Oolite Bulletins

Dr Beeb wrote: ↑Sat Jun 09, 2018 7:07 pm

I see that you already found the BBC Classic dock and flight codes listings that I did and Ian Bell posted to his website. The easiest thing would be to do the same for v.5 once its ready. In the meantime happy to answer any specific questions you have. I don't intend to do a C64 version, so up to you what variant you come up with.

Hello! Well, if you do publish the Elite-B code, then that should be all I need bar any specific questions when it comes to actually implementing changes; right now I'm still very much in the process of commenting and working out the behaviour of the code. I was hoping I could get source data from you for things like ship models (the C64 uses the same format as the BBC) and the Encyclopedia text as the scrambled text data in Elite is a real PITA, that can always wait until you release your code.

What assembler are you using? I hope you can put the code on GitHub, I'd like to be able to contribute some stuff, like a better manual.

The source files for Elite-B are all done in BBC Basic and built on BeebEm. The Elite-B v4 disc image is not scrambled in any way (other than the text strings' EOR #$23 business) so you can lift bytes for the assets from that. There are 26 ship data files, A-through-Z which (after some 6502 code) contain a few ships each, sometimes duplicated. Some of the ship sequences are important because they reuse the edge connectivity data of an earlier ship (eg thargon and cargo canister)
On topic of understanding the code, I created a page on the wiki re the  6502 a.i., maybe I will add a few more pages.

Dr Beeb wrote: ↑Sat Jun 09, 2018 11:37 pm

The source files for Elite-B are all done in BBC Basic and built on BeebEm. [...] so you can lift bytes for the assets from that.

My word, that's hardcore! I was hoping you'd have something in ASCII I can copy / paste! Can't convince you to switch to a modern tools?? You can build multiple versions of the game from the same source, swapping out the disk drivers you were having trouble with.

Well it took over a year, but v.5 is ready
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xx1i6z6l9lxbw ... 5.zip?dl=0
An update that includes the Rinkhals, a robust ship often used by pirates.

Larger suns appear larger. Small (pirate) ships are likely to overheat and explode if near the sun. Thargoids can't release Thargons near sun, thus loitering near a Sun can be a place of solace.

One cargo type can be dumped, radioactives, with a modest redemption fee if done near the sun, with key 'R'. When docked, key 'R' is now used for equipment refunds. The key 'S' is repurposed to sell cargo, not equipment.

Laser temperature thermal management changed for multiple lasers installed. Provides another mechanism to evade witchspace agents.
Some tweaks to ship balance and ship purchasing. Freighters are more expensive but slightly more manoeuvrable than before.
The Guide has a page added on frozen-game key controls. Numeric lists in The Guide also map to letters of the alphabet.
Freeze game key 'COPY' also duplicated to key '~' which in most emulators would then be mapped to the key next door to the 'DELETE' key.
The unfreeze game key remains 'DELETE'.
The frozen-game key 'X' option toggles new/multiple features including extreme damping.
Mission 'C' more easily re-acquired. Mission 'T' slightly more challenging.
Some bug fixes, improved aesthetics, e.g. Chart displays.
Planet Data gives year of GalCop Membership.
Now see some shuttles and police ship docking at Space Station.
Slightly tougher docking.
Player missile launch less likely to jam in the height of battle.
Disc controller needs to be 8271 or 1770, DFS ideally higher than version 0.9.

Happy 2019.

Oh wow! Thank you!

I don't know if I told you, but I've completely disassembled C64 Elite; https://github.com/Kroc/elite-harmless

I'm collecting recommended improvements (many of which came from your Elite-B) here: https://github.com/kroc/elite-harmless/issues I'd like to massively overhaul the game but I need to get the disassembly more thoroughly documented yet IMO.

I've just discovered a fault with your documentation of the entity states here: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classi ... ity_states -- the order of fields is wrong (I'm applying for a Wiki account now and will fix this as soon as I can).