8-bit acorn software: classic games • Re: Elite over Econet (BBC Master, 6502SP, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron)

Is this enhanced version of Elite available to download as a standalone so you can play it without Econet?

Apologies for the slow reply - I've been on holiday in a country where Stardot is blocked, so I couldn't post until now.

The enhanced version of Electron Elite isn't available quite yet, but it is in active development, especially now that I'm back from the beach. Econet Electron Elite is a branch from the main project that I prioritised to get it ready for the LAN party, so Econet and Enhanced Electron Elite are part of the same family. It's now time to finish off the non-Econet version.

I'm hoping that Enhanced Electron Elite will bring pretty much all of the features of the BBC Micro disc version to the Electron, plus the odd feature from other versions. All features will be canon, i.e. backported from other 6502 releases. You'll need 16K of sideways RAM and either MMFS, DFS or ADFS.

The planned feature list is as follows:

• Significant speed increase compared to the standard version due to sideways RAM, fast logarithm-based maths and dedicated routines from the 6502SP and C64 versions (such as HLOIN)
• Full disc access menu for saving, loading and deleting commander files
• Extended text tokens to support all the new features
• Extra lasers (military, mining)
• Improved selling mechanism (sell all or part of your cargo)
• Extended system descriptions (edible poets!)
• System search in the Long-range Chart
• Planetary details (meridians/equators and craters)
• Suns, cabin temperatures and fuel scooping
• Variable star sizes in the Short-range Chart
• Proper docking computer sequence
• All 31 ships stations from the BBC Micro disc version
• Advanced enemy tactics (NEWB) and spawning logic
• Asteroid mining
• Thargoids and witchspace
• Both BBC Micro missions (Constrictor and Thargoid plans)
• Energy bomb lightning effect (from the Apple II, BBC Master and NES versions)
• A rotating Constrictor on the second title screen instead of a Mamba, to differentiate this version from the original
• Full Plus 3 ADFS support, as well as DFS and MMFS

The only BBC Micro disc features that aren't currently on the list are these ones:

• Joystick support. Unfortunately the Plus 1's analogue port really slows things down, so this isn't really an option, but I might try backporting the digital joystick support from the Master Compact version instead.
• The ship hangar that's shown on docking. I've left this out for now as I've run out of room, but I’ll see if I can find space.

I'm also going to look into adding music by Negative Charge (for those with two banks of SRAM) and I'll also try adding the Beeb's colour dashboard, though these might turn out to be a step too far, so no promises there.

I'll post more details when it's ready to download, which will hopefully be in the next couple of weeks or so. In the meantime I'm posting development updates to Bluesky and Mastodon, along with videos where possible.

Watch this space, in other words!

Mark

Statistics: Posted by MarkMoxon — Sat Jun 28, 2025 7:20 am

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