Amiga Elite (from the Frontier Forums)

[Selezen]

A bloke on the Frontier forums asked a question and I wondered if any of you clever people had any answers for him?

Hello fellow veterans,

while I saw Elite first on an C64, I was only able to play it on an Amiga for the first time. And this experience lingered; it's still my preferred version (knowing full well that it's generally regarded as a bit -- lame -- compared to the other versions).

Currently, I am playing it on my PC with the WinUAE (SARA cheating forbidden of course!) and I am approaching my first mission (according to various sources on the Internet, the Constrictor mission is triggered at around 170.000 points).

Parallel to playing it, however, I am assembling all information regarding the Amiga version that I can find (for example, I already have a database will all planets and their descriptions in them; also their distances between each other), but I have some problems finding answers to some questions. Maybe you know some of them? [I tried to contact Rob Nicholson, one of the original coders of the Amiga version, but the e-mail address I found is outdated and I am not sure if I spotted the correct facebook profile, so Rob, if you read this, please feel free to answer... ]

Questions:

1. What are the ship specifications for each ship (especially hit points: I found by experimenting, that e.g. a Thargoid needs 56 hits with a beam laser or 46 hits with a military laser; I suppose this yields an energy for the Thargoid of X and an impact value of the lasers of Y/Z -- but I'm not sure; I have compiled this data for most ships -- but I can only dream of hitting the Cougar with a beam laser - let alone pulse laser - to measure its energy).
2. Missions: I am confident that there are 5 different missions (I've only ever completed one), but when (exactly!) are they triggered? Which constrains must hold?
3. Triggering a mis-jump: I've read a couple of times that I have to set my climb to maximum when entering hyperspace to trigger a mis-jump. Doesn't work for me, though. Is there a way to trigger a mis-jump to witch-space? [I tried with Pause-Ctrl X -- and this seemed to have worked exactly once.... Must have been coincidence]
4. Talking about witch-space: I assume, the number of Thargoids you have to kill, before you can leave the witch-space depends on your rating. I think the numbers are 2 for harmless (or mostly harmless -- I forgot), and 14 for dangerous (somewhere, I wrote down the number for competent, but I can't find it right now -- 8, if I remember correctly). Correct?
5. More witch-space: Any tactical advice on how to attack Thargoids that come in packs from different angles? They are difficult enough to destroy if they are both behind...
6. I have read somewhere, that in some source code (though not specifically the Amiga version) the greeting "Welcome to galaxy 9" has been found. Is there an "official" galaxy 9 (hex-edit in sara forbidden)?
7. If I use SARA to generate a new galaxy, I know that bytes 0E-13 relate to that (0D only gives the displayed number of the galaxy). Can you provide more elaborate information on these bytes -- and on the cheat mode in general? [I know, which bytes correlate to which cargo and to which equipment; current game time, kill count, rating, etc. but it would be great to have a complete overview for once ]
8. What exactly are the differences between Elite 1.0 and Elite 2.0? (So far I spotted Thargoid bounty == 40 instead of 15 and you can have military lasers on all sides (thankfully!!)).
9. Talking about credits for kills: Where, in the program files can I use a hex-editor to modify the credits for each ship? I would like to have a more "balanced" setting for credits/points, because 15 Cr for a Mamba seem too much.

TIA!
Cmdr. Stardust aka Philipp

[JazHaz]

OMG, whilst I played the ST version of Elite (same as the Amiga version in everything but the sound), it was so long ago that I have no idea for every question!

There must be a website that has the answers, but last time I looked, most of the classic Elite sites had closed.

[cim]

2: According to the FAQ, the missions in the Amiga version are "Supernova", "Constrictor", "Thargoid Documents", "Thargoid Invasion" and "Cloaking Device". I would guess triggers are the same as in the other Elite versions with those missions (adjusted a bit for score instead of kills in the case of the two/three that are kill-triggered)... so:
Nova: G4, with Galactic Hyperdrive fitted, no minimum kills
Constrictor: G1/2, with sufficient kills (half way to Dangerous?)
Thargoid Documents: G3, with sufficient kills (~half way to Deadly?)
Thargoid Invasion: ??
Cloaking Device: G5, ???

3: Works on some versions but not others, as I understand it. No idea if it's meant to work on Amiga.

6: There was in some versions, but no idea if the Amiga version was one. Possibly part of the "Thargoid Invasion" mission, if that's what I think it is...

7: 0E-13 will be the initial galaxy seed, then. 5A4A 0248 B753 for the default charts. [wiki]Random_Number_Generator[/wiki] has more details on how that is expanded to the galaxy, and OoliteInfo is a convenient way to play with different seed values (though note that because it's an Oolite-based app the planet descriptions there use the Oolite algorithm, not the Elite algorithm, and there are subtle differences in the text)

[JazHaz]

Upon reflection, for Q5, the only tactic I remember that worked was to use the retro rockets to thrust backwards and put some distance on the Thargoids, enabling you to take them on at long range.

[Selezen]

Thanks guys - have posted your comments to the forum

Any more?

[maik]

Q1: Are there really hit points and no recharge rate to take into account?

[Stardust]

Hi guys,

I'm "the bloke" from the Frontier forums.

Thanks for your help! The original thread (and some -- but not many -- insights) can be found here:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3220

maik: Interestingly, the attacked ships do not seem to recharge their shields! If I am in witch-space, I tend to "injure" a Thargoid with 55 hits of my rear beam laser and I then wait until my laser has cooled enough (or the Thargoid gets too close). Then, 1 shot is sufficient to kill it.

[Cody]

Welcome aboard, Stardust - #6: that was reputed to be in Elite Plus. I hammered that game for some years, on and off, but cannot recall actually seeing a ninth galaxy. If it is in there, I'm sure I would have come across it at some stage - maybe I did?

[Stardust]

Ian (Bell) replied to the subject of galaxy 9:

"6. We did put a "Welcome to Galaxy 9" message in 6502 Elite if Gaaxy Nine was entered (required very little memory), but no way to get to galaxy 9. This was incase we wanted to later distribute saved game positions in Galaxy 9 , or to "reward" anybody who hacked a save file just right."

Looking at the numbers in the Amiga version, I deduced that there is no "logical" galaxy 9 (one that would logically follow from the seed values of the other 8 galaxies). The reason is, in short, that there are 8 combinations of bits in each seed number as they are used right now (for a longer explanation, please see the frontier thread).

I'll ask my two most pressing questions here again:

Does anyone here know an e-mail address of Rob Nicholson?
Does anyone here have the original source code of the Amiga version? (I found a looong dead thread stating that the sources have been released; it may have been false information, though).

Thanks!!
researching....

Stardust

[OSH]

On C-64 version you can get Constrictor mission in G1, but you have to be at least Competent, and above 5.000 CR (if I remembered it correctly). I've destroyed Constrictor in G2 (or G3/G4), but I've received this mission in G1.