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Indie Space Sims - post 'em if you find 'em

Higher Game

Arcane
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
13,664
Location
Female Vagina
Russians won't take criticism; I think even the Poles are better. :wink:
 

dragonfk

Erudite
Joined
Jun 19, 2007
Messages
2,487
Higher Game said:
Russians won't take criticism; I think even the Poles are better. :wink:

You mean Poles dont take criticism too well? Pfff, plane tickets bitch!
 

Severian Silk

Guest
Higher Game said:
Russians won't take criticism; I think even the Poles are better. :wink:
The problem is that they *imagined* or fabricated criticism when none existed, and then felt grounds for going apeshit.
 

AlaCarcuss

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
1,335
Location
BrizVegas, Australis Penal Colony
Re: Escape Velocity - Nova

Rhett Butler said:
What the hell is a Kiwi doing in south Texas?

What the hell are they doing anywhere? Hitler would have been a lot better off exterminating Kiwi's rather than Jews - no one would've given a shit. Germany would've had a strong ally in Australia too :lol:
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Uh oh, Starwraith is at it again, taking a page from the Supreme Commander and, apparently doing some updates to Evochron Renegades then releasing it as Evochron Legends.

Looking at the demo now, looks like they made the stations look a little different, and planet terrain looks a little better, but it takes a damned long time to start on my GT725 (P8600 @ 2.4GHz).

Anyways the official line is that they upped the texture resolutions, dropped some of their cheese procedural generation(what a joke), upped polygon count on larger ships, added some commodities for trading(haven't noticed anything new there yet), added some station that will make somethings or others, and seemingly a few new mission types(Fedex the passenger).

Everything else looks identical to Renegades so far. (Actually went and re-installed it so that I can directly compare.)

May just buy it anyways as I'm a spacesim whore, and picked up Darkstar One off of GOG when it was slightly on sale over the weekend. (So-so freelancer ripoff so far, or IOW casual sim and not really my cup of tea, but still has a better feel than Renegades even though Renegades had more of the pieces of something that could've just been so much better had the author actually focused on something. Also picked up Spellforce Platinum from gog too(on sale--not bad).)
 

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
I found two space explorers lately, thought I'd share.

Firstly there's prospector, which is a pretty awesome roguelike. It takes a few cues from Starflight and adds a bunch of rogueyness. Some bugs, but generally fun for being version 0.1.6 something.

Then there's the very aptly named Space Exploration: Serpens Sector. It has coffee break style light gameplay akin to Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. The most interesting feature is probably the crew management with different skills usable in different situations. Definitely worthy for a few playthroughs before the adventures start repeating themselves too much.
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Heresiarch said:
[EDIT]
Oh, and here's the link to the thread mentioned above
http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=3567

Let me know if the link dies, as I archived a copy...
[/EDIT]

It seems the thread died, please put up the archive. I just got interested in Evochron and any fun stuff related to it I'm interested.
Oops. Missed this earlier, and the machine that the archive is on I don't have access to ATM. Hopefully I'll remember when I rebuild.

As to starwraith games, maybe in another 10 games or so and/or when the dev learns a real language(he's using darkBASIC right now) it might actually be good and run well on lower end equipment, although I do like the sound of some of the changes he made for the latest iteration, but I still don't think that it's worth $25.

Big Lots are supposed to have gotten some Space Force Rogue Universes in stock, but one that I checked at lunch only had Space Force Captains, but they also had Universe At War, Europa Universalis III Complete(no manual for this game WTF?! (the box weighed like an ounce)), and one or two things that looked semi-interesting for $6. Going to check another one this evening to see if they have Rogue Universe, might pick it up & Universe At War, then again, maybe not(RT "strategies" aren't my thing since they lack the strategy part).

[EDIT]
Nope, actually found 2 more close to home and nothing but crap loads of space force craptains. The first was actually the best as they had Universe At War & EU3 complete. That one also actually had Metalheart or whatever it was called too along with 4 or 5 copies of Loki collector's edition, almost picked those up for the helluvit, but kind of glad that I didn't bother now...
[/EDIT]

[EDIT=Sept. 2 09]
Well, tried giving Evochron Renegades a further chance as in playing for several hours, and still just found something to be lacking in it to actually be a fun sim. Maybe it's better played online, but as I only own ER ATM the possibilities for online are rapidly diminishing(with Legends release).

Next up will be to use up the trial time on Legends and see if it "feels" any better as a sim...

Darkstar One is OK(bargain @ gog), but is pretty easy so far. It feels a little better than Evochron games, but I'm still liking Battlecruiser/Universal Combat games & X series better...
[/EDIT]
 

foxfire29

Novice
Joined
Jan 24, 2009
Messages
79
I bought Evo Renegades and its one of an amount of games I could count on 1 hand I never got into. If you are looking for something in the evo renegades vain you would be as well just buying X3 terran conflict which is better in about 50 ways.

Sorry to hear that some of you are having trouble on the Evo renegades forums, I never had any hassle but thats probably owing to the fact the game just wasnt for me but at the same time I saw the game was done well for a 1 man effort and hence didnt want to discourage the guy. However if the sequel(If it can even be called that) is 25$ to me you would be as well just buying a game from one of the big publishers so I really dont get the logic in indie devs selling for that price? (Evo renegades was a decent price when it first came out and in my view just waranted value but 25$ no way!)

I have been looking for decent space sims for years and you guys have pretty much them all covered in this thread. I just came on to tell you I dont think legends will be any better than the original evo and ALSO to the person going to buy space force rogue universe, DONT, it is shallow as hell and a pile of poo, one of the worst space games I have played and its not too do with difficulty its just crap. (Theres better space games your money could be spent on, unless the games settled at its worth of 50p now?)

Finally I agree with the poster prior to me in that darkstar one is more fun than what some of you plan to buy. That said freelancer is faar better than darkstar one and is one of the best space games for those looking to just have fun in space as opposed to dedicating their lives to the game :)

x3 terran : pinnacle of single player space games for hardcore
freelancer: pinnacle space game for not so hardcore

Both fun in their own ways, I like both
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Just updating my last post from last year:
Well, I tried Evochron Renegades again and it was just as shite as before, however, last I did play Evochron Legends a little bit and noted that they had improved the graphics somewhat.

Anyways, today I found Evochron legends on sale @ gamersgate for c. $12 (spacesim sale) so I picked up a copy and played it for a while, now not having to worry about the demo timer. Yes, they did improve the graphics a GREAT deal, however overall game performance seems to have diminished quite a bit which I find odd as I'm playing it this time on a quite a bit quicker machine: 2.4GHz Core 2 w/4850 v. 4800+ X2 w/7600GT.
[EDIT2]
Decided to add this in here, but it's astounding how much faster core 2(and a mobile part at that! P8600) IS and "feels" than that old Socket 939 AMD @ the same clock rates.
[/EDIT2]
I also noticed that alto of the graphical glitches that annoyed me in the last game were still present along with the EXTREMELY anemic plot and trading system.

Anyways, upshot is, it's still not there yet but at least they are heading in the right general direction, so in say another 4 bor 5 games they MAY have something worth playing.

This one seems like it wouldn't be capable of running adequately on a netbook while Evochron Renegades should be able to, but I'd check first as this is about the only place that I'd likely put in alot of time. i.e. away from a better machine with nothing else to play, then again X2 would probably work as well and be more fun.

I've also been playing X2, X3: Reunion, and LOTS of X3: Terran Conflict recently, along with Universal Combat. (Think that I'll finally spring for the Collector's edition which is, unfortunately not on sale in the gamersgate spacesim sale... well it says it's 70% off but that looks like BC3000AD's normal price now.)

Also played more Darkstar One at some point in here, but even though it looks pretty it's only marginally less shallow wrt trading than the Evochron game while still having somewhat of a plot. In the end I gave up on it as it became an effort to just force myself to play it.

(Spaceforce Rogue Universe is also on sale, but I decided to pass on it personally.)

[EDIT]
Upon some reflectcion, I suppose that the upshoft of my dissatisfaction with the Evochron series is not purely that it was ugly, but in the simplistic game mechanics and "plot". This is, sadly, re-inforced when you peruse the forums and it seems that players are encouraged to play MP and seem to generally be given HUGE wads of cash(game) implying that the game itself is no fun until you have the best equipment that there is, and then all you do is run off and PvP or PvE. Unfortunately, this is alot like the prior Arvoch(and other) mission based, mostly pure, combat sims in the "series".

I guess that the problem here is that while the game(s) are trying hard to be a space-sim sandbox, that they're just not doing it very well and cutting too many corners on too many things. i.e. I don't fight combat in the series to be all that much entertaining, travelling is a major PITA, trading is basic(think Elite level), etc. It just stand on it's own all that well against the X series, initially from a trading/empire building aspect, nor from the later games space combat aspect either as even though as bad as X3 combat still is, I find it to be MUCH more enjoyable than Evochron's. I also find space combat in the Battlecruiser and Universal Combat series to be FAR more enjoyable than the prior two mentioned(X & Evochron) and even DS1 combat felt like more fun than Evochron, which sadly leaves Evochron with it's greatest strength being it's multiplayer. Unfortunately there's just not that much to do in MP since it's SP with other real people other than LARPing...

As I mentioned above, the series DOES seem to be slowly plodding along to add some new elements(e.g. a psedu-crafting system(very limited), multiple ship ownership(unfortunately they all, basically, look the same, etc.) that could make it very good, however at the rate that they're being added and polished it's going to be some iterations before what I would find to be an acceptable spacesim appears.

I suppose as long as I find decent deals on the games I will try them out in the hopes that some astounding leaps and bounds are made between iterations. I gather that they are already putting together a new game that will not be based on Evochron, but we'll see how that goes and if any more details surface, but frankly, at this point I have MUCH more hope in Egosoft's "New Project" unless it's an MMO.
[/EDIT]

[EDIT4]
Guess that I've got the space-sim bug again, as I've also started playing Derek's games again, or at least BCMG and UC(still need to purchase UCCE), and am in the process of trying to get BC3Kv2 installed although it looks like forcing the free version to install will be a better bet than trying to find out what happened to my original CD and then trying to track down the patches. (I probably have the patches archived somewhere, but God knows where, as it's been so many years since I last attempted it using the original CDs. May even be a masochist and try the v1 release too, again IF I can find my CD, but they may have gone missing from last year's flood...)

Still finding Evochron at the bottom of the heap from amongst all these sims at least in terms of basic enjoyment/fun.

Also stumbled across a Starflight derived sort of game, open source. Not a space-sim per-se but:
http://code.google.com/p/starflighttlc/
[/EDIT4]

[EDIT5]
Well, I've played it Legends quite a bit more now than I ever did Renegades, but in the end it's still boring as fuckall. Pretty much small space fighter combat only with a heavy emphasis on missile weapons
[/EDIT5]
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Deliberately double posting for a new addition:
Starwrait is doing another new spacesim and abandoning their old shitty darkbasic engine.

Evochron Mercenary
http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

New engine, hopefully it's written in a more generally useful language this time around.

New graphics look nice, but those stations are getting tired.

New quests, which hopefully will be good allowing for multiple locations, items, etc. (Sounds good on paper anyways, hopefullu he can toss in some random quests too...)

bah! go read the site...

Looks to be maybe this is the one that will finally make me want to play it for a while.

Gave up on Legends after doing about half the beacon quest as I was bored as fuckall as it ended up being mostly blasting apart enemy ships again, which gets old FAST even w/online MP. At least Legends lasted longer than Renegade for me.

Might spring full price for this one as soon as it comes out given the dearth of spacesims ATM.
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Evochron Mercenary is scheduled for a release around 9/17 ...

There are supposed to be discounts IF you own Evochron Renegades and/or Evochron Legends... $5 ea. IIRC.

Contemplating purchasing this one when it's released as it appears to have made great strides, esp. (hopefully) in the "quest" system.

Evochron Renegades got boring fast for me.

Evochron Legends lasted quite a bit longer, but still got dull with not much to do but fight or trail the same beacon quests.

So I'm hoping that Mercenary adds enough to make it longer lasting fun. Probably still a bit premature though as I don't believe that much was done to the trading system/game economics, but maybe the new quest system will make up for that as it goes beyond the fly to xyz coords and get a message...

[EDIT]
Hmmm... might only be launch weekend discount, or so it now sounds from this
http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=6313

Might be best to subscribe and see what pops ups...
[/EDIT]
 

Ruprekt

Scholar
Joined
Jun 3, 2010
Messages
1,936
Location
Exploring small rings in 3D
Why do people hate on the X series btw?

It does get reptitive eventually but I don't see how that happens quicker than with elite or frontier... there might not be a full 4x game running behind the scenes but there's still a whole lot more than with the classic space traders. And the sense of exploration is only ruined if you ruin it for yourself by downloading faqs and sector maps.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,876
Location
Italy
because everything you do in x is dull, uninteresting and uninspired, combat included.
it's just a whole huge time sink, not a real game to be enjoyed.
 

DraQ

Arcane
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
32,828
Location
Chrząszczyżewoszyce, powiat Łękołody
Ruprekt said:
Why do people hate on the X series btw?

It does get reptitive eventually but I don't see how that happens quicker than with elite or frontier... there might not be a full 4x game running behind the scenes but there's still a whole lot more than with the classic space traders. And the sense of exploration is only ruined if you ruin it for yourself by downloading faqs and sector maps.
Because Frontier actually did both Space- and -Sim parts brilliantly.
 

Darkforge

Augur
Joined
May 25, 2011
Messages
216
hey! FUCK YOU!

(yes I am from NZ.)
Without us the world may not have had it's precious nuclear power btw.

and I remember somewhere Hitler said he would win the war easily with a regiment of our forces =P.
so exterminating us probably wouldn't have been an option for him.

btw fuck Australia.. Draconian video game laws aside, It's common knowledge the sheep fucking rumour was started by them because in reality they are a continent of criminal Koala molesters and kangaroo rapists.
 

Ivory Samoan

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2011
Messages
214
Location
Aotearoa
I gotta check out this Babylon 5 sim.. overall impressions? Good for a few nights of fun?
 

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