Bulletin Board System
Although I am quite intent on including everything submitted to me in the last sixteen years, I became lax in the middle part of the last decade. I still have submissions from circa 2002, sitting in the old mailbox, unreplied to. I feel remiss. This page is my attempt to get the material, whatever it may be, out there with a minimum of fuss and effort. If it belongs in other sections of the site, it may end up there eventually. You can still submit anything Frontier related: e-mail. You must specify directly if you do not want your name added.
2002-06
2 Frontier Mails
A text file of this name sat in my archive directory since 2002. I don't know why they were singled out and then forgotten, but here they now are:
From: "Kennedy" Subject: Frontier bug Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 03:04:45 +0200 Hi! I was able to land on the Sun once back in '95. You need a very light ship with a BIG engine in it (eeg. Viper with Class 3 Military) and lots of work. But it's possible. I started to search the saved games for the file, but nothing yet. Of course when you're down, you can't take off... ;))) There's also a way to overcome that tough: sometimes, when you launch from the surface the hyperspace symbol is shown for a moment. Thus if you're quick enough, you could probably jump from the surface!!! No kidding! If I find the saves, I'll mail them to you ASAP. Anyway, keep up the good work, Kennedy -- Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 15:03:40 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Hugh=20Cox?= Subject: A no-fuss way to run frontier in win98 There's a "Fixmem" utility available to download at www=2Esold-out=2Eco=2E= uk, which is able to reconfigure windows 9x to run with extra memory avail= able (more than enough to run Frontier)=2E I actually got it with Cannon Fodder, but the file is available to downloa= d free from their site=2E I hope this could be useful for other new users (like myself), or even any= one using windows 95/98=2E Unfortunately, it won't let you run First Enco= unters (although JJFFE does the job well there - just not on my old junkhe= ap system, lol)
Chris Mail
A few points I have.... Have you ever tried to go to the Beta Lyrae system? I have for a few reasons...not only as it is a system shown on the galaxy view, but also as it could be the home of the famous Lyrae Weed! *g* Located at -146,85 & is a Contact Binary System, whatever the fuck one of such be!! But....the problem is...that when attempting to hyperspace there...the game fucking crashes!!! *baf* Cemises -2,-2 ; Pointless seen as it's so easy to get money...but, have you noticed that gems & precious metals am illegal there? They pay you 500 & 3,000 to have them, on bought & sold! And of course, they are sold to pep up the profit a lil bit. Nice way to start a new game, I s'pose! Missions & passenegers ; An example would be a good idea here...Sahoa, Facece & Vequees are always a good... a) Take as many parcel / message missions & passengers as possible b) Dock at first location...preferably the one with most missions / passengers c) Set second target system d) This is important: Leave pretty much immediately, at least with enough time for a payment to be recieved whilst you are outside of the station / port e) Important still: After the last payment is recieved for the current system & while the message is on the screen, hyperspace to second location f) Set third destination (if applicable) All parcels & what not will then be collected for this system immdeiately, with no need to dock. Excellent for places like Centauri, whilst after hyperspace you're almost a fuckin light year away form the dock! Again, after the last payment, hyperspace to next location and so on until you you have finished all jobs! Pretty fucking neat stuff!! Wish I knew a while ago cos I'd have a better ratinf by now! I mean...I had a mission for Veareth, or sumink like that, but there's nowhere to dock! Baffeled the hell outta me, but now I know how to do it! Also, payments for all other missions are recieved, but of course, this trick doesn't go about actually doing bombing & taking photographs!! Another thing...don't ya just hate them fuckin god damned coppers?!?! Is there any way to sue the mother fuckers for harrassment? I think they go a little over the top questioning me about theft all the time! (Copy-right protection lark, that is) For your own info...the game I've got is the original Uk version for the Amiga (I get bored! *l*) Ratings; Sergeant-Major - Lord - Competent Got quite a nice 14,000 tonne (thank the lord for auto-fire joysticks!) Eagle Long Ranger Fighter, with everthing but a couple o'freakin Nukes! (not rated enough yet) A few final quetions... I quite want a Falcon or Hawk or sumink cos there pretty darn fast, but the shitter is that the drive can't be replaced on them. I mean...how shyte are Class 1's? Or am I wrong...can I change drives that are "an integral part of the ship"? I doubt this very much, but still...is there any way to download a file onto disk to be used on the amiga? Finally....do you know if there is or to be a pc version by GameTek? If at all...better be by them...cos look at Champ Manager & Premier Manager...they're shyte now in comparision to the Domark & Gremlin versions in the mid nineties Well...I should be sleepin.... I do appologise for my bastard of a foul gob! ~lmao~ Cheers for yaou'r time Tek it easy Chris
Overkill
This screenshot [2002], displaying FE:2, ArcElite, F:FE and Elite:TNK, comes courtesy of Stuart Wilson [click to enlarge].
Tradesheet
This file, known as Tradesheet is dated October 15th, 2002 and contains some FEU style icons in .gif format.
Sirocco Station Ads
These images, dating from 2002, were part of an ad system, centralised around Dan Lind's now defunct website.
IRC Stats
These statistics were generated from the Elite IRC channel of 2003-4. #alt.fan.elite is still active on the synIRC network.
Help!
On May 2nd, 2006, Commander Pilsbury sent this distress message which was initially lost:
Help! I'm new to this Frontier lark and i need some help. I have read the guides on your site extensively, but i am still having problems, the problem is that i can't seem to slow down. For instance, following the Ross 154 - Fomalhaut guide on your starting page i was on my way back and took some damage in a fight and thus lost my autopilot. So i flew towards the planet but overshot it - because i can't slow down. No matter how much i press my right shift button and no matter what the "set" speed thing says even when it's in minus figures, my speed seems to stay the same and i keep getting further and further away from the planet i'm trying to land on. I have tried all manner of things face the destination, point away from it, manual control, engines off, forward thrust, backward thrust - trying each combination for many minutes at a time but i still can't change direction and get back to the planet. Any help you can give me would be much appreciated. Thanks Richard
Scrambled Comms
On July 6th, 2006, Commander Hirst sent this message. The initial part was never received:
I hate internet email. Press the wrong button and zoom goes your half-finished message. Please disregard the previous message. So yeah, I've come out of hyperspace after a jump to Zaonce, and I'm in a viper defence craft with a 1mw beam laser. Halfway to the nearest space station, my autopilot turns off and I get the message saying I'm under attack. So far so good. Unfortunately, this pirate is a complete coward. He never comes any closer than 9 or 10km away. Of course, I can't pick him off at that range. So the solution is to fly towards him right? But since I'm in the middle of a journey and am going at close to 12000km/s I don't seem to be able to turn and face him. It's very annoying. I can turn the aiming crosshair towards him, but the direction crosshair remains fixed upon Ridly Scott station, which is still 4 AU away. I can't fly towards this stupid pirate. Or, if I can (it is of course impossible to tell), the increase in speed when traveling at 12000km/s is such large increments that I am constantly at max acceleration and this is the reason I am zooming past him 20km away. The upshot of all this was that I spent a boring 20 minutes trying to shoot down a nigh invisible speck that was out of laser range. My question is, how on earth can I get my speed relative to somewhere near me, when there are no objects nearby? Or, how can I make sure that I stay close enough to my target that it appears larger than one pixel? This problem has been plaguing me ever since I started playing frontier, and was the reason I stopped several years ago. Any help would be much appreciated. And great site by the way! Tons of info and downloads. My only gripe was that the download of frontier with password protection removed does not in fact have it removed. But that's ok. I'll figure out a way around it before long. Thanks for reading, Alistair
Soft Spot
On September 6th, 2006, Commander Saunders sent this message:
Greetings, I must say you've done a wonderful job of updating your site. Its very slick, full of interesting writings and kept me away from work for a good few hours ;-) Sadly, I've not been able to get Frontier working on my machine properly (I flat refuse to play in sordid silence :-P ) and all your little tidbits of info inspired a wave of nostalgia which has proved quite wonderfully distracting. I *still* manage to play FFE every once in a while, providing I can avoid breaking a mouse doing it - I've so far destroyed 3 of them by mashing right button whilst fighting.... Anyways, the bit about FFE reminded me about something I saw regarding the laser colours on your site. I'm not sure I remember back to Frontier, but I am pretty sure of FFE (I try to spend my dinner at work playing with it) ;-) Laser Colours: Pulse 1MW = Red 5MW = Orange 30MW = White Beam 1MW = Red 4MW = Orange 20MW = Yellow 100MW = Blue/White Plasma = Cyan I'm glad, however that someone else has an illogical soft spot for an awful ship :-P Mine's the Tiercel from FFE - Overcrewed, underpowered, and rarer than a politicians apology... All the best, PS
2007-10
Stock the Explorer
On February 9th, 2007, Commander Jon Stock pondered:
Bit of an anecdote here, but still... So I get a photo mission to Luyten 674-15 and the enemy base to photograph is on an astoundingly red planet called Luyten 674-15 6. Two jumps away from Olcanze (where I picked it up) and two months to do it in and return so I get out there within ten days, set the autopilot and click the time acceleration. Anyhow, I reach the planet at 1700km/sec and the HUD says, "Arrived in vicinity of planet." Indeed I had arrived in its vicinity, for three-quarters of the screen was cherry-red and coming up at an alarming rate. A bug?function of Hyperdrives is where we're at
2010-13
Watch this space!