Oolite Bulletins

Smivs wrote:

Always worth a visit as they have gold, gems, platinum, radioactives and minerals at knock-down prices, and pay well for booze, luxuries etc.

Sounds like miniature space stations. Back in ArcElite days they were simply the same as standard asteroids, but in a garish pink/yellow/blue colour scheme (complete with code bug to glitch a side into oblivion) and gave you the same bounty as an asteroid, albeit adding to your criminal record and not giving out any minerals. Firing on one when police where nearby caused a reaction.

Some screenshots, hastily mashed together: http://www.filecore.net/riscos/games/elite/hermits.jpg

IMHO that's one of the charms of the whole rock hermit concept - they were odd little eccentrics living out in caves amongst the stars, with their bright colour schemes and pseudo-hippie lifestyles. Making them into little corporate joints somehow steals away part of the magic.

From the AFE FAQ:

2.2.4) Rock Hermits
-------------------
These have been confirmed to exist on Spectrum Elite, PC Elite and PC Elite +, 6502 Tube and Master Elites. They are superficially similar to asteroids but (in some versions) do not spin. When shot they disgorge a krait (verified for PC Elite+) or sidewinders (apparently; some versions) which then attack the player. The failsafe ID technique in the PC Elites is to missile-lock them and read whether it says "Asteroid [debris]" or "Asteroid [hermit]".

They also exist in ArcElite and are readily recognised because their asteroids are painted bright yellow, blue and pink and a message flashes up reading "Hermit beacon detected". Their proximity prevents jumping. No ships emerge but a criminal record is gained for shooting one. No minerals are released on mining.

However,

El Viejo wrote:

Griff’s rock hermits are beautiful

I certainly agree.

Yes, a bit like mini-stations, but they act as a base for mining, hence the goods available. You'll often find mining versions of Worms, Transporters and Mk I Cobras working around them, and the Hermit will sometimes be seen out and about in an Adder.
They are busy places and it's quite good fun just hanging around for a while watching the other ships mining.

Here's a Mining Transporter heading for the Hermitage.

Smivs is right, they can be busy places and good to loiter by… and there are often bandits causing trouble nearby.

And to think those poor guys just wanted to get away from it all...

I can almost see the Monty Python sketch...

Monty Python... must refrain from quoting...
'pie Jesu domine... dona eis requiem' *whack*
Ah... that's better.
On the topic though, managed Elite level on C64 and Amiga versions.
Currently, Above Average on Oolite.

BTW, I noticed on EV's post, his screenshot has his ship's name on it.
Sorry for the newbie question, is that part of an OXP?

Hi Coeurlion and welcome.

You can name your ship in your Oolite savefile, in the ship_name string (line 676 in mine):
Don't use Notepad to edit anything... Wordpad is fine, but Notepad++ is free and very good.

Didn't think of editing the save file. Thanks EV

Cool… no question too small on this forum. We have wizards who love to answer the difficult questions, and simple players like me, who love to answer the easy ones.

On Oolite I've recently gone up to dangerous after completing the Constrictor mission. The long haul starts now!
A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), I used to play the original Elite on a house shared BBC and got up to deadly but the top rank eluded me and then I moved house. All my victorys were over ships as the owner of the computer had deleted the asteroid files because they annoyed him. I didn't know that asteroids counted as kills until I read this thread.
An even longer time ago, I cut my Elite teeth on the BBC tape cassette version, but never really got much of a rank on it. Such a disappointment! You had to wait over half an hour for it to load, if indeed it did load, before playing an edited version of the disc drive edition with lots missing - no fuel scoops, no military lasers to name but two.

I recall the BBC game, and the annoying tape-player era! Amazing how far we have came in computers.
And I also recall the amusing attempts I made as a lad to try and get somewhere in the game.

I think I made about "average" on the BBC version.

I was lucky… my BBC had a disk drive… and a joystick.

Seeing as we’re talking previous careers as combateers:

• BBC Elite ~ Elite, twice over.
  PC Elite+ ~ Elite (Archangel), thrice over.
  Oolite ~ Deadly (5710... and counting).

That brings back memories.

I first played Elite on the Acorn Electron, which I bought from a work mate.
Elite, then, was on a cassette tape and I too remember it taking ages to load lol.

I think I got to Dangerous on that version.

Then, some years later, I managed to save enough money to buy myself a new BBC Master 128. It had a colour screen
I bought the 5.5" floppy disk version of Elite. It still took about a minute to load though.
I also remember that I started to study the very basic BBC Basic coding and I wrote myself a small Elite start up program.
It was basically a wireframe image of a Cobra that was devided into sections. Each section had to be 'tested' before I played the actual game.
The program simply chose a randon number and based on that it either made a section of the ship red or green.
If it was red then there was a problem and I had to fix it (in my mind) I was only young and my imagination was running wild lol.
I even imagined that each room in the house was a section of the ship, my bedroom was the bridge, living room was the cargo bay, ect...
If the section was green then there was no problem.

Once the program showed all sections green, I then loaded the main game. It was a bit like a pre flight check.

I was really hooked on Elite as a kid and I hardly went out at all. My parents used to ask why I was just sitting staring at a rotating circle on the screen.
When I told them that it was in fact a planet that was slowly getting bigger as I got closer, they gave me a blank look lol.

On this version of Elite I got to Deadly.

Even back in those days I used to make my living as an asteroid miner (a Belter) and only attacked ships that fired on me first.
That is how I play Oolite now.

Once a Belter, always a Belter.

My tape version was also annoying in that the lead joining the cassette player to the computer didn't have a lead to go into the headphone port so I uesd to put several pillows and some books on the speaker to drown out the noise! Honestly it was all more trouble than it was worth, but having very briefly seen the game, I just had to play it.
The main reason I gave it up though was that every time I met Thargoids, the graphics would go completely haywire and I would have to reload the entire game. Character building is the polite way to describe this. To this day I don't know if the problem was software or hardware and I was no expert (still not) in how computers actually work
When I first played on the disc drive version I was completely blown away and the love affair was on. Finding Oolite has been fantastic. So lucky to find it - it was a complete fluke I did. It has kept the original concept and has put so many sensible improvements. For example, I only used to pick up alloys and never cargo because it was an instant way to get a Offender status half the time but that's all possible now. The passenger missions, the option to jettison. Fantastic work, and I haven't really even began to explore all the OXPs.

I haven't voted in the poll yet as I'm currently sitting on 6,350 kills ... I only ever made it to Deadly back in my Spectrum days so I'll be picking up my first set of golden wings any day now. To be honest I'm drawing out the whole process so I can enjoy it more. I'd invite friends and family over to witness the momentous event itself but I don't think they'd really appreciate it.

Get a pic of the 'right on commander' message... if you don't miss it in the heat of combat, that is.
That's what usually happens... I don't think I've spotted one for ages.