Elite / Frontier / Elite Dangerous discussion

[Daedalus]

Another vote for Frontier here. If you're finding it a little to overwhelming, Glen M's advice is an excellent starting point to get you started building up your funds. There's an awful lot of depth to the game, which is what makes it so brilliant, and once you start playing it and are comfortable in the relatively safe systems, you can start to look at more of the details and really appreciate it. For example, the reason that some routes like the ones mentioned are safe to fly and you're extremely unlikely to be attacked, is that they're rich, high population, high security systems which means they're well policed. To speed up your earnings, you can sell non-essential things like your laser, and even your atmospheric shielding if you intend to only dock at orbital stations. this will give you a few more tonnes of cargo space, and you can do without weapons until you start to wander a little away from those systems. Just don't trade in illegal goods (yet)... Also, keep your docking computer - manual docking is fine once you get the hang of it, but it does take a while to master and will only frustrate you.

The systems themselves will give you an idea of what are good trade routes. Sol, and other systems with outdoor worlds, will generally have cheap food and other natural products, and systems without any such worlds will import them, thus trading fruit and veg, meat, tea, alcohol (if it's legal) will let you earn a modest, regular income. and similarly, going the other direction from high tech systems to farming systems will usually offer good profits in technology like computers, robots, farm machinery etc. Luxury goods often make tidy profits, but be careful because they can be illegal in some places. For more detail, check the system information in the galaxy map - that will tell you exactly what's imported, exported and illegal.

The bulletin board also offers money- and rank-earning one-off jobs. Just be careful, if they're offering a lot of money, there's usually a reason for it. If it's too good to be true, it usually is, and before you know it you'll find yourself hunted down relentlessly for transporting messages for a mafia boss.

I spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours in Frontier over the years and still love it! As was mentioned, the modern incarnation Elite: Dangerous is excellent too, and that too has absorbed me for hundreds of hours. It plays very similarly, but with absolutely stunning graphics and a multiplayer element. Anyway, enjoy Frontier, and if you have any hassle, there are plenty of fans on here who'd be glad to answer any questions!

Originally Posted by Glen M

On a slightly different note I don't know how you lot are getting so much "free" time. I for one have to work from home plus I've got 2 kids to home school. I think I'll actually have less time to play games.

Yeah, I'll likely be working from home at least some of the time from next week, and with a toddler around the place, won't be getting any bonus free time for playing games

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Elite: Dangerous is excellent too, and that too has absorbed me for hundreds of hours. It plays very similarly, but with absolutely stunning graphics and a multiplayer element.

I'm back playing Elite Dangerous, currently on my way out to Colonia for some fun all be it taking the scenic route and doing some exploring along the way. Travelling in style in my long range Orca. Sporting 55ly range, I could get that up but I love my level 5 engineered dirty drive and my 500m/s cruising speed. Nothing like darting along a long valley in a newly discovered world plus that extra drive power helps with those high G worlds.

Feel free to look me up in game CMDR unite_81

Safe flying commanders

[Daedalus]

Cool, I'm CMDR Daedalus2097, but I haven't really had any time for playing in recent times. Last time I logged in I was in my modestly engineered Cobra, still my favourite ship of them all!

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Another vote for Frontier here.

Too bad David Braben never created some sort of campaign, either for Frontier, First Encounter, and Elite Dangerous (haven't played ED, but I understood it doesn't have). Strangely enough, first Elite had campaign (at least, I consider these few missions sort of campaign).
And it would be so little work (I assume) to add like 10-20 custom made, (very hard) missions with maybe few twists, and of course, everyone who finish all of them, could continue and play as long as he/she wants.
Or 10 missions for Imperials and 10 for Federation, with a grand finale against Thargoids!

I like the "news stuff" from First Encounter very much.... it's so fun to read, while traveling between systems.. yeah FF had some sort of campaign, but I am not sure if I could call it campaign.

Question:
How hard would it be to add custom missions on Frontier Amiga with some mods?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Too bad David Braben never created some sort of campaign, either for Frontier, First Encounter, and Elite Dangerous (haven't played ED, but I understood it doesn't have).

Yeah, it might have been nice, though I never missed it. ED does have occasional curated events, but I don't really think having an outright campaign was ever the planned focus of the games.

Strangely enough, first Elite had campaign (at least, I consider these few missions sort of campaign).

FFE has a campaign as such, or a story built around missions, which is optional. I wasn't bothered with it and just played it as I did Frontier.

Question:
How hard would it be to add custom missions on Frontier Amiga with some mods?

Hmmm, not sure. Definitely beyond me anyway as the game itself is 250k lines of hand-crafted asm. Perhaps someone has already looked at it - there are a variety of patches out there. I would imagine it could be done relatively easily in a similar fashion to FFE in that the narrative was parallel to the standard play, rather than an enforced path.

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Too bad David Braben never created some sort of campaign, either for Frontier, First Encounter, and Elite Dangerous (haven't played ED, but I understood it doesn't have). Strangely enough, first Elite had campaign (at least, I consider these few missions sort of campaign).
And it would be so little work (I assume) to add like 10-20 custom made, (very hard) missions with maybe few twists, and of course, everyone who finish all of them, could continue and play as long as he/she wants.
Or 10 missions for Imperials and 10 for Federation, with a grand finale against Thargoids!

I like the "news stuff" from First Encounter very much.... it's so fun to read, while traveling between systems.. yeah FF had some sort of campaign, but I am not sure if I could call it campaign.

Question:
How hard would it be to add custom missions on Frontier Amiga with some mods?

If you want a really good space based story driven game check out Freelancer on the PC from 2003. I've played it through a few times. Graphics are dated these days but its a good solid game.

As for frontier mods I'd love to see someone introduce better controls for the ship to emulate those in ED. The game operates on Newtonian physics (at least I think it does) so I don't see why vertical and lateral thrust couldn't also be added. Easier said than done of course!

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

What happened to the other settlers? Are they sick because of Covid-19?

It is rare that you get trolled by mod... Shut up, working and posting is not best combination, specially considering how illiterate and dyslectic I am.

Originally Posted by Glen M

I'm back playing Elite Dangerous, currently on my way out to Colonia for some fun all be it taking the scenic route and doing some exploring along the way. Travelling in style in my long range Orca. Sporting 55ly range, I could get that up but I love my level 5 engineered dirty drive and my 500m/s cruising speed. Nothing like darting along a long valley in a newly discovered world plus that extra drive power helps with those high G worlds.

Feel free to look me up in game CMDR unite_81

Safe flying commanders

Orca is bit too big ship for task and does not allow you to use Colonia Highway. (I think only 1 or 2 stations might support docking for Orca) Hopefully you have enough repair modules and don't need to utilize Neutron Star route. Good luck. It was fun to go there and back, specially after realizing that I did not unlock one of pre-requisite engineers.

I might boot Elite just to find out where I left off... (IIRC, I was about 2K ly away from bubble, exploring)

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Cool, I'm CMDR Daedalus2097, but I haven't really had any time for playing in recent times. Last time I logged in I was in my modestly engineered Cobra, still my favourite ship of them all!

My favorite ships were based on purpose:
Fighting - Viper Mk III (made first million with that one )
Exploration - Diamondback Explorer, at times also used for ancients site visit and material gathering
Mining - Python - not sure why, but I always prefered this ship for this purpose.

Here is link for my fleet, not sure if you guys can see it.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Too bad David Braben never created some sort of campaign, either for Frontier, First Encounter, and Elite Dangerous (haven't played ED, but I understood it doesn't have). Strangely enough, first Elite had campaign (at least, I consider these few missions sort of campaign).
And it would be so little work (I assume) to add like 10-20 custom made, (very hard) missions with maybe few twists, and of course, everyone who finish all of them, could continue and play as long as he/she wants.
Or 10 missions for Imperials and 10 for Federation, with a grand finale against Thargoids!

I like the "news stuff" from First Encounter very much.... it's so fun to read, while traveling between systems.. yeah FF had some sort of campaign, but I am not sure if I could call it campaign.

Question:
How hard would it be to add custom missions on Frontier Amiga with some mods?

I still think that missions on original frontier and powers and your ability to participate in ED is sufficient and takes time to finish - prosper. I think current balance is fine with missions, ability to get special weapon from power you align with and ability to prosper as pirate or hunter is great.

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Orca is bit too big ship for task and does not allow you to use Colonia Highway. (I think only 1 or 2 stations might support docking for Orca) Hopefully you have enough repair modules and don't need to utilize Neutron Star route. Good luck. It was fun to go there and back, specially after realizing that I did not unlock one of pre-requisite engineers.

I might boot Elite just to find out where I left off... (IIRC, I was about 2K ly away from bubble, exploring)

I've done it before in the Orca. Got 2 repair modules fitted and currently landed about 8k ly out repairing everything. I can happily run the Neutron highway. The control panel on the ship just sparks a few times but it'll be fine .

Originally Posted by Gordon

Been trying frontier today after following some guides. Is there any need for manual control ? I ask becuase auto pilot just takes you everywhere in one piece.

For travelling between systems or planets there isn't really any need for manual controls. Just hit auto and away you go.

Once you get further into the game and start doing missions you'll use manual control a lot more. Assassination or bombing missions are my favourite. Get a feel for flying and once your confident try landing manually on a few planets just take it slow. Its worth at least once trying to fly to a planet manually, just bring a lot of fuel.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Glen M

I've done it before in the Orca. Got 2 repair modules fitted and currently landed about 8k ly out repairing everything. I can happily run the Neutron highway. The control panel on the ship just sparks a few times but it'll be fine .

LOL

Thankfully, I never had issue with neutron stars, from first time I saw one and was awed by its beauty. It is one of fun things in this game, and with my Anaconda having range of over 80ly, over 320ly jump makes for quick travel. Only issue with Conda is that you can't access outposts (M landing pads), that is why I prefer going in small DSX. (Also much cheaper rebuy)

Are you using Voice Attack, Inara, EDDB and EDSM?

Here is my travel map....

https://www.edsm.net/en/user/travel-...mdr/SuperFrogX

Big triangle is Colonia - Center of Galaxy (Blackhole) trip. Most of outside of bubble travel was trips for materials and guardian sites visits (got all of that unlocked) and small expedition I did to unlock that badge.

Got 49 out of 71 badges unlocked.

https://www.edsm.net/en/user/badges/...mdr/SuperFrogX

I should probably log and join some expedition. Those are always fun.

[Glen M]

Originally Posted by Anubis

LOL

Thankfully, I never had issue with neutron stars, from first time I saw one and was awed by its beauty. It is one of fun things in this game, and with my Anaconda having range of over 80ly, over 320ly jump makes for quick travel. Only issue with Conda is that you can't access outposts (M landing pads), that is why I prefer going in small DSX. (Also much cheaper rebuy)

Are you using Voice Attack, Inara, EDDB and EDSM?

Here is my travel map....

https://www.edsm.net/en/user/travel-...mdr/SuperFrogX

I'm just winging it and finding my own way. Currently sat on a rock orbiting some star near the top of the galaxy. I like to fly my own path through the stars and make some discoveries along the way. Not found too much of interest this time yet though, mostly just geologicals but did hit one nice biological patch of those pumpkin looking things.

I've only blew up once in the tail of a neutron but have a fairly good system now for supercharging.

If I am using one of those sites for help it'd generally be inara or eddb but for exploring as I say I just like to go get lost

[Anubis]

I used ED Discover to update EDSM and linked to Inara so that I can plan on gear and upgrades, as well unlock engineers (I think I have 1 or 2 left to do, one of them @ Colonia).

Reason I asked, it is nice to update EDSM so others can use data you collect. I did one of site visiting trips that, I posted some pictures here. http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=...8&postcount=42

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Hmmm, not sure. Definitely beyond me anyway as the game itself is 250k lines of hand-crafted asm. Perhaps someone has already looked at it - there are a variety of patches out there. I would imagine it could be done relatively easily in a similar fashion to FFE in that the narrative was parallel to the standard play, rather than an enforced path.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
It doesn't have to be any more handy crafted then regular missions you get (transports, assassinations, bombing... etc), but with big, connected storyline (just a text really), and much harder difficulty.
It would be amazing if someone could do it.

Originally Posted by Glen M

If you want a really good space based story driven game check out Freelancer on the PC from 2003. I've played it through a few times. Graphics are dated these days but its a good solid game.

Yeah, ofcourse I know Freelancer and played it.
But thanks for recommendation, as someone here maybe didn't played it.
It's amazing game, very easy to get into, nice storyline, and I could even argue that graphics are outdated, as it still looks beautiful to me.
Galaxy on Fire 2 was also amazing for me (Android version), and I think it's now free to play.
Privateer too.

Originally Posted by Gordon

Been trying frontier today after following some guides. Is there any need for manual control ? I ask becuase auto pilot just takes you everywhere in one piece.

As Glen M pointed out, once you start doing missions, a manual controls will be needed, and it's fun.
Did you decide what fraction you will follow?
It still early for you to decide... but let me tell ya ... come and join our Imperial greatness! You will be able to earn ton's of cache, while helping us defeat them liberal Federation! You will be like brother to us, and no one will stand in our way! Decide wisely, and earn respect from our queen, and gratitude of our people! What do you say bro?
Now it's the time to be extreme!

[trixster]

Anyone else collect all the different releases of Elite? It’s often regarded as one of the most widely released games in history. I think there are 36 specific editions if you don’t count the numerous NES foreign language versions and do include Elite Plus.

[Glen M]

I've got elite for the C64, frontier for the amiga and pc and dangerous. Never owned first encounters, never really played it to be honest.

I've seen that some people do collect it. Personally I've enough other collections going on but I would like to find first encounters at some point.

[fitzsteve]

I play ED but not for some time, I have accounts on PC, PS4 and XB1 all under my main name 'fitzsteve' I'm looking forward to fleet carriers whenever that comes but have't played in a long time.

I have a full fleet of ships including Cutter/Corvette, my main PC account is 2x Elite. Must of my ships are engineerd pretty high. I use them all for different roles like my Speedy Courier, my Hauler Taxi and my Thargoid Busting FDL.

I love the Imperial Ships, my Cutter is multirole with 512 Cargo and 30 First Class Passenger Seats. Makes money pretty fast.

I don't mine. Mining is lame.

I have been to Colonia twice, my PS4 account is permanently there. My main account I have also been to many Nebulae and Sag A. Here's a few pics of my last big journey. (Yes I took a fighter bay to Sag A lol)

I sold my XB1, I left my commander on board the Gnosis so it can keep exploring the Galaxy lol.

[fitzsteve]

Originally Posted by trixster

Anyone else collect all the different releases of Elite? It’s often regarded as one of the most widely released games in history. I think there are 36 specific editions if you don’t count the numerous NES foreign language versions and do include Elite Plus.

I have it boxed on Spectrum and NES. Was surprised you could play it on a NES with a 2 button controller!

[trixster]

I have 30 different versions so far, been collecting them on and off for years. Of the remaining 6 I think I’ll probably eventually get 3 or 4 more but I’m sure there are a couple that I’ll never find as they’re just so incredibly rare.

I’m just talking about original Elite! I don’t collect the different versions of Frontier!

[Glen M]

I was continuing my journey to Colonia last night and discovered this interesting site.

Large ring system around a brown dwarf star with a planet very close to the rings with biologicals.

Makes for a cool screen shot, even if my laptop can only render the game at 720p

[Anubis]

I have folder fool of screenshots from ED that i use as background images. There is quite few interesting things you can find in ED universe. Good luck lurking in galaxy and find another player far from Bubble and Colonia.

[manossg]

Hijacking this thread to ask about the first Elite.

So, I understand that there are missions in this game. I have already maxed out my equipment, I have reached competent status and I have performed 2 galaxy jumps but there are still no missions. What am I doing wrong?