Any plans on making a oolite: frontier version?

marakor · Post by **marakor** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:49 pm

Title says it all.

I had it on the amiga 500+ i think it was and although i found it kinda laggy it would be fun on a pc version with no lag.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:57 pm

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 11:57 pm

I also had Frontier on my A500 and later on my first PC (A P90 with a 4MB Diamond Viper V330 PCI and 128MB RAM).

Well, I think the simple answer would be no.

The more complicated answer would be: Redo the game engine so it did Newtonian Physics - I think this has been talked about and possibly even attempted.

You could install several oxps that would make it more Frontier like: the Imp courier and Eagle oxps for a start, then there are the oxps that make space sooooo much bigger (and therefore sooooo much less fun!) - Planetfall would go some way to cover the ability to land on planets but not really in a Frontier like way.

I think I've still got the floppies for the PC version of Frontier and I've definitely still got the Amiga so on a fast modern PC running an Amiga Emulator it'll run considerably faster than the 7.14MHz the 68000 ran at. Then you'd be able to see why it just wasn't any fun to play at all...

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:44 am

Also: no.

I would like to emphasize that Elite and Frontier are two different games, with superficuous resemblances. And Oolite is a recreation of Elite, not of Frontier.

So the question about making an Oolite: Frontier version seems to me a little bit like asking about a Chess: Othello version, if you know what I mean.

Lestradae · Post by **Lestradae** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:17 am

Commander McLane wrote:
... a Chess: Othello version ...

LittleBear · Post by **LittleBear** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:46 am

The PC Version of Frontire and FFE are available for free download from the Bread Bin's Site (there are links to it on the Elite Wikki). It won't run on a modern PC, but there are several 3rd Party replacement EXEs (also downloadable from the Elite Wiki) that allow it to run on XP / Vista and also tart up the graphics generally. All free if you fancy a blast on it! Basically just download and install and then drop in the replacement exec.

Check out the Elite Wikki or this link here:-

http://jaj22.org.uk/jjffe/

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:53 am

Lestradae wrote:
Commander McLane wrote:
... a Chess: Othello version ...

As a side note looking at frontier examples on you-tube it looked like a bit of a repetitive nightmare to be honest. Now I may not have seen a good example of frontier here, but it seemed very much a stop, start, stop, start way of getting round the universe.

Sure there is a lot more variety in the add ons and ships etc but I think you can get too complex sometimes. At some point people may club together and code up ships with limited equipment bays, wider weaponry ranges, speed upgrades, maneuvering thrusters, hangers, tractor beams, power draining shielding, crews. All that jazz, but people can stop where they feel comfortable. Which is something conventional games don't really give you.

pagroove · Post by **pagroove** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 1:15 pm

Well there is a direct 3d frontier now. it;s revese engineered and downloadble at the russian elite sit. I think it's called eliteclub..ru
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3srzdBAsdQ

I have it and it's pretty but Oolite simply offers better gameplay. If they remove the Newtonian model then it's maybe ok.

Turanga Leela · Post by **Turanga Leela** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 2:14 pm

Personally, after enjoying (w/ an emulator) Amiga Elite for a couple of years, Frontier and FFE were a dissapointment.

As ClymAngus has noted, they were shockingly more repetitive than Elite was, even with the better graphics. Newtonian flight was a pain in anybody's shiny metal a*s, fights were rudimentary and after the pure fantasy worlds proposed by classic Elite, finding yourself again in the old Milky Way was just plain boring.

So i'd rather stick to Oolite.

horse · Post by **horse** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:49 am

I'd love to know how many of you who claim Frontier was boring have no OXPs in your Oolite directory???

I loved frontier. It was a great game that sadly lacked a bit of promise. I think it expanded the Elite universe in a number of ways with more ships, missions, careers. It just didn't get it quite right and sadly the playground chat of where a military career would lead (a secret imperial starship) was sadly more than the game had the complexity to conceive.

I don't know, it was close to being right. There was more reward than just shooting 6000 computer generated ships. I think if you look at the trend in space simulators (including Oolite) it is to be more Frontier like, than Elite like. So don't knock it, OK!

Oh, and I loved the Newtonian model. Switching to turret guns or flying in one direction and blasting ten bails of sh*t out of the the target for my latest contract, which I'd been stalking the jump point for hours (relative) to ambush. That was living...

EDIT: And you could land in the middle of cities! How cool was that??

ramon · Post by **ramon** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:38 am

I also liked Frontier, although I must admit I've had more fun going back to Oolite - but that's probably partly to do with this community and creating our own oxps.
The Newtonian flight model was a good idea, it could have been done better. Something more like Babylon 5. There was a fan made B5 game that came out (can't remember what it's called) but that had good flight physics. it felt like B5 but was playable too!

With the russian reverse engineer version of FFE, I believe you can model your own ships - replacing the ones already in the game.

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:41 am

"I've Found Her"

http://ifh.babylonfive.ru/

I've played it - very much like the TV show - very good from that point of view - once again it proves that Newtonian Physics are nice in theory but you need a super computer doing most of the hard work to make it enjoyable...

ramon · Post by **ramon** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:44 am

DaddyHoggy wrote:
"I've Found Her"

That's the one!

Post by **Disembodied** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:07 pm

horse wrote:
I'd love to know how many of you who claim Frontier was boring have no OXPs in your Oolite directory???

I loved frontier. It was a great game that sadly lacked a bit of promise. I think it expanded the Elite universe in a number of ways with more ships, missions, careers. It just didn't get it quite right and sadly the playground chat of where a military career would lead (a secret imperial starship) was sadly more than the game had the complexity to conceive.

I don't know, it was close to being right. There was more reward than just shooting 6000 computer generated ships. I think if you look at the trend in space simulators (including Oolite) it is to be more Frontier like, than Elite like. So don't knock it, OK!

Oh, and I loved the Newtonian model. Switching to turret guns or flying in one direction and blasting ten bails of sh*t out of the the target for my latest contract, which I'd been stalking the jump point for hours (relative) to ambush. That was living...

EDIT: And you could land in the middle of cities! How cool was that??

Great chunks of Frontier were hugely cool. The scale, the sightseeing, the fact that you could go from deep space to landing planetside, on any planet at all, the possibility of endless exploration ...

... but you're right, it was close to being right. A near miss. And in that miss is the whole problem. I'd sit there playing it, constantly thinking, "Oh, if only ...". And that gets depressing, after a while. There was endless exploration, but nothing to see except more of the same. The solar systems and planetary landings were great, but it was just sightseeing. And – in my opinion – the Newtonian combat sucked. Through a hose. It wasn't combat, it was auto-combat. It might have been (faintly) realistic, but it wasn't any fun.

The trend to be "more Frontier-like" is to be lamented, in my opinion. It might also explain why there hasn't been a hit commercial 3D space shooter since I don't know when. Why sweat it about "realistic physics" when you're hopping across the universe via wormholes? I want to play a game, not a spaceflight simulator.

But ... if you are genuinely interested in a space combat simulator that takes no prisoners when it comes to the physics, you could check out Terminus. I gave it a go back when it came out. It was very pretty, and as far as I could tell very realistic in its implementation of physics (at least, of the physics of bodies moving in a vacuum: it took all sorts of liberties with other bits of physics, but for some reason that's OK...). I thought it was a terrible game, though, for all its impressive technical qualities, but YMMV!

horse · Post by **horse** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:25 pm

Disembodied wrote:
The trend to be "more Frontier-like" is to be lamented, in my opinion. It might also explain why there hasn't been a hit commercial 3D space shooter since I don't know when. Why sweat it about "realistic physics" when you're hopping across the universe via wormholes? I want to play a game, not a spaceflight simulator.

Well, what can you say? TIMTOWTDI

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Any plans on making a oolite: frontier version?

Any plans on making a oolite: frontier version?

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