Elite II - Frontier

[mancity]

Just bought this game off e-bay having read several reviews and being quite thrilled of the concept.

Looks like it will take me a long time to get fully into it and understand what's what (the 3 books that came with it will take an age!).

My question is, the frame rate is quite low. I have a 1200 with 8MB trapdoor RAM and it's still bad.

Does this game just have a low frame rate and that's that or do I need an accelerator card to speed it up? Im not forking over a 100 quid out just so I can play this, but im just wondering really?

[ajk]

It scales up with the CPU speed, so if you get an accelerator card it will be a lot faster. Even on a 30MHz 030 it's quite smooth. Extra RAM doesn't help an awful lot. It's up to you to decide what kind of speed you consider playable It is a great game.

[mancity]

Well as iv'e just bought an 8MB Trapdoor RAM and I cannot have an Accelerator card and the trapdoor RAM installed, I dont think it's going to be viable to get one.

Does anybody play this on a standard 1200 and see it as an acceptable speed?

[jimbob]

There are some graphical detail settings you may be able to turn off. I think maybe press F10 to get to them? You have the manual so you should be able to find the options screen. EDIT: oops you click pause twice to get the options. Try shape detail low and turn off space dust and background stars.

I used to play this on a plain A600. Seeing it now at that speed it seems pretty unplayable but back then I didn't know the first thing about frame rate or CPU speed. Even at that speed the game was just so engaging I kept at it for hours at a time.

This was also the game that got me back into amiga after trying it on UAE in about 2004. Give it go in WinUAE if you can't get an acceptable speed on 1200, it should be super smooth if you can emulate a reasonably fast amiga. You are in for a treat.

[mancity]

Cheers I will try find the options menu tonight when I put it back on and reduce some of the settings

[Geraldine]

Yes reduced detail will help Also, have a look at this thread for a special edition of Frontier http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=57905

[mancity]

Cheers!

Just checked the instructions and the options is found by pressing ESCAPE or PAUSE twice

Will give it a go to see how bland I need to make the game before the frame rate goes up to a decent level

[mancity]

Having spent several hours on this game now, im back with a question or two please

The frame rate is actually not as bad as I thought and is fine on the standard settings.

Im getting use to the controls and although it'l take me a while to master controlling the ship and trying to get the cross hairs and velocity sights to meet, I think I have an idea of how it works.

I have followed the first 'mission' in the manual which flies you to Birmingham world to Boston station to trade some meat. That all went fine. However, im trying to find somewhere else to go where I can actually reach and im struggling to land anywhere. Are there only certain stations and planets you can actually land on and where do you find the info which confirms that? I keep using auto-pilot to get me to a planet or station and it gets me to the vacinity, and doesn't land, so I presume I cannot land there? I also got clearance to land at a space station so went into auto-pilot, but it just kept crashing into it and killing me although the manual says you land automatically in auto-pilot? Works fine on 1 or 2 places, but others, it looks like I can land, but I cant?

Any help please?

[ajk]

You can land pretty much everywhere, but of course not all planets have a spaceport / space station. You can see the layout of the system in one of the menus (F2 is it? can't remember off hand and no way to check right now). Also, the autopilot is not completely foolproof, especially if you use the higher time acceleration settings all the way through. Might help if you drop it down closer to real time when near the chosen destination.

Some systems also just are really tricky to navigate, sometimes the velocities of the planets are just really high in relation to where you come out of hyperspace and it's hard to catch up, or the gravity may be really high, and so on. But there should be plenty of well populated systems in the vicinity of the starting locations to visit first.

[mancity]

Thanks Ajk,

When im in manual mode and I fly towards a planet, I just crash into it though rather than enter an atmosphere.

Im going to have to put alot more hours into it over the weekend and see where im at then

[ajk]

There is no automatic atmosphere mode or anything like that (not all planets really have a substantial atmosphere to begin with), you have to keep an eye on the velocity relative to the planet (it should say speed relative to "Merlin" or whereever on the screen) and decelerate in order not to crash. Depending on the size of the planet, once the gravity takes hold, you'll probably need to be accelerating away from the planet in order to slow down your descent.

Unlike almost all other space games, Frontier is reasonably well based on proper physics, not "airplanes in space" Makes it tedious at times (battles particularly can lead to prolonged jousting matches!), but it's pretty logical when you get the hang of it.

[magnetic]

"airplanes in space" lmao

@ OP

Make sure to read the short story book as there are hints about the actual gameworld in there afaik.

[mancity]

Cheers guys. I intend to try and read some of the books over the weekend

Must of cost a bomb to release a package to big YET today your lucky if you even get a manual!

[diablothe2nd]

I can't reccomend this guy enough

[ Show youtube player ]

I played the game for years, read all the books, but somehow this video completely changed my skill for the better

[Geraldine]

Thats a great set of videos! Very useful for a beginner to the game

[diablothe2nd]

and veterans alike! the combat tips were very useful for me

[mancity]

Im going to watch this tonight Thanks!

[lifeschool]

Yes, the Fundamentals guides are excellent and that's when I started to enjoy the game too. From those guides I made my own guide, which includes many more tips and a tour of the universe. Worth a look?

[ Show youtube player ]

[diablothe2nd]

does that include a guide on the best trade routes when starting out? that's the only thing i'm stuck on now, really.

[mancity]

Ok I think the main problem im having, which iv'e worked out now, is that I wasn't choosing the auto-piloot on a starport, just a planet, which is why I kept just getting to the vacinity of where I was trying to get to.

However, I just tried flying from a planet on Sol to one on Wolf and chose some village that had a starport and the auto-pilot started declining properly, but then just crashed on the planet rather than entering the atmosphere and landing???