Sunday, July 31, 2022

Elite: Mostly harmless

Restarting Elite, this time with more of a willingness to savescum following my unavoidable and fatal random encounter with thargoids (the original game even had a quicksave function available on space stations), I began as I did before - purchasing food and textiles to haul to the industrial world of Zaonce, at a cost of 81.6cr and an expected return of 140cr minus fuel.

High orbit over Zaonce

When you arrive at a world's high orbit out of hyperspace, things are pretty boring, as there's nothing to do except approach until something comes in range. What you want is the space station, but sometimes pirates, traders, or police vehicles show up first, and it's difficult to tell them apart at a distance.

You can accelerate time if nothing's going on, but once you get close enough to the planet this stops working and you just have to wait, which can take minutes.


Once you enter the medium orbit zone - this is indicated by two things, an 'S' icon visible on the main radar dashboard, and that the smaller 2D radar indicator no longer points to the planet itself - you are safe from pirates, and you want to locate the space station. The small radar points you to it.

Elite's flight model, modeled more after aircraft than space ships, offers no ability to yaw, but instead pushing the joystick left or right spins the craft. To point the ship toward something on your left, as the radar indicates of the space station, you must first rotate so that the thing to your left is now above or below you, and then climb or dive until it's in your view.


But you can't just fly into this space station. That would be too simple.


This flying dodecahedron rotates, and you have to approach it from the perpendicular vector, approaching from the planet.


The more head-on your angle of approach, the easier the next step will be. Making small adjustments is no simple task - if the station is in front of you, then you're moving towards it, not parallel to it. And while the ship does have left view and right view cameras, a top and bottom camera would have been more helpful for this task, as you can only turn up and down, not left and right.

Not perfect, but better.

For the final approach, you don't need to hit the station perfectly dead-center, but you are supposed to match its rotation speed, a task made much easier with an analog joystick, so that the landing bay is oriented correctly when you touch down. In practice, the model is rather lenient, and you can get away with quickly spinning the ship into the correct orientation at the last moment, but doing it "correctly" is pretty satisfying if you can manage it. And potentially instant death if you can't.


Ba da da da dummm (bi bi. bu bu.)

After landing, Zaonce offered 150.4cr for my goods, giving the trip a profit of 57.6cr after a refuel.

Saving this time, I bought two computers at 136.8cr to take to Isinor as I had before, but this time there was no incident and they fetched 204cr total.

Just barely within range was Ensoreus, a rich industrial corporate state that my model predicted would buy food at triple the agricultural price!

Planet descriptions are also procedurally generated. It shows sometimes.

 

Buying 20 tons at 48cr and wishing I could carry more, I hauled them there and sold for a nice 160cr.

Isinor-Ensoreus seemed like a terrific trade route, and I got some computers and machinery to haul back to the backwater planet, where pirates, who had caught wind of the booty, waited in ambush.


Combat in Elite isn't terribly difficult and can pay dividends in bounty, but when you're this outnumbered and armed only with the basics, skill alone won't save you. Your energy reserves are both your lifeblood and your ammo, so even shooting at your enemies will eventually kill you if you don't neutralize them before it runs out. You can hyperspace out, but only if you've got enough fuel to jump somewhere safer, and I didn't.

They got me this time, but after a quickload, the same actions spawned only a solitary rogue who gave me no trouble.

I continued this route, making better and better profits each time, soon switching my Isinor cargo from food to higher-yielding furs as my capital allowed. Pirates occasionally intercepted me at Isinor, but I fared better than before, and as my loads got bigger, the pirates got more daring, and I became less hesitant to use my missiles in combat. At 30cr, they are not cheap, and the bounties won't offset the cost of using them, but my trades were yielding hundreds in profits.

Before too long, I could afford a 400cr cargo expansion bay, upgrading my cargo capacity to 35 tons, and almost doubling my profits. Almost every subsequent run yielded enough to upgrade my ship in a meaningful way, and I started equipping it for serious combat with ECM, multiple beam lasers, an energy bomb, and a rear-firing pulse laser (as recommended by the manual). In addition, I purchased a a fuel scoop, an escape pod (complete with a ship insurance policy, though your cargo isn't covered), and a docking computer, which automates the docking procedure erratically but 100% safely.

The escape pod also changes the HUD colors.
 

My final purchase this session was an energy unit which, according to the manual, doubles your energy recharge rate. A few things remained unpurchased. First, there was a mining laser, which is suited toward cutting valuable minerals and metals out of asteroids, but replaces your combat laser and seemed a poor tradeoff. Second, a 5,000cr "intergalactic hyperdrive" capable of transporting you to a new galaxy. I liked this galaxy just fine and figured everything Elite had to offer was already part of it. Last was a 6,000cr military laser, just a bit unaffordable right now, but I figured I'd just buy it when I had some more cash.

Next step - go looking for trouble and earn a reputation in this galaxy.


Transaction log:

Planet Encounter Bounty Credits Sell Refuel/Reload Buy Manifest
Lave

100 0 0 81.6 16 food, 4 textiles
Zaonce

18.4 150.4 11.2 136.8 2 computers
Isinor

20.8 204 11.2 48 20 food
Ensoreus

165.6 160 12.8 299.2 4 computers, 1 machinery
Isinor

13.6 470.4 12.8 454.4 8 furs
Ensoreus

16.8 745.6 12.8 744 12 computers
Isinor Pirates 10 15.6 1214.4 42.8 976 20 furs
Ensoreus

211.2 1424 12.8 1248 20 computers
Isinor Pirates 20.5 394.9 2024 42.8 2102 Large cargo bay, 20 furs, 15 liquor
Ensoreus

274.1 2444 12.8 2198 35 computers
Isinor

507.3 3556 12.8 3978 35 furs, ECM, 2 beam lasers
Ensoreus

72.5 3122 12.8 3098 35 computers, energy bomb
Isinor Pirates 25 108.7 3556 12.8 3359 35 furs, beam laser, fuel scoop
Ensoreus

292.9 2576 12.8 2556 35 computers, pulse laser
Isinor Pirates 19 319.1 3556 12.8 2524.4 18 furs, 17 liquors, escape pod
Ensoreus

1337.9 2134.8 12.8 3170 35 computers, docking computer
Isinor

289.9 3528 12.8 1534 31 furs, 4 liquors
Ensoreus

2271.1 2695.6 12.8 3670 35 computers, energy unit
Isinor Pirates 25 1308.9 3556 42.8 0 None

10 comments:

  1. Is this a tape or a disk version you are playing? Disk versions for BBC Micro and later ports have "secret" missions available. You may have to visit another galaxy to trigger them. Tape version doesn't have missions.

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  2. Regarding the intergalactic hyperdrive, it's true that one galaxy is pretty much like another. On the other hand, there may come a time when you're very thankful that you've harbored one last hail Mary pass: energy is low, fuel is gone, you're still surrounded by hostiles, and you really, really need to bug out!

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    Replies
    1. Isn't that what the escape pod is for?

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    2. What does Elite call an escape pod that has been fuel scooped?

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    3. IDK if that can hapen to a player. I preferred not to find out the hard way :)

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  3. I hadn't really realized before just how much _No Man's Sky_ harks back to good old _Elite_.

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  4. The space station docking sequence seems very much inspired by the Pan Am spacecraft scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey".

    When you get enough upgrades, see if it pays to be a bounty hunter. Is there a relationship between pirate threat and bounty paid?

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    Replies
    1. For certain. I even found out just yesterday that the C64 version plays that bit from Blue Danube when you auto-dock.

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