HARMLESS
A browser tribute to Elite (1984).
Harmless is the lowest combat rating in the game, and every commander starts there. The top rating is E L I T E.
You start docked at Lave with a Cobra Mk III, 100 credits and a rating of Harmless. Buy cargo, jump to a world that wants it, and sell it. Spend the profit on a better ship. Fight the pirates who come for your hold, or run from them. Every kill moves you up the ratings.
What you do
- Trade. Agricultural worlds sell food and furs cheaply. Industrial worlds sell machinery and computers cheaply. Carry one to the other and sell.
- Jump. A full tank takes you seven light years. Pick a world on the chart and go.
- Fight. Pirates want your cargo. Your laser fires straight ahead, and a missile locks on to whatever is in your sights.
- Dock. Line up with the slot and go in slowly. Buy a docking computer when you can afford one.
- Climb. Every kill counts toward your combat rating. The top rating is Elite.
The 1984 galaxy
All 2,048 worlds of the original are here, across eight galaxies. Each one has the same name, the same government, the same prices and the same description as it had in 1984, because the game makes them with the original's own arithmetic. Lave is still a rich agricultural dictatorship at tech level 5.
New to Elite?
Nobody in the game tells you where to go. These three pages help.
What's in it
- 2,048 worlds across eight galaxies, the same as in 1984
- Wireframe ships: Cobra, Python, Anaconda, Viper, Thargoid and more
- Trading, contracts, missions and piracy, with prices that move
- Convoys that fly the trade lanes while you are elsewhere
- Pirates that hunt you, traders that fight back, and a combat computer you can buy
- A portrait of the inhabitants of all 256 worlds of the first galaxy
- Saves in your browser, named by you. No account, ever.