Oolite Bulletins

Well, finally gave Oolite another shot, after it had been sitting on my hard disc for ages not doing anything. I'm surprised by the lack of OXPs bringing in all the good old ArcElite and Elite A ships (at least I've not found them, just one ArcElite ship and a handful of Elite A ones). I suppose that's the price of being an Elite purist...

Try Old Ships .OXP Wolfwood's Varients .OXP and Griffin OXP. These OXPs add about 10 ArchElite Ships. A full table of the OXPs with clickable download links and links to Ship Stats is on the Wiki at this link:-

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP

One ArcElite ship and a handful of Elite-A ones in the OldShips one (possibly because it's far easier to relate the Elite-A ship stats), and the rest don't come from any version of Elite I know (ArchElite != ArcElite; I've never heard of ArchElite).

Helvellyn wrote:

One ArcElite ship and a handful of Elite-A ones in the OldShips one (possibly because it's far easier to relate the Elite-A ship stats), and the rest don't come from any version of Elite I know (ArchElite != ArcElite; I've never heard of ArchElite).

Well, then. One answer to that could be dabbling into OXPing yourself and constructing a bevvy of fine space-going vessels to bulk out the vistas of the original Elite genre.

The Wiki and the main Oolite site (link at top of page) both have information on how to build and texture models, how to create the bones, brains and gizzards to go under that skin and this board full of experts are ever on hand to lend a virtual hand to your efforts.

Give it a try.

Captain Hesperus

Captain Hesperus wrote:

Helvellyn wrote:

One ArcElite ship and a handful of Elite-A ones in the OldShips one (possibly because it's far easier to relate the Elite-A ship stats), and the rest don't come from any version of Elite I know (ArchElite != ArcElite; I've never heard of ArchElite).

Well, then. One answer to that could be dabbling into OXPing yourself and constructing a bevvy of fine space-going vessels to bulk out the vistas of the original Elite genre.

The Wiki and the main Oolite site (link at top of page) both have information on how to build and texture models, how to create the bones, brains and gizzards to go under that skin and this board full of experts are ever on hand to lend a virtual hand to your efforts.

Give it a try.

I'll consider it... There's just the slightly awkward fact that both Elite A and ArcElite have (different) ships called the Bushmaster. I also wonder if I should insert Elite-A's great big mystery vessel that I've only ever seen once, not counting poking around inside the data files...

Incidentally, whilst I'm here and too lazy to search in case this has been asked before, why the ArcElite Boa II as "Boa Class Cruiser" (which the Beeb manual labels the original as), and the original plain Boa? Or am I just being a bit too picky?

Helvellyn wrote:

I'll consider it... There's just the slightly awkward fact that both Elite A and ArcElite have (different) ships called the Bushmaster.

So have different designs. There are several versions of the original ship banging around (eg. the Dark Wheel Cobra Mk. III and The LOVELY Dream Team ships)

Helvellyn wrote:

I also wonder if I should insert Elite-A's great big mystery vessel that I've only ever seen once, not counting poking around inside the data files...

If you mean the Salamander, it's in the oldships.oxp

Helvellyn wrote:

Incidentally, whilst I'm here and too lazy to search in case this has been asked before, why the ArcElite Boa II as "Boa Class Cruiser" (which the Beeb manual labels the original as), and the original plain Boa? Or am I just being a bit too picky?

I don't understand. Are you asking why they are different or are you asking why they just are?

Captain Hesperus

Captain Hesperus wrote:

Helvellyn wrote:

I'll consider it... There's just the slightly awkward fact that both Elite A and ArcElite have (different) ships called the Bushmaster.

So have different designs. There are several versions of the original ship banging around (eg. the Dark Wheel Cobra Mk. III and The LOVELY Dream Team ships)

But the ArcElite Bushmaster and the Elite A Bushmaster are completely different ships with the same name, not different versions of the same thing (ELite-A's is a fighter, ArcElite's a miner).

Helvellyn wrote:

I also wonder if I should insert Elite-A's great big mystery vessel that I've only ever seen once, not counting poking around inside the data files...

If you mean the Salamander, it's in the oldships.oxp

No, I don't mean that one. Talking of the Salamander, I wish I could remember who suggested the name

Helvellyn wrote:

Incidentally, whilst I'm here and too lazy to search in case this has been asked before, why the ArcElite Boa II as "Boa Class Cruiser" (which the Beeb manual labels the original as), and the original plain Boa? Or am I just being a bit too picky?

I don't understand. Are you asking why they are different or are you asking why they just are?

I'm being nerdy about the names and the models, which appear to muddle the two ships.

Helvellyn wrote:

Captain Hesperus wrote:

Helvellyn wrote:

I also wonder if I should insert Elite-A's great big mystery vessel that I've only ever seen once, not counting poking around inside the data files...

If you mean the Salamander, it's in the oldships.oxp

No, I don't mean that one.

Perhaps you mean the Cougar, discussed about here and here?

Some of the ships in Wolfwood's Variants are simply _models_ that existed in earlier games, but I gave them new names, because the old names had already been given to new models (Asps, for example, are models from older Elite versions, but the Asp was already in Oolite, just with a different model (used in later Elites). Same goes for the Cobra.

Drake actually existed in an earlier Elite - I think it was ArcElite, but I'm not certain. Drake II is my own imagination...

Cannot remember if there was something else in that pack...

Commander McLane wrote:

Helvellyn wrote:

Captain Hesperus wrote:

If you mean the Salamander, it's in the oldships.oxp

No, I don't mean that one.

Perhaps you mean the Cougar...

I don't mean that one either (the Cougar isn't in Elite A). THe Elite-A big mystery ship is very big, very rarely appears (I've only seen it a couple of times, apart from in the files), and very tough. I've not been saying much specific about it because it's probably supposed to be a surprise, but Elite-A has been around long enough for now. When I just saw it in the ship files I thought it was supposed to be some Thargoid variant (albeit hexagonal instead of octagonal), but it launches Sidewinders at you, and in any case Angus Duggan told me it's got a name.

Helvellyn wrote:

I don't mean that one either (the Cougar isn't in Elite A). THe Elite-A big mystery ship is very big, very rarely appears (I've only seen it a couple of times, apart from in the files), and very tough. I've not been saying much specific about it because it's probably supposed to be a surprise, but Elite-A has been around long enough for now. When I just saw it in the ship files I thought it was supposed to be some Thargoid variant (albeit hexagonal instead of octagonal), but it launches Sidewinders at you, and in any case Angus Duggan told me it's got a name.

Now there's an opportunity for you shipbuilders out there, perhaps you could put up a screenshot if you have one!

Here it is, with a Cobra Mk III for comparison



These are taken from a program I wrote yeares ago when trying to work out the ship file format. Both are from Elite A (obviously for the one on the left!), which is why the ship name field is wrong. The large ship is about as big as it's possible to make something in original Elite, which IIRC uses 9 bit co-ordinates. Both are at the same scale and orientation.

For the curious, the numbers down the side, from top to bottom, are:
Max. cargo dropped, manoeuvrability, size (this number is used, not the graphics data, when you shoot at something), some explosion byte I never worked out fully, bounty, shields, speed, missiles / laser strength. The slot number refers to where in the file the ship is defined, and the S.D and S.B are simply the filenames.

Oh, and it launches Sidewinders at you when attacked. I only ever saw it a couple of times in Elite A, and that was playing the game enough to get to Elite status.

Nice Another mystery ship...

Lets see

Cougar, Salamandar, and This...

I cant beleive these ships made it to implementation into the game, and never got anything attached to it like a mission...

That said, i never played Elite A, only The commodore 64 version, where i did encounter What might have been the Cougar.. might have been a 4th mystery ship that had stealth ie did not show on the scanner..

And i think The only one able to give us answers are The original Creators of Elite... Ian and David... and They might not remember anymore...

The Salamander looks like a "case forgotten". It's a common enough ship in Elite A, just undocumented.

This one, on the other hand, is quite deliberately what it is, and it does have a name, it's just undocumented as well (I hope Angus Duggan doesn't mind me repeating what he told me in an email - Elite A has been around for long enough, which is why I'm only telling this now!) More missions would've been nice, but the poor little Beeb simply didn't have room for any more.