Introduction / my efforts

[Redrobes]

http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/bbc/index.htm#src

Thats cool Mid but I cant see any clear sources for that name generator. Its hidden in the assembly of the main game I think and that requires considerable effort to decode - to the point that he mentions that one guy has done it and recoded it and how hard it was. What I am hoping to find is a name generator in any modern language like 'C' or something like that. Maybe its not possible without all the game code too as a means of hashing up the name.

This is the closest I have but even this one reckons that its not the original code for it.

http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/p...domNameGen.php

Maybe its impossible to get the original generator any more. Isomage - do you think you have the original Elite name generator or something approximately like it.

[isomage]

Ian Bell has released C source code for a text-version of Elite, and it contains the name generator: http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/text/

I think I might have worked from Christian Pinder's reverse-engineered C code, which doesn't seem to be available from that site anymore.

Here's my Python version. If you set ELITE = True, successive calls to name() will generate the sequence of names used in the game -- look for Lave on call 7 (starting from 0); otherwise you'll get a random sequence.

ELITE = False

if ELITE:
    seed = [0x5A4A, 0x0248, 0xB753]
else:
    import random
    seed = [random.randint(0, 0xffff), random.randint(0, 0xffff), random.randint(0, 0xffff)]

def tweakseed():
    temp = (seed[0] + seed[1] + seed[2]) % 0x10000
    seed[0] = seed[1]
    seed[1] = seed[2]
    seed[2] = temp

digraphs = "..lexegezacebisousesarmaindirea.eratenberalavetiedorquanteisrion"

def name():
    longnameflag = seed[0] & 0x40

    name = ""

    for n in range(4):
        d = ((seed[2] >> 8) & 0x1f) << 1

        tweakseed()

        if n < 3 or longnameflag:
            name += digraphs[d:d+2]

    return name.replace(".", "").title()

[Redrobes]

Wow that's excellent and totally rep worthy if I haven't already. I actually remember 'Lave' too. I think I might just try this to see what the names were and if I remember any more. Did you see all of our November challenge entries ? I think mine would have been improved with better names. Although our stars are named with Arabic, for some reason I think the ones in the sky sounded better than the ones I had used.