Bytes 0x76 to 0xBA hold the ship and the commander: fuel, equipment and lasers, then credits, legal status, kills and name, then the cargo hold and the market of the present system.
Ship
0x76Unused and fuel1 + 10x78Equipment 13 bytes in the order of the status screen130x85Masking device10x86Laser mounts and laser types1 + 1
| Offset | Size | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
0x76 | 1 | Unused | The program counts its equipment table from this byte, so fuel is item 1 and nothing is kept here. Zero in every file. |
0x77 | 1 | Fuel | In 36ths of a light year. FF is a full tank, shown as 7.0 light years; the status screen shows the value × 10 ÷ 36, rounded down, in tenths. A jump takes off its distance, a fuel leak 5 at a time, and buying fuel fills the tank to FF. A new commander has 7E, 3.5 light years. |
0x78 | 1 | Missiles | 0 to 4. A new commander has 3. |
0x79 | 1 | Cargo bay extension | 1 when fitted: the hold takes 35 tonnes instead of 20. |
0x7A | 1 | ECM system | 1 when fitted. |
0x7B | 1 | Pulse lasers | How many pulse lasers are fitted, 0 to 4. A new commander has one, fore. |
0x7C | 1 | Beam lasers | How many beam lasers are fitted. |
0x7D | 1 | Fuel scoops | 1 when fitted. |
0x7E | 1 | Escape capsule | 1 when fitted. |
0x7F | 1 | Energy bomb | 1 when fitted. |
0x80 | 1 | Extra energy unit | 1 when fitted. |
0x81 | 1 | Docking computers | 1 when fitted. |
0x82 | 1 | Galactic hyperdrive | 1 when fitted. A galactic jump uses it up and sets this to 0. |
0x83 | 1 | Mining lasers | How many mining lasers are fitted. |
0x84 | 1 | Military lasers | How many military lasers are fitted. |
0x85 | 1 | Masking device | 1 once the masking device has been fitted, the reward for bringing one back from the masking device mission. N switches it on. |
0x86 | 1 | Laser mounts | Which mounts carry a laser: bit 0 fore, bit 1 aft, bit 2 right, bit 3 left. |
0x87 | 1 | Laser types | Two bits for each mount, from bit 0 in the same order (fore, aft, right, left): 0 pulse, 1 beam, 2 mining, 3 military. The bits of an empty mount mean nothing. |
The four laser counts always agree with the mounts: for each type, the count is the
number of fitted mounts whose two bits name that type. In a ship with military lasers
fore, right and left and a mining laser aft, 0x86 is 0F, 0x87 is
FB (binary 11 11 10 11), 0x83 is 1 and 0x84 is 3.
Commander
| Offset | Size | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
0x88 | 4 | Credits | The commander’s money in tenths of a credit: E8 03 00 00 is 1,000, 100.0 credits. The text at 0x1C is written from it. |
0x8C | 1 | Legal status | 0 is Clean, 1 to 39 Offender, 40 and more Fugitive. Crimes add 5 or 40, up to 255; each jump takes off 5, and a galactic jump clears it. |
0x8D | 1 | Kills | Ships destroyed, counting up to 254 and staying there. The rating comes from it, see below. |
0x8E | 9 | Name | Up to eight characters, then a zero. A new commander is JAMESON and a space. In the files examined it is the name of the file the commander was last loaded from: the dot of .CDR becomes the zero, and the rest of the file name can follow it (LKS5, zero, CDR). |
Rating
The status screen finds the rating by counting how many of these thresholds the kills at 0x8D reach. PC Elite counts whole ships, so its thresholds are much lower than the 6502 versions’.
| Kills | Rating |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | Harmless |
| 2–3 | Mostly Harmless |
| 4–8 | Poor |
| 9–19 | Average |
| 20–34 | Above Average |
| 35–89 | Competent |
| 90–154 | Dangerous |
| 155–229 | Deadly |
| 230–254 | Elite |
Cargo and market
From 0x97 each of the 17 goods has two bytes: how much is in the hold, then how much the market of the present system has. Selling moves the amount from the first byte to the second; buying, the other way.
0x97Goods held and on sale, 17 pairs340xB9Refugees10xBACargo space used1
| Held | On sale | Goods | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
0x97 | 0x98 | Food | t |
0x99 | 0x9A | Textiles | t |
0x9B | 0x9C | Radioactives | t |
0x9D | 0x9E | Slaves | t |
0x9F | 0xA0 | Liquor/Wines | t |
0xA1 | 0xA2 | Luxuries | t |
0xA3 | 0xA4 | Narcotics | t |
0xA5 | 0xA6 | Computers | t |
0xA7 | 0xA8 | Machinery | t |
0xA9 | 0xAA | Alloys | t |
0xAB | 0xAC | Firearms | t |
0xAD | 0xAE | Furs | t |
0xAF | 0xB0 | Minerals | t |
0xB1 | 0xB2 | Gold | kg |
0xB3 | 0xB4 | Platinum | kg |
0xB5 | 0xB6 | Gem-Stones | g |
0xB7 | 0xB8 | Alien Items | t |
| Offset | Size | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
0xB9 | 1 | Refugees | Refugees on board, in tonnes. Taking on the refugees of the supernova mission empties the hold and fills it with them: 20, or 35 with the cargo bay extension. |
0xBA | 1 | Cargo space used | Tonnes of the hold in use. Goods sold by the tonne count, and so do refugees; gold, platinum and gem-stones do not. Scooping a canister adds 1. |
The amounts on sale belong to the market of the present system for this visit. The program chooses them at random the first time the Market Prices screen is shown after a jump, and sets the flag at 0xBB so that it does not choose again. A new commander has none.