Has anyone seen/done an 'Elite' clone in Blitz?

I was reading the "David Braben" interview in this months PC Zone and there's a bit of excitement sprouting up on the net over Elite 4.

I noticed that there have been a few Elite clones made. Some of which "Braben" appears to have blocked (seem to involve reverse engineering).

So, I wondered if anyone has made or seen a Blitz one? I'm not talking about an Elite-type game (such as 'ArxSpace'), I'm talking an actual clone of the original.

EdzUp is (was?) working on a multiplayer Elite:

http://www.edzup.co.uk/elitemultiplayer.html

Interesting, "Ian Bell" has given them help. "Bell" seems to have assisted other projects too.

X3 reunion is the closest thing to a modern elite with a real stock market system that you can manipulate the supply and demand through various methods. Including the use of piracy to reduce the supply and artificialy ramp up prices for your stolen booty.

Or you can capture and build fleets of ships fr combat or millitary, design and build your own factories and space stations, mining corporations etc.

I think a new elite game would have its work cut out, but does have a few aces like the accurate procedural universe and the ability to land on planets and not just be resigned to space.

I'd love to do an elite clone and even asked Ed if he was interested in adding some cool more modern graphics to his retro elite MP remake, but he want's to stay faithful to the earlier versions.

But edz been talking about it for like 10 years now and last time I heard he was like 3% done. :)

I could of sworn someone did that with Blitz3d not too long ago....perhaps it was Blitzcoder?

I remember playing elite back when it came out for PC. It was on EGA graphics and I couldnt even dock and always fought the police right away! I was very n00bish and never got far in that game at all ;)

I played Elite first on my C64... best game ever. I hope Braben does deliver what he promises, I really didn't like the previous sequels.

Elite sounds pretty cool. I never got to play it though.

the later frontier elite games were a little to realistic for my tastes. Where it would take 10,000 of miles to slow down and the gravity from planets could be used to slingshot you around the solar system.

One problem with realistic procedural solarsystems with accurate gravity was that sometimes you could land on a planet, only to find that you couldn't take off again because the thrust needed in order to leave the ground and take off just wasn't there in the engines on your ship.

Sounds pretty cool really. So long as they added 'game friendly' fail safe devices. I would say Elite is something like my shooter to a degree only it's more adventure sounding. Seems like something I'd really like actually ... you get to engineer your stuff and then put it to use in the game world.

I doubt this will work ... but will the UK/Austraila NES Elite work on a US system? I don't think they ever made Elite for the NES over here and I can't find a downloadable PC version. Seems the two owners had a falling out ... sounds pretty crazy!

Here you go.

None of the download links work ... that's where I tried before :(

Good to see Ian Bell is still on the scene!

A book of his- I don't remember the name- got me programing some pretty cool stuff way back on the BBC though.


There was an ELITE On the NES???!!! Cool :) I'll have to find it.

At your own risk etc:

http://www.abandonia.com/games/en/386/ElitePlus.htm

(there's also dl link for original Elite, Plus is "beefed up" PC version.)



Hmmm... if that planet would look as cool as my Blitz planet... BlitzElite? Hmmm....

wow... nice.. is that a photo, or a real 3D object?
if it is, that's a nice texture...

now, make the earth spin around, and make the clouds a different texture layer, and scroll that at a different speed over the land and sea texture... :) :D

It's real, it's 100% Blitz... and I already did everything you suggested and then some :) Check this thread:

http://www.blitzbasic.co.nz/Community/posts.php?topic=54901

I remember getting a docking computer for the first time and still managed to crash trying to dock ^^

Check this out: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/mod/journal/journal.asp?jn=263350&PageSize=25&WhichPage=1

Further down the page is a video of orbit to ground level. I've been following it for a while and it looks top!

Note: Not done in blitz.

It is kind of sad that "Braben" and "Bell" are no longer on friendly terms - I see a lot of that in "Bell's" words.

Example:

Hello sausage!

You can play the Spectrum version of Elite as an online browser game!

http://www.spectrum.lovely.net/Elite.html

Brilliant!

SPECTRUM ELITE!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!? That machine never seemed to be that good, I'm always proven wrong!

Elite was converted to just about every format going. There were about four versions for the BBC Computers available at the time.

Spectrum, Amiga, Atari (I liked the Atari version), Archimedes, Megadrive (I hear, never seen), PC, ... ummm... Calculators. I'm lying now.

Also, I started writing an Elite clone, but I began expanding it, put loads of AI ships in it, added jump gates and stuff, so you couldn't just hyper away from pirates, and so on. And the station didn't rotate because I couldn't get the AI to dock properly while rotating. ;)

I saw a gameboy version that was going to be commercial originaly.

Glenny, I've got the MD version :)I just didnt think the Speccy would be powerful enough to do it.

Speccy had more mem that the beeb. ;)

Spec link is cool. I'm surprised Braben allows it.

X3 reunion screenies: Game runs at a very smooth FPS at 1280x1024 on my 6600GT





Um was supposed to be smaller screenshots so I just left the one large one instead.

And how cool looking egg-shaped planet :P But yes, it's a looker... have to try out X3 someday. Is it any good, like the gameplay and such?

I remember purchasing Elite for the c64, I never got the play the damn game. They had some stupid F******G protection system where you had to look through some stupid F*******G eye piece and read a 2 digit code. Stupid F*****G idiots! And yeah I was too shy to take the game back :(

Are you blind or something?

Elite multiplayer is still in development, there is a download at www.edzup.co.uk/downloads/elitecombattest.zip this shows off the new ships that will be in the final build, I will be working on the project much more now I have a little more time.

That little web browser one is perfect to try it out. Seems like it really must have been amazing 22 years ago! Still seems fun.

Mustang@ X3 is a great game if you have time and patience. The learning curve is very steep and if you have a social life and a busy schedule there really isn't time in the week left to do much in the game.

It does have a time acceleration drive that lets you speed up time 10x whilst traveling which is handy. The bit thats hardest early on is that hull damage is astranomical to repair, and combat is quite tricky, so you can easily come undone. You can only save when docked too.

Elite is really sweet. Man I miss it when computer games were still ... well just really computer games like that. As awesome as that screen looks above ... playing a game full of pixels has a certain attraction for me. I think I like filling in the blanks with my imagination rather than having everything drawn for me.

Games today show too much detail ... the visuals are no longer interactive. It's like telling a joke ... a two part deal. The person who tells the joke just sets up the parameters and the person who is on the receiving end has to 'get it' ... they have to fill in the blank for it to be funny. It's interactive to a certain extent. Now games are interactive by control ... but they used to be interactive to me on a visual level ... now it's very boring because nothing is really open to interpretation.

I'm sure there are others that completely disagree but I'd rather play that old pixellated Elite than play that X3 game. I never even played Elite before so it's not a nostalgic thing ... it's a real video game though ... not an multi-perspective render of someone else's idea of what things should look like. Of course I haven't played X3 so maybe I'd change my mind.

All I know is that Elite game is cool still.

yeah, X3 is basicaly like elite just does a lot more. It does all the things you read about in the novela that came with elite, but couldn't do in the game.
So its not just the graphics that make X3 good its the detail in the universe and how you can manipulate its systems.

In X3 you can make a career of being a bounty hunter or pirate captain, and be the scourge of the galaxy changing the markets in entire systems, setting up bases and managing fleets of ships under your command. You can also do things like script new custom things in your ship computer.

It's really an evolution of the original game, with the option of a story or start on your own freedom you got in the original. Elite.

Elite is the one game that got me into gaming in the beginning.

We are still waiting to see your BlitzPlanet in real time ;-)

How are you doing specular masks in blitz3d anyhow?

X3 does have a truckload of freedom and options, but I also find it kind of soulless.

When I'm playing I can't help but have the suspicion that I'm not really playing a space sim, but that I'm working on a complex spreadsheet that just happens to looks like a space sim...

http://download.berlios.de/oolite-pc/oolite_pc_installer.zip

http://oolite.aegidian.org/screenshots/

Sheep-it up!

Sheep-it Large!

thanks Puki, now you gave me the itch to want to make an elite inspired game again.

I made a pen and paper RPG based on it in the late 80's based off of D&D. Which I used to play in the rafters of the garage with my mates.

Someday, I'll have to make some kind of 3D space shooter.

I think I'm going to have to get X3 now darnit!

Let's keep that discussion there, check that thread for news....