+Title: Oolite, a life in space as vagabond and mercenary - nice free software
+Tags: english, debian, nice free software
+Date: 2016-12-11 11:40
+
+<p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-12-11-nice-oolite.png"/></p>
+
+<p>In my early years, I played
+<a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Classic_Elite">the epic game
+Elite</a> on my PC. I spent many months trading and fighting in
+space, and reached the 'elite' fighting status before I moved on. The
+original Elite game was available on Commodore 64 and the IBM PC
+edition I played had a 64 KB executable. I am still impressed today
+that the authors managed to squeeze both a 3D engine and details about
+more than 2000 planet systems across 7 galaxies into a binary so
+small.</p>
+
+<p>I have known about <a href="http://www.oolite.org/">the free
+software game Oolite inspired by Elite</a> for a while, but did not
+really have time to test it properly until a few days ago. It was
+great to discover that my old knowledge about trading routes were
+still valid. But my fighting and flying abilities were gone, so I had
+to retrain to be able to dock on a space station. And I am still not
+able to make much resistance when I am attacked by pirates, so I
+bougth and mounted the most powerful laser in the rear to be able to
+put up at least some resistance while fleeing for my life. :)</p>
+
+<p>When playing Elite in the late eighties, I had to discover
+everything on my own, and I had long lists of prices seen on different
+planets to be able to decide where to trade what. This time I had the
+advantages of the
+<a href="http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Main_Page">Elite wiki</a>,
+where information about each planet is easily available with common
+price ranges and suggested trading routes. This improved my ability
+to earn money and I have been able to earn enough to buy a lot of
+useful equipent in a few days. I believe I originally played for
+months before I could get a docking computer, while now I could get it
+after less then a week.</p>
+
+<p>If you like science fiction and dreamed of a life as a vagabond in
+space, you should try out Oolite. It is available for Linux, MacOSX
+and Windows, and is included in Debian and derivatives since 2011.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>