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Elite on the BBC Micro and NES

An introduction to the Elite Universe Editor

Create your own Elite universes and "press play" to bring them to life

The Elite Universe Editor

The Elite Universe Editor allows you to create your own playable universes in classic BBC Micro and Commodore 64 Elite. You can run it on the BBC Micro with 6502 Second Processor, on the BBC Master, on the Commodore 64, on modern emulators, or right here in your web browser.

The Elite Universe Editor

To download the Elite Universe Editor or load it in your browser, see the downloads page.

The Universe Editor is described in full detail in the instructions for the BBC version and Commodore 64 version, and there's also a summary of keys for reference.

An introduction to the Universe Editor
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The Universe Editor lets you customise pretty much every aspect of the Elite universe, from the ships around you to the seeds used to generate the game's systems and galaxies. Here's what you can do, all within the original game engine:

  • Compose your universe by placing ships, planets, suns and space stations anywhere within the local bubble, with a fully featured 3D editor that uses the game's original interface and key presses that will be familiar to players of BBC Micro Elite.
  • Edit the many different attributes for each ship, such as AI, ship personality, speed, turn rates, laser fire, missiles, E.C.M., station type, planet type and so on.
  • Save and load universe files.
  • Play your universes by jumping straight into the game engine with your chosen universe laid out around you. Build a scenario and watch it come to life, or load one of the sample universes that come bundled with the editor, like the iconic screenshot from the back of the BBC Micro box: Creating the screenshot from the original BBC Micro box in the Elite Universe Editor or the screenshot from the back of the original Commodore 64 box: Creating the screenshot from the original Commodore 64 box in the Elite Universe Editor
  • Edit the galaxy seeds to explore the 281,474,976,710,656 different galaxies that the engine supports.

The Universe Editor is a "mod" in the real sense of the word - it modifies the original Elite, which is still present in the Universe Editor in its full form. When you play a universe file, it drops you into the game itself with your current commander loaded, as if you had been there all along.