Oolite

[Project_Mayhem]

or AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO DOCK YOUR DAMN SPACESHIP INTO A DAMN SPACE STATION?

So I just downloaded this freeware remake of Elite. I never caught the original, and heard that it was an absolute classic.

This is fun but hard. I can handle basic space navigation right now, although I haven't had a dogfight yet. I can dock about 50% of the time. Which of course means I die swiftly. Still, I've managed to make 80 credits profit by trading before dying so far. Plus a few creds by shooting asteroids.

Ironically the first time I tried to dock, I managed it. I put on the blue danube and thought to my self that the hype about docking was overrated. Hah hah.

[Pie Guy]

Link, please.

[Ranielle]

Docking is easy, it's all in the wrist.

[Project_Mayhem]

Ah yes, link here (http://www.oolite.org/). For those who have an aversion to clicking the first link on google :smallamused:

And I'm not using a joystick. I'm using the fiddly keyboard controls.

[factotum]

Which is the way it should be done, of course! The fun of matching a station's rotation using just the < and > keys on the original Elite was...not that much fun, actually. Mind you, on the Spectrum version of the game you could dock by just aiming at the dead centre of the docking slot and flying in at full speed--regardless of your orientation to the slot you'd get in just fine!

[Project_Mayhem]

Heh. That doesn't seem to work on Oolite.

On the plus side I won my first fight. It was against a stationary canister that looked at me funny

pewpewpew

[kyoryu]

or AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO DOCK YOUR DAMN SPACESHIP INTO A DAMN SPACE STATION?


Sounds like a pretty accurate remake, then.

I spent all of spring break when I was 14 playing Elite on a C64. The first thing you always bought was a docking computer.

[Project_Mayhem]

The problem is I can never save up the money to buy one

[factotum]

Why not? What are you spending it on?

[Project_Mayhem]

Well my game normally goes something like - buy trade goods. Fly to another planet. Just barely dock. Sell trade goods. Have approximately 180 creds. But more goods. Fly home. EXPLODE

[Manga Shoggoth]

Well my game normally goes something like - buy trade goods. Fly to another planet. Just barely dock. Sell trade goods. Have approximately 180 creds. But more goods. Fly home. EXPLODE

"Save early, Save often."

Seriously, save after every successful dock if necessary.

By the way, a simple way to avoid the fights (the non-space-station version of explode) is to fly into deep space at 90 degrees to the line of the planet and jump point, then head in to the planet. Most of the ships cluster on that line.

Actually, I went out and brought a PC Gamepad specifically for for playing oolite. Makes docking much easier!

Mind you, I only ever played the original with a joystick (BBC micro and C64 versions - analogue and "digital" joysticks respectively).

[Project_Mayhem]

*Facepalm*

I assumed you couldn't save and reload after you died for some reason. This just got easier

[Inhuman Bot]

I very briefly played Elite before, and heard about Oolite awhile ago, but what differences are there between the two?

[Project_Mayhem]

I'm not too sure ... Oolite is supposed to be a pretty faithful remake though. There's a lot of user created content, which is cool