ELITE was the grandfather of all the space trading games you see today. Released in 1984 and written by David Braben & Ian Bell, the game introduced many concepts that we all take for granted in modern 3D space games and was a huge influence for the creators of EVE Online amongst others.
I played it when it came out and nobody had ever seen a 3D space game where there was actual combat, trading and travelling the universe all in one tidy little package. ELITE used wiremesh representations of the ships in the game, although later versions started to use shaded graphics on the models.
There hasn't really been a similar game like it to be honest, many have tried and been found sadly lacking. I'd like to say Freelancer came close, but in all honesty it didn't, although the basic principles were there. Freelancer offers the same ideas but in a much smaller universe, but the advantage Freelancer has is it looks a million times better.
With the 25th anniversary of ELITE, i've taken it upon myself to create an ELITE ship pack featuring all the models from the original game, kindly supplied by a gentleman called Griff who not only made these excellent models but textured them as well.
DOWNLOAD HERE: STRATEGYINFORMER download link
This version of the ship pack is intended as a modders resource only. It is NOT PLUG AND PLAY with original versions of Freelancer. These ships have to be manually added!