Re: Oolite

On 4/26/2024 1:46 AM, Rayner Lucas wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] says...
>>
>> So, I haven't really been playing elite that much, but I have been
>> playing Oolite, which seems to be a rather decent clone to my uncultured
>> eye. What's your opinion?
>> Or is something like Elite: Dangerous better? (which I have but haven't
>> found the will to actually play for as long as Oolite)
> 
> Big fan of both here.
> 
> Oolite is a great fan-made remake that retains a lot of the atmosphere
> of the original 1984 Elite, while making the game world feel busier and
> more fleshed-out. NPCs act more like real pilots going about their own
> business, the graphics are much slicker, and you can do a lot more stuff
> like flying different ships, running transport missions, and docking
> with rock hermits. There are loads of fan-made expansion packs that you
> can mix and match and you choose, and you can even code your own to
> customise the game however you like. As an open-source, grass-roots
> community effort, it's remarkably impressive.

I should get into it properly again. I haven't really been playing that 
much of it lately, although it ends up on all the computers I have at 
one point or another. But it is quite the time commitment.
> 
> Elite Dangerous looks spectacular and the galaxy is unfathomably vast.
> If what you want from a game is to fly cool spaceships and look at
> beautiful stars, it feels pretty close to perfect. And, of course, it's
> multiplayer and online, giving you the ability to team up with friends
> or take part in community events and storylines. Later expansion
> activities such as scanning alien plants and taking part in on-foot
> battles feel a bit more bolted-on, but can still be a decent diversion
> if flying around gets a bit samey. I'm particularly impressed by the way
> ED has motivated players to create their own external tools and groups
> to make the complexity of the game more tractable; the encyclopedic
> inara.cz, the star catalogue of edsm.net, and the shipbuilding tools of
> edsy.org are ones I'd be struggling without. I'm very much enjoying the
> current Thargoid War storyline, which has led to players organising,
> gathering intelligence, and forming bold strategies to hold the invasion
> forces back.

You make me want to try again. I have it waiting for me.

> 
> I do find it interesting how the two games have clearly grown from the
> same roots, but have such a different feel to them. Oolite leans heavily
> into the space-opera side of sci-fi, and some of the expansions are more
> than a little tongue-in-cheek (reminding me of the original Elite's nods
> to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). ED feels more "realistic"
> (though still with a fair bit of handwavey space-magic) and there's a
> genuine sense of awe at being a very tiny speck in a full-scale 65,000-
> light-year-across replica of the Milky Way.
> 
> I should be working but now I kind of feel like a quick game.
> 
> (there is no such thing as a quick game)
> 
> R

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