Im a third for the I-war series. There was I-war, then the Defiance? add-on (you got to play the other side), then I-war 2, which involved more piracy. The original I-war and its add-on were incredible, just didnt do gravity. But inertia and physics was otherwise in full play. and the missions comprised more than just blowing stuff up, kind of an S-F story to move it all along with.
Check out The Babylon Project. It’s a fan made Babylon 5 game based on the Freespace 2 engine. There’s also Babylon 5: I’ve found her which is based on the I-war engine. That one is for hard core space sim fans.
in the RTS series of space games, sins of a solar empire is good(great?) it really shines in multiplayer.
unfortunately i havent had a chance to play the new diplomacy expansion, but i read on their forums that the space pirates are over-powered at the moment. supposedly going to be fixed not sure when tho.
Not sure if it’s in the base game or one of the expansions but Civ 4 comes with a space colonization mod.
AI War and its expansion might be up your alley; they’re half price at Steam this week.
If LucasArts would come out with updated version of X-Wing and Tie Fighter I would buy them more often then I replace the White Album*.
*blatant MiB reference.
Allegiance is an older, well-reviewed game that I think I never heard about before today when it got a thread on the Order of the Stick gaming board. Online multiplayer only, seems to have an active community. Free.
Game site
http://www.freeallegiance.org/
Gamespot review
http://au.gamespot.com/pc/sim/allegiance/review.html
More recent review (a commentator complains of inaccuracies)
http://www.gamegoldies.org/allegiance-free-space-rts-game-microsoft-download/
Dang! I was reading down the thread hoping I’d get to mention Tachyon first. It’s a strong contender in the genre, even if it isn’t a recent game at all. I really enjoyed the plot, the gameplay is more than decent, and the game is narrated by Bruce friggin’ Campbell. If you can track down a copy, it’s definitely worthwhile.
Well, if we want to go that way, there is simply no better space-themed 4X game than *Galactic Civilizations II *(esp. with the Dark Avatar extension, haven’t tried Twilight of the Arnor yet, the race-specific tech trees still scare me off as I haven’t yet fully mastered the regular tech tree), but that’s not exactly a “space combat” game.
I would disagree and assert that Sword of the Stars is a far better, less micro-heavy Space 4x, but that’s mostly a matter of preference - I’ve heard Galciv equated to Star Trek while SotS is more like Ender’s Game. YMMV. Neither, however, qualify as a “space combat game” from my perspective.
Any of these particularly good at solo against-the-AI play?
A couple of open source alternatives: Oolite, an Elite clone slightly modernized, and Vega Strike, a more ambitious simulator with a sandbox environment - there are missions, and there is the possibility to fly around shooting stuff up.
Both of them can be modded, and have been extensively modded; there are mods for Vega Strike that recreate Privateer and Star Trek.
Very interesting!
Because in software, once the first 90% is done, you then start working on the second 90%. If you’re lucky, it’s done at that point. If you’re not, you start working on the third and fourth 90%.
Popping in to say that there are two separate Privateer remakes, one called, aptly, Privateer Remake; and the other called Privateer Gemini Gold. Both with updated graphics, 3D engine, etc. Gemini Gold is supposed to be more faithful to the look and feel of the original, while Privateer Remake adds new ships, weapons, alleges to rebalance the game, and also has additional story content.
I’ve been meaning to download them and give them a whirl, as I remember Privateer very fondly, but I’ve been swamped (ironically enough) with tons of freelance work. Hopefully that will be done this week and I can give these games a shot.
Nevermind. Just tried out both games, and they don’t seem to work in Vista. What else is new. Checked to see if it was my video card, and I have all the latest drivers. Oh well.
I still have a copy of Freelancer sitting, uninstalled, on my desk. I’ll get to it eventually!
Tie Fighter was my alltime favorite space shooter. The only thing I ever played that came close to recapturing the feel was Project Sylpheed for the XBOX 360.
Well, the GalCiv AI is one of the big selling points of the game, and as well it should : the devs decided to scrap multiplayer entirely from the get go, so they could focus on the solo experience.
To give you an in-depth example of the level of its “thinking”, I definitely recommend reading this AAR of a long game - besides, it’s an entertaining read on its own.
The (relatively seasoned) player managed to pull a victory right out of his arse, but he was hopelessly dominated throughout the entire game. In fact, in most of his entries you’ll see him comment on various moves by the AI that seemed stupid or senseless to him, such as destroying his entire military force over and over but never actually invading, or his major enemy, also the game’s “Klingons” (read : ultra militaristic aggressive types) voting Yes on a UN vote to end all wars in the galaxy, when the only war was that between him and them, and they were winning it handily.
Turns out it all made sense to him once he finally understood that his civilization was essentially seen by them as terminally non-threatening, and used as a pawn to buy the Drengin some time in the real who-wins-this-game tripartite cold war between three HUGE empires who contemplated strategies towards victory he couldn’t even see, let alone understand, before the final turn of the game.
Even the game’s main AI designer was pleasantly surprised by that article, because he’d never programmed the AI to play like that.
Now, after that shower of praise, let me temper it a bit : the various AIs (the game uses a different one for each race, to account for their differing backgrounds, priorities and “flavours”) will sometimes really do boneheaded things. Even at the hardest settings, they will still for example only factor their prospective opponent’s immediate military strength in their war go/no-go decisions, and overlook things like stable alliances, vast piles of cash sitting around to buy entire fleets from other races, or huge technological gaps that are just waiting for an excuse to be turned into huge, murderous ships. It will also always follow a balanced research/production/military approach, rather than focusing entirely on one branch (which, due to the game’s mechanics, is often more cost-effective). So, over time, you can sort of figure out its more important flaws, and take advantage of them.
But let me sum it up thus : I can kick Civilization 4’s ass six ways to sunday on the next to last difficulty level. GalCiv regularly whips me two notches above Normal, where it gets to use its full algorithms’ potential, but gets no bonuses to production, research or cash yet. There’re still 5 levels above that.
Galciv? That takes me back. I bought it in the original OS/2 version. It rocked.
Thanks for this thread, guys! I had never heard of Darkstar One before this, but I got it off Steam and it’s fricking great!
Also, it inspired me to dig out my Freespace 2 CD’s, when I realised that there were open source updates and mods available, and am installing it right now.
Jesus, it says ©1999. If I were asked, I would have said it was about four years old!