To help me test two-player #BBCMicro Elite, I’ve added “AI Pilot” as an option

It uses the game’s 1984 tactics routines to fly player 2 (bottom view)

It’s really interesting to watch Elite’s original “AI” from inside the other ship’s cockpit - in this case, an NPC Python

The top view is a human player, the bottom view is the AI

You can see the AI’s view jumping around quite a bit

This is because pitch and roll are either fully on or fully off for AI ships - there is no fine control

To make up for this, AI ships don't have to be 100% accurate to make a hit

In this configuration, two-player Elite is effectively the same as standard single-player Elite, but with the bottom view showing the cockpit of the computer-controlled AI ship

So this is what the world looks like for Elite NPCs!

I'll definitely be leaving this feature in - it’s great fun

#retrocomputing