ELite Gameplay

Elite has often been treated as the yardstick by which subsequent space trading games have been measured. However, it was not the first such game; the genre-defining Star Trader had been written as long ago as 1974. The space trading genre combines space-borne combat with a “buy low, sell high” freight transport system and the ability to use the profits to purchase ship upgrades.

The player, initially “Commander Jameson”, starts at Lave Station with 100 credits and a lightly armed trading ship, a Cobra Mark III. Most of the ships that the player encounters are similarly named after snakes, or other reptiles. Credits can be accumulated through a number of means. These include piracy, trade, military missions, bounty hunting and asteroid mining. The money generated by these enterprises allows players to upgrade their ships with such enhancements as better weapons, shields, increased cargo capacity, an automated docking system, and more.

Instead of planetary systems, there are single planets separated by interstellar distances and each planet has one space station in its orbit. Travel between planets is constrained to those within range of the ship’s limited fuel capacity (7 light years) and fuel can be replenished after docking with a space station in orbit around a planet which is a challenging task without a docking computer, as it requires matching the ship’s rotation to that of the station. Players can upgrade their equipment with a fuel scoop, which allows raw fuel to be skimmed from the surface of stars – a dangerous and difficult activity – and collecting free-floating cargo canisters and escape capsules liberated after the destruction of other ships. While travelling in “witch-space” (the game’s term for hyperspace), Thargoid (antagonist race) invasion ships may trap the player, forcing their ship into normal space to do battle. If the player does not have enough fuel to continue their journey, they are effectively stranded in interstellar space.

An extremely expensive one-shot galactic hyperspace upgrade permits travel between the eight galaxies of the game universe. There is little practical difference between the different galaxies. However in some versions it is necessary to travel to at least the second galaxy in order to access the missions.

The game includes several optional missions for the Galactic Navy. One requires tracking down and destroying a stolen experimental ship; the other involves transporting classified information on the Thargoids’ home planet, with Thargoid invasion ships doing their best to see that you do not succeed.