The Space Traders Flight Training Manual
The original 64 page Instruction Manual.
Created by Robert Holdstock, Ian Bell & David Braben for the very first game, Classic Elite.
Contents:
*1 Introductory Data
- Interior of a Cobra Mk III
- Your rating as a combateer
*2 Navigation and Flying
- Flying and navigational controls
- Leaving the space station
- Making for your target world
- Travelling to other galaxies
- Docking procedure
*3 Interplanetary Travel
- In-flight combat
- Controls and tactics
- Likely enemies
- Equipping the Cobra Mk III
- Weaponry and non-combative equipment
- How to buy the equipment for your ship
- In-flight combat
*4 Intergalactic Trading
- How to trade
- Advice to traders
- Alternatives to Trading
- Piracy
- Bounty hunting
- Asteroid Mining
- Free Space Cargo
- Illegal Trading
*5 Political Profile of the Universe
- Consequences for Trade (not all political states are detailed here)
- Corporate States
- Dictatorships
- Anarchy Planets
- Alien races (not all are detailed here - eg reptiloids)
- Bird-forms
- Amphiboids
- Felines
- Insectoids
- Consequences for Trade (not all political states are detailed here)
*6 Observer's Guide to Ships in Service
- Adder
- Anaconda
- Asp Mk II
- Boa Class Cruiser
- Cobra Mk I
- Cobra Mk III
- Fer-de-Lance
- Gecko
- Krait
- Mamba
- Moray Starboat
- Python
- Orbit Shuttles
- Sidewinder Scout Ship
- Thargoid Invasion Ships (with remote controlled fighters)
- Transporter
- Viper (Police Ship)
- Worm class Landing Craft
*7 Pilot's Log
- (for recording your own trades and kills)
Download (pdf's)
You can download your own copy from here.
Commentary
Holdstock's version of the Instruction Manual was a great innovation. It was written for newly-qualified pilots, not for teenage players of a computer game. And it made references to all sorts of things not part of the game itself. Generation ships. Deep space dredgers. Other versions of the four in-game lasers. Government bodies and other publications. In effect, it became a major source of Lore for those who bought the entire boxed game and read all the contents. It was a major factor in creating the immersion which engulfed so many of the original players.
Well worth reading!
OXPs
- Lore Collection (Classic Elite) includes the relevant oxz's from the Expansions Manager to help transform Oolite into a lore-laden Elite (but see the wiki page for details of unincluded oxp's)
