The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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ELITE PLUS CODES & DOCS ═══════════════════════ Brought to you by Baldrick ═ViP═ Victoria Independent Piracy Call these ViP Boards: The Iceberg II - (604) 712-4835 - SysOp: Shadow... Digital Underground - (604) 370-2035 - SysOp: Ninji dAmAgE, iNc. - (604) 598-3489 - SysOp: Prince Kheldar Einstein's Emporium - (604) 655-7076 - SysOp: Einstein COPY PROTECTION: ════════════════ PAGE: Paragraph: Line: Word: Code: i2 6 2 1 MONITOR i3 7 2 3 CUTTING i6 4 3 5 FEEL i7 1 3 2 WAS i7 5 7 4 EYE i9 2 2 1 REFORM i10 1 2 5 CAPSULE i10 1 7 2 ARRIVAL i10 1 4 5 BETTER i10 1 5 1 LOOK i11 1 5 7 HALL i11 4 2 3 FULCRUM i11 3 1 2 ROSE i13 3 6 5 MAXIMISE i13 2 1 4 LACY i13 1 3 1 DOCTRINE i14 3 5 5 WHEN i14 3 3 1 CASCADED i14 1 3 6 AUTOMATIC i15 1 4 3 ASSESS i16 1 3 3 SUPERSTRUCTURE i17 1 5 3 VEERED i17 5 3 1 JUSTICE i17 1 4 3 CRACK i19 2 6 5 IN i21 5 5 1 SPACERS i26 6 3 2 SPLIT i28 4 4 3 GOLD i30 4 2 6 RIF i33 2 7 4 MESSAGE i34 4 1 5 WAR i35 2 4 5 TIME i36 4 5 3 NAVY i38 3 3 4 LAUNCH i39 2 4 1 BOTANICAL i47 1 5 5 MOTIONLESS i50 4 3 7 CLARET i53 2 1 6 DISBELIEF BACKGROUND SCENARIO INFO. ═════════════════════════ This game is entirely what you want it to be. The eventual goal is to rise through the ranks of space combat to "Elite" status. (Your combat status is based solely on the number of kills). However, along the way, you can trade and explore in the 8 galaxies and thousands of unique planets, acquiring weapons, credits, friends and enemies. Your space ship is a Cobra Mk III combat and trading craft. It's pretty much mid-range as far as available ships go, but in the hands of a good pilot it can match anything in space. Some background on trading: Each planet has many details (I'll tell you how to examine them later) which determine its demands and prices on various items of commerce throughout the galaxy. You cannot discover the price an item is going for on a planet until you have hyperspace jumped to that planet, so every trade is a risk until you find a good route or until you can read the planet data and interpret it well. When you hyperspace jump to a new planet, you must begin a regulation distance away from it and proceed towards it. At maximum velocity, and with no nearby masses to disturb you, you can speed this up using a jump drive, however should another ship or a meteor come too close you will have to fly at normal speed. You are also vulnerable to attack from pirates or bounty hunters, or even,if you really screw up, the federation police. The only time you are safe from attack is when you are in a starbase zone. Near each planet orbits a Corrolis starbase. Around it is an enforced protection zone, which when entered, gives you protection from attack by the police force. Who you attack and what you do with your life is entirely up to you... CONFIG ══════ When you start the game, after you have entered the correct code, you will se a screen on which all the ships in the game will be displayed and rotate. You may wish to reference to the later part of this file which describes the ships to find out what things look like (you don't want to accidently attack a police ship!) The screen is composed of a main viewing area, twelve spaces for icons which correspond with the twelve function keys or the keys 1-= on the top row of the keyboard. First off, you should select joystick control (you do have a joystick, don't you???!) By hitting 2 or F2. Centre the joystick and press spacebar to calibrate it, like it says.. Now enter keys for accelerate and decelerate. I strongly reccoment A and Z, as you can then accelerte/decelerate with your left hand while in a dogfight, using the joystick with your right. This is very useful (qv. COMBAT). The icons visible, from left to right are: 1-Keyboard control 2-Joystick control 3-Mouse control 8-load commander 9-sound on/off 12-exit to DOS. You will notice that some squares are dark; this simply means that the functions they represent are unavailable at this time. If you had a saved commander, you would hit F8 at this time to load him/her. The way the savegame works is simple; you are identified by the commandedr name imprinted on your spaceship, which defaults to Jameson. When you save your game under a different name, that will change your name to whatever you save. (Saving can be accomplished by F7 at a space station). Hitting spacebar now will begin a new game, so do it. THE STATION ═══════════ The status screen will appear, along with different icons. Your name (currently Jameson) will appear on the top of the display. The folowing data is given: System: LAVE (Lave is the solar system you are in) Hypersystem: LAVE (Lave is the solar system locked into the hyperspace computer) Fuel: 7.0 Light Years (Hyperspace fuel remaining, 7.0 is the max.) Cash: 100.0 Credits (You available cash fund) Condition: Docked (Green for in space and OK, yellow for enemyn near, and red for under attack). Legal Status: Clean (This can become Offender or Fugitive) Rating: Harmless (Your combat rating, hopefully to someday rise to Elite) Below are views of the top and bottom of the front of your ship. This shows you what you have installed. At present you will see three missiles and a front pulse laser. Different parts can be added to this, as well as fuel purchased, by choosing icon 6 ('6' or 'F6'), Equip ship. Because LAVE is not a very high tech world, not all of the add-ons are available for buying, and they will be cheaper at planets with higher tech levels. However, if you do wish to buy or sell anything, use the arrow keys to move the highlight over the item and hit icon 9 for buy and icon 10 for sell. When you replace a laser system with another, the sale price of the first is refunded you. Here is a list of what you can buy: ITEM TECH LEVEL PRICE/CR Fuel Always Varies Missile Always 30 Cargo Bay Extension Always 400 ECM System 2 600 Pulse Laser 3 400 Beam Laser 4 1000 Fuel Scoops 5 525 Scoops up cargo, fuel from sun. Escape Capsule 6 1000 Energy Bomb 7 900 Kills EVERTHING! Extra Energy Unit 8 1500 Recharges energy quick Docking Computers 9 1500 Docks automatically Galactic Hyperdrive 10 5000 Get to the next galaxy Mining Lasers 10 800 Shoot asteroids, mine them. Military Lasers 10 6000 Now let's look at what the rest of the icons do.... Icon 1 is always available in the game and will either take you out of the starbase into space (like right now, when you are docked), or if you are outside and in range it will activate the docking computers (if you have installed them) or else it will charge you 50 credits and automatically dock you. (If you hit it by accident, don't abort it as you've already payed, so what the hell). Icon 2 tells you of the planet price list and when you are docked, it allows you to buy and sell with icons 9 and 10. The items you see on the screen are standard through the known universe. The prices you see at Lave are pretty average.. Food and textiles to Zaonce are a way to make some initial money. Each planet has a buy and sell price which must be taken into account. The only way to be sure of getting good trade is to WRITE THEM ALL DOWN, as they are fixed for a planet. Since I was having a messy time of this, I created a sheet which holds four planet entries in WordPerfect 5.1. I've included this file, PRICES.WP, in the archive of course (ain't I great?!). Icon 3 gives you the status screen you saw when you first started. Icon 4 gives you the space chart; in the station is a good time to figure out where you will go. Hitting icon 4 twice will bring up the galactic chart, showing all the stars in the current galaxy. However, for practical purposes, we'll only deal with the first short range chart here, you can mess with the other one later. You will see a large red circle and a bunch of planet names right off. The red circle represents how far you can travel with your current fuel; which right now is the maximum distance, 7.0 light years. Using the joystick, move the green crosshair over to/near a planet and choose icon 8 to select it; this tells you the distance to the planet and makes it your hypersystem. Now hit icon 11 and you will receive a detailed report of the planet. You will learn, with a lot of time, how to read this to get a good idea of what will sell for what. Here are the tips the manual suggets: "Advice to traders: "The Cobra trade ship can be fitted with four lasers, four missiles energy bomb. This should be sufficient to make trade possible within the system space of even heavily pirated worlds. But it is strongly recommended that pilots achieve a combat rating of at least 'Deadly' before anyworlds designated 'Anarchy' or 'Fuedal' are approached, especially if the cargo is high tech machinery or luxury goods. "To make money as a trader is no easy task. Unless you have backing capital, you would be well advised to start with foodstuffs, textiles, minerals and luxuries. Demand for goods varies widely and prices within planets fluctuate <but I've never seen this??? -Ed.>, but GalCop regulations prohibit planets from advertising their market prices beyond their own System space. Any trader, therefore, approaches all transactions with a certain financial risk. "Trade depends upon demand, and selling prices depend upon the level of demand on the planet and its available money. None of these favours can be assessed before docking. "Agricultural planets invariably have excess produce at reasonable purchase prices and such food sells well at industrialised, middle-tech worlds, which are usual able to refine them, and the refined product can fetch excellent prices at worlds of very high tech status. "The rules are complex, and anarchy and piracy has its effect on causing the rules to change. In trading with a planet, consider its economic profile. "Agricultural worlds need specialist food and raw materials, but mostly basic machinery and spare parts. If they are rich they need luxuries and high tech industrial machines. They produce food in quantity, raw materials and specialized 'organic' items, like some textiles. "Industrial worlds need agricultural produce (for refining); resource exploitaion machinery; (if rich) high tech goods. They produce basic items of need for civilized worlds: beds, seals and gaskets, power storage units, basic weaons, mass produced fertilizer, mass produced medicines, etc. "Think about a planet's needs. "Think what might make the society function. "Don't trade expensive trivia to a hungry world. "IF THE PROFIT ISN'T WORTH IT, TRADE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE. SPACE FLIGHT ════════════ Pressing F1 will take you out of the space staion and into space. It's time I mentioned a few other things. Press ESC. Up comes the pause menu. Hitting space returns to the game. You'll notice some of the icons you saw at the beginning, the Exit to DOS icon and the three control icons. As well, there are new icons at 4,5,6 and 7. Icon 4 turns off the auto-centering of the controls. Leave it alone. Icon 5 is damping to make flying easier for beginners, leave it for now, but later on you may wish to deactivate it (you must do so every time you load). Icon 6 switches the up and down directions, and Icon 7 reverses both dive/climb and roll controls. Icon 11 abandons the current game. Take a moment to study the cockpit. The crosshairs in the middle of the screen are where your lasers will fire and always point ahead. The bottom half of the screen is dominated by the radar. This is tricky to learn, but fantastic once you've got it. Here's how it works: Think of the ellipse of the radar as a flat plane, on the ground. This is simply a normal radar, with your ship in the middle of the circle. The top of the circle is in front of you, the bottom behind, right and left etc. The V formed by the two lines in front and your ship represents what you can see out of your viewport. Now,here's the really cricket part: It's a 3D radar. Not only are objects in front/behind/to the side, but they are up or down relative to your position. Say, for instance, a ship was in front of you but also far above you. You would see a blip about an inch above the radar, connected to it by a stick,sort of like a low mucical note. Where the bottom of the stick touches the radar is where it is relative to the radar's fixed 2D plane. The stick shows whether the object in question is above or below. An object to the left and a bit below you would be on the left side of the circle, with a stick rising from the blip to where it is on the 2D plane. If you were to roll, the stick would vary in height, as the plane of the radar would spin through space.... Wierd, huh? You can visualise it easily if you haven't yet. Run to your cupboard and grab a plate. This is the radar you see. Now imagine yourself in the middle and then put your finger anywhere in 3D space around the plate. In your head, connect a line from your finger to the plate, perpendicular to it. This is the stick, your finger is the object. Pretty simple, huh? But now, barrel roll the plate (how you turn in Elite). You will soon see that the stick will not remain constant, at some point the plate and your finger are on the same plane and there would be no stick whatsoever; you are touching the plate... Oh well, play with it till you get the hang of it... Here are the colours of the blips and what they mean: Space Stations White All Space Ships Yellow Space Debris (Asteroids, Dark Blue boulders, splinter plates Cargo or escape pods Light Blue Missiles Grey Thargons or Thargoids Magenta On to the other cockpit displays: On the left is a group of bar graphs, showing forward/reverse shield remaining, hyperspace fuel, cabin temp. (goes up near the sun), laser temp (when they overheat they shut down), Altitude above planet. On the right are bar graphs for speed and the four energy banks. In Elite, when your shields are depleted, your ship's energy banks will go down as you are attacked to cover for the lost shielding. When they run out, you will be destroyed. Between these two displays are roll and dive/climb indicators. These lines simply move as you do one or both of the above actions. To the right of these are some important displays. The blue box tells you when you are in a starport protection zone (a yellow S appears). Above this is the number of missiles remaining and the missile status (a flashing crosshair indicates an armed missile, and a solid crosshair a missile locked on target and ready to fire). In the top right of these displays is the compass. This directs you to the space station of a planet. When the dot is large and in the centre you are heading for the station; when it is small and in the centre the sation is directly behind you. Now practice flying. To turn you must first roll to the new direction and then pull up or down; it takes a while to get used to the control. Here are the control icons: 1 - Dock at starbase/activate docking computers 2 - Current system's trade report/market prices 3 - Your status 4 - Short range hyperspace chart In space, hitting icon 6 from here activates the hyperspace drive and takes you to the selected hypersystem. If you have a galactic hyperdrive, you can activate it with icon 7 to go to the next galaxy. 5 - Toggle view (front/rear/left/right) 6 - Activate ECM anti-missile system (if equipped). 7 - Activate missile targeting/untarget missile when it is locked 8 - Fire missile (when it is locked) 9 - Launch energy bomb (when you're really in a fix) 11- Jump drive (for fast intrastellar travel) Easy, huh? <grin> Well, bear with me, we're nearly finished, and this game, more than any other, is worth the time. Choose a hypersystem with icon 4 and then hit icon 6 to get there. Once you arrive at the sytem, line up the compass, increase velocity to full, and choose icon 11. You will activate the sub-space jump drive. To stop it hit icon 11 again (if you for instance see cargo you want to grab with fuel scoops). When another object (ship/asteroid) appears near you you cannot jump and you will receive the message "Jump Drive is Mass-Locked". If you are not at full speed, you will be told "Jump Drive is Velocity-Locked". Too close to a planet, you will lock the drive, so the last few minutes of approach to a starbase are done entirely at normal sublight speed. When you are in the space station zone you are ready to try a landing. (note that you may be attacked during this period - fight back, and use missiles if necessary to get rid of the attackers... I will cover combat and piracy etc. later). When you see the starbase, point to the middle and then figure out where the planet is; the entrance always points to the planet. Pull up near the starbase and aim for the planet, then kill velocity, turn around, and SLOWLY aproach. If you screw up, try again or you will die very easily. (Try this at Lave if you screw up here, so you can just turn around after launch and re-enter). When you are close, rotate so that the entrance is horizontal (2001 flashback??) and you will dock. Mining - With mining lasers you can destroy an asteroid and collect the smaller pieces of minerals with your fuel scoops. COMBAT ══════ The number of fights you get in depends on the type of planet at which you trade; the best planets are dangerous. The first thing to do when a ship appears on your radar is activate a missile with icon 7, kill your velocity and turn to face it. Lock the crosshairs over it and it will be identified, by shiptype and then its intentions. [Wolf] is a pirate, attack immediately. [Hunter] is a bounty hunter; when you screw up they will attack you and collect bounty (or just attack if your legal status is not clean). [Trader] ships will not attack you, but if you have fuel scoops, they are easy pickings for free cargo. Here are my own combat rules: The slower you go, the tighter your turning radius. When you first approach a ship head-on, kill all velocity and fire (if you wish to attack). This way, if they launch missiles you can immediately shoot them before they can hit you. (If you're good you can pick missiles off anyway). Killing ALL velocity keeps the time that you can pick off their missiles longer, but also allows them more shots at you; you must make the decision of when to speed up. Furthermore, when a ship turns off your screen, cut all speed and turn hard and you will be right behind it as your turn radius is much tighter with no velocity. Don't use missiles unless you must and when you get a lock fire like hell. When a ship is destoryed, cargo and/or an escape pod may appear. Escape pods are small and triangular and light blue dots on your radar. Just be heartless and kill the damn things. Now, if you have fuel scoops you can pick up fuel of the sun (by sun-skimming, go real close and then orbit), but the best use is to get free cargo. Destroying a big trader gives you up to 5 tonnes of free stuff. Just fly up to it and fly over it so that the pod is in the lower left half of your screen and you will get it. Cool, eh? When you destroy a ship, you get the bounty that was oustanding on the ship, which is displayed briefly on your screen.. all pirates are worth bounty. That's all there really is to combat, except knowing what you're up against: SHIP TYPES: GEN. OVERVIEW: Adder Usually a hunter, lots of missiles. Anaconda The largest freighter; great piracy target ASP MK II Bloody annoying, usually hunter or wolf BOA class cruiser Good cargo, but good weapons too. Be careful. Cobra MK I Older version of your spacecraft, traders usually, but only one ton of cargo, so almost not worth effort. Cobra MK III Your craft! Traders or pirates. Fer-De-Lance Usually pirates, good weapons. Gecko Pirates, hunters. Krait A real pain in the ass. Avoid if possible. Mamba Good fighter, wolf/hunter Moray Starboat For aquatic lifeforms, usually a trader Orbit shuttles no cargo, just leave them alone Python Like the BOA, but less cargo space. Sidewinder Nasty little combat fighter Transporter Again, leave it alone. Nothing of value. Thragoid Invasion Ship Attacks you in hyperspace, and usually kills you very quickly; the Thargoids are man's enemies. Viper **Police ship** Do NOT attack (white with yellow stripe) Worm Landing craft, but has weapons, often a hunter. Well, I do believe that's all you need to know <grin>. It took me bloody ages so I hope you read it all (I didn't even filch off the manual, except for that one bit,it's all an original tutorial. Have fun. For questions/comments/large monetary donations, etc., you can contact me on any ViP board. -=Baldrick=- -=07/15/91=-