Witchspace malfunction on long jump -- game over?

[CmdrLUke]

Judt got hit with a witchspace malfunction, the ONE time I did not have a spare gas can handy (I *always* keep one handy....no more long jumps without one or two!). I suppose that means game over, since there are no fuel sources in deep space....?

[JensAyton]

Yup, you’re stuck, unless there’s something to dock with.

Just one of the many reasons you should take your ship in for maintenance at regular intervals.

[DaddyHoggy]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away....

OK, it was when I was playing Elite on my C64 having already reached Elite I decided to start a new Commander, one who I would only play until he died, just to see how far I could get.

Then, one day I had a misjump and ended up with not enough fuel to get to another star, in disgust I went to bed without shutting the game down (having killed the Thargoids in the area) - when I got up next morning to turn the computer off I realised that I was still on the short range chart and - my ship had moved - the crosshair was a few pixels off the original positional crosshair - so I actually left the game running for two more days and yes, eventually I got close enough to another system to make a jump!

An undocumented feature of the original code?

Annoyingly he died a few days later (real time) hit by an Anaconda who launched into my final approach just before I docked with the station...

[FSOneblin]

Annoyingly he died a few days later (real time) hit by an Anaconda who launched into my final approach just before I docked with the station...

wow... thats some bad luck. I don't think I would last a day playing a new commander only till he dies. Let's Find out how long commander Makeanewmacversionofamericasarmy will last.

Don't Panic: FSOneblin

[DaddyHoggy]

OK this is only to sound really sad but as I was only 15/16 at the time I have forgiven myself - when flying with this commander I actually kept a diary of his exploits, kills, profits, losses, then backfilled with stories from the space bar etc - I then wrote it up as a huge (novella sized) short story and handed it in as part of my GCSE English coursework - it was my only copy - 39 doubled sided sheets of foolscap - all hand written - I got 39/40 for it, but I never got it back...

[Frame]

Judt got hit with a witchspace malfunction, the ONE time I did not have a spare gas can handy (I *always* keep one handy....no more long jumps without one or two!). I suppose that means game over, since there are no fuel sources in deep space....?

There are, but you need to have the fuel collector fitted, in order to extract fuel in withcspace...

takes a very long time though...

[Captain Hesperus]

Let's Find out how long commander Makeanewmacversionofamericasarmy will last.

That's gonna be a bitch to squeeze onto your Pilot's ID....

Captain Hesperus

[Commander McLane]

- when I got up next morning to turn the computer off I realised that I was still on the short range chart and - my ship had moved - the crosshair was a few pixels off the original positional crosshair - so I actually left the game running for two more days and yes, eventually I got close enough to another system to make a jump!

An undocumented feature of the original code?

I remember that I always wanted to check this out on my C64, but I never had the patience to actually let the game run for such a long time (without being able to play).

[Frame]

- when I got up next morning to turn the computer off I realised that I was still on the short range chart and - my ship had moved - the crosshair was a few pixels off the original positional crosshair - so I actually left the game running for two more days and yes, eventually I got close enough to another system to make a jump!

An undocumented feature of the original code?

I remember that I always wanted to check this out on my C64, but I never had the patience to actually let the game run for such a long time (without being able to play).

I´m amazed what was possible on the C64 version.

simply put, i like the completeness, going sublight speed to another system however useless... a nice feature.... very polished so to speak..

[CmdrLUke]

C64 (and other "small" pc elites) were simply a fantastic bit of programming. Awesome, really. Detailed textures are nice to have, but "it's the gameplay, stupid." Some of the best games in existence (Elite, Tribes) have simple visuals or no visuals at all, but it's the *play* that totally immerses you .

[FSOneblin]

Let's Find out how long commander Makeanewmacversionofamericasarmy will last.

That's gonna be a bitch to squeeze onto your Pilot's ID....

Captain Hesperus

Face

EDIT: I fixed it. How does that make you feel?
Don't Panic: FSOneblin

[DaddyHoggy]

@Frame - I was surprised too - I guess because there was "nothing" in witchspace once the Thargoids were disposed of the game ran (in C64 terms) stupidly fast - so possibly several times over (game) real-time - so leaving it two days travelling at "0.35C" x over realtime factor just happened to get me the 0.2 ly I was short of making it to a system - what would have happened if my chosen random heading had moved me in some other direction (presuming the game "knew" which direction my heading was taking me) I do not know.

Serendipity (another Fab Sci-Fi ship/movie - is there one in Oolite? he askes completely changing the subject!)

[drew]

OK this is only to sound really sad but as I was only 15/16 at the time I have forgiven myself - when flying with this commander I actually kept a diary of his exploits, kills, profits, losses, then backfilled with stories from the space bar etc - I then wrote it up as a huge (novella sized) short story and handed it in as part of my GCSE English coursework - it was my only copy - 39 doubled sided sheets of foolscap - all hand written - I got 39/40 for it, but I never got it back...

What a cool idea, why didn't I think of that at school!!

Nice one!

Cheers,

Drew.