THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE ELITE PUBLISHER Firebird AUTHOR Torus YEAR 1985 CATEGORY Strategy 3D Trading DESCRIPTION Elite is a space trading game, where you fly from planet to planet buying and selling goods, and use the cash to upgrade your ship. CONTROLS Space Flight Controls Anticlockwise roll N - or joystick Clockwise roll M - or joystick Dive S - or jotstick Climb X - or joystick Increase speed SPACE Decrease speed SYMBOL SHIFT Front view 1 Back view 2 Left view 3 Right view 4 Space Combat Controls Fire laser A - or fire button Target missile T Fire missile F Unarm missile U ECM E Energy bomb W Escape capsule Q Docking computer on C Docking computer off C Navigation Controls Hyperspace H Intergalactic jump G then H Distance to system D Cursor cross home B Cursor cross control N, M, S, X (left, right, up, down) Galactic chart I Local cluster chart O Trading Controls Launch from station 1 - only while docked Buy cargo 2 - only while docked Sell cargo 3 - only while docked Equip ship 4 - only while docked Galactic chart I Local cluster chart O Data on system P Market prices K Status page L Inventory ENTER Find planet R - only while docked Game Controls Torus jump drive J Freeze game CAPS SHIFT Continue game SPACE Initiate save SYMBOL SHIFT - only while docked Other Controls Hold a Sinclair port 1/Cursor/Kempston joystick left on the initial screen to select control with that joystick port. Note: these controls can only be used when the game is frozen Keyboard recentering toggle R Keyboard damping toggle D Keyboard/joystick toggle K Reverse joystick Y - Y-direction only Reverse joystick B - both directions Sound effects off Q Sound effects on S Start new game 1 The keyboard recentering toggle R will disable and re-enable the recentering in roll and dive/climb control. When recentering is enabled, a small amount of climb (or clockwise roll) cancels any dive (or antclockwise roll) and vice versa. The keyboard damping toggle D will disable and re-enable the automatic damping of a roll, dive or climb while in keyboard control. The B key will reverse both directions of the joystick enabling it to be held either way around. The Y key will reverse the Y-direction only so that pushing the joystick forward will result in a climb and pulling it back will result in a dive; roll will not be affected. The B and Y keys can be used in conjunction. INSTRUCTIONS Command your Cobra space ship in a fantastic voyage of discovery and adventure, a supreme test of your combat, navigational and entrepreneurial skills. Trade between countless planets, using the proceeds to equip your ship with heat-seeking missiles, beam lasers and other weapons - corporate states can be approached without risk, but unruly anarchies may be swarming with space pirates. Black market trading can be lucrative but could result in skirmishes with local police and a price on your head! However you make your money, by fair means or foul, you must blast onwards through space annihilating pirate ships and hostile aliens as you strive to earn your reputation as one of the Elite! YOUR RATING AS A COMBATEER To become an elite combateer requires great skill and great patience, because expert trading is essential before the necessary more powerful armaments and equipment available to the Cobra ship can be bought: beam lasers, more missiles, energy bombs, a docking computer, galactic hyperdrive, etc. As you sail through space between the stars, and as you trade, you will live with your combat rating. You will begin as HARMLESS. If you survive your first skirmish you may be reclassified as MOSTLY HARMLESS. But on the slow climb to a status level that reflects a growing talent for combat you will have to engage many different ships, in many different skirmishes, in the System Space of many different worlds. You will then be classified as POOR, then AVERAGE, then ABOVE AVERAGE, then COMPETENT. Then you will become DANGEROUS, then DEADLY. And at last a few will become ELITE. Your kills are photographed and transmitted by TS ComDirect to the nearest GalCop Federal Law Centre. Your rating as a combateer will increase in direct proportion. Fly your Cobra craft wisely and carefully. Remember: other pilots may be attempting to increase their own combat rating by attacking either innocent traders, or police Vipers (the ships of the GalCop Police Force). If you resort to such tactics (or if you adopt the fast-credit routine and trade in illegal goods) then your combat rating may rise, but your legal status: CLEAN -> OFFENDER -> FUGITIVE, will make you Public Enemy Number One with the Federation Crime Monitoring Authority and you will not be left alone. SCREEN DISPLAY Front shields Status (Green, all safe; Yellow, Aft shields possible danger; Red, immediate Fuel level danger; Flashing, critical.) Cabin temperature Compass (Centres on planet or Laser temperature space station; when dot is not Altitude solid, object is behind you.) Missile status ECM detector - ECM activity near EQUIPMENT Item Tech Level Price/CR Fuel Always Varies Missile Always 30 Large Cargo Bay Always 400 ECM System 2 600 Pulse Laser 3 400 Beam Laser 4 1000 Fuel Scoops 5 525 Escape Capsule 6 1000 Energy Bomb 7 900 Extra Energy Unit 8 1500 Docking Computers 9 1500 Galactic Hyperdrive 10 5000 Mining Lasers 10 800 Military Lasers 10 6000 HINTS AND TIPS * Agricultural worlds need specialist food and raw materials, but mostly basic machinery and spare parts. If they are rich, they need luxuries and high tech industrial machines. They produce food in quantity, raw materials and specialised 'organic' items, like some textiles. * Industrial worlds need agricultural produce, raw materials (for refining), resource exploitation machinery, and (if rich) high tech goods. They produce basic items of need for civilised worlds: beds, seals and gaskets, power storage units, basic weapons, mass produced fertiliser, mass produced medicines, etc. * Trade in illegal goods (Slaves, Narcotics and Firearms) is the most profitable, but may harm your Legal Status. * Destroying pirate vessels earns a bounty, but attacking innocent traders may harm your Legal Status. * Once your Cobra is within automatic-docking and protective range of the Coriolis space station, the scan console will display an S next to the compass. * Asteroids (and spacecraft!) can be mined with the appropriate lasers, and the debris collected in fuel scoops. * Thargoid (alien) battle-cruisers may 'hover' in Witch-Space (hyperspace) and attack through-coming craft. * Using an Escape Capsule effectively resets your legal status to Clean. DOCKING PROCEDURE Docking with a Coriolis space station is never easy, unless the ship is equipped with an automatic docking computer (in which case C will activate it). The Navy Training Manual recommends the following approach and dock sequence. Locate the Coriolis station and approach it. The entrance tunnels to all these stations face the mother planet. Fly near to the station and then on towards the planet (monitoring altitude carefully). By turning a half circle you will now find your ship orientated towards the entrance. Approach the final moments of docking at DEAD SLOW SPEED. Failure to dock cleanly can be fatal but may simply result in your scraping the sides of the aperture, with consequent loss of defensive shield(s) and quite possibly your cargo. Manually control the Cobra's roll motion to match the rotation of the Coriolis station. The entry port must be nearly as horizontal as possible. If docking is successful, the protective field across the station entrance is penetrated, and a break pattern appears on the screen. Berthing is handled automatically. CHEATS As soon as the game loads, and you're given the option to LOAD a new commander, press "Y", then save your position. Go back to the game, and hey presto. Not much easier than that... If you are having trouble docking you can try this cheat. Once you have launched, pick new destination, and fly towards the planet a bit. Spin around (and you'll still be dead straight with the station entrance) and fly towards the station and hit H for hyperspace. If you docked before the countdown ended you docked at the new station! There was also a cheat so that you always launched into Witch Space. Pause the game. Press 'f' - you'll hear a beep. Un-pause the game, and hyperspace, as normal. You'll now appear in Witchspace, and will continue to do so until you pause and press 'f' again. You *will* use a full journey's worth of fuel though, even though your location (on the Short-range chart) is halfway between the planets, so make sure you choose a planet that's nearer than 3.5 light years, or you'll be stuck! The same sequence gets you out again (assuming the Thargoids don't frag you before you can jump!) There is a way to stay in Witchspace forever, or at least until you have 35 tonnes of alien items. If your fuel scoops are active when you enter witchspace they stay active and your fuel just keeps going up and up. Elite POKEs:- 43071-43074 3 Big lasers 43078 1 Lg cargo bay 43079 1 ECM 43082 1 Fuel Scoops 43083 1 Escape pod 43084 1 Energy bomb 43085 1 Energy unit 43086 1 Docking computer 43049 200 Lotsa dough 43122 192 ECM & *cloaking device* 43087 192 Chance to save refugees 'mission' 43053-43069 x Cargo bay 43077 4 Missiles 42428 0 Infinite Energy (useful for cloak) 42870 0 Infinite missiles 37482 0 Inf. energy bomb 42897 0 Inf. escape pods 54682 0 Inf. Galactic hyperspaces SEQUELS/PREQUELS There are several versions of Elite on the Spectrum, most notable a 48K and 128K version, although there is very little difference between the two. Elite was followed up with Frontier (written by Elite's original author David Braben), although not on the Spectrum. There was also the *original* ELITE Tuner, which was written by the same bloke who wrote the WHAM Music Box. I forget his name though. Elite Tuner had some superb 2-channel music - Waltz of the Blue Danube. (funnily enough!) SCORES RECEIVED It received a Sinclair User Classic award. GENERAL FACTS These are the number of kills needed to reach each particular status: 0-8 Harmless 9-16 Mostly harmless 17-32 Poor 33-64 Average 65-128 Above average 129-767 Competent 768-2815 Dangerous 2816-6655 Deadly 6656+ ELITE If you reached 65535 kills, your rating reverted to 0 - Harmless, which is a useless but interesting fact, 8-bit register fans. ELITE is possibly the most well-known computer game ever. When it made it's appearence on the Spectrum, it was thanks to Firebird Gold - the full-price range of their software, and programmed by a team called TORUS (who also coded the Amstrad version, hence why apart from added colour, the two look & play the same.) All the space trading tactics were faithfully translated from the BBC original, and there were new missions for the format - SuperNova, Cloaking Device & Thargoid Invasion, and many of the spacecraft made it to the 'humble' Spectrum. Many of the rumours also made it across - there was, alas, no space dredger in the ZX ELITE... ELITE was also one of the first games to be found not compatible with the brand new 128k Spectrum. A patched version was released almost immediatly, although it was rather sad that with all the extra memory, nothing new was added to the enhanced machine. Are the Save games compatible throughout all of the different versions? If you saved to tape in the 48k version, could I load it back into the 128 one? Yes. That may have been one of the reasons that the 128K version was essentially the same as the 48K - so all flags that needed to be set for missions could be preserved, etc. Another oddity for ELITE - it used the LensLok protection device. Lenslok was a plastic prism, which when viewed through, made a jumble on the screen turn into a password. LensLok never caught on, and was only used in a few games, including Tomahawk. It was notoriously difficult to use. ELITE is still a protected program - ie: It is not freely distributable in any type of snapshot image. When Elite was first released, it was part of a competition to see who the first person was to become elite. The winner was supposed to get some prize or other. This was to do with all the secret missions and what have you. In fact, this may even have been from the original Beeb release, but I think it was for the Spectrum. Anyway, the publishers got cold feet about it because it was alleged that people had hacked in and found it out the 'easy' way, so it was cancelled and anyone who entered was fobbed off with a badge or something. It caused quite a bit of controversy at the time as I recall. Does the Speccy version include any of the secret missions, such as destroying the secret ship, the rogue space-station, etc? Yes. The first mission, is 'Nova' and requires you (to manouvre down this trench... sorry - wrong game!) rescue the crew of a Space Station whose sun is about to explode. When you arrive in the system, the screen is red, not white, you get a 'Fuel Leak!' warning (A cunning way of making sure you don't chicken out, and witchspace outta there,) and you only have a short time to get to the space station. Your reward is 100g of gems, and to trigger the mission you need to be ranked competent or above, and have purchased a galactic hyperspace - When you activate your space drive, (presumably) the radiation from the Nova bumps you into the next Galaxy. Mission 2 involves a bunch of ships that flicker in and out of vision. They're quite easy to kill though. Eventually, you'll come up against a single ASP II, which when (finally) destroyed will release a single cargo canister, as opposed to the 2 alloys normally released as debris. Scoop this cargo, and you'll find yourself automagically cloak-capable. Pressing "Y" will activate the cloak - your screen goes blue, and all other ships float/drift, power-down, including Thargoids. The Cloak has a pretty hefty drain on the energy units though... Mission 3 you get to destroy a Space Station! The Space navy equips you with an ECM Jammer, which replaces your standard ECM unit, and off you go to have a bish at a Space Station over-run by Thargoids. You can make a fortune on this mission by blasting Thargoids, and scooping Tharglets. ZX Elite only has the one type of energy unit. The reason for the Military Energy unit was from BBC Elite, where a mission was to hunt a new type of ship - The Constrictor - which was equipped with the Military Energy unit, and was thusly impervious to anything less that Military lasers. Constrictor mission isn't present in ZX Elite, so no Military Energy unit. The following are approximate shapes drawn based on the cards supplied with the Archimedes version (Darren Salt): Adder Anaconda Asp Boa __________ /\ _______ /\ | ______ | //\\ / \ / \ | |______| | //\\ // \\ / \ | | //__\\ // \\ / /\ \ |__________| / / \ \ /_/_ _\_\ / /\ \ || || // \\ \ \ ----_____---- / / / / \ \ || /||\ || / / \ \ \ \ /|\ / / / / \ \ || \||/ || / / \ \ \\ / | \ // /________\ ||__________|| \_/______\_/ \\/____|____\// |________| Cobra Mk I Cobra Mk 3 Fer-de-Lance Gecko ______ __ /\ _____ /__== \ | \ / \ / \ | \ |\-_ \ / \ // \\ | \ | \ --_\ / \ // | | \\ | \ | \ --\ / / \ \ / / | | \ \ | _- | | \ _- \ / /| |\ \ / / /| |\ \ \ | _- ||| | \_- | / / | | \ \ / / /| |\ \ \ | -_||| | / -_ | / / | | \ \ / / /| |\ \ \ | -_| | / - / / /___| |___\ \ \_/___________\_/ | / | / _--/ /___ ___\ | / | /_-- / \ ---______--- / |___ / |/- / \ __-- --__ / \__==__/ |__/ \==__________==/ Krait Mamba Moray . . . /\ ________ | /|\ | //\\ / \ | / | \ | // \\ / / \ \ | / | \ | / /[]\ \ / / \ \ | / | \ | / / \ \ / / \ \ | / | \ | / / \ \ /___/____________\___\ |/ | \| / / \ \ ---____ ____--- --__ | __-- /___/______\___\ ---__--- --__|__-- - Orbit Shuttle Python . Sidewinder ____ /|\ _________ _==----==_ / | \ /\ /\ | /\ | / | \ / \ / \ | /\ | / | \ / \ / \ | / \ | / | \ / \ / \ | / \ | / | \ /________\/________\ | / \ | / _|_ \ | / \ | / __-- --__ \ Thargon | / \ | /_==___________==_\ ___ | / \ | \ / | | |/ \| \\ // | | |/________\| \ \ / / | |_| | \__\ /__/ | |_| | --\_/-- --___-- Thargoid Transpoter Viper (Police) ________ ___ /\ / \ / \ __--\ /--__ //\\ / \____/ \ ==_____V_____== // \\ /_ / \ _\ | | | / / \ \ | --/ \-- | | | /|\ | / / /\ \ \ | | | | | ==== | | / // \\ \ | | | | | ___ | . | / // \\ \ |__--\ /--__| | \|/ | /_\ | / / \ \ \ \ ____ / / | | | --/________\-- \ / \ / |_______|_______| \ /______\ / Worm _____ /|/_\|\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | --|_______|-- NOTES Thats about everything!