Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:14 pm
Frontier Elite and Frontier First Encounters are both Freeware now, it's listed as shareware, however Frontier Developments acknowledges it's freeware status in the Elite Fan community.
Basically, if you want to send in the 5 pounds, you can, but you are not required to (there is a ptach)
Otherwise it's a 30 day free trial.
It offers the best "Newtonian" physics in any game to date. Getting from point a to point b isn't just point and accelerate, if you do not allow yourself enough time/distance to slow down you will skip right through a planet/star/moon's gravity well and be shot out the other end, only to find yourself having to burn twice as much fuel getting back.
There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of systems you can fly to, and I would say about 1000+ systems that are inhabited (multiple bases with multiple moons, suns, and planets.
There are even Quintuplet systems (5 suns) there are even more, but forget the term..
If you go to the SOL system, it has all of our planets and all of their moons, even the large asteroid body between mars and jupiter.
you can even sit on Earth's surface (hard land outside a town) and watch the sun rise and set realistically (you can advance time using special controls *star dreamer). At the right angles you can even see distant planets that show up like stars.
The only things that Braben wrote into the game's physics that bend the truth a bit is hyperspace travel, it still takes a week to get to a system 1 light year away with a class 1 drive. Just like in reality it would be impossible to play this game in real time (taking months to get from one part of the galaxy to the other) so it has a fast forward/cryo type device that lets you speed up time as needed.
But when you come out of hyperspace you are often times many AU's from the systems inner planets.
1 AU = 149,597,870.691 kilometers Definition: An Astronomical
Unit is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.
I could go on for hours how realistic the game is (for it's time, written in the 90's published in 97 if I'm not mistaken) The first Elite was published in the 80s,. and as I wrote in another thread, was the start of the space trading, open ended gameplay you see in games like Freelancer and Privateer. Same basic principal, do what you want, climb in rank. It does get boring quickly though, and scripted missions didn't make a true appearence until FFE, and even then they weren't obligatory. (you had to take most of them on if you wanted to get the Ultimate ship in the game from some Aliens)
You can find everything you need here.
http://www.ironfrost.net/downloads.html
However further help on getting such an old game to work on modern day computers can be found around the net. just do a google search for
"FFE on XP"
...that's if your interested...
One word of warning though, try to find an online manual, as it can all be VERY overwhelming, even the gravity on certain planets can cause you to crash if you use the autopilot to land. And yes, it is entirely possible to play the game manually, but you will end up giving up in frustration.
The hardest part of the game is the combat, mainly due to the Newtonian physics engine. FL is a walk in the park in comparison.
Basically, if you want to send in the 5 pounds, you can, but you are not required to (there is a ptach)
Otherwise it's a 30 day free trial.
It offers the best "Newtonian" physics in any game to date. Getting from point a to point b isn't just point and accelerate, if you do not allow yourself enough time/distance to slow down you will skip right through a planet/star/moon's gravity well and be shot out the other end, only to find yourself having to burn twice as much fuel getting back.
There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of systems you can fly to, and I would say about 1000+ systems that are inhabited (multiple bases with multiple moons, suns, and planets.
There are even Quintuplet systems (5 suns) there are even more, but forget the term..
If you go to the SOL system, it has all of our planets and all of their moons, even the large asteroid body between mars and jupiter.
you can even sit on Earth's surface (hard land outside a town) and watch the sun rise and set realistically (you can advance time using special controls *star dreamer). At the right angles you can even see distant planets that show up like stars.
The only things that Braben wrote into the game's physics that bend the truth a bit is hyperspace travel, it still takes a week to get to a system 1 light year away with a class 1 drive. Just like in reality it would be impossible to play this game in real time (taking months to get from one part of the galaxy to the other) so it has a fast forward/cryo type device that lets you speed up time as needed.
But when you come out of hyperspace you are often times many AU's from the systems inner planets.
1 AU = 149,597,870.691 kilometers Definition: An Astronomical
Unit is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.
I could go on for hours how realistic the game is (for it's time, written in the 90's published in 97 if I'm not mistaken) The first Elite was published in the 80s,. and as I wrote in another thread, was the start of the space trading, open ended gameplay you see in games like Freelancer and Privateer. Same basic principal, do what you want, climb in rank. It does get boring quickly though, and scripted missions didn't make a true appearence until FFE, and even then they weren't obligatory. (you had to take most of them on if you wanted to get the Ultimate ship in the game from some Aliens)
You can find everything you need here.
http://www.ironfrost.net/downloads.html
However further help on getting such an old game to work on modern day computers can be found around the net. just do a google search for
"FFE on XP"
...that's if your interested...
One word of warning though, try to find an online manual, as it can all be VERY overwhelming, even the gravity on certain planets can cause you to crash if you use the autopilot to land. And yes, it is entirely possible to play the game manually, but you will end up giving up in frustration.
The hardest part of the game is the combat, mainly due to the Newtonian physics engine. FL is a walk in the park in comparison.