Oolite Bulletins

Cody wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2019 8:44 pm

The  Wiki is a good place to start.

It is. Welcome aboard, Blue Lake!

In between games, stumbling around the net and GoG (G) looking for some thing interesting. Found Oolite! In my youth, actually early middle age, I destroyed countless joysticks playing Elite. C64/128/Amiga 500. All those went by the board as I could read the writing on the wall about Commodore. $500.00 for a small hard drive? Big bucks for memory? So went to the dark side with an IBM clone 486 dx-33...Elite went away with the Commodore stuff. Now many years later I'm waiting for the postman to bring an old-fashioned Atari style joystick (USB now).. Too much key board bounce for combat..now its just run run run...thanks to the devs, programmers, coders, and players of the game!!!

Welcome aboard, Commander!

Thanks!!!

Howdy all..

First played Elite on a BBC Micro

Managed to get to Elite Status on the ZX speccy version

Tried other versions, then stumbled on Oolite one day - amazing stuff. Many thanks go out to all the expansion pack people that breathe new life into this amazing game.

Welcome aboard, Commander!

Robbeasys wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 5:15 pm

Many thanks go out to all the expansion pack people that breathe new life into this amazing game.

<buffs nails> Oh wait... I'm not an OXP'er! Merely a dumb pilot, who's been pushing a Cobra Mk III around for thirty-five years!

im sorry , if this is the wrong place, i just want to thank all of you involved with this project. I just found this as i wanted to re-visit the game again and was searching online for roms for EMU's when i found this mentioned, what a success!! This is brilliant!

I played it on a bbc (at my school) and spectrum 48k which came out later. My friend had the C64 with the great docking music..

oolite captured the feeling i had when i first played this game...
Good work Giles Williams !!

shame there isn't a wire framed version. Maybe there is a mod.. i'm very new to this whole project

Welcome aboard, Commander! If you go to F2/Game Options, there is a wireframe graphics mode.

an old newbie in i have an question

Well experienced since the 90th with Elite (C64, Amiga) and with Oolite (2004-20O6)(?).
Im very very happy to find Oolite still existing and in the last days i started from Lave and traded between Qutiri and Isinor, so now i bought a Military Laser ...

... But Something hast sigificantly Changed:. Attackers are much stronger now. They are Always coming in groups auf 3-6 and they dont do any mistakes! Their Lasers are strong an they shoot me down in a few Moments. What is going on? Earlyer it was possible to fight against 4-5 enemies, because they acted less effective than now.

Im still a fast reacting pilot, so i can notice, that now it is definetely much harder to play. I Like challenges, but now it Looks Like to bei Impossible to survive ...

Why? I want back the older Oolite with pirates dir Bounty and Headhunters for hard an exciting duels ...

But what hast happened?what can Ido?

Hi Colaiuta, welcome to the boards. The NPC AI was improved a few years back, and it definitely makes a difference, as you have seen! One important question: are you using any expansion packs, and if so, which ones? Many of the older OXPs were written to beef up the olde, dumb NPCs: if you use them now, then they can make things very tricky.

Even without enhanced NPCs, dogfighting is more difficult: it is not really possible for one ship to take on multiple enemies and defeat them easily. Try to isolate opponents, and separate them from their friends. Be selective: take out the weakest ships first. Keep dodging.

Edited to add: you might also find phkb's Population Control OXP useful - you can download it from here:
https://app.box.com/s/oy8fqr5iv7cm4p19qnbjp166o0i3zytp

Hello Disembodied,

thanks for your answer and sorry for all this typing mistakes. I wrote spontaneous on my smartphone ...

First im happy to read, that my feel is not erroneous!
Im not to old to be a commander out there

No, so far i did not use OXPs. Im looking forward to get in, but some hours should have been played in classic way, to get familiar again.
Are their any OXPs i have to install, to be up-to-date in basic standards? Sorry, i cannot find any information, what phkb population control ist. Could you please explain?

Welcome aboard, Commander! Info on Population Control can be found here. It's good to start off with no OXPs, then perhaps to add some ambience/eye-candy stuff - nothing that affects core gameplay.  Randomshipnames would be one example.

Thanks for your help!

Its better now, moreover i tried to avoid battles and made money, so now i installed shield boosters.

And i see that, if i want get competent, should buy a joystick. With keys battles are hard now.
Before it was always all right, but these times are obviously gone.

Colaiuta wrote: ↑Sun Jan 12, 2020 2:21 pm

And i see that, if i want get competent, should buy a joystick.

Welcome aboard!

The fact that you’ve survived long enough to buy a shield booster indicates that you’re quite competent already, no matter what the Elite Federation says! In my experience, a joystick is not a necessary piece of equipment. The most important thing is practice. The second most important thing is remapping the yaw keys to a better, more accessible position.

Good luck, Commander!

Hello, some thoughts on Oolite from a new/old player who has just returned to the fold.

I first played Elite in 1984, after spending an hour fiddling around with the tone control on my cassette player trying to get the bloody thing to load onto the school’s BBC Model B. Then it was 3 1/4-inch floppies on an IBM clone. After decades discovered Oolite and spent hours playing it before dropping off for seven years. Now I’m back and hooked again.

Haven’t installed any expansion packs but it looks lovely in the latest build. Will always love wire frame but the detail on craft and space objects is superb. Combat seems slightly tougher but I’m out of practice.

One question: I seem to be spending a lot of time queuing up outside space stations. Is this normal?Seems an odd thing to add into the game if so.