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