrible, it could take sometimes even ten minutes BUT... you were NOT flying the ship. Essentially you chose a destination, clicked once on it, clicked again for autopilot and then one more click to Max-Time Acceleration.

I used to like it- but in the end it wasn't very gamey- plus is many occasions the navigational system simply slowed down too much and couldn't catch up some planets.


2nd- You couldn't buy ships and store them. One ship only- the one you fly.

3rd- OUtfitting and Liveries/decoration was totally absent.

4th- Interface wasn't that good or useful.

5th- The. Fragging. Musics. UGH! Sounds effect where bad but still bearable.

6th- THe Newtonian physics was quite the rage and in some ways I liked it- but to be fair combat in Elite (1984) was better, for me.

7th- My landing gear never got any damage from Micro-meteorites.

8th- Single player was cool but I would have killed for Multi Crew, back then. Yes I'm one of the (apparently few) that are happy with MultiCrew (especially in view of the upcoming Mining and Exploration overhaul).

9th- PLANETARY FLIGHT WAS CRAP! Guys, let's be honest- yes, back then we could almost land everywhere but there was little to no reason to do it! It wasn't engaging, it wasn't fun, it wasn't graphically nice, and the atmosphere was completely non-ingfluential. I'm happy to wayt to see Elite Dangerous doing it right.


That said- there were some cool stuff...

- You had a (slightly modified- it was a bit squashed to allow for the limited bittage of those PC) Galaxy : all hundreds of billion of systems in a single 1.44 MB disk,
- you could end up with some specific ships (included a Thaargoid Heavy fighter),
- you could fit some quite COOL stuff like Nuclear Weapons, Military weaponry and Drives,
- you had RECON MISSIONS! :D with camera and all! (But planetary flight was still crap)
- the bullettin where cool and gave lore, context and hint about missions,
- ORRERY! :D
- A second, modifiable ORRERY! (you could speed up the time or rewind it)
- Taxes for landing, parking fee and so on
- some mission included haggling for reward and stuff.
- all in all fitting was simpler as there were no slots b ut just "available tonnage"
- some bugs would allow you to have lotsa cash and impossible ships (in some cases you could break the game logic and end up with thousands of tons of internal space available for kitting, WOWZA)
- You had to hire crew (which was still actually useless in gameplay terms...)
- Single player only and as many save states as you want.

Basically was a different game for different times- To be brutally honest, while I love Elite Dangerous deeply- I'm also dying to see some of the old features back. :p
 
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o2thaZ

o2thaZ
If I member correctly: Computers <--> Luxury Items ---> Buy (real) clipper.--> crash land on every planet to deploy md5 (that planetary mining machine) ((BTW STILL WAITING FDEV)
 

Eminor

Eminor
Well, in the original, you could buy Narcotics at about 3 credits per ton - and then sell them at about 100...

Makes the Ceos/Sothis runs look like an honest days work ;)
 

SAB380

SAB380
I can’t remember specifics. I remember two things:
1) Flying my Panther
2) Enjoying entering and exiting the atmosphere of Earth like worlds.

Guess what my two big wants are for Elite Dangerous?
 
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