Here i will continue what i started a little wrong in the developing section because i just answered to a thread but i guess appearance and such don't belongs there.

First i will post here my icons stuff which replaces boring looking frontends.

DOSBox Icon
It doesn't belongs there but you can refer to it for how that will look and what i use for it

The templates for GIMP (.xcf) i use to create the icons:

- DOS shell icon
- Manual icon
- Workbook icon

My recent set of icons i use for DOS-Box (links to my OneDrive):
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhX1Ed1178sOi0a9zIuCy9u3euNy

So far for the Icons and my "no frontend frontend"

Yeah i know you mostly will like this one

A couple of tweaks
(to be continued)

ANSI Pictures to be displayed in a DOS shell:

contains the "commander keen" ansi intro

just add

1TYPE ARCHIVE\BIN\CK1KEYS.ANS
2ARCHIVE\BIN\STUFFIT +60 13 >NUL
3PAUSE >NUL
4ARCHIVE\BIN\STUFFIT /R >NUL
5ECHO ESC[0m
6CLS

to the "autoexec" section in the conf file and it will be displayed for 60 seconds or until you pressed any key.
To edit the autoexec section if you like to echo escape sequences how they are used nowadays i recommend something like "Notepad++" because it will hand you and display the proper syntax for [ESC]. here i used it to reset the last color setting in the ANSI picture, else if the sequence is interrupted and text will be displayed it will be all in the last color used in the picture, i.e. blue glyphs on blue ground which is quite hard to read.
of course you can add this also to the end of the picture.ans or vice versa create such a picture in the autoexec section by hand and using the echo command (if you are masochistic).

To create the ANSI pictures/animations i use "Pablo Draw" which is a new find to me and a nice toy to waste a lot of time with it.
http://picoe.ca/products/pablodraw/

To be honest the tip for this program and the general idea i have from this forum or/and another DOS-Box related forum.
Sure there exist other programs for this but this is a nice win proggy with a nice GUI and easy to use.

Lazy as i am i don't create the images fully myself, i export them from GIMP in .raw format and rename it to .bin to be recognized by "PabloDraw"
The size for this must be double of the rows and columns you have, i.e. for a screen 80x24 glyphs wide you need a bitmap 160x48.
The whole thing turns out a bit garbled and messed up when you import it and you have to edit the result, some glyphs it produces which aren't in the standard DOS set but the colors are proper if you palettesized the image using a DOS-Box screen dump from a CGA game as palette.

It will open the image doubled and you have to set the columns from 160 to 80.
Not ideal but it works.

But of course even such is nice it doesn't have to be a picture

But it can be

STUFFIT
to pass keystrokes to a program or command was also mentioned here or otherwise, it's still available even if the original link is broken
http://www-ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/keyboard/
all proggies in this list have a similar purpose to stuff keystrokes in the buffer
but it is mentioned that "Stuffit" is the most flexible one
you can delay each keystroke if that is needed or search for a certain string which appears on the screen or search for a certain prompt, it accepts decimal keycodes or simply the desired key in square brackets i.e. instead of 50 for 2 just [2], "2" in quotes will be a string which is passed to the program which follows STUFFIT. Sometimes (often, mostly) it failes for games as soon as the game is loaded because this will either clear the buffer or just prevent the TSR from running and the command will be executed after the game exits, but to quit "PAUSE" it's anyway fine and if a game request via DOS prompt for an input it's neither a problem.
http://www-ftp.lip6.fr/pub/pc/garbo/pc/keyboard/stuff310.zip

certainly you will find here a lot of TSR's and other nice old DOS programs, but who will know them by their shortcuts?

another example

1[autoexec]
2CLS
3@ECHO OFF 
4MIXER MASTER 50:50 >NUL
5MOUNT C C:\GAMES\DOS\FRONTIER >NUL
6C: >NUL
7TYPE ARCHIVE\BIN\FE2.ANS
8ARCHIVE\BIN\STUFFIT +10 13 >NUL
9PAUSE >NUL
10ARCHIVE\BIN\STUFFIT +0 >NUL
11CD FE2 >NUL
12IF EXIST FORCECOL.EXE FORCECOL
13..\ARCHIVE\BIN\STUFFIT 50 >NUL
14FRONTIER 
15EXIT

putting CLS at front of the autoexec section in the DOS-Box conf file will clear the DOS-Box info at start which is a nice thing.
as you see i redirect all to NUL this prevents from any output (mostly, some can even override this)
then i display a opening screen for 10 seconds or quit by pressing any key (PAUSE command redirect to NUL to prevent from prompt)
STUFFIT passes 13 to PAUSE command which means "Enter" and [Enter] would do the same, or any other key will break PAUSE, but since you will mostly press Enter if such is requested i also used Enter, it could be as well any key.
FORCECOL is a FE2 specific TSR and changes the sky in FE2 from dark blue to black, it often fails (only in DOS-Box?) and i install it optional with the
"Generic MODS enabler" that's why i ask "IF EXIST".
after that i call again STUFFIT to pass the keystroke "2" to the prompt when it's requested which sound effects i like to use.
FRONTIER >NUL prevents from displaying this prompt and STUFFIT 50 >NUL passes my option hidden to it.

If i now start "Frontier" it displays the opener (in this case just a pic without any special meaning)
and starts Frontier without to show anything else as the opener and then the runnig game.

erm yes why not, JSGME (MODS Enabler) is a handy thing not only for DOS games.
most will know it already (?)
however i don't like to link a with ads cluttered download page here and since it's free to share you can download the latest version from my OneDrive
it seems it's no longer developed the archive of JoneSoft on http://www.users.on.net is empty

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhX1Ed1178sOi0cu6GURNp5kk0Gd

no big thing to add a own selection in the autoexec section.

1CLS
2@ECHO OFF
3#MIXER MASTER 20:20 >NUL
4MOUNT C C:\GAMES\DOS\CHAOSENGINE >NUL
5C: >NUL
6CD CHAOS >NUL
7TYPE ..\ARCHIVE\BIN\CHAOS.ANS
8CHOICE /CSPD /N >NUL
9IF ERRORLEVEL 3 GOTO DOS >NUL
10IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO PLAY >NUL
11IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO SETUP >NUL
12
13:SETUP
14SETUP >NUL
15CHAOS >NUL
16EXIT
17
18:PLAY
19CHAOS >NUL
20EXIT
21
22:DOS
23CLS
24@ECHO ON

will show this (a bit garbled) options screen

and request for (sound & gfx) Setup, play the game, or exit to DOS if you like to start something else from the shell.

The images i use are extremely simple i know, one could do much more with the glyphs as to use only the plain filled ones.
But i don't like to spend to much time with that i guess somewhere in this forum you find much better ANSI artists as me.

I like to play old DOS games (or other old games or new releases for old platforms) because they don't use up to much time, you can play them in a couple of minutes or hours that's fine to me because mainly i work on "Phoenix" and the games are mostly to distract me.

Some i play to learn from them, i like the procedural generated stuff from the past, you won't find such today, yes of course it still exists Pioneer itself is procedural generated but it's very different to early approaches like "Tower of Doom" for the Intellivision (or "AD&D Tower of Mystery" which was the original broken and unfinished version of the developer), however such teaches me how simple and addictive a game can be.

Some games you find in the icons zip i attached which i only installed to be totally disappointed of them, e.g. "sex vixens" it's neither good for the amiga, but argh it's a horror in the PC release and shows well why the PC wasn't suitable for gaming for a long time. Up to 1990 the Amiga releases are major to them.
Some games was created on a M68000 and for a M68000 and work shit on a lathe controller. Ports of Call is such a game, graphically it's the same but the controls to maneuver your ship are sluggish and unprecise, it's shit to play in the DOS version.

Obviousely my absolute fav. is "Frontier", else i wouldn't have started as co-dev for "Pioneer" respectively beeing the first who contributet models to it (long ago).

split off the first post from the dbgl discussion, not sure why you bother to post that there, as it has nothing to do with it.

Thanks, i noticed my mistake.
(just guess it's me the widely known off topic poster, i try to follow guidelines as good as i can but well....)

btw, i didn't found a answer to "can i link games here" i assume not, thus in case i have something put together like additional stuff i collected for a game i will link or attach only the additions without the game to be on the safe side.

Since i'm not often in web but have experiences of my very own with DOS-Box my solutions will look different.
this is pretty much the first time i subscribed to a old games related forum (except atari-age), but i play mostly old ones (except for my even not so new "Phoenix").

At this point a thanks, it's a great forum with loads of infos, just great!

thx commender jameson
from this

to this

To follow this idea my first collected additions to Frontier, all over the web you find utilities which support this old game.

The offered shareware release of the game by Frontier.devs is overhauled and they removed the so called "wormhole bug". this bug leads to that you get in about 64000LY distance a "in range" reading and you can jump to this system. by calculationg the point where the hyperspace ranges will cross each other you can jump to any system using only a small amount of fuel and a small amount of time.

So first you will like to patch the game to the old version including this "bug".

There is a windows helper program to this bug the "Wormhole Calculator" it will perform this calculation for you, just enter starting and target system and the proggy will show you the coordinates where you have to look for a suitable intermediate jump system.

Another fine DOS tool is "SGE" the save game editor, it decrunches the savegames and converts them to a human readable and commented file, using this i created some "Missions" for the game, just a given start point for a quick game with a given task to fulfill which range from beginners to advanced.
Some missions are only to solve with the "wormhole bug" since i placed the ship on the opposite side of the galaxy.
But you can try otherwise, due to that it is procedural generated there are random clusters of inhabited systems all over the galaxy, if you can manage to reach them in one year before your drive fails due to lack of servicing you can probably find home without the wormhole bug.

SGM is also used by the "rank teller" (DOS) which will show off your "score" and your advance in ranking (how many points you need to advance to the next rank).

YOU WILL NEED TO DECRUNCH ALL THE FILES OF FE2 USING UNLZEXE TO EDIT THEM! (except for the savegames for this is SGE).

Tom Morton who started "Pioneer Space Sim" had created "GL Frontier" (based on his favorized atari release) previousely and a helper program for windows with which you can edit the ship specs in the game and save them to the game, "FE2EDWIN" is a windows application which must be placed in the FE2 directory to work. Take care and backup your original exe and also only use Tom's provided frontier.exe because the program affects any file while and won't respect all versions of Frontier which exist (i.e. german or french won't work at all) the proper version is shown in the program if it opens frontier.exe by diplaying TOM and a version number. Of course if you alter ship specs here they will be also altered for the AI, if you like to have a pimped ship only for you i suggest to use the savegame editor. Hooper provided some example savegames with pimped ships. My missions use pimped ships which you will own after you succeeded the "mission".
(hi tom, you are just huge)

A german contributor did the tedious work and created the only existing real MOD for Frontier "Arisata" which will change "Ross154" to "Arisata" and adds a second station to the system.
btw. there are only a few hardcoded systems in FE2, Sol, Ross154, Epsilon Eridani in general and all the rest is procedural generated.
however it can be used as a guide to i.e. change the stations in Sol if you like that.

The original release has a password copyprotection which appears from time to time, also for this exists a replacement file will still show the copyprotection screen but you canter any keystroke to reset the timer, also SGM would allow to reset this counter. if the copyprotection is removed like for the shareware release the savegames won't work for the protected version since it will show right at start this question and fails the to accept "any key".
however i use the unprotected version only it's located in a specific data file of FE2.

Unfortunately exactly in this file is also another bug (mining machine bug) which was removed for the latest release.
Of course easiest would be if i link here the whole game like i use it, but i guess that's not wanted.

Another tool is EFP the "Frontier Elite II Random Flight Plan Generator" a nice short DOS program which creates a flight plan for you, adds something special to FE2, a sort of "mission path" you can follow.

Two very basic and old tools are SEEGRF and GRF2BMP these programs read out the .GRF files Frontier will generate if you press "asterisk" to save a screenshot from within the game, the format is the same as it is used for the intro animation of Frontier.
Not really needed if you run it in DOS-Box but well nice to have, mostly of use if you run FE2 in an original old doze.

Using Hoopers "FE2Info" and Theunis' "objects of FE2" i hacked the program and made the Lynx Bulk Carrier available to purchase.
Not of real use since this is a oversized ship but just for the fun of it.

Personally i use a hacked version which will display "Frontier Dev" instead of "Gametek Konami", the file is the debugged later release i just hacked the old "Frontier Dev" in it.

That's quite a lot for this vintage space game, paragon to all what was later released in this genre of procedural generated open world games.

I still play it from time to time and even still prefere it over First Encounters even if it's almost the same game.
Mostly i like the Amiga version, it was the fist i played and even when it's untextured compared to the PC-DOS release the CD32 release is major becuase it contains the extremely helpful navigation aid.

The game is processor time hungry it let's DOS-Box sweat, i discovered that it's best to run it on a plain "386" processor setting maximum cycles and set the sound to "low" 22050Hz. The MIDI sound seems to be broken for DOS-Box (but i dunno how it would have been in an original DOS, like i said i used Amigas up to 1998, i still hate the lathe controller it's rubbish). However the sondeffects are sluggish in midi and the button clicking sound won't stop once a button is clicked.
Wind noise, station sound and the piano chord for the hyperspace jump sound very funny with MIDI instruments. The music would be quite fine especially if you use a modern midi soft interpreter which i found even here (thx), but not the best, 4 voices still sound weak other games from the same period have much better midi music.

Still you will encounter that if a lot is displayed FE2 will slow down a lot. You can check this already at default start in Ross154 when you switch to external view and rotate the camera, it will show you very well if it's running fine or not.

A brief summit of my "Missions":
-

PUNKT

now i have to setup a folder containing only the additions and mods.

Still the question is open "CAN I LINK THE WHOLE GAME?" (i will wait patiently for an answer)
if not i have to link a half non working game and you will have to find the apropriate version yourself.
Or i can redirect you to Frontier.devs themself (or elite-games.ru) it shoud be still somewhere in the forum or i can upload it there without any problems.
I'm a FE2 veteran you will know 😀
(say hi to geraldine, steve and all the rest of pilots)

looks like i haven't all on my notebook and will have to check where i uploaded my stuff or from where i downloaded it.

If you are the owner of the game and have full redistribution rights, Feel free to link, otherwise it is illegal and not allowed.

as i thought, no i don't own it (would be nice, i do not own anything dammit 😉 and i won't)

i will see how i can evade this and post only what is legal.

interested ones will have to search the apropriate version themself and instead of links i will post only the terms to search for which will lead to the proper place in the web (e.g. frontier.dev themself).

No problem to do this on Frontier.forums (for Frontier) or Space Sim Central, but i thought it will be problematic here because else every john and henry will upload games which are probably not abandonware or illegal to spread.

a good place is the internet archive i will mention it often in future.
that doesn't means that all is legal you find there, usually the archive keeps files until they encounter problems and then it's taken from the archive.
however anyone knows how to enter a term in google (i assume but i'm sometimes surprised how lazy some are).

AT THIS POINT:
NO I WON'T ANSWER TO PM REQUESTS!

(except it will be about "Phoenix" or "Pioneer")

Before i post more stuff the links to some Frontier related pages (they are widely known but nonetheless)

As very first and probably only link you need Steves "Frontier Astro" website, it includes all one likes to know about Elite, Frontier, First Encounters and whatever is relatet to Frontier and Astronomy. He's a good (remote) friend of mine and waits patiently that i fill FFED3D with the missing models (caugh).
It exceeds theb topic "DOS-Box" a little but it's the page to look for "Elite2 Frontier".

http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/

further links:
http://www.frontierastro.co.uk/links.html
i don't have to add a single one to this list it's complete.

Neither Steve owns any rights on Frontier but they decided not to care about the spreading of Elite, FE2 or FFE anymore "it would leave a bad taste in the mouth of everyone" (they like to sell their new games and we are the community they need to spread the advertise).
Frontier.dev is a small company, but huge.

Nah ok, a bad guy still could start a lawsuit i know, it's not in the interest of Frontier.dev but well you guys in the EU have those parasitic "Abmahner" for whichs pleasure the new article 13 has been made. In Switzerland such isn't possible, a third party can't start a lawsuit no chance for parasites if the owner agrees.

I will pause before i upload my stuff, tomorrow i have a colonoscopy 🙁

this should be safe, it contains what i use for Frontier, it will contain some game data and a hacked executable but it's in no way to use without the original or shareware release of Frontier.

Contents:

MODS
- JSGME MODS enabler
- FE2 patch (removes password protection, adds bugfixes)
- Wormhole patch
- Arisata
- Frontier Lynx Hack
- FFE black space

Missions
- Missions (modified savegames in commandr dir)

Tools
- FE2EdWin (ready in dir FE2)
- seegrf & grf2bmp
- fe2info (hoopers fe2 hack guide)
- EFP Flight Plan Generator
- FE2 Savegame Editor
- Rank Teller
- Wormhole Calculator
- UNLZEXE
- Stuffit
- (example) config file for DOS-Box

Various Doc files
Icons
ANSI Artwork

One tool is missing the "FE2 FlightLog" i never found that suitable and that's why i don't copied this to my new machine.
It's complicated and useless to fill out the the forms for the flightlog imho.
It might would have been handy when i started to play it because you maybe like to keep track of your actions, but it's a very clumsy program, it won't read out data from the savegames or capture data from the running game and you have to fill in all by yourself, not comfortable at all.

i've made once a "wormhole jump systems" list but i lost this over the years, a similar one but quite less large you find on
https://sharoma.com/frontierverse/

Also i had made a short description to my missions (savegames) but also this i didn't transferred to my new notebook.

Frontier has even a "new" shape now and i also found my documentations to my created "quick play missions"

There will follow more, recently i'm up to prepare the games (respectively the peripherals) so they will run from an USB stick, this will leave a setup you can use 1:1 on your PC as long as DOSBox and the DOS games are in the same root directory (e.g. DOSGAMES/DOSBOX and DOSGAMES/GAMENAME).

Sort of counteracting to frontends, of course i can't create such for all games which exist but i also hope to give a kick in this direction i know it's pleasing.
(still i have to create a 150 manuals readable in the Intellivision resolution for the use with LTO Flash - it's also a cool thing to read the manuals on a real Intellivision and on a real tube TV, that's the intention behind all this to create a environment for the game which is game specific, it doesn't have to be true '80s '90's or whatever it has to be pleasing)

At this point again thx to "bristlehog" even if PX is intentionally ment to playback the .XMI via a file explorer it is a great toy to me to play an intro music
which represents the chosen soundsetup.

As a preview to what will follow soon
- Frontier new setup with leading in and leading out image(s) and game music instead of the ANSI art, contains DOSBox based viewers for the various help files. No i haven't get megaem to work for it yet if that is possible at all, i would wish to have midi (alike) music and SFX but maybe it's impossible without the real hardware, probably DOSBox-X will help but i'ts extremely complex and not yet documented, he could need help though)

The Settlers a similar sound selection screen like for "Lords", settlers has native support for gus, very fine imo. lead in - lead out as for all.

Lords of the Realm Config allows to use GUS and the AIL drivers to have GUS music and digital SFX for the game, a bit a legal question i have to lean out far of the window because i have to share the the GUS software for this (in portions but i will keep the original repos complete, even if that is just for respect of the authors). A main task is to setup the games for GUS which have no native support for it.

here we go...
DUNE 2 lead in - lead out. It uses a special edition of AIL drivers published by Gravis.

A sidetrip, GUS's playmidi uses a background art (for what reason ever the internal headline looks far better as the loaded simple "ULTRA SOUND" headline), i fumbled a bit around with that and now i can load any 1bitplane image to be displayed in the players window. Looks very Amiga like, the blue screen and the font they used is very close to Amiga, i wonder what they had in mind...

Star-Wars X-Wing i haven't prepped that yet but also for this game i found special GUS sound drivers.

Doom, lead in lead out, i run that already with GUS and i really wonder what the special drivers do which i found for it, it sounds very well already.

As i read for some games there isn't only one way to get GUS working for them, the use of "ultramid" isn't the best quality you can possibly reach.
It has been completely replaced later by megaem but unfortunately megaem fails to run in dosbox so we have to depend on what ultramid can do, until someone finds a solution, it fails (reports) because of an unrecognized emm version.

SimCity Classic not much sense to have GUS sound for a single tune, anyway it had to be enabled. lead in - lead out.

SimCity 2000 makes much more sense for the music, i would like to open here a special thread for sc2000, simcopter and streets because they belong to each other and are in this combination a never again reached version of SimCity, but i recently don't know where to start this thread (anyway not in the dosbox section).
doesn't blelongs exactly here but i converted some xmi tracks of the dos version for the win version which sound better and i can offer a patch to run SC2000 on Win10.

Space 1889 no special sound, the three tracks of the game (which you rarely hear) will be played back via pc speaker but therefore a lot of stuff i created since i owned this game first for my miggy, maps of mars and venus and a proper map of the constellations for easier navigation.

If you would see (i can present that if there is interest) how it looks on the virtual miggy you would strongly wish to had one, such can't be done with DOS (respectively DOSBox but MS-DOS is the restriction which didn't allows to have a own graphical surface for a game, i did such already 30 years ago and started many games from a special workbench floppy just because it pleased me).

For now i have to close it's getting late