Space sim game based on Elite

If you’re old enough to remember Elite fondly, then you may well enjoy Oolite (Object Oriented Elite) which is based on the classic space adventure game.

Oolite is a space sim game that aims to continue where Elite left off as an easy but enjoyable game that can be modified by anyone with some C and OpenGL programming knowledge via a simple graphics package and text editor.

Oolite is faithful to Elite right down to the graphics and original gameplay so it will feel dated to anyone not prepared for that. The gameplay is however much faster and slicker than Elite with the added bonus that you can control your Oolite ship using the mouse in your quest to blast enemies and conquer distant planets and galaxies. However, mouse control only works in full screen mode only which you can activate by pressing control-shift-M.

Oolite is absolutely huge so it will take a long time for you to get bored but if you do, there are even expansion packs which can be downloaded from the developer website with new planets, galaxies and ships.

Be warned that this is a game that requires a lot of patience. The galaxies are huge and flying from planet to planet can take a while but if you love space sims and enjoyed Elite, then you’ll definitely like Oolite.

Changes: New Linux/POSIX installer. Disabled shaders on certain ATi GPUs using Gallium drivers because of crashes. Clock adjustments now accumulate in the obvious way (Bug #17969). Improved texture filtering for planets and generated emission maps (in non- shader mode). Fixed bug where a ship was apparently attacking itself whenever one of its subentities was taking energy damage. Friendly fire between ships in the same group, and between police, military or thargoid vessels, no longer leads to hostilities. Ships following the player through a wormhole now have jump rings. Ships with beacon codes now retain them after jumping to a new system. (Bug #18068) Fixes to mass-dependent fuel pricing. Fixed mouse control starting in yaw mode. (Bug #18052) Descriptions.plist strings are now scanned for “%n”, which could be used maliciously on GNUstep systems. New AI message: ACCEPTED_ESCORT. Various bug fixes, inluding bugs #17916, #17919 and #18083.JavaScript: Raised certain JavaScript time limits. The shipSpawned() event now fires for the main station. Fixed scripted misjumps not working when set from within the shipWillEnterWitchspace handler for wormholes created by NPCs. NPCs in interstellar space can now jump back to their origin system. (Bug #18082, partial) Scripts can no longer give the player an out-of-range target. (Bug #18011) Q-mines awarded to NPCs in flight now work. (More accurately, q-mines for NPCs used to be represented internally as EQ_ENERGY_BOMB instead of EQ_QC_MINE.)Known bugs: Intermittent crashes when removing pylon-mounted equipment (http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9761) Freeze when script resurrects a ship being killed by a Q-bomb (Bug #18054) AI crash triggered by large groups of thargoids (Bug #18055) Bugs related to repeated misjumps (Bug #18082) Unhelpful docking clearance behaviour changing priorities when a ship is on final approach (Bug #17997) Fuel indicator is not drawn correctly in interstellar space (Bug #18097) Q-bomb explosions are not drawn properly on some systems (Bug #17276) In some conditions, the “break pattern” effect is drawn off-centre. Problem with roles of tharglets used as subentities (Bug #17979) Problem with frame callbacks and jumps (Bug #17956)

Changes

• Changes: New Linux/POSIX installer. Disabled shaders on certain ATi GPUs using Gallium drivers because of crashes. Clock adjustments now accumulate in the obvious way (Bug #17969). Improved texture filtering for planets and generated emission maps (in non- shader mode). Fixed bug where a ship was apparently attacking itself whenever one of its subentities was taking energy damage. Friendly fire between ships in the same group, and between police, military or thargoid vessels, no longer leads to hostilities. Ships following the player through a wormhole now have jump rings. Ships with beacon codes now retain them after jumping to a new system. (Bug #18068) Fixes to mass-dependent fuel pricing. Fixed mouse control starting in yaw mode. (Bug #18052) Descriptions.plist strings are now scanned for “%n”, which could be used maliciously on GNUstep systems. New AI message: ACCEPTED_ESCORT. Various bug fixes, inluding bugs #17916, #17919 and #18083.JavaScript: Raised certain JavaScript time limits. The shipSpawned() event now fires for the main station. Fixed scripted misjumps not working when set from within the shipWillEnterWitchspace handler for wormholes created by NPCs. NPCs in interstellar space can now jump back to their origin system. (Bug #18082, partial) Scripts can no longer give the player an out-of-range target. (Bug #18011) Q-mines awarded to NPCs in flight now work. (More accurately, q-mines for NPCs used to be represented internally as EQ_ENERGY_BOMB instead of EQ_QC_MINE.)Known bugs: Intermittent crashes when removing pylon-mounted equipment (http://www.aegidian.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9761) Freeze when script resurrects a ship being killed by a Q-bomb (Bug #18054) AI crash triggered by large groups of thargoids (Bug #18055) Bugs related to repeated misjumps (Bug #18082) Unhelpful docking clearance behaviour changing priorities when a ship is on final approach (Bug #17997) Fuel indicator is not drawn correctly in interstellar space (Bug #18097) Q-bomb explosions are not drawn properly on some systems (Bug #17276) In some conditions, the “break pattern” effect is drawn off-centre. Problem with roles of tharglets used as subentities (Bug #17979) Problem with frame callbacks and jumps (Bug #17956)