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architeuthis

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architeuthis

architeuthis

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I've been obsessed with space games of various genres since my uncle got me Star Wars: TIE Fighter for MS-DOS when I was a kid. Over the years I've played lots of space games from arcades, simulations, strategy games, and pseudo-games such as Space Engine scale ranging in hardness from 'Science In Genre Only' to 'Speculative Science'. Since I'm sure that I'm not alone in this respect, I'm curious which ones you all have played and enjoyed, and which ones you think are particularly unique. What kinds of space games are you looking forward to?

Here are some of my thoughts for now:

  • Shackleton Crater. Did any of you guys hear about this one? I think the game was intended to be a 'hardish' Lunar colony building game based on current NASA design refrence mission architectures (speaking of which, did any of you guys try Moonbase Alpha?). It unfortunately didn't make its kickstarter goal, but the games I've played by Joe Ybarra in the past were excellent. The Starflight series might be his most well known, but I particularly enjoyed Alien Legacy. Alien Legacy, was a curious combination of RTS and city building with adventure game influences. The atmosphere and world building was excellent, and it was one of the very few interstellar space games that played the 'slower than light' card straight, with the player's seedship the UNS Calypso being a Bussard Ramjet.
  • Space Engine. A new version just came out! 0.97 adds comets, aurora and other things. This game wins hands down the award for most beautiful space game ever made (for me beating even Homeworld). If you want to marvel in a realistic procedural sandbox that is literally the size of the universe you should try this one out. I wouldn't be surprised it if influences KSP future interstellar development as well. Also, the developer has some damn interesting ideas to turn Space Engine into a hard-SF space exploration and colonization open MMO. They are even talking about speed of light delays for IM in multiplayer! Also mothership designs and potential quests look pretty damn cool.
  • Did anyone here enjoy Homeworld as much as I did? I grew up on the TTA art books, and this game was a fitting tribute to 1970's space art in general. Much creative talent behind Homeworld moved on to found a new company Blackbird Interactive which is hard at work on a new game Hardware, which is looking quite intriguing. The concept is wonderful: tombraiding an entire world graveyard of millennia-old derelict alien starships. Way too cool.

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rditto48801

rditto48801

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A few 'space' games come to mind for me.

First, good old Outpost, by Sierra. (not so much for Outpost 2)

An oldie but goodie... I have both the CD and 3.5in diskette versions... Sending out probes to several systems, choosing one and outfitting a 'colony ship' with supplies/equipment, and heading off to a new world... of creating colonies on another world, feeding the people, keeping them breathing (and reproducing, and not rebelling), building up industry,recycling, handling colonist morale and education, and of course doing research. In the end, working toward an ultimate goal like remaking a space program, terraforming, or even going into the 'risky of beneficial' path of research, nanotechnology. (some of which have not so much effect in the game... plans to expand the game apparently never got fulfilled...)

Due to this, Shackleton Crater is definitely of interest to me.

----

Second, Space Station Sim. Managing and assembling a space station, keeping the station supplied, doing research, and dealing with the occasional 'disaster' called the space tourist... Things along the lines of "What does this do?" is a phrase to fear... (at least stuff is fool resistant... more of a hassle to turn important things on/off after the space tourist has fiddled with it)

Last I checked, there is still a demo available for it.

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Third, one I just recently found out about, and which I really like so far.

Mars Colony Challenger

The player (either single player, or up to 3 others, via online play that is a bit tricky to setup as IP address of the host is apparently required for others to join) have to help setup a base on Mars.

There are three different areas to choose from, the three areas being the effective difficulty. The base is basically the same for each area, but have rougher and more hilly terrain, which makes it more difficult to get around and do some tasks.

It is broken down into multiple phases, with each phase having specific goals to be done. After the 'work orders' for the phase are done, the player(s) can go to the next phase, or continue playing to try and increase their % rating. After a phase is ended, the next phase is started after a brief 'loading screen'. The next phase has the base being expanded with more things in place, and with new work orders to do. In earlier phases, supplies are limited do a slower pace won't work well in the long run, but at around Phase 4, things are in place to start making the base more and more self sufficient, starting off with being able to produce food, as food (and medicine) are the main finite supplies at first.

All sorts of factors need to be kept track of, such as oxygen, power, food, water, radiation, air pressure of the base, etc. Rovers allow for getting around, but fuel needs to be made for them, and caution needs to be had on hilly terrain, as they have trouble with steep includes and can take damage going to fast or otherwise sliding down a hill.

In later phases, mining can be done to allow for making replacement parts for things, and even acquiring minerals needed for other aspects, such as for creating fertilizer for the farm/greenhouse area. Plants can be grown, and a bio lab allows for raising of fish, frogs, worms, mushrooms and several types of algae. Stuff grown is not always for food, some types of algae and plants can be used to make plastics, some fertilizers and fish materials can be made into algae nutrients, another type of algae can be used to make medicines, and so on.

The overall goal being to eventually make the base self sufficient and producing resources faster than it uses.

There is a demo for it also, taking place in Phase 6 (one of the later phases, where mining first takes place and food production stuff is all in place already), and has some limitations.

It is on Steam Greenlight.

The only down point might be the fact it is $30, but so far I feel it could be well worth the money.

----

Another one I want to mention.

Space Station Manager (and the 'followup' Short Hike, which I did not get a chance to play).

It was about building and maintaining space stations in Earth orbit, dealing with things like expenses, crew numbers (some modules requiring so many crew to work), life support (habitation is useless without life support), power (solar, RTGs), heat (need radiator panels and such), and making money (research modules, communications modules, 'industrial' modules that also lessen module costs). Having service modules and spare crew helps lessen maintenance costs (only so many parts, larger stations needing more of each to help keep maintenance costs in check).

It is basically a dead project now, I have not seen anything about it in some time.

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Awaras

Awaras

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A few 'space' games come to mind for me.

First, good old Outpost, by Sierra. (not so much for Outpost 2)

An oldie but goodie... I have both the CD and 3.5in diskette versions...

Actually, I really liked Outpost 2 as well... While it was a relatively average RTS, it had a few features that really appealed to me - the story written as a novella the persistent research tree and the management of colonists are among them.

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Custard Donut (In Space)

Custard Donut (In Space)

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That space engine-game looks great, i'l have to try it out.

With regard to space-games i suppose i have never actively searched for them though i have played a few, Frontier Elite springs to mind, X3 i played and enjoyed for a little while, i played EVE online for a grand total of four days before realising it wasn't really what i wanted from a space-game and lastly Kerbal, which is my favourite space-game to date

Sorry i can't recommend any new ones, you seem to know a lot more about the genre than i do. :)

Edit* Ooh! Forgot galactic civilizations 2 which is a space-themed strategy game, my favourite turn-based game of all time apart from Civilization 2 which i consider to be on par with it.

Edited by Custard Donut (In Space)
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rditto48801

rditto48801

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One thing I forgot to mention is that I also loved Homeworld. I bought the Yes: The Ladder soundtrack CD simply because of the one song at the Homeworld end credits. I also have Homeworld Cataclysm, Homeworld 2, and for a time played Homeworld 2 with the Complex mod (up until I heard they went with a 'ships need to have a power 'resource' generated by a separate special ship to fully function' angle on things.)

I also liked Galactic Civilizations 2, I got both the one with the Dread Lords expansion, and the later pack that had it with all the expansions.

Along a similar lines, it makes me think about Master of Orion 1 and 2 (and to some extent, 3, but that didn't hold my interest to well) MoO2 being my favorite. (Doom Star fleets for the win.)

I might as well toss in Sins of a Solar Empire while I am at it.

And Space Empires... (4, 5 and Star Fury)

And Star Control 2... (and the game most Star Control fans will refuse to acknowledge is the third game in the series. Good game, not so much as Star Control)

Oh, and an old game called Utopia, which is more of another 'colonize alien worlds, meet aliens and possibly blow them up with off screen battles' type of game. It was on SNES, and I think also computers of the time. Ah, the times I locked up the system due to building to many buildings...

Stars!

A turn based space based game with colonizing planets, space battles, research, the ability to customize a race to your liking, the ablility to customize designs for ships/stations, 'mystery traders' that can give rare 'advanced' (and often multi-purpose) tech items or flexible hull designs or even flat out large amounts of research points (if you can catch them with a fleet you are willing to 'loose' along with their cargo as part of the 'trade'...), use station mass drivers to send resources to other worlds in place of cargo ships (be it to actually transfer resources, or ruin the day of a world that didn't have a station with a mass driver equipped capable of catching the high speed mineral packets). There was also terraforming. There was not to much for graphics, but it had some deep gameplay potential, multi-player (PBEM, or via other options, like with an 'auto host' program). The AI was reported to never cheat... it was to efficient and effective to need to cheat.

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PrISM

PrISM

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For me the Freespace games were my absolute favorites for space combat. It's such a shame that that particular genre never really caught on and we have so few games to choose from. That being said, I cannot wait for Star Citizen to be released.

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icemasterpt

icemasterpt

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Pioneer: SpaceSim for me is one of my favourite.

When i was little i used to play Elite first encounters on MS Dos, so pioneer makes me feel familiar with it.

there is Aurora 4x, a very complex strategy game, where u have total control (micromanagement) over almost every aspect of it, can be boring and repetitive, but its very realistic and has lots of Stuff to do and explore =)

Btw, do u guys know any Base building game like Moonbase Alpha but more complex?

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Galacticruler

Galacticruler

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Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption.

Even with it's bugs and crazily OP third faction, the Zann Consortium, is still amazing, and the mod community makes it even better with things like Republic at War and The Triumph of the Hierarchy(UaW:EA total conversion to SW:EaW:FC); I highly suggest you find either the gold edition disc, buy the Steam version or locate both separately, it even has multiplayer for those of you with overly strategic minds.

EDIT:

Ice, this is not in response, didn't notice what you asked.

Edited by Galacticruler
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architeuthis

architeuthis

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That space engine-game looks great, i'l have to try it out.

It's freeware. I emphatically urge everyone here to give it a look!

With regard to space-games i suppose i have never actively searched for them though i have played a few, Frontier Elite springs to mind
I remember this game totally blowing me away when I was first introduced to it, but I never owned it growing up. I've recently tried playing an abbandonware copy in emulation, and the scope of the game still staggers me, but unfortunately my time is so limited that I have to pick vices carefully, and presently KSP sucks up my gaming time budget handily.

Edit* Ooh! Forgot galactic civilizations 2 which is a space-themed strategy game, my favourite turn-based game of all time apart from Civilization 2 which i consider to be on par with it.

One of the more humorous 4X games ever made. I've also played Sins of a Solar Empire which also was an excellent 4X but I think my favorite of all is Sid Mier's Alpha Centauri. The game is a SF tour de force. I also appreciate that they made an attempt to ground the astronomy, technology and biology of that universe firmly in science. Also it was really damned addictive, it is funny to uninstall a 14 year old game to shield my poor abused GPA.
One thing I forgot to mention is that I also loved Homeworld. I bought the Yes: The Ladder soundtrack CD simply because of the one song at the Homeworld end credits. I also have Homeworld Cataclysm, Homeworld 2, and for a time played Homeworld 2 with the Complex mod (up until I heard they went with a 'ships need to have a power 'resource' generated by a separate special ship to fully function' angle on things.)
Are you familliar with Homeworld Shipyards? The website has a large compendium of the amazing concept art produced for the games.
And Star Control 2... (and the game most Star Control fans will refuse to acknowledge is the third game in the series. Good game, not so much as Star Control)

How could I forget this game. The arcade combat was deleriously, comically fun, but the game it self also managed to make hilarous digs of at a significant fraction of the universe of tired SF tropes. Beautiful game.
Well, one of my favorite space games is one of the most scientifically accurate: High Frontier.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sealofapproval.php#id--Tabletop_Simulations--High_Frontier

But it is not a computer game, it is a tabletop game.

Still good, though, just read the reviews.

I have been wanting to take a look at this ever since I read some of the entertaining game session reports on your website:)

Edited by architeuthis
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rditto48801

rditto48801

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Ah, yes, Spore. I have the full thing on Steam... took me a little while to figure out that I had to start up each expansion separately to get all the stuff working in game... I never got far in the space phase, just a few colonies, maybe a half dozen races... been a while since I played it though, but I had a lot of fun when I did play it.

Holy sh*t! You just reminded me of what feels like a past life, i played that game on Amiga probably about a billion years ago and enjoyed it so very much.

Here's some of the music if you're feeling nostalgic :)

*bashes 'bookmark' button for video page*

In a dusty cabinet sits the late model SNES, and the Utopia SNES cartridge... a pain in the butt to find years ago (I originally rented it a lot back during the SNES years, took forever to find a copy to buy when I replaced my SNES a few years back)...

Good old times... been a while since I broke out either my old SNES or Genesis. I think I had Star Control 1 on Genesis, now that I think about it.

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bsalis

bsalis

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I miss Star Wars: TIE Fighter

One of the floppy disks became corrupted. the 4th or 5th i think. So i was unable to play it in one of my nostalgic moments. I don't even have a computer with a disk drive anymore. All history now.. so sad.

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iDan122

iDan122

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There is a game for iOS(maybe Android too) called Space Agency. Cost: 0,89€ . You do missions like docking, station resupply, rendezvous, moon landing-name it, it is there. You build your own rockets and ships. There are 2 stations, 1 moon and about 5 planets. You can build your own staion in the Free Mission(which is sandbox mode, everything is persistent). You can build a ship capable of doing a grand voyage, or destroy a staion, debri removal modules, everything.

9/10 because of weird physX.

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honolululu

honolululu

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I thought this free one was very cool, or shall I say I enjoyed my taxpayer kickstarter contribution to the release of NASA's Moonbase Alpha.

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/ltp/games/moonbasealpha/index.html

I only played solo, and don't know if I ever passed anything but easy. Would probably be more fun with a few friends. It's basically a teamwork and communication multiplayer game, but on the easy level playing solo it was fun trying to map out everywhere you needed to be.

Available on Steam for free

http://store.steampowered.com/app/39000/

Oops. Upon reread before post. Yeah I've heard of it architeuthis. Why do you ask? ;)

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musicpenguin

musicpenguin

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I think the best one is KSP. It has a free demo and you can build your own rockets and such. It's really good. Also, Orbiter is fine. Star Conflict is also a good fre one. It's kinda like a different EVE online.

EDIT:

Wait, I'm on the the ksp forums not CODZ forums. Whoops.

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