History VideoGame / Elite

* UnwinnableByMistake: There's one star-system, Oresrati in Galaxy 8, which is over 7 light-years from any other; hence, it is only reachable by Galactic Hyperspace (or the "unlimited hyperspace range" hack). It's of insufficient tech level to sell you another Galactic Hyperspace. If you're not using the "unlimited hyperspace range" hack and don't have a recent saved position, then you're basically screwed.

** Many a novice player applied arcade logic and shot the first thing in sight... the Coriolis space station that releases Viper Police like there is no tomorrow... RealityEnsues.

* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: The game lets you blow up friendly ships and even steal their cargo from the wreckage. However, such acts of piracy earn you a legal status of "Fugitive", which means that every police ship and bounty hunter in the game will attack you on sight. And attacking a SpaceStation is near suicidal, as you will quickly find yourself facing the planet's [[BolivianArmyEnding entire fleet of police vessels]].

* TheReptilians: In the entry on alien life forms, the instructions manual mentions the Reptiloid life forms of Esanbe can make a trader's life very difficult but doesn't elaborate any more on reptilians when discussing different types of aliens.

* CopyProtection: The fine [[{{Feelies}} novella]] attached doubled as copy protection.

* AbsentAliens: There are no intelligent aliens in ''Dangerous''... yet.
** There's a [[AllThereInTheManual Galnet]] article about an auction for alleged alien artifacts from the Thargoid race, whose existence is supposed to be a legend.

* BladderOfSteel: There is no Pause functionality in ''Dangerous'', which is particularly annoying because there is a control called "Pause" [[NonIndicativeName that doesn't actually pause the game]]. The Save and Quit button in the menu functions like a (very slow) pause button.

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: The Combat Scenarios in ''Elite: Dangerous'' have you serving one.

** ''Elite Dangerous'' features both feudal and patronage-types of governance for settlements.

* {{Microtransactions}}: The only way to acquire alternate ship paint jobs in ''Dangerous'' is to buy them, at $3.50 a design.

* MoneyGrinding: Trading is mindbogglingly dull but is the only viable way to purchase the large craft, i.e. the Anaconda in ''Dangerous'' at a whopping 142 million credits.

* OddlyNamedSequel2ElectricBoogaloo[=/=]SequelTheOriginalTitle: ''[[SequelTheOriginalTitle Frontier: Elite II]]'', whose sequel dropped "elite" completely and was named ''Frontier: First Encounters''. And then there's ''Elite: Dangerous''.

* PaddedSumoGameplay: ''Dangerous'' has slow ship handling - which can be described as "[=B-17s=] in [[SpaceFriction WD-40]]" - and very durable ships, to make subsystem management and stealth that much more important.

** The tribbles from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' appear after a bad deal and proceed to [[InterfaceScrew physically infect the cockpit]].[[spoiler: The only way to be rid of Trumbles is to sun-skim and keep the cabin temperature in the red for a minute or two.[[note]]If you use an escape pod, one will always come along and the cycle begins again.[[/note]] While this is going on, the poor harmless, helpless creature, which can only eat, sleep, reproduce and shuffle slowly about, will emit the only vocalisation it is capable of - a soft trilling purr very much like the creature that is their inspiration - which you hard-heartedly ignore as it dies of heat-stroke. Murderer. ]]
** There's a system named [[VideoGame/EveOnline Jita]] in ''Elite: Dangerous''.

* WelcomeToCorneria: ''Dangerous'' has about a dozen messages per action for NPC ships. Thankfully, there is no voice acting so it doesn't become grating.

* TimeDilation: ''The Dark Wheel'' novel mentions there's stories of ships being sent millions of years into the past due to hyperspace accidents but they're treated like urban legends.

* EasyLogistics: Averted, fuel and missiles have to be replenished.
* ExcusePlot: To some point in ''Elite II''. Your grandpa has passed away and decided to bequeath you a spacecraft, intending to allow you "a way of life that is very different to the dull planet bound existence you have probably led up to now", as the manual puts it. Huh.

* TheReptillians: In the entry on alien life forms, the instructions manual mentions the Reptiloid life forms of Esanbe can make a trader's life very difficult but doesn't elaborate any more on reptilians when discussing different types of aliens.

* FasterThanLightTravel: Range limited and fuel consuming hyperspace jumps. There is also a purchasable galactic-hyperdrive that allows jumping to a new galaxy before it's depleted.

* GenrePopularizer: It paved the way for all 3D space simulators, and particularly space trading and open sandbox games.

%% AsteroidMiners

%% AnEntrepreneurIsYou: Commodity trading.
%% FanRemake: ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}''.

* HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace: A trip into hyperspace (or witch-space, as the game calls it) puts you at risk from ambush from Thargoids, who have a technology which allows them to lurk there. In some versions of the game you can force a hyperdrive failure by holding full pitch and roll while jumping, but you'd have to be either suicidal or very well armed to attempt it.
%% InsectoidAliens: The Thargoids.

%% MilitaryMashupMachine: The Moray Star Boat.

%% {{Ramscoop}}: A purchasable option for your ship.

%% SpacePolice: Viper spacecrafts in Elite.

%% WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture

* AsteroidMiners

* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: Commodity trading.
* FanRemake: ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}''.

* InsectoidAliens: The Thargoids.

* LightspeedLeapfrog: the manual for the first ''Elite'' says you can encounter an ancient GenerationShip still flying to its destination in your {{Casual Interstellar Travel}}s. You can't.

* MilitaryMashupMachine: The Moray Star Boat.

* {{Ramscoop}}: A purchasable option for your ship.

* SpaceFighter: The player is cast in the role of a SpaceFighter pilot.

* SpaceMines: The sequel games allow you to deploy them.

* SpacePolice: Viper spacecrafts in Elite.

* WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture

** ''Frontier: First Encounters'' has one in a nod to ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' where the science of psychohistory and a figure named Dr. Seldon are mentioned in a news article called ''Universal Scientist''.

* InvisibilityCloak: In Elite, pirate ships with one start to pop up after the player reachs "competent" . It can be retrieved once the enemy is destroyed. It drains the shields but it's a very powerful vital item in many versions, it allows to sucesfully fight against odds of Thargoids and swarms of pirates.

** The tribbles from ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' appear after a bad deal and proceed to [[InterfaceScrew physically infect the cockpit]].[[spoiler: The only way to be rid of Trumbles is to sun-skim and keep the cabin temperature in the red for a minute or two. While this is going on, the poor harmless, helpless creature, which can only eat, sleep, reproduce and shuffle slowly about, will emit the only vocalisation it is capable of - a soft trilling purr very much like the creature that is their inspiration - which you hard-heartedly ignore as it dies of heat-stroke. Murderer. ]]

* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: In terms of MoneyGrinding, combat in ''Dangerous'' is good at low levels but the payouts remain constant (~5-50k bounties) despite the skyrocketing price of combat ships, upgrades, and weaponry for largely marginal performance increases. On the other hand, trading ships are agonizingly dull to fly but rake in the dosh and upgrades directly increase their ability to make more moola, with larger cargo storage racks equaling larger profits.

* CutAndPasteEnvironments: One criticism of ''Dangerous'' is that the only functional difference between two solar systems is how many planets there are and what color they are. As the game currently lacks planetary landing, the only difference between (ringless) planets is how big their NoWarpingZone is what color the planet is. The skybox adds to the issue; it's realistic (being a render of what the sky would look like from that point in space), but looks damn near identical in every system bar the galactic core or areas near nebula.

It has been cited as inspiration for ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', ''Jumpgate'', ''VideoGame/InfinityTheQuestForEarth'', ''VideoGame/WingCommanderPrivateer'', ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'', the ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'' series, open-source game ''VideoGame/VegaStrike'' (which got an "Elite Strike" mod, but its development currently seems to be frozen), and the ''Videogame/{{X}}-Universe'' series of space combat and trading games. There is now also a free, open-source remake, ''VideoGame/{{Oolite}}'' (so named because it uses object-oriented programming), which has a fairly dedicated [[GameMod modding]] community.

** ''Frontier: First Encounters'' has one in a nod to ''Literature/{{Foundation}}'' where the science of psychohistory is mentioned in a news article called ''Universal Scientist''.

* ExcusePlot: To some point in ''Elite II''. Your grandpa has passed away and decided to inherit you a spacecraft, intending to allow you "a way of life that is very different to the dull planet bound existence you have probably led up to now", as the manual puts it. Huh.

''Frontier: Elite II'' and ''Frontier: First Encounters'' are later PC sequels by David Braben alone (the original authors having had a serious falling-out), with textured 3D graphics. Sadly, while ''First Encounters'' has good Newtonian physics (it was even possible to place a ship into proper orbit), it was an ObviousBeta. Various indie developers have hacked and modified the code to make it playable on modern systems, even going so far as to port the graphics engine to OpenGL. One ambitious project, [=FFE-D3D=], aims to rewrite the entire game with greatly improved graphics. The fourth game in the series, ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'', was released for Windows on 16 December 2014, featuring an online persistent universe with multiplayer elements, with a Mac OSX port and other updates slated for the near future.