Another Elite thread

[nr.]

Not done anything with it yet, but it's compiled under Raspbian, and running natively, with no emulators involved. Hopefully get a chance to fiddle with it later.

Please note: I *can't* release the source. Firstly it's not mine, and secondly it was withdrawn from public domain at the request of David Braben.

Ta,

[Ravenous]

Ah I played a version of that on the PC, must have been 3-4 years ago. A really nice version as I remember.

(I believe Mr Braben had to ask for it to be withdrawn, because a third party did something silly with the source code. Not Pinder's fault, in other words.)

[nr.]

mmmm, now I've had a chance to fiddle with it, it's not all good news. Runs OK. Fast, nice flicker-free display, even get sound through HDMI no problem. Until I try to hyperspace to another system, at which point it segfaults as you re-enter. Trying to debug the core isn't giving me anything useful, probably down to the version of allegro that it's linked against. More tea required I think.

On the plus side, I can confirm that I can still manually dock at Lave after all these years. And when I force a misjump into witchspace I still get the carp kicked out of my by thargoids. Some things never change.

[nr.]

Well, the good news is that after a couple of hours fiddling, I have a perfectly playable version of Elite running on the Pi without any emulation of any kind. I've had to put a couple of nasty kludges into the code [1] but I'm happy with that. I'm not going to delve any deeper into things, as it works, and I can't distribute the code anywhere anyway.

Anyhow. It's safe to say that Elite can run on the pi with room to spare, and that my journey from Lave is just beginning again. Right on, commander.

[1] Purely 'cos I'm not a Real Programmer - the problems are, I think, down to some differences in data types between the pi and whatever platform it was compiled on originally. Possibly. Maybe. Actually I have no idea, but it's the best guess I've got now.

[thradtke]

Based on Pinder's reengineered code is 'Elite: Battle for Birera' (using TinySDGL). The source hasn't been hunted down so far, but in case it's considered illegal here I refrain from posting a link. I can be easily found, however.

[pygmy_giant]

As posted on another elite thread, why not drop Mr. Braben a line and ask if he would mind awfully if these ports were released to the massess - if I were him I would consider it good publicity for my ongoing project

[nr.]

To be fair, it's not my code! I think that any decision would need to be made between Christian Pinder and David Braben (and Ian Bell too, I guess). More to the point, I'd also guess that the three of them probably have other things to worry about than my porting of a 28yr old game in my shed

Cheers,

[thradtke]

Compiles out of the box, but it's less than 20 FPS. I need to convert it to GL ES

[SiriusHardware]

As posted on another elite thread, why not drop Mr. Braben a line and ask if he would mind awfully if these ports were released to the massess - if I were him I would consider it good publicity for my ongoing project

I took an interest in NewKind a few years ago and was disappointed to read that Mr Pinder had (apparently) been politely asked to desist from any further development of his Elite Clone, apparently by the originators of Elite. The main problem with Newkind was that it never had a chance to implement support for PC analogue joysticks - which meant that it was (for me) unflyable.

For Linux, there is another very faithful clone of filled-polygon Elite, namely 'Oolite'. It's actually in the Pi repository but I don't think it has been modified enough to make it actually run on the Pi, unless anyone can hopefully tell me otherwise.

[pygmy_giant]

bound to happen sooner or later I guess...

I've been watching the rate at which the pledges are coming into the kickstarter page and there was a sudden surge with a rapid dropping off - still, 35 days to go and nearly half way there - I anticipate a second wind once its 2/3 funded and the wary see a possibility of the target getting hit.

I'm hoping that once funded ( everything crossed ) there could be another wave of elite fever leading to porting activity onto the Pi.

Surprised it hasn't been done as a giveaway as part of the marketing strategy - missed a trick there.

Can't help but chuckle at the "erm yeah *ahem* were doing this anyway, no, what I mean is we need your money, *ahem* I mean support to make this happen - we cant do it without you - even though we're doing it anyway, which we won't unless you give us money, even though we are really" stance.

No need to be like that fellas - most of us would pre-order and pay twice as much anyhoo.

Looks like its going to be amazing doesn't it?

Pledged my £20 ages ago - wish I could afford to pledge more....

[nr.]

For Linux, there is another very faithful clone of filled-polygon Elite, namely 'Oolite'. It's actually in the Pi repository but I don't think it has been modified enough to make it actually run on the Pi, unless anyone can hopefully tell me otherwise.

OOlite is great, but won't work on the Pi currently as it depends on OpenGL. Also I suspect that the memory requirements would prevent it running on a 256M board anyway. As a game, it blows Elite out of the water, particularly with some of the graphics and gameplay extensions installed. Somewhere or other there was a quote from someone about one day computers being fast enough to allow Elite to look like the artwork on the box. Well, here's a quick snap from the current development version of oolite I took yesterday:



I reckon that's pretty close.

Highly recommended. Also runs on Windows and Mac OS X.

Ta,

[Ravenous]

Those exhaust trails look good, different to what I see on my Windows version of Oolite. Are you using an OXP or something for that?

[nr.]

Using the latest development trunk. They should be included in version 1.78 I think? Something like that anyway.

[pygmy_giant]

I had a crack at designing my own oolite ship on my windowa PC a couple of years ago and seem to remember being required to install and use python.

My ship looked like a clove of garlic with radial ribs running from the point at the front to the central exhaust port at the back.

I seem to remember that I ran into difficulty as I had too many polygons.

[texy]

I,m very surprised that no one has mentioned the X-Universe series of games.

http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screens ... 27_th1.jpg

Texy

[pygmy_giant]

what is it?

is it like elite?

their website does not seem to have an 'about' page - could it work on the pi?

[texy]

what is it?

is it like elite?

their website does not seem to have an 'about' page - could it work on the pi?

Think Elite, but with 10 years extra development
No - there's no way it'll work on the Pi. As it is , it needs a high end PC to run smoothly.
I was just pointing out that I,m surprised that it hasn't been mentioned as it is such a good game with advanced
graphics, gameplay, etc. It can also be modded.
You can pick up a copy of X2, or X3 quite cheaply on the net these days.
Texy

[pygmy_giant]

I'm a luddite when it comes to computer games.

In my view super-realisitic and super smooth graphics are not the key ingredient to a good game - they are the icing on the cake.

I think the Pi has plenty grunt for amazing games - but as yet no one has even skimmed the surface of its capabilities.

I fear this will always be the case as game developers will find it hard to monetise their endeavours due to their target audience having hacking tendencies.

Hey-ho.

[SiriusHardware]

I'm a luddite when it comes to computer games.

In my view super-realisitic and super smooth graphics are not the key ingredient to a good game - they are the icing on the cake.

I think the Pi has plenty grunt for amazing games - but as yet no one has even skimmed the surface of its capabilities.

I fear this will always be the case as game developers will find it hard to monetise their endeavours due to their target audience having hacking tendencies.

Hey-ho.

I suppose the best we can hope for is that a bunch of talented, enthusiastic people will get together and produce something wonderful simply for the love of it.

Elite, or the Elite format, has to be a strong contender for such a game: Consider other worthwhile possibilities, such as a multiplayer flight sim game: Ideally first world war, so that the weapons and avionics are primitive, and flying and marksmanship are key: Great in principle, but someone would have to design a lot of scenery - and if you were supposed to be flying over Abbeville or some such place then people would get upset if the scenery didn't accurately represent Abbeville, circa 1917.

The great thing about Elite style games is that there's no scenery, to speak of, in space, just planet surfaces with generic textures and a lot of empty space in between. The designers can focus on making the ship models nicely detailed and hone the flight model to perfection.

For all that, there is also scope for variation within that model. How about several linked players flying as the crew of one ship? A military bomber / destroyer? Pilot, several gunners, and a 'wizzo' (weapon delivery and electronic warfare specialist), with the places not filled by real players crewed by AI crewmembers?

[pygmy_giant]

My preference would be for a simple (perhaps weaponised) F-Zero / Wipeout racing clone.

Life's too short for totally immersive and absorbing game play.

I agree about AI - call me anti-social but I'm also not a fan of multi-player - who cares if you're blowing 7 shades aout of another human if you are never going to meet them anyway. Also I prefer not to feel guilt or humiliation. The great thing about beating a computer is that you can completely divorce yourself from empathy - and if you win you've re-inforced the status of humanity vs machines but if you loose there's no shame as the computer has an in-built advantage.

here's a jaw dropping demo of what the Pi can do from months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbG6sQskxoQ

from this thread:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... ne#p113733

[SiriusHardware]

My preference would be for a simple (perhaps weaponised) F-Zero / Wipeout racing clone.

Life's too short for totally immersive and absorbing game play.

I agree about AI - call me anti-social but I'm also not a fan of multi-player - who cares if you're blowing 7 shades aout of another human if you are never going to meet them anyway. Also I prefer not to feel guilt or humiliation. The great thing about beating a computer is that you can completely divorce yourself from empathy - and if you win you've re-inforced the status of humanity vs machines but if you loose there's no shame as the computer has an in-built advantage.

here's a jaw dropping demo of what the Pi can do from months ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbG6sQskxoQ

from this thread:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... ne#p113733

The only multiplayer I like is co-operative multiplayer, so in the example of the WWI sim above I would mainly be interested in flying WITH other players against AI squadrons and targets, although playing real player squadron against real player squadron would also be rather good.

Tell you what else I think would be great on the Pi - a 3D isometric action-RPG. The most obvious and best examples from other platforms would be Diablo, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath. All of those games are good as single-player, but amazingly good when played with two player or more co-op play. The strength of the Pi for this kind of thing is its size and cost. Back in the day, my mates and I used to hump entire high-end computer systems around to someone's house in order to play LAN playable games, and moving the hardware around like that was a real chore.

With the Pi, it's a lot more practical for a group of people to meet and have a LAN game party. Now all we need... is an absolutely fantastic LAN game for the Pi. And I still think that Elite, or something very like it, would be a great way to approach it. Am I right in thinking that Mr Braben has not actually ruled out the idea of a Pi version of Elite: Dangerous?

[pygmy_giant]

Thats my understanding also.

Could a Pi Lan party be wireless?

You'd still have to lug a screen - but a Pi is lighter than a tower.

[nr.]

Yup, it could be wireless. And a screen needn't be that much to lug around - http://www.adafruit.com/products/1033

[pygmy_giant]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146 ... d2ba3ed695

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146 ... -dangerous

[nr.]

mmm, this isn't quite such encouraging news for the development of Elite:Dangerous:

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/137538/frontier-layoffs

Frontier Developments has laid off 14 of the U.K.-based studios' 223 staff, reports Eurogamer, confirming the news with Frontier after a tweet suggesting this cast doubts upon their ongoing Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter and another critical of the timing of layoffs in the holiday season. "Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) notice that their roles are redundant, across art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines. This is due to the changing mix of skills requirements for our current and future projects - it is not a reflection on the company's prospects, which remain healthy," Eurogamer was told by Frontier managing director David Walsh. "Once we took the decision to make the roles redundant, we felt it was better that the affected people knew ASAP so they can plan any further expenditure over the Christmas period accordingly and focus on their search for new roles as soon as possible. We have provided redundancy arrangements in excess of the minimum. We are actively recruiting to shift the balance of skills we have within the company to enable us to deliver the set of projects currently in development."

Not sure how I feel about them taking money off the public with one hand while laying people off the week before Christmas with the other. Just feels a bit uncomfortable.