Novosibirsk ELITE
Nagy Daniel
Browsing the russian elite pages I run across what they call "Novosibirsk
Elite 3". It looks like a heavily modded version of the Speccy Elite
written in <gasp/> 1993. The designation 3 is due to the fact that the
author learned about FE2 being out when he was finishing his mod.
The thing seems to run on 128k speccies with a beta (TR-DOS) disc
interface which was popular in Russia at some point. The zip archive
contains an emulator, some documentation and a 640k disc image for the
above mentioned system. Unfortunately, I have no clue about beta, as I was
a proud owner of the Miles-Gordon disc interface (aka Disciple). However,
I'm very interested in bringing up this game on a Linux-based speccy
emulator. Any help would be very welcome. Why? Read on!
The game:
The game has many add-ons to the original Elite, greatly ameliorating the
gameplay. The only thing that has been removed is the goat-soup planet
description as it is irrelevant to the game anyway and loses its
entertaining value for non-fluent speakers of English (Novosibirsk Elite
is in English, nevertheless).
The first thing that has changed greatly is the universe: there are binary
systems (with 2 suns), multiple planets, asteroid belts (areas at a given
distance from planets or suns literally PACKED with asteroids).
The next thing is that (like in Arc-elite) the player is not the center of
the universe any more: the ships do interact with each-other, the police
does provide (some) protection against the pirates (which in turn are
fighting among each other occasionally). You see ships departing and
docking with the coriolis stations and EACH OTHER. Some ships carry
fighters. And the police sometimes uses pythons as viper-carriers.
Furthermore, other ships pick up minerals and containers too, moreover,
looting is a viable living-making strategy (used by other ships too: even
pirates do pick up the container ejected by their dying pack-mate on
regular basis).
Some tolerance has been introduced into the game, too: the first shot
at any non-adversary results in at most one retaliatory shot, but does not
imply the degradation of your legal status and does not earn you a deadly
enemy. Only the second one...
Some new elements have been introduced:
Mineral life. This thing looks like a regular mineral, but costs 1000cr
when sold. Mineral life is cultivated in some of the asteroid belts and is
sometimes protected by the police. Maneuvering asteroids that are NOT rock
hermits can be mined for mineral life. Trading in mineral life is not
illegal, but mining living asteroids is. Very rare.
Alien Computer. This rules. Looks like a regular container falling out of
a thargoid warship. You can sell it for assloads of money, but you can
also USE it! If you have such a toy, you can fire the thargons (alien
artifacts) you have picked up like missiles. They fight for you, firing at
the targeted object. Both missiles and targons can be deactivated by ECM
(it does not blow them up in this game) and picked up for subsequent
reuse. (yes, you can capture enemy missiles)
Thargoid warship with a cloaking device. A very nasty enemy!
Double spacestation. Two synchronously rotating coriolis stations with
openings pointing to opposite directions. At planets with such stations
the docking computer does not work; gotta dock manually!
The pirate activity does NOT depend on the government any more, its
intensity is randomly chosen from system to system: some anarchies are
perfectly safe, while some level 15 democracies are totally infested with
pirates. What does differ, however, is the intensity of police protection.
In an anarcy, there's no police, while in some dictatorships you get two
escorting vipers right away preventing you from using the jumpdrive, but
also providing decent protection.
Four new missions, the last of which is "SPACE WAR": this is a game within
the game. The thargoids start infesting the human space and taking over
planets. The player needs to kill enough thargoids to inspire the
inhabitants of the system to revolt against the targoids. Actually,
revolts break out (and succeed) at random, but the probability is visibly
influenced by the player.
After successfully completing one of the missions, you will be offered to
buy a mark 4 Cobra (without which fighting 8 attacking thargoids (two of
them with cloaking devices) is hopeless), featuring 80 tons of cargo
space, 8 energy units and a jumpdrive that is not mass-locked by smaller
ships.
All of the above information is second-hand, as I have never been able to
get the game to work. You can download the archive from:
http://www.elite-russia.net/downloads/Elit3Nov.zip
Enjoy!
--
Daniel
PS: It's amazing that the guy was able to pack all these features into an
eight-bit game.
Kevin Reilly
>http://www.elite-russia.net/downloads/Elit3Nov.zip
>
>Enjoy!
I've got to confess my paranoia was running rampant when I downloaded
this. There was no way I was going to execute any unknown DOS EXEs
regardless of what my AntiVirus program was telling me.
However the disk image itself runs beautifully on the latest version of
the RealSpec emulator using Pentagon mode and does exactly what Nagy
Daniel claims.
I haven't had chance to check out many of the features yet but some of
what I have seen e.g. ships leaving the station then actually
hyperspacing in a cloud of expanding rings is something to behold. I
grew up with Spectrum Elite and it was nothing like this.
There are a couple of saved games on the disk image and they have a lot
of the hardware mentioned in the description. It looks as though the
Cobra IV can launch smaller ships from its cargo bay. I'm not sure what
practical application this has but I accidentally launched a Sidewinder
at another craft and it behaved just like a big missile. Swish.
Even Spectrum Elite's one Achilles heel (speed) can be overcome by use
of the RealSpec emulator's x2 or x3 modes.
Thanks for the find, ND. I'm going to have some fun with this!
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"Ladies, assorted, 4 bags, some as new, £10 per bag."
Cornish Guardian
Frantic
> On Thu, 6 Jun 2002 Nagy Daniel wrote:
>
> >http://www.elite-russia.net/downloads/Elit3Nov.zip
> >
> >Enjoy!
>
> I've got to confess my paranoia was running rampant when I downloaded
> this. There was no way I was going to execute any unknown DOS EXEs
> regardless of what my AntiVirus program was telling me.
>
> However the disk image itself runs beautifully on the latest version of
> the RealSpec emulator using Pentagon mode and does exactly what Nagy
> Daniel claims.
Umm, this is really interesting. Where can I get the emulator, and
does it need ROM's? I'd like to check this out, and maybe stick it on
the GalNET site along with other versions. The gameplay sounds great,
are the graphics any good also? Also, is the source for this
available?
Frantic
Mark Smart - GalNET Deputy Chief Administrator
The Galactic Network of Explorers and Traders.
http://galnet.doosh.net
Kevin Reilly
>Umm, this is really interesting. Where can I get the emulator, and
>does it need ROM's?
You can download both the emulator and ROMs at
http://www.ramsoft.bbk.org/realspec.html
You also need the ELIT3NOV.TRD disk image from the archive mentioned in
Nagy Daniel's post.
Run the emulator, press F3 for configuration and choose Pentagon. When
the emulator resets select TR-DOS from the menu. Press F6 and use the
disk menu to browse to the TRD file. When back at the main emulation
screen press R (which gives the Sinclair keyword RUN) then RETURN.
> I'd like to check this out, and maybe stick it on
>the GalNET site along with other versions. The gameplay sounds great,
It certainly looks promising.
>are the graphics any good also?
Functional. This was an 8-bit machine we're talking about so it's mostly
monochrome wireframe stuff. Anyone who's only played FE2 and above will
find it laughable. Those used to BBC Elite will feel almost at home, a
few keyboard changes notwithstanding.
The RealSpec emulator can be sped up by hitting CTRL-F1 and cycling the
speed to x2. This makes all the difference to the playability of
Spectrum Elite which was always a tad sluggish. Although, it has to be
said, not nearly as bad as the C=64 ;)
> Also, is the source for this
>available?
Not in the archive I downloaded but if you know anyone who reads
Cyrillic there might be something at
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
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make sure to copy this entire email in your reply) with REMOVE as the
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Nagy Daniel
(e.g. .z80), which work with a broader set of emulators. For instance, I
have managed to run the game in the shareware version of xzx, which does
not support the disc interface (intentionally :-( ).
Having played with the thing a bit, I came to the conclusion that this is
one of the best mods of the classic elite. The fact, that other ships are
hyperspacing, looting, fighting each other, and forgiving stray shots,
makes the game much more immersive and credible.
I think, it's not an impossible job to modify TNK to behave like
Novosibirsk Elite.
--
Daniel
.waffle
my Russian is SOOOO bad :)
.waffle
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Frantic
>
> > Also, is the source for this
> >available?
>
> Not in the archive I downloaded but if you know anyone who reads
> Cyrillic there might be something at
Just load up altavista, and dumpt the url in the translate tool, it
produces a translation that is understandable.
Frantic
Still a shame about the graphics tho :( arcelite quality, or at least
solid graphics would be handy. Will look into getting this on the
Don't Panic site.
I like the idea of ecm deactivating missiles. Turn headon and hit ecm,
scoop missile, fire back at em :)
Kevin Reilly
>On some Russian archives, one can find the game in formats other than .trd
>(e.g. .z80), which work with a broader set of emulators.
That's interesting. I assumed with the disc image being significantly
larger than the Spectrum's 128K of RAM that the game used some sort of
overlay loading system to accommodate all the extra functions. If it can
be made to fit into a single Z80 snapshot it should make reverse
engineering easier.
>I think, it's not an impossible job to modify TNK to behave like
>Novosibirsk Elite.
That would be cool. Russian Elite is certainly the best 8-bit Elite I've
played; having a native 32bit version would be excellent.
Perhaps Christian intends working some of its features into Darkness
Falls?
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"I've got ten pairs of training shoes, one for every day of the week."
Samantha Fox
Nagy Daniel
On 8 Jun 2002, Frantic wrote:
> Nagy Daniel <nagy...@sziami.cs.bme.hu> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.44.020608...@sziami.cs.bme.hu>...
> >
> > I think, it's not an impossible job to modify TNK to behave like
> > Novosibirsk Elite.
>
> Still a shame about the graphics tho :( arcelite quality, or at least
> solid graphics would be handy. Will look into getting this on the
> Don't Panic site.
Well, I didn't mean to adopt the graphics which already taxes the poor
speecy to death (well, with my present knowledge I could do better than
that even on a speccy, but that's beside the point). All I meant was to
hack up the TNK game engine (without touching the rest of the game like
the graphics motor) the same way this guy modified the original one.
--
Daniel
Nagy Daniel
On Sat, 8 Jun 2002, Kevin Reilly wrote:
> On Sat, 8 Jun 2002 Nagy Daniel wrote:
>
> >On some Russian archives, one can find the game in formats other than .trd
> >(e.g. .z80), which work with a broader set of emulators.
>
> That's interesting. I assumed with the disc image being significantly
> larger than the Spectrum's 128K of RAM that the game used some sort of
> overlay loading system to accommodate all the extra functions. If it can
> be made to fit into a single Z80 snapshot it should make reverse
> engineering easier.
No, the game fits into the 128k memory of the Spectrum entirely. The
actual game fits into the original 48k, with the extra features written
into the buffer space of the original game, while the (significantly
enlarged) buffers have been moved to the additional memory. The character
set has also been sacrificed for code -- you see the one from the speccy's
ROM.
This way, the game is able to keep track of many more objects (which make
the game sooo much fun). Furthermore, there is a huge bit-buffer for the
final stage of the game (thargoid invasion) where the game keeps track of
the systems taken over by the thargoids. You might have noticed that
unlike the original elite, here all systems are human colonials (and the
entire goat-soup code and data have been replaced by other code).
Depending on the above mentioned bit-buffer, that can change. I haven't
figured out yet how it works, and I havent been able to contact the author
either. But I'm working on both (slowly -- other tasks have higher
priority :-( ).
> >I think, it's not an impossible job to modify TNK to behave like
> >Novosibirsk Elite.
>
> That would be cool. Russian Elite is certainly the best 8-bit Elite I've
> played; having a native 32bit version would be excellent.
>
> Perhaps Christian intends working some of its features into Darkness
> Falls?
That's what I was alluding to :-)
Right on, Commanders!
--
Daniel
PS: Let me know if you need the z80 image.
Kevin Reilly
>No, the game fits into the 128k memory of the Spectrum entirely. The
>actual game fits into the original 48k, with the extra features written
>into the buffer space of the original game, while the (significantly
>enlarged) buffers have been moved to the additional memory. The character
>set has also been sacrificed for code -- you see the one from the speccy's
>ROM.
I had a play around with it this afternoon and you're right: RealSpec
can save a Z80 snapshot and it will happily run on other emulators.
One caveat: if running on an emulator with no TR-DOS you have to be
careful not to hit Symbol Shift (Ctrl) while docked or the game will
lock up when it tries to access the non-existent disk interface.
>final stage of the game (thargoid invasion) where the game keeps track of
>the systems taken over by the thargoids.
One of the saved games on the disk image dumps the player right into the
middle of this invasion scenario. It's really impressive except for one
issue, Thargoids repeatedly trapping the player in witch space. It
happens far too regularly. Even if you fight them off you end up trapped
without enough fuel to reach any of the surrounding systems. Anyone who
does a 32bit version definitely needs to reduce the probability of witch
space hijacking (or code in a non-trappable hyperdrive option).
Overall though this hack is great fun. Pirate ships that hyperspace in
to the middle of battles and start taking out ships while launching
fighters is just what Elite should be like. And I love the way escape
pods hyperspace away just as you're trying to scoop them.
--
Kev
__________________________________________________________________________
"Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree."
School examination answer
Frantic
> One of the saved games on the disk image dumps the player right into the
> middle of this invasion scenario. It's really impressive except for one
> issue, Thargoids repeatedly trapping the player in witch space. It
> happens far too regularly. Even if you fight them off you end up trapped
> without enough fuel to reach any of the surrounding systems. Anyone who
> does a 32bit version definitely needs to reduce the probability of witch
> space hijacking (or code in a non-trappable hyperdrive option).
Nah, just change it so you always have enough fuel to get out again.