Space Flight Sim game recommendations

The Game Room
1

Ok, I know there’s EVE and that looks pretty cool, but I don’t want to deal with that kind of a time commitment and monthly fees (which equal commitment) and everything, but I’m looking for a good space flight sim sorta game.

I’m talking something along the lines of Freelancer or Descent or Wing Commander or even the Escape Velocity type of game. It can be for a console (x360 or wii) or for a computer, but it has to be able to run on a last gen (not the newest release, but the one prior) Macbook (yes I dual boot Windows Vista-soon-to-upgrade-to-7) which is a pretty decent rig as far as laptops go, especially considering the fact that I don’t really know of any space sims created in the recent generations.

Any recommendations of great games you’ve played?

2

I’m a huge fan of the Star Wars flight sims. X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter is very skill-oriented flying while Xwing Alliance is a story about a neutral family that gets drawn into the war. Great memories of hours of gameplay over the years. There was a time where I was the best…

3

cool, I’ll look into them, thanks
Anyone know anything about Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos? Been doing a bit of reading (bored at work again :smiley: ) on it and it seems interesting

4

I’m a fan of the X series - X3: Terran Conflict is the latest one, but I haven’t got around to playing it yet. A few words of warning, though: you really need the patches to make the game playable, and modding makes X3: Reunion (and presumably Terran Conflict) a lot more fun. As soon as I got the game, the first thing I did was double the speed on all fighters, triple the speed of all transports and quadruple the speed of all capital ships.

5

The i-War series is pretty cool but I consider them to be the space fighters for guys who want things complex. Between newtonian mechanics and an array of unique ship systems that the player has to manage (the shield, for example, only affects one small wedge at a time and you have to constantly adjust it to absorb shots) it can be rough. X-Wing:i-War::Space Invaders:Defender.

I haven’t played a lot of recent games in the space sim genre but I had a preference for the Freespace series. They played smoothly and just let the player get into the action. For more exotic choices I liked Hardwar which was more Privateer like but set on a planet and Archemedian Dynasty which played like space sims only it was in a submarine (so things like active sonar and passive sonar along with engine noise made a big difference).

6

Also check out:

Vega Strike - open source space sim
Privateer Gemini Gold - remake of Privateer using Vega Strike engine

The grandaddy of them all is Elite. I spent probably hundreds of hours playing Elite on a C64. Not sure if there any decent modern-day remakes.

7

control-z: sweet, thanks. I’ll definitely check those out, especially Wing Commander Privateer. Elite was a great game, the Escape Velocity series was made in a similar fashion I believe, and I played the hell out of those games.

Just Some Guy thanks for the for heads up. Sounds a bit more complicated than I want it to be (though I don’t want Freelancer-level of simplicity, I don’t want mind-bogglingly complex either. I’m trying to relax here) and I loved the Freespace series. That’s more what I meant though I know I said Descent (they were made by the same people. Actually, looking at wikipedia, the first game was called Descent: Frespace - The Great War). I might have to pick both of those up, too. I dunno why, but I’ve recently had a hankering to play a space sim again, and all I took to Japan was Freelancer (which I’ve played like infinity-billion times)

8

I’ll second the X series recommendation. I wasted a ridiculous amount of time playing X2 and X3: Reunion. Haven’t played the newest one either though.

I’m not sure how well it would play on a laptop. Keeping track of everything going on in the universe is fairly CPU intensive…

9

Sweet, thanks guys, I’ll definitely be checking out Vega Strike/Privateer Gemini and X Beyond the Frontier (figure I’ll start with the first one and work my way up), hopefully I’ll even get around to it this weekend, or possibly tonight after my glorious nap…

I’m not too worried about the CPU, they’re (mostly) older games and my MacBook has a 2ghz dual core. It’s the graphics I’m slightly concerned about. It’s fine if I gotta lower everything so it runs smoothly, just so long as it runs smoothly

10

Elite II will run on just about any modern system via DOSBox, and is basically just like the original with gussied-up graphics.

Personally, I love Tachyon: The Fringe. It’s not particularly revolutionary or anything (though it kinda was at the time), but the gameplay is excellent and the main character is voiced by Bruce Campbell, which makes it awesome automatically.

Have you (OP) tried the Descent: Freespace series?

11

hold the gods damned phone, Bruce mofo Campbell?! Dude, I’m so getting that game, like, tonight. Just need to buy a new mouse cause mine is broken (had the wee squeaker for nigh on 6 years now, though, so I can’t complain)…

Yea, I’ve played the Freespace series, great games. Sorta kinda lookin for something I’ve not played before, but I could easily get back into those

By the by, do any of these games seriously require a joystick? I mean, I know most would benefit from the having of one, but I don’t particularly want to invest in a joystick at this point in time and I left my old one back in the States.

ETA: on reading this post… christ my english can be weird in the morning. that’s what happens when you’re drinking your first cup of coffee while preparing english lessons for various levels of kids who can’t speak english, I guess…

12

I reinstall Tachyon every year or so and play through it and I usually use a Dual Shock clone joypad. I use the left stick as the main flight control and the second set of shoulder buttons for the throttle, with the first set of shoulder buttons used for targeting.

For almost all these games, though (including Freespace) you usually need at least a few functions mapped to the keyboard. Cycling through targeted subsystems on capital ships, for example. This actually makes it a bit of a pain to use a joystick; my brother bought Tachyon when it first came out, and had a huge Saitek MegaMaster numbersnumberslettersletters joystick with a separate throttle stick… you used your right hand for the stick, and left hand for the throttle, but you had to switch over to the keyboard to actually do stuff.

13

oooh good idea. I can plug my x360 controller directly into a usb port. I’ll give that a whirl tonight* with X Beyond the Frontier

*if i have time…

14

If you don’t mind Indie games then the leader of the pack is Evochron Legends.

IMHO this series is much better than Vega Strike.

That’s for the one man against the universe Elite style experience.

For Spreadsheets in Space, running your own fleet and business empire then the latest in the X series is the one for you. Be warned though - and I say this as a big fan - it has a very steep learning curve and demands you put in dozens of hours of play to get the best out of it.

I’d also wait a few months until they release the expansion and fix all the bugs (their beta testing program essentially is ‘the customer pays to test’).

15

Are there any games out there, for PC or console, that are much like Microsoft’s old Flight and Space Simulators? No dogfights or explosions, just… performing tasks an astronaut would?

16

On this page maybe? HobbySpace: Space Sims

17

If you’d like to play online space fighter simulations with other players for free, you might want to try Allegiance. Allegiance was abandonware from Microsoft. A talented group of programmers took the torch and created a free multiplayer online space fighter simulation. It’s team against team, organized under a human commander for territory domination. The games last between 30 minutes to 2 hours. It has an Elite feel with dogfighting and completing objectives. The learning curve is a little steep if you’re brand new but there are lots of helpful people online if you have any questions.

It’s completely free and will run on nearly all PC systems.

18

ok, a bit of an update on my gaming days (sorry if this counts as a zombification)

Tachyon: I was several hours into this (chose the Bora over the Galspan, if you’re curious) and I was enjoying it, then I went to boot it up yesterday and my save file had disappeared! Pissed was I. Dunno if I’m going to start over again, at this point I’m just kind of fuming. Anyway, the game, overall, seems to be along the same lines as Freelancer but with less options. I didn’t like how i could only dock at one space port per area, and that I couldn’t do cargo runs or anything (at one point the news service thing talks about a station that’s willing to pay handsomely for food, but you’ve no option to bring them any) or that I couldn’t go to the hanger without first accepting a mission (easy to get around, but a minor annoyance). Overall, though, I enjoyed the game, and it rejuvenated my (possibly unhealthy) Bruce Campbell obsession (you know a friend of mine back in college went on a date with Bruce Campbell’s daughter, how cool is that :smiley: ).

X-Beyond the Frontier: Neat game, but Oh…My…Gods…is… it… slow… Seriously though, tell me something happens where the pace picks up later in the game, like I can get a ship that doesn’t take an entire cigarette to get from one station to the neighboring one? I only played for an hour or so last night, basically in the first area just trading back and forth between the something or other oil factory and the laser place (closest thing to the something-or-other oil factory) so obviously I’m still way too early on to judge the game, but just tell me things pick up? Also, is there a way to move laterally (side to side, up or down)?

Evochron: Jumped in, played the tutorial, seems like my kind of game… but that’s all I’ve played so far. Too many games, too little time.

I’ve also decided to download freespace (I own the game back home, both of 'em, so don’t give me crap about piracy. I just don’t wanna bug my parents to dig through my shit in their garage and have 'em send me a disc… though I do need some american deodorant…) cause, well, I love that series. If only I actually had the time to play these damn games… Oh well, semester break is coming up soon

19

That’s too old to play seriously. The latest has more advanced start positions you can choose but even XBTF had the SETA time acceleration device. You did buy one?

The later incarnations also have jump drives for sale but the essence of the X games are they are long term commitments.

20

Actually, you can do cargo runs, but not really whenever you feel like or anything. There’s at least one cargo crate randomly floating in space in most of the “built up” sectors, and if you read the TNS news thing it hints at where to take them.

To drop them off, you just go to the relevant space station and land on their landing pad. For one or two of them you have to drop them off on capital ships, which have different looking landing pads on top of the hull.

The main difference between the Bora and Galspan is weaponry (and missions, obviously).

Galspan has shitty lasers, but great secondary weapons, while the Bora have great lasers, but no guided weapons at all. Personally, I like the Galspan ship selection better, too; the last two Bora ships are both basically both tanks, even though one is a “heavy bomber” and one is a “heavy fighter”, so there’s not much point in switching to one if you’ve got the other.