h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think I got to Elite the 1st time round, on the BBC or the Atari ST (the version with nobby red bullet-blobs instead of proper lasers). (I just got bored by the time I could fly to Anarchies with impunity, had bought all the add-ons, etc.)

I recently 'rediscovered' Elite, downloaded PC Elite + and made a dertermined effort to get to Elite. I succeeded late last year, nearly 2 decades after the game was first released, which has to be some kind of record!

Gif

*years of nostalgia have been woken by Mark's trivia*

Ah yes, I was getting mixed up between Acorn User and Micro User. It must have been Micro User that had the monthly Elite column. Until a couple of years ago (when I had a thorough clean out of my room at my parent's house, which I still regret!) I had huge piles of Micro User back issues (and Acorn Users, before you get jealous!) under my bed.

I'm impressed with the number of ex-Acorn people at the BBC. I've always thought it a shame the way the Archimedes were stifled by IBM's PCs, although they must have had some kind of huge deal with the Department of Education at some point because I seem to remember playing Lemmings on Archimedes at many different schools

Anyway, I plan to fire up my BBC B emulator this weekend and play a bit of BBC Elite, the tempation is too strong. Incidently, I've got an emulator that runs under Windows and uses original tape/disk images from the BBC / Electron, so I get to play the originals, not conversions. If anyone's interested in BBC/Electron games, I can root the web address for the emulator out.

I still have the complete collection of "Micro Adventurer" magazines back at my parent's house. Plus a few Micro User, C&VG etc. No Acorn User though, that was too dull

Oh and did anyone mention "Your Computer"?

That BBC Elite but *only* appeared in the disk version, I think. The tape version didn't have that evil way of cheating, and when I was playing it, there was more kudos attached to being Elite on the tape version than on the disk version, because you *couldn't* cheat.

Yep, I got to Elite on both tape and disk, legally, of course.

I don't think the tape version could save, could it? If not, then it was even more impressive getting to Elite

I didn't know about the inbuilt bug/cheat, but I did eventually get hold of a trainer (a memory resident program that sits in the background while the game is playing, and modifies stats in the memory, eg. your bank balance).

Did anyone do the missions? I never got a version that had the missions built in. I did play Elite+ on the PC, which was meant to have the missions, but I was never offered any

Ooh I remember another way of getting lots of money, legally. When you were attacked by a Thargoid ship, and once you had destroyed the mothership, all the little remote-controlled fighters stopped working, and you could pick them up with your scoop and sell them as alien technology

Yeah, the tape version could save. To tape.

Really? Woooooow... technology

It was quite handy, actually, as the BBC didn't care whether you had actually pressed record on your tape machine. If you died you went back to the last saved position, so whenever I docked I'd press the save key ('Copy', I think) but wouldn't bother to work the tape.

This only proved a problem if the Beeb crashed, which (amazingly) it only did couple of times in months and months of playing Elite. Pretty impressive, that.

Baud rates blah, blah, blah ...

I don't think my BBC ever crashed unless I was coding some dodgy machine code... I remember leaving it on for days on end to let my SimCity cities grow

I know the tape version saved commanders, because I wrote a "commander editor" for my own amusement... The front cannons of a Cobra Mk.III had a rating of 30, 50 or 100 in the saved stats depending on what sort you had fitted... But they could be "tweaked" up to 255, just for the fun of watching police Vipers explode with a single shot.

Just added another thread pluggin Eleite TNK then read this one. Doh! But is worth it, even the bugs seems to be the same.

Elite wasn't the 1st 3D game as stated above, I believe you'll find Aviator, at least on the BBC got that honour, again AcornSoft and I think from the same team - a basic spitfire flight game.

But there still has yet to be a game to rival it - OK many ar better, but none take the platform it is written on onto a new dimension, and leaves you wondering how it was done.

Commander Hawke - Elite many times over in many formats in many galaxies

Oh and one other "bug" I haven't seen mentioned.

The original tape game had asteroids but no mining lasers to mine them (this was a documented lack of feature due to space)

Whereas the disk version had the mining lasers but no asteroids to mine - apperently they were taken out to debug something and never put back in.

Elite TNK has both

CH

Peregrin, wha's the web adress for that Acorn Emulator, I've got a craving to play some of those classic 80s primary school edutainment titles.

Mmmmm, Granny's Garden!

Beware the text adventures - never type in the word BLACH - otherwise a monster kills you - there is absolutely no truth in the rumour that this refers to now Lady Blatch, then tory head of Cambridge County Coucil - where Acornsoft were based. No truth at all, well maybe.

CH

Aha, found it: It's http://www.stairwaytohell.com and is one of the best sites in the universe

They've just added an 'improved' version of Elite for the BBC, haven't tried it yet. They have emulators for the BBC Micro and the Acorn Electron; and many tape/disk images for both. I use the BeebEm emulator, which works perfectly well. Give it a try!

I got to be elite on the spectrum, BBC & PC.

The PC version is still very playable - I was playing it yesterday and reached the heady heights of deadly in 4 hours or so - without ANY trading!
The version works fine on a pentium laptop.

The cheat?
Well the easiest way is :-
fly to a high tech planet and sell your pulse laser and missiles! I know it sound daft. Now buy fuel scoops, launch and fly through space. Pick up any cargo and sell it when you dock.
Now all you do is RAM each and every ship you meet. These all count as kills, you get bounty, but you do not become a fugitive!

Once you have a few canisters, return to the planet and dock (using the computers) and sell the stuff, you will soon have enough to buy back your precious laser. You can now kill stuff and go for it big time!

Hope that helps.

Hey, I never heard of that method before! Sounds like it should work, though, providing you can afford the scoops. Cool!

Gif

It's not quite in the spirit, but works a treat.
If you go NW to a planet called RA, then NW is a level 6 planet that gives scoops at 500, the laser is 420 and 3 missiles are 100, which gives just about enough.

Crashing into the other ships is the real killer - you get so many kills sooooooo quickly!

Rr.