Elite: Difference between revisions

''Frontier: Elite II'' and ''Frontier: First Encounters'' are later PC sequels by David Braben alone (the original authors having had a serious falling-out), with textured 3D graphics. Sadly, while ''First Encounters'' has good Newtonian physics (it was even possible to place a ship into proper orbit), it was an [[Obvious Beta]]. Various indie developers have hacked and modified the code to make it playable on modern systems, even going so far as to port the graphics engine to [[Open GL]]. One ambitious project, FFE-D3D, aims to rewrite the entire game with greatly improved graphics.

 

 

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* [[Procedural Generation]]: Used to generate not only worlds, but names, descriptions, and even prices of commodities, among many other innovations, by using the Fibonacci sequence.

* [[Public Domain Soundtrack]]: The original game uses "On The Beautiful Blue Danube" as docking music, in homage to ''2001''. The sequel adds in some other classical themes, including "Ride of the Valkyries".

* [[Randomly Generated Levels]]

* [[Ramming Always Works]]: Only against small to medium ships, in exchange for dented shields.

* [[Shout-Out]]

* [[Sink the Life Boats]]: The game inadvertently ''encourages'' players to blow up ships' escape pods. You can't use your jump drive when the pod is within detection range, which means a long and tedious wait while you leave the area using thrusters. You can pick up the pod and sell the occupant as a slave, but that will leave you with a criminal record. So the convenient and consequence-free options are to shoot the pod or "accidentally" crash into it.

* [[Space Fighter]]: The player is cast in the role of a [[Space Fighter]] pilot.

* [[Unwinnable By Mistake]]: There's one star-system, Oresrati in Galaxy 8, which is over 7 light-years from any other; hence, it is only reachable by Galactic Hyperspace (or the "unlimited hyperspace range" hack). It's of insufficient tech level to sell you another Galactic Hyperspace. If you're not using the "unlimited hyperspace range" hack and don't have a recent saved position, then you're basically screwed.

* [[Urban Legend of Zelda]]: One of the all-time classics is the Mirage ship in ''Frontier: Elite II''. They wound up chucking it into a secrets guide (complete with made-up specifications) and added a Mirage II into ''Elite III: Frontier II: First Encounters''.

* [[Vaporware]]: ''Elite IV'' has been a classic poster child of this trope [[Development Hell|for years]].

* [[Vendor Trash]]: The basis of the merchant and pirate occupations.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]: The game lets you blow up friendly ships and even steal their cargo from the wreckage. However, such acts of piracy earn you a legal status of "Fugitive", which means that every police ship and bounty hunter in the game will attack you on sight. And attacking a [[Space Station]] is near suicidal, as you will quickly find yourself facing the planet's [[Bolivian Army Ending|entire fleet of police vessels]].

** You could also scoop up escape pods and sell the occupants as slaves.

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: The Ur-example

* [[Worthless Yellow Rocks]]: Some worlds have rather unusual notions of waste. One, Cemeiss, pays traders a small sum to remove gemstones and a rather larger one to remove precious metals from their worlds. Woe betide anyone who brings any such materials into the Cemeiss system... they're promptly fined for smuggling waste.