Frontier Rumours

                       by Roy Sims

I'm indebted to the very interesting ELITE2 conference on CIX for
some more interesting facts, features and rumours about Frontier
that you might not be aware of.

There have been a number of rumours circulating around regarding
the existence of a super-ship in Frontier, which goes by the name
of the Mirage.  Quite how these rumours got started is anyone's
guess, but here are the details - The Mirage is allegedly a
massive 5,000 tonne ship with no less than 22 different missile
positions, incredibly fast acceleration and furry dice! To be
offered one you need to have reached ELITE and PRINCE status, and
three other things have to have been attained (one of them
involves having a serious user ID, and being asked to be the
Emperor's right hand man). The only other rumour suggests that it
could be an abandoned Thargoid vessel.  Talking of Thargoids,
David Braben has been reported to have said that there is a
Thargoid ship in the game somewhere on the edge of the galaxy.
Whether this is the Mirage or something else isn't known...

There are supposed to be some 'crisis' missions in the game
somewhere, or at least the game code contains a message which goes
something along the lines of "crisis at system...". Some people
reckon Arcturus is a good bet due to the Red Giant being in an
unstable condition.

There is another rumour which suggests that you can buy a ship
that can launch fighters. This is mentioned in the main game
manual, but isn't featured in the Ship Identification section.
However, some curious hackers have found mention of it in the game
code!

There is a useful bug in the game which will allow you to make
massive leaps by using just 1t of fuel! Just keep pressing the
left or right cursor key on the keyboard so the X co-ordinate
increases or decreases on the 3D map. Keep an eye on the Fuel
required figure. When it reaches 82 it resets to 1!  Therefore,
you should be able to make a massive jump using just 1t of fuel!
The distance depends on the type of ship you have (I think). This
will only work if your ship is carrying more than 82t of fuel to
begin with, so it won't work with all ship types.

There's also a quick way of reaching ELITE status. I haven't tried
this one so I can't guarantee it, but if you go to Mars High,
refuel then buy a mining laser and travel to Phobos, hover .5km
off the surface of Phobos and start firing constantly at the moon,
each hit counts as a proper hit, so each time you get a "Right On
Commander" you go up a grade! Keep this up and eventually you will
reach ELITE!

Hopefully the SynTax PD library now contains one PC and one Amiga
Frontier help disk. They contain save game files from the
respective versions which give you mega ships and/or mega money
etc. You also have a 100k ascii file with all you need to know
about the game and the bugs! Once again I have to thank the CIX
ELITE 2 conference for these files. Thanks guys!
                              - o -