Oolite Bulletins

I've been pondering for a while why Fer de Lances seem a bit rubbish these days. I could have sworn they used to have the same top end as a Cobra III.

So i did a little investigation and realized, the Fer de lance didn't get slower, the Cobra III got faster. Only did 0.30 back in the day (according to the manual on Ian Bell's site anyway).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, far from it. I like my Cobra with an extra turn of speed.

Just wondered what the deal was. Did it get tweaked for oolite, or was it always 0.35 and it's the original manual that had it wrong (that can't be right, I could have sworn I used to be able to tail a Fer de lance at top whack and not make ground on it back in the day).

The Moray star boat looks like its got a little more top end too and as for Thargoids.... (mind you they need all the help they can get ).

Yes, you are right that the specs - and especially as far as relations between specs of different ships are concerned - are not exactly the same in Oolite as they were in Elite. Although it seems that there also were some variations between different Elite versions.

I am, for instance, pretty sure that in both C64 and AtariST Elite the CobraIII would outrun any other ship (including the FdL), except for Asps and Thargoids. I am so sure because I had adapted the Monty Python tactic (run away from your enemies and use your rear laser) even back then. And this worked on all ships the like, you just had to make sure to kill Thargoids and Asps first, as they were the only ships that could close up to you. To all the other ships you could maintain a comfortable distance (off their laser firing range) short of going full throttle.

As far as the reliability of the manual is concerned, I have no idea.

hehe - "The Monty Python Tactic". Since installing the Renegade Pirates OXP I've been doing that quite allot.

Yeah, thats right. I had the Amstrad and the Atari ST version and the Cobra III on the ST was faster, probably about the same as oolite. You could also buy those silly retro rocket things on the ST - remember those (they were a bit dumb imho though).


Also [reminiscing here], one cool/funny thing you could do on the Amstrad and I think on the Specky as well was to shoot up a ship to within an inch of it's life and then stop firing on it just before it was about to die. If you did this exactly right your quarry would stop attacking you and simply start to follow you like an obedient puppy. With this tactic it was possible to collect a chain of docile ships happily bobbing along behind you. Usually worked best with the bigger ships as it was too easy to accidently kill the little ones.

When you finally made it to the station (takes a while without the Torus drive ) all hell would break loose as the station spewed out vipers to attack you, irrespective of your legal status. Unfortunately your newly acquired squadron would do nothing to help you in this situation but quite amusing Ai quirk all the same.

The Edible Poet wrote:

Also [reminiscing here], one cool/funny thing you could do on the Amstrad and I think on the Specky as well was to shoot up a ship to within an inch of it's life and then stop firing on it just before it was about to die. If you did this exactly right your quarry would stop attacking you and simply start to follow you like an obedient puppy. With this tactic it was possible to collect a chain of docile ships happily bobbing along behind you. Usually worked best with the bigger ships as it was too easy to accidently kill the little ones.

Can someone code an autopilot missile to be fired after a ship eject the escape pod? Taking them to a pirate cove could be the long-awaited pirate's dream of salvaging ships...

The Edible Poet wrote:

Yeah, thats right. I had the Amstrad and the Atari ST version and the Cobra III on the ST was faster, probably about the same as oolite. You could also buy those silly retro rocket things on the ST - remember those (they were a bit dumb imho though).

Well, they were not designed for the Monty Python Tactic. If you took on an adversary head-on and got low on energy, they could be quite useful, getting you out of the danger zone almost instantly (they shot you roughly one scanner diameter backwards). If you however were about one scanner radius in front of your adversary and firing with your rear laser, catapulting yourself backwards, passing the enemy ship, and come to a halt at roughly the same distance (one scanner radius) behind him wasn't particularly useful, of course.