More than one station per planet?

Rimbaud · Post by **Rimbaud** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:20 pm

DaddyHoggy wrote:
Apologies for the silence but I couldn't remember! However, I can confirm that on the C64 version too there were multiple stations per planet - it does take a horribly long time to load up from Cassette on the original C64...

I definitely don't remember that on the tape version and I got to Deadly...

Rimbaud · Post by **Rimbaud** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 7:23 pm

Another aside from a my nostalgia trip, seeing a brief glimpse of other ships in the docking bay area just after docking before the status screen came up is exactly what the atmosphere of Elite was all about. I hope someone will be inspired to do a little OXP that does that for Oolite ?

Yes, that was awesome on this version.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:22 pm

@Rimbaud - on several occasions I distinctly remembering getting the 'S' and then noticing as I approached the station another dot appearing nearer the planet some distance away - so ignoring the first station I headed off - got "very" close to zero altitude but as I climbed away from the planet the dot became another station. Definitely happened. Honest.

Killer Wolf · Post by **Killer Wolf** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:11 am

DrBeeb.

that's bizarre. i'm sure they were only supposed to have one per planet (was that in the manual, can't recall) - i do remember certain times arriving and having to drive all the way around the planet before getting the S : logic would assume i wouldn't have to if there were a few scattered about. :-/

whatever tho, i can safely swear that *i* never saw more than one in all my playing (and that's a lot!!), whether that was down to the tape version or just pure chance, who knows...

Dr Beeb · Post by **Dr Beeb** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:32 pm

Killer Wolf wrote:
DrBeeb.

that's bizarre. i'm sure they were only supposed to have one per planet (was that in the manual, can't recall) - i do remember certain times arriving and having to drive all the way around the planet before getting the S : logic would assume i wouldn't have to if there were a few scattered about. :-/

whatever tho, i can safely swear that *i* never saw more than one in all my playing (and that's a lot!!), whether that was down to the tape version or just pure chance, who knows...

I dont remember what happened when I played the tape version. I, and presumably others, discovered there appeared to be more than one station because we would just be at the compass range edge of one, try to fly towards it (according to the compass) lose it and then have to fly around the planet , usually heading to lower altitude, to find another one.

I think Dark Wheel said that there was a "a ring of Coriolis stations around Leesti" which means I have found a contradiction between Dark Wheel and the BBC disk version with its Dodo station at Leesti - my world is falling apart ...

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:05 pm

@Dr Beeb - I've just been through the Novella on line http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/dkwheel.htm#A49 and I can't find the quote or anything like it in the book - I'll check my paper copy next time I dig out my C64 version

Dr Beeb · Post by **Dr Beeb** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:55 pm

DaddyHoggy wrote:
@Dr Beeb - I've just been through the Novella on line http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/dkwheel.htm#A49 and I can't find the quote or anything like it in the book - I'll check my paper copy next time I dig out my C64 version

Near beginning of Chapter 2

Messages from ships to both the planet and its ring of Coriolis stations were abruptly broken as the split second message came screaming through. TV programmes were interrupted, the screen dissolving into a permanently recorded display of the space-grid location of the RemLok. Every advertising space module changed its garish display to flash, in brilliant green, the same information.

In the orbit-space around Leesti, a million heads turned starwards. That split second of panic, that moment's cry of distress, was a sound they knew too well to ignore, and were too frightened of to take for granted.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:10 pm

Well spotted - I 'fess I just did a search on "Leesti".

pagroove · Post by **pagroove** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:36 pm

Well I think more stations are realistic. Most novels based on Oolite make a mention it.

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Thu Nov 06, 2008 4:17 pm

I never seen any ingame indication of more than one station in the C64-disc version.

Although planets did have various renderings on them.
-a small circle
-a single 'equator' or possibly an orbit.
-two circumnavigating lines at 90gegrees angle.

these might suggest the number of stations and their orbits... still that is only 3 stations accounted for.

ed: aside from the cool 'parkinglot' in that movie, it adds little to the multiple station issue. Wasn't selezen working on interior models? s He still around?

Dr Beeb · Post by **Dr Beeb** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:10 am

DaddyHoggy wrote:
@Rimbaud - on several occasions I distinctly remembering getting the 'S' and then noticing as I approached the station another dot appearing nearer the planet some distance away - so ignoring the first station I headed off - got "very" close to zero altitude but as I climbed away from the planet the dot became another station. Definitely happened. Honest.

Yep, can confirm that C64 disk and BBC disk Elite are the same in this respect. I downloaded a C64 emulator - Power64 emulator 4.9.4 on Mac OS X and ran the disk image ELITEDP2.D64 from Ian Bell's website. For others with access, all you've got to do is launch from the Space Station at Lave, note your altitude is ~ 90% of max, then climb/dive ~ 90 degres and fly tangent to planet surface, descending slightly. After a while the station you left from disappears from the compass. After a few seconds a new station is acquired - at a different bearing from the one lost. Once you fly to that station you will note that the altimeter reading is different, say, 50% of max.

To Arexack_Heretic, this C64 emulator does not allow me to catch a video to prove this, and on the BBC version I didn't bother making a video of multiple stations as it would have been rather long and boring, and probably too big for box.net. The video I posted instead showed a canon issue regarding how many Dodos etc should be spawned in a solution to the 'how space stations there should be' question. The C64 disk version, like the BBC disk version, also has a Dodo rather than the Coriolis of Oolite at Leesti.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:01 pm

@Dr Beeb - glad it wasn't just my misfiring memory! Complicated by the fact that I owned the cassette C64 version initially and then I acquired a fast loading erm, hack, of the disk version (which is now long gone - although I still have the original cassette version!).

Arexack_Heretic · Post by **Arexack_Heretic** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:57 pm

NIce to see something proven true that I have always assumed was a myth.

better make a duplicate: tape does not last forever you know.

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 10:54 am

Arexack_Heretic wrote:
better make a duplicate: tape does not last forever you know.

Well, what does?

I've read somewhere that almost each new data storing device is worse than its predecessor, as far as lasting-forever is concerned. Especially I seem to remember that tape is way better than CD.

But of course, nothing beats stone carvings yet!

Post by **Micha** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:02 am

Commander McLane wrote:
But of course, nothing beats stone carvings yet!

So who's got a spare mountain-range lying around to backup Oolite?