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An open-world action-oriented space game

Yldri

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Angthoron

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Independence War 2, one of the few space sims that I enjoyed. Trading exists, but isn't the focal point, campaign is there, but you can ditch it. Get a couple of mods to your liking and yay, fun. AI pilot assists, subsystem targeting and time compression for added bonus. Can mess around with piracy, too, ambush trade convoys at Lagrange points, pick fights with capships, hijack other ships. Good controls, too. Oh, and avoid the X series. Tedious as hell.
 

Grunker

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Mass Effect :troll:

Bullet-point time:

- Sandbox-like, or at least relatively open-ended; I'm not looking for pure mission-based games here.

- Proper scale.

- Single-ship control, with at most some A.I.-controlled squadmates; no strategy games or fleet-babysitting games.

- In outer space, not over the ground.

- It's space. Don't make me trade.

- Relatively good-looking, because space exploration is a lot about visual fanservice; after a quick Google search, I would say FreeSpace 2 is the lowest I would go: dated but elegant.

Depending on your definitions, you might bar yourself from experiencing Privateer with these criteria. Which is a damned shame, because that game is otherwise probably the closest you're gonna come.

Summoning Blaine for ultimate space-sim nerd advice.

(I can only assume that you have seen Star Citizen, right Marie?)
 

Hirato

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Codex 2012 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Space Pirates and Zombies fits the bill I'd say, it's not a bad game at all.

You can also check out things like Zigfrak and Drox Operative, I haven't played the former enough to have an opinion and the latter is diablo in space with fully dynamic procedural worlds.
 

Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Aside from the games people have already mentioned (some of which I wouldn't personally endorse, and few if any of which hit even a majority of the bullet points), there really isn't much out there. Escape Velocity: Nova and Drox Operative are two I'd recommend looking into, though EV:N's scale is laughably representational in terms of celestial bodies. So is Drox Operative's, which is essentially a procedural aRPG set in space.

I have yet to play a space-based game featuring proper scale (with the possible exception of EVE, but then of course people bitch about there being too much empty space). X³ is almost as bad as Freelancer, because the space stations and asteroids in each system are crammed together on a near-flat plane with the X and Y axes perhaps a couple of dozen kilometers across on average. The planets are strictly background scenery.
 

Angthoron

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Independence War 2, one of the few space sims that I enjoyed. Trading exists, but isn't the focal point, campaign is there, but you can ditch it. Get a couple of mods to your liking and yay, fun.
suggestions with links?
Been a while since I played, so can't remember too many particulars, but there's not that many mods for I-War 2, and those can be found at:
http://www.i-war2.com/assoc_mods.htm for a decent selection of mods
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/independencewar2theedgeofchaos/mod/19855.html for Torn Stars, a large mod project that adds a fair bit of stuff into the game.

I actually have my mods on a CD somewhere, so my need to memorize it was even less than usual. IIRC Location Finder was a must-have though, and general quality of life things are overall very useful.
One thing - for the i-war2.com site, allow it to use pop-ups, that's how it shows mod descriptions. The mod submenu is on far right, not exactly the most transparent design.

Well, there's also Space Rangers 2, then.

I was going to suggest that, but

- Proper scale.

- Relatively good-looking
After Drox Operative was recommended, I had no other options left to me. Also, SR2 (especially HDified one) is by no means an unattractive game. Not a space sim though, but neither is SPaZ or Drox.
 

Severian Silk

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I also recommend IWar 2. The emphasis is on characters, story and scripted missions, but the game world is open and you can quit and go trading if you want.
 

Angthoron

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I also recommend IWar 2. The emphasis is on characters, story and scripted missions, but the game world is open and you can quit and go trading if you want.
Yeah, and I recall that you can have your "friend" npcs to come pick stuff up and sell it off, thus just leaving you to do pirating, marauding and otherwise engaging in fun activities that do not involve piloting a megafreighter.

Can't recall if a mod was needed for that or if it was easy enough to operate in unmodded game already, though.
 

DraQ

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I have yet to play a space-based game featuring proper scale
Frontier: Elite 2
Frontier: First Encounters
Pioneer (open source remake of sorts of the above, still in the works)
I-War 2.

Marie :
They all feature proper scale and not in the "cube few km across, but at least planets are just background" sense - they feature planetary systems of realistic size, with astronomical objects of realistic size.
The first three also feature orbital movement of 'static' objects (like stars, planets, moons and stations) and simulated gravity so ships can orbit as well, they also feature pretty much full size galaxy (slice of Galaxy in FE2 and FFE so the right dimensions but less stars and flattened) and hand-coded Solar System and a handful of nearby or notable stars. They also allow planetary landings (seamless), so you get both deep space and planetside action.
I-War 2 fares comparatively poorly in that regard - scale of its systems is about right, but it's limited to a handful of them (not that it's any problem) and, more importantly features no gravity or orbital movement despite them being pretty fucking important in actual space where everything buzzes around everything else at kilometers per second. It also features sort of random and ugly backgrounds despite the systems in it being supposedly a small cluster of nearby stars, which means they should mostly share the backdrop of their stellar neighborhood.
In terms of movement, I-War uses exotic drive to propel you across interplanetary or interstellar distances, while the other games have interstellar hyperdrive, but force you to move via conventional means across systems themselves, with time compression allowing to shorten the time in transit from days or even weeks game time to minutes IRL.

Now, "looking good" may be a bit of a problem - both FE2 and FFE are from the nineties, and not late nineties either. They do extremely good job looking good with the means they use, but the means they use are restricted to what could work on 286/Amiga/Atari ST and pre-Pentium era PC respectively.

Another problem may be lack of trade and the quality of action.

I-War 2 generally fares the best in that department - the trading is relatively non-absorbing and boils down to selling what you've looted (because Yarr! and stuff), while the combat is relatively fun and complex affair, with directional shields, subsystem targetting and variety of weapon and other options (like remlinking). On the downside it has autorepair rivalling modern popamole health regen, useless HUD, horrible controls (you can tweak them to the state of usability, but you need to do it by hand, in the .ini), and incredibly stupid AI that can't grasp it's in Newtonian environment (which can be hilarious, if you know how to exploit it) or that missiles are limited in supply so it's better to conserve them than to blow through all of them as soon as the enemy contact is made. I-War 2 is also mission driven although you do free-roam in between missions to collect funds by the means of Yarr! and it's fun.

FE2 and FFE fare worse. You may need to trade a bit or do stuff like delivery work to afford some equipment or bigger ship. Afterwards, however you're pretty much free to do what you want including risky stuff like piracy, bounty hunting, assasinations, high risk deliveries and taxi, even military work (but you'll have to grind those jobs before getting to the interesting ones, alas). You may want to keep trading but it's in no way obligatory.
The combat is mixed bag, subsystem damage is in, but no provisions for subtargetting, weaponry is limited to lasers (which are effectively hitscan) and missiles which are very limited in supply, shields are omnidirectional and you can only carry one laser per direction (front mount, in bigger ships also rear mount, the biggest ones may include turrets). AI is somewaht derpy when it comes to shooting and collision avoidance, but is pretty mean with missiles - it has an uncanny knack for launching them when you have the least chance of doing anything about it. Despite simplicity of combat it may take you a while to master, but won't provide much entertainment afterwards.
The most fun and memorable moments you can have are when something important gets shot off and you have to cope with that (assuming you don't reload, that is) - you won't find this kind of fun in I-War 2.

Pioneer is, as of now, unfinished. Weapons are currently similar to FE2/FFE, but with projectiles replacing lasers, so you actually hitting and avoiding hits is more of an actual gameplay. OTOH subsystem damage is not implemented as of now and there are few opportunities for combat. Combat visuals are also still bare bones - with temporary (ugly) explosions, and poor visibility.
Finally, due to scant opportunities for combat you will have to grind boring stuff for a while before getting opportunity to do something more interesting (usually deliveries, not trading, though - could never be arsed to trade in Pioneer).
On the upside, you get actual, rather than maximum mass/maneuverability trade off and delta-v budgets are stringent enough to also be a factor in how you can gear your ship for particular mission, so there is more gameplay to that than just fitting everything you can fit into the hull.

Will post screenies/vids later.
 

Severian Silk

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Iwar 2 has done the best job of making it feel like space has people living in it.
 

Angthoron

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Generally what DraQ says is quite spot-on, though I have to say that I was fine with the controls - maybe it was their ass-backwardness as opposed to "proper" controls in other games that actually let me get into it easier, or maybe it was the fact that my friend copied me his compilation of mods and .ini settings. UI can be modded to a state of "actually useful", too, especially with the Location Finder mod, which, well, lets you actually find stuff and then set course (or autopilot, if you're lazy) to it. IIRC there's backdrop mods as well, that make the less attractive stuff look much prettier.

I dunno. As a "GTA/STALKER/Gothic IN SPACE" that's friendly to space game beginner, I'd probably only be able to recommend I-War 2, because that's more or less how I felt about it when I played it the first time. You do some missions, then go off flying around the systems at random, looking for a fight or a quick buck, watch the population interact with each other to a certain extent, pirate raids, police intervention, accidental carrier collisions at L-points... It was pretty fun. Yarr-ing is certainly enjoyable, especially trying to set things up (through REMing) so that the police don't actually start chasing you for it.
 

DraQ

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or maybe it was the fact that my friend copied me his compilation of mods and .ini settings.
Might be. Or you might have played it with a stick. For mouse and board the default bindings are pretty much unambiguous "fuck you and hope you die of ball cancer" from the devs.

GUI is also hurpadurp - no crosshair (at least that can be modded), no way to read lateral component of your velocity or see actual velocity vector, capped speed readout, small and cluttered globe-style "radar" instead of much more readable disc-style pioneered by Elite.

I dunno. As a "GTA/STALKER/Gothic IN SPACE" that's friendly to space game beginner, I'd probably only be able to recommend I-War 2, because that's more or less how I felt about it when I played it the first time.
TBH I prefer Frontier, but FE2 can be too user friendly at times, giving no motivation to actually improve, because you can offset any disadvantage by repeatedly trading on safe routes to afford massive ship with around 100 shield gens, and then you get clueless morons who can't fly complaining that Newtonian combat is jousting.

You do some missions, then go off flying around the systems at random, looking for a fight or a quick buck, watch the population interact with each other to a certain extent, pirate raids, police intervention, accidental carrier collisions at L-points... It was pretty fun. Yarr-ing is certainly enjoyable, especially trying to set things up (through REMing) so that the police don't actually start chasing you for it.
:salute:

Ok, promised screenies/vids:

 

DraQ

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About the scale part, some didn't quite get my meaning:

The planets are strictly background scenery.

And that's perfectly right. Sure, actual full-size planets are welcome, and they would fit the list, but due to feasability, I'm more than content with proper awe-inspiring background.
Why settle for good enough when you can have awesome?
:rpgcodex:

Even when you are just above a random planet, there is no way you can get there with normal propulsion, because you just shouldn't, not within any reasonable gameplay timespan.
Actually, if you are somewhere around low orbit it's minutes.
Even if you're not going anywhere planet spinning below will be quite noticeable if you're orbiting close enough for it to be spectacular.

If something is modeled in 3D, it should be because it is realistically reachable within the direct-control parts of the game, anything else you will have to FTL to, or warp, or whatever fast-travel is available to the player, otherwise you end up with Freelancer and planets the size of a city block just because they absolutely wanted to have them in 3D.

Actually there are ways around it, for example some FPS games use real time view from fixed (or moving) point in separate section of gameplay area as infinitely distant backdrop for the sky and such.
 

Angthoron

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or maybe it was the fact that my friend copied me his compilation of mods and .ini settings.
Might be. Or you might have played it with a stick. For mouse and board the default bindings are pretty much unambiguous "fuck you and hope you die of ball cancer" from the devs.

Nah, was kb+m, so I guess I lucked out somehow. Also, goddamn it, watched the L-point ambush video, then from there, intro to I-War 1. Now I want to play that again.
 

DraQ

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They all feature proper scale and not in the "cube few km across, but at least planets are just background" sense - they feature planetary systems of realistic size, with astronomical objects of realistic size.

It's been awhile since I've played any of those games, but are you sure about that?

http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
I'm not sure about I-War 2, but it's kind of the point of the remaining ones.

In Frontier you pretty much accelerate for a few days to several thousand km/s, then spend the rest of the trip braking.

Pioneer is similar, except it actually has delta-v budgets small enough to matter - meaning you spend a lot of time coasting - and accelerations involved are a bit less insane, and depend on your actual mass rather than being hardcoded for given ship type.
Thankfully you have several time compression settings mapped out on logarithmic scale so that you don't have to stare at distant unmoving stars for weeks at a time.
 

Fowyr

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In Frontier you pretty much accelerate for a few days to several thousand km/s, then spend the rest of the trip braking.
It's especially hilarious when you travel to some quadruple or quintuple star system (e.g. Wolf 630) and find that station is 146 AU ahead. When you try to reach it, you burn all your 2t of fuel and doomed to aimlessly wander through space like Flying Dutchman. Surely happened to me. Ahhh, good times.
 

DraQ

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In Frontier you pretty much accelerate for a few days to several thousand km/s, then spend the rest of the trip braking.
It's especially hilarious when you travel to some quadruple or quintuple star system (i.e. Wolf 630) and find that station is 146 AU ahead. When you try to reach it, you burn all your fuel and doomed to aimlessly wander through space like Flying Dutchman. Surely happened to me.
Alpha fucking Centauri.
You emerge some 10AU from AB binary.
The only station orbits a planet orbiting Proxima.
:troll:
Problem?

Even funnier in Pioneer, where you don't have fuel for full burn-turn-n-burn, so you have to coast. And coast. And coast.
...
And coast.

Thankfully they added option of locking onto any star and brown dwarf in the system as jump target, though distant gas giants are still fucked.
 

:Flash:

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I'm going to give my usual plug for Tachyon: The Fringe here.
It's not as close as Independence War 2 to what you want, but if you insist on modern graphics it is the second best.
It is not really a sandbox game, though. It is a purely mission-based game, that has a more coherent universe than other mission based games, that just drop you in a mission zone.
Tachyon has a contingent universe with connected systems, but all you can do is select missions from a list, and the list changes according to the story.
The good thing is that the missions are really well designed, as in mission based games, but the game still gives an illusion of being open (which it isn't), and the story has a good flow.
The bad thing is that you're tied to the story, can only choose factions at a specific point, and the game has a definite ending.
 

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