I've mentioned before a personal favourite ... HARDWAR. Look it up on some of the fan sites. It came out 4 or 5 years ago. It's the same ELITE based idea, except you are on one of Jupiter's moons (you know they've discovered water on several of them) and your planetoid has been cut off from contact with earth for centuries. You fly around on the moon, trying to solve a mystery (aliens obviously again), as you improve your ship, buy a base, and make money by trading, pirating, bounty hunting or salvaging -- with the eventual goal of getting off of the wretched place. (All sorts of factions and police that aren't all that honest.) There was supposed to be a sequel, but sadly enough it hasn't happened. HARDWAR isn't as grand in scope as FREELANCER, but there is a lot of the same feel to it.

Then there are the German games: X Beyond the Frontier and X-Tension. Much like FREELANCER, though they are slow paced and only for those who really like to put time into a game. You do a lot more trading than fighting. Great graphics though, and I think there's supposed to be a new one coming out soon.






Jose Chavez: "Trent! It's good to see my kind of scum."

Freespace 2 is the best! It got a better rating than FL. Its the cooolest game around.

Problem is Freespace 2 is not like Freelancer. While it's a great game, it's linear. You do mission after mission and cannot go off and do things on your own. Lots of fun to play though.




Jose Chavez: "Trent! It's good to see my kind of scum."

x- beyond the frontier was preaty cool, a lil old now, but there currently working on x- the threat, and soon x online, which will be a pay by monthly,, probably

problem with Freespace was the requirements now: if you get it know, the speed is to way to fast

That reminds me when playing Elite on a 386 five years ago ; now playing elite would be a nightmare because any slowmo computer ulity can't slow it down enough

i am glad i have freelancer now but it reminds me the days i had fun with elite and elite frontiers

If you look around, you may still be able to find the Win98 adaption of ELITE on line. Fun to play for nostalgia, but can't compare to the sound and graphics of today's games.






Jose Chavez: "Trent! It's good to see my kind of scum."

Try playing Tachyon: the Fringe

Tachyon

I read in an interview that TTF inspired elements of FL.
It's the BEST joystick space game I've ever played, you'll see what
Engine Kill (Slide) is REALLY all about!

"Got anything for me?" - Trent, A.K.A. 'Mr. Eloquent'

memories ...memories...memories

then the classic music when you start docking or left the planet dockingarea

iN ELITE the hardest way was docking. You needed to buy a docking computer even until you have flown several sorties from one planet to another you had to dock manual yourself and go "slam wham" in to the station orbiting the planet a couple of times.

In Elite there were no repecussions when you hit a freighter. You easily hunt it down , get the spoils or even the freighters attacked you then it was been called some pirate affliations.

If you wrongly shot a base and those police vipers were hunting you down?

In Elite frontiers it was easier because you could land on a planet self and you could pick up passengers and swap ships (=buy them)

But what i liked was the bonus award system: each ship got a bonus when shot down. if it was a bountyhunter or worse (criminal) , you were payed handfull of credits. Sometimes a sortee from one planet to another was done with an empty ship and when you arrived you were full loaded and payed full because the system was crowling with pirates
here there is only a suggestion that they payed you when you kill off ships when your path is been interupted by fighters or a base is been attacked and you help out a hand..

this reminds me of a conversation I had with puke when I first came to this site....

...there is a secret to getting around the elite docking problem that I revealed in a previous thread. Have a quick search for it if you're interested.

As for running elite on a new pc...I still dig out the PC version occasionally and it plays like a dream on a 2.6Ghz XP based machine...there are versions of it all over the net which have been slowed down for modern pc use.

I don't care if the graphics are dated, I still won't hear a word against it.

The sequel to X Beyond the Frontier is set to hit stores in Europe next month with a US release to follow afterwards.

X2 will be what you are looking for....if it's ever released.
maybe you like StarTrek, then go and BUY StarfleetCommand3 ; its not exactly like FL but there are aswell lot of ships with hundreds of upgrades. you can use one ship or even take command of a whole Fleet (guess that's what the name says, uh??)
I also know about a german onlineSpaceSim....dont remember the name yet.

Q: have you ever played Elite on a C-64... i remember it clearly.....i loved it and i hated because i could nowhere but that fuel....well that was in my younger days...

here is a article about x2

http://www.avault.com/previews/preview_ ... ?game=x2th

One of the things I ommited on the question was telling the store I wanted a modern version of elite. I do remember the C64 and BBC versions - loved them.

Your looking for Frontier and Frontier First Encounters, they're the Pc sequels to Elite, graphics are primitive but still they're interesting games, and you can go anywhere in the galaxy so long as you have enough fuel.