Elite, is the best game ever, in the universe of all that is good and gamey.
but only on the Acorn Electron.
tips on making a game like elite, would be learn how it was originally developed. Ian Bell (on of the original 2 developers) has a site on the subject.
David Brabham (runs frontier.co.uk) might also answer you some questions. Everything in the game is basically created and run on the most simple level really.
Just have to think about the games like that... try not to make things complicated, just think simple.
Each system consists of 1 Planet + Maybe( 1 Space Station )
The space stations were all identical. So it was just the system information that really ever changed and was generated on-the-fly.
Even then I think what Brabham did was create a universe creation model, with a number of chance happenings. Then made an array of the information saving it to the tape and simply loading the parts into memory.
For the Economic model again it just works on a very very simple supply and demand of a single player. So basically the market can't be over balanced too much cause the player can only buy so much. Especially as the Cargobay was a set size, even once you upgraded it, still wasn't huge.
Think basic and you'll get how it's all done.
