An unofficial browser tribute to Elite (1984) by David Braben and Ian Bell. Harmless is the combat rating you start at; the ladder ends at E L I T E.
Authentic wireframe ships, the original byte-accurate procedural galaxy (Lave is system 7, as it should be), modern shader-driven suns and planets — and ship AI trained by neuroevolution self-play, flying both the pirates that hunt you and the traders that fight back.
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Every planet is generated from the 1984 seeds — Diso's violet coastlines above, "Population: 4.1 Billion (Black Furry Felines)", exactly as the original's data tables intend. Below: three trained pirates converging in the combat viewer.
Docs index: Development log · Architecture tour · AI design · Training runs & results · Reproducing the training · Gap analysis vs the 1984 original · The Jameson Trials
npm install
npm run dev # http://localhost:5173 (landing page)
# http://localhost:5173/play (the game)
# http://localhost:5173/viewer (AI combat viewer)
# /manual · /novella (manual and story)
npm run build # lint + tests (via prebuild), then production build to dist/
npm run train -- attack --gens 400 # retrain the pirate AI (Node ≥ 22.6; see train/README.md)
npm run evaluate # held-out tournament for the current brains
npm test # invariant + simulation tests (no framework)
npm run campaign # headless balance playtest: 40 careers × 60 legs
npm run campaign -- 4 45000 all # three career strategies, all the way to E L I T E
# inhabitant portraits (offline; images are committed, nothing runs in the browser)
node --experimental-strip-types tools/species-prompts.ts 1 --style crt --json > /tmp/g1.json
# styles: crt, lit, ink, plain — the model does the look
uv run tools/generate-species.py /tmp/g1.json --repo ../ultra-fast-image-gen --only Lave,Diso
# ^ starts that repo's server.py and keeps the model resident
uv run tools/posterise.py --size 256 --tones 6 # re-crush, no GPU neededTwo playtest harnesses back this up. npm run campaign plays hundreds of
full commander careers headlessly — real galaxy, market, living-galaxy and
contract code, with only flight abstracted — and reports whether the economy
actually works (wealth curve, bankruptcy rate, time to first upgrade,
equipment progression, piracy losses), failing the build if it doesn't. It
can also play a commander all the way to E L I T E (25,600 kills) in
about 20 seconds, under three different strategies — trader, hunter,
privateer — which is how the combat ladder below was measured.
There's also an autonomous playtest agent (test/playtest.js): paste it
into the browser console with the game open and await __playtest.run({ legs: 8 }) sends a commander off to take contracts, trade, fight, jump and
dock on its own, asserting invariants as it goes and printing a report of
everything it exercised. It's how gameplay changes get regression-tested.
CI lints, tests, builds and runs the balance playtest on every push. The
live site deploys from Cloudflare Pages (build npm run build, output
dist) — and since npm runs prebuild before build, a commit that fails
lint or tests fails the deploy build rather than shipping.
Retraining overwrites the committed neural weights in
src/sim/brains/that the game imports —git checkout src/sim/brainsrestores them.
You start docked at Lave Station with 100.0 Cr, a full tank and 3 missiles. Progress saves automatically every time you dock.
There is a Space Trader's Flight Training Manual — how to trade, jump, dock and survive, with a first run worked out against the game's own market model — and The Long Way Out, an original novella with papers from the eight galaxies.
In-game, H at the station opens a six-page new pilot's briefing, and ? shows the controls at any time.
Two flight layouts ship. CLASSIC — the authentic 1984 keys — is the default; press B when docked to switch to MODERN (WASD), which is remembered per browser. Press ? any time for the in-game guide, which always shows the active layout.
| CLASSIC (default) | MODERN | Action |
|---|---|---|
| S / X | W / S | dive / climb — pitch (in both: ↓ arrow pulls up) |
, / . |
A / D | roll (arrows work in both) |
| SPACE | SPACE | accelerate |
/ |
X or / |
decelerate |
| A (or F) | F | fire laser (watch the temperature) |
The original's < > roll and / slow-down are live in both layouts, so
muscle memory from 1984 mostly survives either choice. Arrow keys always fly.
Mouse flight: press V in flight to pointer-lock the mouse into a self-centring analogue stick (left button fires). Touching the keyboard overrides it; ESC or V releases. This is the closest thing to the joystick the original supported.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 2 3 4 | front / rear / left / right view |
| T / M / U | arm missile (locks in your sights) / fire / unarm |
| E / TAB | E.C.M. / energy bomb (if fitted) |
| J | torus jump drive (8×, stars streak; cuts out when mass-locked) |
| C | docking computer — flies you in; press again or touch the controls to take over |
| K | combat computer — the trained defence AI flies your ship (if fitted) |
| N / G | short range chart / galactic chart |
| H / ⇧H | hyperspace jump / galactic hyperdrive (if fitted) |
| B | distress beacon — GalCop tows you out of witch-space, for your cargo |
| Y | jettison a tonne of cargo — pirates came for the goods, not for you |
| I | commander status |
| P | pause |
| V | mouse flight — pointer-locked analogue stick, left button fires |
| ? | controls guide |
Views on 1-4 (the original used F0-F3) and screens on letters (were F4-F9), because browsers claim the function keys.
L launch · M market · E equip ship · N local chart · G galactic chart · C contracts · D data on system · I status · H new pilot's briefing · B switch keyboard layout · S commander file (4 save slots · rename) · X export save · Z import save · Q start a new commander (confirms first)
↑↓ and ENTER work on the menu as well as the letter keys.
↑↓ select · B buy · V sell · ESC exit
Click a system to target it · arrows move the cursor · ENTER set hyperspace target · D data on system (the full statistics page with the original's procedurally generated planet description) · M market estimate · F find a system by name · ESC exit
Fly into the station's docking port with your wings matched to its rotation. An amber marker shows where the port is, with an arrow at the screen edge when it's behind you; it turns green and reads DOCKING PORT — LINED UP when you're on the axis and rolled to match. Get it wrong and you'll bounce off with shield damage — or buy the docking computer.
In a fight, a red arrow at the screen edge points at the nearest hostile you can't currently see.
The console lights an S while the station is in scanner range (its defences cover you there) and an E when an E.C.M. broadcast is detected — as on the original's dashboard.
- Trading — 17 commodities with the original price/quantity model; economies matter (buy food cheap at agriculturals, sell computers dear). 20t hold; precious metals/gems don't take hold space.
- Combat — pulse/beam/military lasers with heat, four mounts, homing missiles you arm and then lock by putting the target in your sights, on-screen target brackets with a lead marker, hull hits that cost you cargo and fittings, fore/aft shields and 4 energy banks, bounties, kill ratings from Harmless to E L I T E. Pirate numbers scale with the government type; shoot police or traders and you become a fugitive (police attack; fine on docking).
- Hyperspace — 7.0 LY fuel range, per-jump fuel cost by real chart distance, 5-second countdown.
- Death — ship destroyed → reload your last station save (unless an escape pod saves you, at the cost of your cargo).
- Legal system — CLEAN → OFFENDER → FUGITIVE; police scan for contraband (slaves, narcotics, firearms), bounty hunters stalk offenders, fines on docking.
- A living system — traders warp in, do business at the station and jump out; pirates hunt them for cargo you can scoop; police hunt the pirates.
- Witch-space — mis-jumps drop you among Thargoids and their Thargon drones. High bounties, if you live. Out of fuel out there? Broadcast a distress beacon and GalCop will tow you clear — they'll take your cargo as the salvage fee.
- Mining & scooping — blast asteroids (mining laser drops ore canisters) and scoop drifting cargo with fuel scoops; sun-skim to refuel, watching the cabin temperature.
- A living galaxy — trade runs between all 256 systems while you play. Convoys depart from productive worlds, get taken by pirates in lawless space, and arrive in your system as real ships. Prices drift with supply, pirate hotspots emerge along dangerous routes, and the system data screen reports the news. The 1984 economy stays the baseline underneath — this layer only ever nudges it ±25%.
- Pirates as businesses — what waits for you on the way in depends on what you're visibly worth. An empty Cobra draws a couple of opportunists in Sidewinders; a full hold draws professionals; a fat, notorious one draws an organised gang flying a coordinated attack policy. A gang isn't five Fer-de-Lances, though — it's two ringleaders plus hangers-on in whatever they could afford, which is why they can be common without being hopeless. Only what a pirate can see counts — cargo, hold size, fitted laser, your reputation — never your bank balance, so banking the money and flying clean is a real strategy. Threat grows far slower than your ship does, so upgrades are felt rather than cancelled out. And since they came for the cargo, jettisoning it (Y) buys them off — proportionally: opportunists want a little, a gang that organised for you wants about a third of the prize. Selling big or dirty loads raises your profile here and in neighbouring systems, and it fades if you lie low. Your reputation cuts both ways: it scares off thieves after easy cargo, but once you're Dangerous roughly a third of the ships waiting for you came for the name rather than the hold. Ratings count difficulty too — a gang's Fer-de-Lance is worth five Sidewinders — so the ladder rewards the fights worth having.
- Contracts — every station runs a bulletin board with cargo runs, courier jobs and pirate-clearing bounties, available from your very first landing. Deadlines are measured in days, which pass as you jump. (The original made you earn your first mission with 16 kills; a new commander deserves somewhere to be.)
- Navy missions — prove yourself (16+ kills, galaxy 1) for the Constrictor hunt and the classified courier run.
- Don't shoot the station. Its hull shrugs off a laser, but GalCop notices: you're marked an offender and the station scrambles Vipers from the slot. Shooting those is how you become a fugitive.
- Encounters — destroyed ships eject escape capsules (scoop one and the survivor becomes, regrettably, cargo); stations scramble Vipers if you misbehave in their sight; rock hermits hide among the asteroids, dealing ore and asking no questions; derelict generation ships drift between the stars; and someone will sell you a Trumble for 2 credits, which is one of the worst decisions available to you.
- Trained ship AI — pirates and armed traders fly neural policies trained by self-play (docs/TRAINING-LOG.md); watch them fight in the combat viewer.
src/galaxy/— the genuine Elite galaxy algorithm: three twisted 16-bit seed words generate all 256 systems per galaxy (names, economy, government, tech level, market). Galaxy 1 is byte-identical to the original — system 7 is Lave.src/ships/— 21 hulls as explicit vertex/edge/face tables in the style of the original BBC data (Cobra Mk III, Sidewinder, Viper, Adder, Krait, Mamba, Asp, Fer-de-Lance, Python, Anaconda, Boa, Gecko, Moray, Worm, Shuttle, Transporter, Thargoid, Thargon, Constrictor, missile, canister) plus the Coriolis and Dodo stations, drawn as wireframe edges over a black occluding hull (classic hidden-line look).src/world/— shader sun (animated fbm surface, limb darkening, corona), shader planet (coastline contours, graticule, terminator, atmosphere rim — seeded per system), starfield, space dust, per-system scene assembly.src/game/— game orchestrator (modes, docking, hyperspace, combat), NPC AI (traders/pirates/police), commander state + saves.src/hud/,src/ui/— scanner/compass/gauges console and the full-page screens (station menu, market, chart, status).src/audio.ts— WebAudio synth in the spirit of the BBC sound chip, including the docking waltz. The Commodore 64 Elite played An der schönen blauen Donau while you docked; the tune is Strauss, 1866, and comfortably public domain, so it is synthesised here from note data rather than shipping audio from the original game — this repo contains no assets from Elite.src/sim/+train/— render-free combat simulator, tiny MLP policies (1.9k params, keyboard-style discrete actions) and a neuroevolution self-play trainer; trained weights live insrc/sim/brains/. The combat viewer (viewer.html) replays matchups with the real wireframe ships. Seedocs/AI-TRAINING.mdanddocs/TRAINING-LOG.md.- Rendering: three.js + UnrealBloom for the phosphor glow.
This is a non-commercial fan homage, released under the MIT license (see LICENSE). Elite (1984) was created by Ian Bell and David Braben and published by Acornsoft; the "Elite" trademark belongs to Frontier Developments plc. This project is affiliated with none of them. The galaxy generator follows the long-published descriptions of the original algorithm; ship silhouettes are freshly-made approximations in the spirit of the originals.
docs/GAP-ANALYSIS.md tracks feature-by-feature parity with the original manual — almost all of it is now implemented. Remaining: side laser mounts, gamepad / pointer-lock mouse flight, and the two-level "living galaxy" simulation sketched in docs/AI-TRAINING.md. AI-wise: pack-phase round 3 (reward shaping ideas in docs/TRAINING-LOG.md) and putting the defence brain behind a purchasable in-game "combat computer".