Space Sims/Strategy Games Catch-All

The irony here is that to get it off GOG you'll have to pay twice as much as you did 8 years ago. Ha!

The Tomorrow War has the worst voice acting I have ever heard ever. And I've played Men of War. (Same publisher)

It feels nice though. Good flight and weapon models. I'm stuck in the tutorial, but I only played a total of twenty minutes.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Not mentioned so far: the Battlecruiser series - Derek Smart's magnum opus....for obvious reasons.

What about Space Rangers 2?
Impulse
Steam
and other sources.

ebarstad wrote:

During the Steam Christmas sale, I picked up AI War and X3:TC. More recently, SotS Complete and Space Rangers 2. The only one I've been able to get into so far is SR2.

Tried the demo last night finally. Strange. It feels like an RTS control but more of a fight/trade/explore game. Ran through the tutorial missions as a human fighter pilot. Seems like turn based gameplay, and actions are based on your pilots' xp and ship's equipment more than any actual skill at combat or anything. I guess it's 5 years old so the graphics are ok. But it seems to be an isometric view of a 2D space. Definitely a lot of stars and planets out there to explore, and maybe some interesting story missions somewhere.

I dunno. I don't think I'm in for buying it right now. I think I prefer the more twitchy fighter jockey combat or the more massive RTS fleets. This feels stuck somewhere in between in a space I'm not comfortable with right now.

Stele wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Not mentioned so far: the Battlecruiser series - Derek Smart's magnum opus....for obvious reasons.

What about Space Rangers 2?
Impulse
Steam
and other sources.

ebarstad wrote:

During the Steam Christmas sale, I picked up AI War and X3:TC. More recently, SotS Complete and Space Rangers 2. The only one I've been able to get into so far is SR2.

Tried the demo last night finally. Strange. It feels like an RTS control but more of a fight/trade/explore game. Ran through the tutorial missions as a human fighter pilot. Seems like turn based gameplay, and actions are based on your pilots' xp and ship's equipment more than any actual skill at combat or anything. I guess it's 5 years old so the graphics are ok. But it seems to be an isometric view of a 2D space. Definitely a lot of stars and planets out there to explore, and maybe some interesting story missions somewhere.

I dunno. I don't think I'm in for buying it right now. I think I prefer the more twitchy fighter jockey combat or the more massive RTS fleets. This feels stuck somewhere in between in a space I'm not comfortable with right now.

Yeah, it ain't a flight sim nor an RTS. I'm not sure what it is exactly. Open ended space trading game with combat, logic puzzles and RTS robot combat? It's pretty awesome though.

A little late to the party here, so forgive my skimming if this was already mentioned.
Anyone remember a little gem by Tim Wiseman called VGA planets? It started as a DOS game, then got ported to Windows and collected dust for a while. Well, it's back with a new web interface but the core mechanics have been preserved to the letter. Check it out here:
http://vgaplanets.nu

nobody has mentioned ascendency. not a bad 4X type even if the combat was turnbased. The best bit was the music and the atmosphere created by the different types of aliens.

now apparently available for the ipad and phone etc.

RFHolloway wrote:

nobody has mentioned ascendency. not a bad 4X type even if the combat was turnbased. The best bit was the music and the atmosphere created by the different types of aliens.

now apparently available for the ipad and phone etc.

Which then makes me think of Rebellion. Then again, I thought we were talking about good games, which I don't think Rebellion is (even if the box cover still makes me all excited like I was the day I bought it).

Oh good God, I remember buying that and starting to read the manual on the train home. Even then, I was starting to think that this looked to have been a colossal error...

I may be alone here, but I really enjoyed Rebellion. I thought that the focus on characters and how you used them to do 'missions' made the game somewhat unique. I wonder if I still have that CD somewhere...

I think I was too young to deal with the interface. And the 3d space battles left a lot to be desired.

The characters were perhaps the only thing I remember liking about the game. It'd be interesting for someone to give it a go now. The real time pausable sort of stuff is fairly standard now, so ...

Hell, I'd just like to see a good Star Wars game again.

Well apparently we were going to get X-Wing series remakes after the success of Monkey Island, but now we're not because LucasArts is stupid.

I guess there are 3 attempts at SW strategy? Rebellion. Force Commander. Empire at War. None of them is really considered a success.

Stele wrote:

I guess there are 3 attempts at SW strategy? Rebellion. Force Commander. Empire at War. None of them is really considered a success.

Well, once you start mixing in the prequel material no one cares.

Those 3 are all original trilogy stuff from 1998, 2000 and 2006. Was there another prequel strategy game?

Stele wrote:

Those 3 are all original trilogy stuff from 1998, 2000 and 2006. Was there another prequel strategy game?

I thought EaW had prequel stuff in it. Hmmm

Edit: Ah, it was set between III and IV. Aaanyway...

garion333 wrote:

I think I was too young to deal with the interface. And the 3d space battles left a lot to be desired.

I assure you that age has nothing to do with this. Somewhere under that terrible interface there is a decent game concept. I've tried numerous times to "get it" and I end up crying every time.

Anyone played Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and can tell us about it?

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Anyone played Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and can tell us about it?

Well, I recommended Weird Worlds, which is the sequel to that game. I really like it as it's something like a roguelike in space without quite the punishing difficulty of a roguelike and with a more adventure feel to it. It definitely scratches the one more turn (or one more game) itch.

It's too bad that Shrapnel published it as it's still $25 or so even after all these years.

Edit: Here's my post. Gunner approved. Need you know more?

Quick update on Star Traders for Android: Very cool game. I've played a couple hours now, and now that I understand how things work I'm having a lot of fun with it. The devs are great and update often. Highly recommended!

I just picked up Darkstar One for the 360. Although it isn't deep by any means, it is scratching the space sim itch for me (less involved than X3:TC). If you can find it for cheap and you haven't played the original, go for it.

Well, crap. Now I have to add X3TC to my Pile of Shame.

Normally I'd post this in the VG Deals Catch-All thread, but it seems more appropriate here:

Lost Empire - Immortals is $2 on Impulse today. Seems like an above-average turn-based 4x space empire game. It appears to have some minor issues overall, but at $2 I'm willing to take a shot at it.

Purchased. And I'm adding this to the VG deals thread.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Anyone played Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and can tell us about it?

Short games (like 10 minutes at most) where random factors can keep you from winning. The idea is that you borrowed money to outfit an expedition to explore the galaxy and have a limited amount of time to get back and pay back the loan. When (or if) you get back, you are rated by how much what you brought back was worth and how long it took you to do it. You start with a really slow, weak ship but can find better tech as you explore. You can also find biologicals. And of course you can find bad guys. The battles are played out in real time.

Like I said, the games are really fast and it does have a "one more game" sort of quality to it. But once you've seen all the goodies in the game (there's not really a lot) it starts to get old pretty quick.

I believe SAIC is free (or was at one time), so low risk, both in terms of time and money.

I have not played the sequel as, by the time it came out, I was pretty much done with SAIC.

TheHipGamer wrote:

Well, crap. Now I have to add X3TC to my Pile of Shame. :)

Should not be on the pile of shame. It should be your active game. I hear the Borons can breath in outer space, ask Grubber.

Being a simulation of space, there is literally no better thread for this question. Does anyone have any experience with Universe Sandbox? It looks like it's been around for a while but is just recently available on Steam. Looks like Garry's Mod or other sandbox game... no real plot or goal, just fun times saying "what if I dropped a black hole next to Uranus?"

Yeah I saw the release announcement. Checked out their forums a bit. I dunno. It seems like it might be a cool engine to build off of and make a realistic space flight game or something. I wonder...

Michael wrote:

Being a simulation of space, there is literally no better thread for this question. Does anyone have any experience with Universe Sandbox? It looks like it's been around for a while but is just recently available on Steam. Looks like Garry's Mod or other sandbox game... no real plot or goal, just fun times saying "what if I dropped a black hole next to Uranus?"

I've seen that porn. Not highly recommended.

Universe Sandbox seems to be an academic sim that's been dressed up for commercial release. It's an n-body orbital mechanics sim. It has statistics on stellar objects, and zooms from a planet out to multiple galaxies. You can set the time steps so you can deal with large-scale or small-scale events, and you can do things like a throw a comet past the Earth, or change the mass of an object, or perturb it's orbit, or blow it up. There are a basic set of manipulations built-in which will give you ideas. The first one I tried was changing the mass of the Earth to equal the Sun; that was interesting. I also had fun watching the effects of changes of moon orbits on Saturn's Rings (which are represented by larger objects and not as pretty as in RL, but still they create the proper effect.)

So if you like messing with an interactive orrery that includes hundreds of galaxies, this is your sandbox game. I think it's worth $10 if you're into that stuff.

HantaXP wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

Well, crap. Now I have to add X3TC to my Pile of Shame. :)

Should not be on the pile of shame. It should be your active game. I hear the Borons can breath in outer space, ask Grubber.

But X3 never ends! It is perpetually asking for more of my time, devouring it, and allowing no other game to be played whilst it is the Primary. My god, it's full of stars!

HantaXP wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:

Well, crap. Now I have to add X3TC to my Pile of Shame. :)

Should not be on the pile of shame. It should be your active game. I hear the Borons can breath in outer space, ask Grubber. :)

I can assure you they cannot.

But man, it would suck if they could!

I don't think anyone's mentioned HardW[a]r (yes, with the weird brackets) so far. This game was totally my jam post-college.

IMAGE(http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/21274-hardwar-windows-screenshot-a-vehicle-factory-in-the-highrise.jpg)

HardW[a]r's primary influence was Elite. You pilot a one-man shuttle called a Moth across various districts on the moon of Titan. You can hunt bounties, set up your own illicit drug-running business, pirate others' cargo, or all of the above. The in-game economic system is pretty robust, and there's a fun if cheesy sci-fi noir story you can pursue if you choose to. The original soundtrack from Warp Records was amazing as well.

Apparently these folks are trying to keep the game alive by remaking it in an open-source format. I'm not sure where else you can find it, though I'm sure some diligent Googling will turn up something.