Frontier - First Encounters(Elite3)

[child of Thor]

And this little story was one of the times i survived a serious battle. I've lost count of how many times i've had to reload after the RIP tombstone in this game!!!!

They've seriously upped the combat capabilities of the AI it seems? This game is a real challange and with all the patch stuff etc - its the best Elite fun i've had

Snotty - you should go blow of the dust and see if your computer can still run it(if not the JJFEE thing should help out), its a mans game

[Barinthus]

hey there, child of Thor. Could you provide with a link for downloading JJFEE? I tried DOSbox with no luck and only link I could find on JJFEE was one for Linux. I have XP.

[Barinthus]

Ah never mind reds4ever had the link. I will just figure out the rest tomorrow.

[Snotty]

Well Ive Dled the shareware version, Im sure my floppys would be corrupt, and I didnt bother to replace my floppy drive after it broke (why bother these days when Ive got usb memory sticks and the like)

the controls start to come back quickly enough im airborne, and things seem to run ok. Ive got this idea to go mining off in the distant reachs of space, something Ive never really done before.

Ive not got my speakers set up here, a must if Im going to enjoy this game! Any idea how to make it run in full screen in windows?

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Barinthus
Ah never mind reds4ever had the link. I will just figure out the rest tomorrow.

It's totally plug'n'play and idiot proof. Even I got it working

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Snotty

Ive not got my speakers set up here, a must if Im going to enjoy this game! Any idea how to make it run in full screen in windows?

the only way i found is to set your display to 640x480, not a very elegant solution i know.....

[Snotty]

Bizarrely enough, I dont ever remember finishing that Wicca run quest before, although I managed it first time round now. I seem to remember not even being able to land at the first space port because it was too full I was playing unpatched version though.

Well, by the end of february 01 Ive made my fortune Im in a cobra mk3, and Im off to wander the universe. To be fair Ive only got here thanks to cheesy saving and reloading on that medicine run, stripping my ship down to only the essentials (the auto-pilot and hyperspace drive! )

I cant run on 640x480, my graphics card wont go that low! dropping it to 800xetc gives me enough of a screen to be satisfying though

[Snotty]

Bugger me, this game is shockingly hard! Ive stuffed my hull full of fuel and fled for the Sol system (sector 0,0) If theres anywhere I can be safe from packs of pirates, its there. Im sure I remember being mugged by packs of pirates before, but Im getting hammered this time. Groups of 4X 1mw beam. or 3X 4mw beam! Ive got a 4mw beam strapped on myself, and it tears apart any ship I get in my sights. Still, the pirate packs can rip through my 3x shields before I have taken them all out. Of course then you see the fateful message that your auto pilot has been damaged.......

[child of Thor]

Cool its not just me then!
I'm finding 10 shields plus a booster unit in anything bigger than a Cobra mkIII a must have. You can take a few laser shots plus a missile or two while you take evasive action and run away abit.

As for the getting it all setup - just have a good read of the link reds4ever put up.

Im running it(JJFFE+shareware version) on my trusty P166 in a windowed enviroment.
My desktop is set at 1024x768 and when i launch the program i get it in window on my desktop.
Then i press Ctrl+F12 which makes it run in full screen - it seems to set itself up in 640x400 by itself(i editied something to make it 640x480).
In windows you should have no problems with sound either.
My Awe32 midi mode makes a huge difference to the standard midi software synth it defaulted to, so i changed it(not sure about most modern cards though?) Still those blips+beeps are fun sounds too

I'm sending of my £5 tomorrow, as i've never owned FFE before - and i must say thats its a bargin

It doesn't give much info in the license.txt to say how they want it though? Still i figure as its to do with Elite i might get away with £5 worth of Live Animals, i got quite a few squirrels where i live .......well ok its a postal order really - the squirrels are too cute looking.

[Barinthus]

Well you'd be surprised at how stupid I can be

[Barinthus]

Ah told you. I couldn't figure how to fly the damn ship.

I will try searching on the Internet on game controls

[Barinthus]

http://www.lotf.co.uk/

[Barinthus]

More I play this game it reminds me of a shareware game for Macintosh I used to play - it started with V... it's like 2D version of this game.

[Snotty]

Useful site Hopefully youve got the hang of the controls now. One thing that might trip you up is having to refuel your internal fuel tank. You need to have bought some fuel, then press f2 then f10 and refuel is up the top.

[child of Thor]

One tip in combat i've found quite useful:

As soon as the alarm bells sound for your ship being under attack, use the 'Tab' key to set your engines to OFF(there are three settings 1.Autopilot 2.On 3.Off).
You should not have the little blue flame jets on the left of the control console.
It just makes you more manouverable in combat - which is quite important in FFE!

In Frontier(Elite2), i never used to bother as the combat was much easier.

And Snotty, dont feel too bad - after a few trips around the Alliance worlds I also fled to Sol to recuperate! I had to do a few Barnards Star to Sol trips until i felt i could get a ship i could feel safer in(my adder at the time was a flying graveyard!).

I'm wondering if its possible to play without bothering with saves too much? At the momment i use a 'safe' in dock one and a 'non-safe' between dock one.
If i die(which happens often), then i reload. To balance it out if i survive an encounter, whatever the damage i take, i play through it - even if i have to downgrade my ship to be able to afford to carry on

Over the last week i'm having to reload less, and i'm surviving more combats - still every now and then i get a nasty group of ships and the only option is to jump out(if you have the spare fuel) or die

Hmmm I never been 'Elite' in any of the games - i wasn't that dedicated. It would be interesting to know how the great pilots found combat in FFE?

I've been trying many different craft - the Asp is an old fav, but just doesnt have enough space to cater for all my needs. In Frontier i would usualy end up in an Imperial Courier - but i dont want to this time, as i didn't really like the way it looked(and it was Imperial!).

The Wyvern was a disapointment - a huge fat beast(for its tonnage) is the best i can explain it.

I've also just done my first 'cleaning' job for a cool 50,000 credits - I like the remarks about it in the game journal afterwards.
My character in this game will make it the exception over the norm, until i get good at combat that is

Anyone know how many differnet journal entries there are - i'm guessing they cant go on forever(unlike the game), but i'll be sad when they end - unless Mr.Braben has used some clever maths?