Another newbie finds Oolite.
Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 11:32 pm
I'm an Englishman in New York. OK, near New York. North East Pennsylvania to be exact. Christmas is coming, and my wife and I decided on a combined Xmas pressie this year ...new iMac 2GHz, to replace the old G3 PowerPC Mac (8 years old), and the new iMac won't be taken out of the box until the 24th. So wasn't I just the happiest person to search for free OS X games and find a version of Elite for nowt!
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I remember the BBC Model B version, played by kids in school, and how impressed I was by the 3D 'vector' graphics. Remembering the talk about how it might look different on the Acorn Electron because the Acorn "didn't do Mode 7", whatever the Hell that was. Getting the game for the C64 was great a few years later. I had an Atari ST in the 90s and found a copy of the game for sale (and spent a few evenings running crops to high-tech anarchies).
In under two weeks, I get to strap myself into a Cobra Mk.III and see if I remember some stuff. Skimming the sun to get a free 7ly of fuel after buying the scoops. Forgetting how full my cargo hold already was as I tried to pick up the remains from an attacker (THUD!). Remembering that pirates liked to hang out near the sun and pretend to be asteroids, tumbling slowly in place until you got too close before missiling the bejesus out of you. Thargoid ships attacking you in witchspace, spending nearly an hour beating them but then having to destroy the Tharglets to continue onwards because you had a full cargo hold again (THUD!).
I even had my own technique for docking. Get to S-space, point my ship directly between the planet and the station and make sure the station was going to be exactly to my right-hand side. Then I would fly with front-view on until the icon from the station went to the far right of the scope and turned from 'in front but way right' to 'behind you but way right'. Cut thrusters, turn the ship through 90 degrees so the station was either above (or below me), then pull up (or rotate down) to be face-on to the opening. Who needs automatic docking? Who needs to look out the side window to see how accurate I was?
So this Christmas, I get back into it. And once again, thank you. I see there's a 'design your own ad' thread. I might have a go.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I remember the BBC Model B version, played by kids in school, and how impressed I was by the 3D 'vector' graphics. Remembering the talk about how it might look different on the Acorn Electron because the Acorn "didn't do Mode 7", whatever the Hell that was. Getting the game for the C64 was great a few years later. I had an Atari ST in the 90s and found a copy of the game for sale (and spent a few evenings running crops to high-tech anarchies).
In under two weeks, I get to strap myself into a Cobra Mk.III and see if I remember some stuff. Skimming the sun to get a free 7ly of fuel after buying the scoops. Forgetting how full my cargo hold already was as I tried to pick up the remains from an attacker (THUD!). Remembering that pirates liked to hang out near the sun and pretend to be asteroids, tumbling slowly in place until you got too close before missiling the bejesus out of you. Thargoid ships attacking you in witchspace, spending nearly an hour beating them but then having to destroy the Tharglets to continue onwards because you had a full cargo hold again (THUD!).
I even had my own technique for docking. Get to S-space, point my ship directly between the planet and the station and make sure the station was going to be exactly to my right-hand side. Then I would fly with front-view on until the icon from the station went to the far right of the scope and turned from 'in front but way right' to 'behind you but way right'. Cut thrusters, turn the ship through 90 degrees so the station was either above (or below me), then pull up (or rotate down) to be face-on to the opening. Who needs automatic docking? Who needs to look out the side window to see how accurate I was?
So this Christmas, I get back into it. And once again, thank you. I see there's a 'design your own ad' thread. I might have a go.
