Space sci-fi games

[logincrash]

Space Rangers 2 - arcade space fights, trading, clunky ground battles and text quests.
Starsector - haven't played it yet. If someone did please give me your brief opinion.

Space Rangers is one of very few Russian games I've played and it's very comfy. Zooming around the galaxy buying and flipping **** for 10X the original price, getting caught smuggling, having to survive prison in a CYOA text quest, breaking out and then dying when the galaxy gets overrun with robots or whatever those red fuckers were.
Ahh, those were the times.

[gerey]

Nexus - The Jupiter Incident : Pretty neat, played it ages ago, but it's ship-only

Great little game, pity it spends so little time on corporate warfare in the Solar system.

[Bertram_Tung]

What about Freelancer?

Circling back to echo this.

@rusty_shackleford you did play this one, right? It isn't in your OP, but it's better than most if not all of the titles listed.

I can't imagine you aren't already familiar with it if you are a fan of the genre.

[MrTwinkls]

I suddenly remembered this exists. Don't play it.

[Tangerine]

What about Freelancer?

Circling back to echo this.

@rusty_shackleford you did play this one, right? It isn't in your OP, but it's better than most if not all of the titles listed.

I can't imagine you aren't already familiar with it if you are a fan of the genre.

Freelancer also has a pretty good modding scene.

[asf]

freelancer is meh

[gerey]

Freelancer also has a pretty good modding scene.

I recall playing the game back when it launched, but haven't looked too deeply into modding. Are there any mods that add good singleplayer content? From a cursory glance most mods seem to focus on the multiplayer and that's really not my cup of tea.

If you're looking for something a bit different there's Strike Suit Zero, basically legally distinct Marcoss, sans the Nip idol obsession - you pilot a prototype space fighter that can transform into a mech, but can also command a few other craft if you prefer:



I don't see Starlancer get all that many recommendations, even though it's the "prequel" to Freelancer. On the topic of old classics, Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy are great, though I assume rusty is already aware of both.

There's also the Escape Velocity games, all freeware, which are akin to Space Rangers.

There's also SunDog, which is a pretty ambitious game from 1984.

[Nooneatall]

Freelancer also has a pretty good modding scene.

I recall playing the game back when it launched, but haven't looked too deeply into modding. Are there any mods that add good singleplayer content? From a cursory glance most mods seem to focus on the multiplayer and that's really not my cup of tea.

If you're looking for something a bit different there's Strike Suit Zero, basically legally distinct Marcoss, sans the Nip idol obsession - you pilot a prototype space fighter that can transform into a mech, but can also command a few other craft if you prefer:



I don't see Starlancer get all that many recommendations, even though it's the "prequel" to Freelancer. On the topic of old classics, Starfleet Academy and Klingon Academy are great, though I assume rusty is already aware of both.

There's also the Escape Velocity games, all freeware, which are akin to Space Rangers.

There's also SunDog, which is a pretty ambitious game from 1984.

I love Escape Velocity. I remember I got the alien ship ending forgot which game.

[horstg]

the Discovery mod for Freelancer is singleplayer-focused and has a lot of content IIRC...

[rusty_shackleford]

Anyone played this?

[rusty_shackleford]

What about Freelancer?

Circling back to echo this.

@rusty_shackleford you did play this one, right? It isn't in your OP, but it's better than most if not all of the titles listed.

I can't imagine you aren't already familiar with it if you are a fan of the genre.

No, I haven't played most of the older ones.

[Bertram_Tung]

Freelancer holds up really well especially with the HD Mod I mentioned earlier in the thread. Would put it up against most of the ones listed in this thread. Definitely superior to DarkStar One which is viewed as a second rate Freelancer.

[rusty_shackleford]

Freelancer holds up really well especially with the HD Mod I mentioned earlier in the thread. Would put it up against most of the ones listed in this thread. Definitely superior to DarkStar One which is viewed as a second rate Freelancer.

Is there a modern sourceport/1:1 remake?

[Bertram_Tung]

Freelancer holds up really well especially with the HD Mod I mentioned earlier in the thread. Would put it up against most of the ones listed in this thread. Definitely superior to DarkStar One which is viewed as a second rate Freelancer.

Is there a modern sourceport/1:1 remake?

What the ****

Edit:

It's not on steam I guess, just download it somewhere it's not hard to find. Then install the HD patch.

[rusty_shackleford]

Freelancer holds up really well especially with the HD Mod I mentioned earlier in the thread. Would put it up against most of the ones listed in this thread. Definitely superior to DarkStar One which is viewed as a second rate Freelancer.

Is there a modern sourceport/1:1 remake?

What the ****

What?
I want a version that won't be a pain in the *** to setup.

[rusty_shackleford]

Oh, I think I was confusing Freelancer with the Wing Commander games.

Is Starlancer worth playing?

[Bertram_Tung]

Starlancer is a fun dogfighting mission based game like wing commander. I do like it but it's very rigid and you can't change the aspect ratio and stuff

Freelancer is more "open-world" with trading and piracy and freedom but with a good singleplayer story too

[rusty_shackleford]

Starlancer title is much better, should have went with Starlancer II

[Bertram_Tung]

They take place in the same universe, but Freelancer is like 800 years later or something IIRC. After Starlancer wars, the different superpowers used sleeperships to go seed the galaxy. And Freelancer is the result of that seeding. But you don't have to play Starlancer to understand Freelancer.

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, stumbled upon this

[Norfleet]

Starlancer title is much better, should have went with Starlancer II

Yes, but the entire point is that in Freelancer, you are...freelance, rather than tied to a specific organization.

[Bertram_Tung]

Also, stumbled upon this

Too bad there was never a Freelancer 2.

Chris/Erin Roberts were behind Starlancer and at least some of Freelancer.

Freelancer is essentially the precursor to Star Citizen

[rusty_shackleford]

Starlancer title is much better, should have went with Starlancer II

Yes, but the entire point is that in Freelancer, you are...freelance, rather than tied to a specific organization.

Starlancer sounds cooler, and that's all that matters

[Bertram_Tung]

Starlancer was actually a great game, I highly recommend it. It's just much more limited in scope. It's very much like Wing Commander but without the attachment to the lore. And It's cool because it is based in Sol System so you dogfight around all the planets like Mars, Jupiter, Uranus (heh), etc. It's like Top Gun in Space. They made a dreamcast version too. I played it on PC endlessly when I was younger.

Freelancer is a much bigger game though.

[Statesman]

Anyone played this?

It is essentially Freelancer with more content+space anomalies. As an Early Access game, you might want to wait for the "final release" before trying it out.

[rusty_shackleford]

It appears there was another Galaxy on Fire game. The mobile version is no longer available, but it was released on Switch(with the freemium stuff removed), meaning it can be emulated.
https://galaxyonfire.fandom.com/wiki/Galaxy_on_Fire_3

Don't know much about it.

[rusty_shackleford]

Is there a reason Freelancer seems to not be available on any digital stores? Presumably, Microsoft has all the rights?

[DDC]

I am pretty sure these criteria eliminate just about every single game except Mass Effect. You want a controllable character and explorable planets, that means either (1) the planets were procedurally generated and the game will be a "treadmill" like No Man's Sky, or (2) they had the budget to handcraft a bunch of planets, which is limited to a small handful of well-known games, or (3) they mixed procedurally generated with handcrafted worlds to try to give the universe "scale" while having it not be a soulless treadmill and you end up with...starfield, or (4) they abandon any attempt at scale, in which case you have KOTOR.

Mass Effect is the only game I can think of that is a pretty good game overall while letting you transition between galaxy-level and on-foot exploration and maintaining a plausible illusion of scale/explorability. I'd be interested in playing the hypothetical game this thread describes if it existed, but devs keep attempting to and failing to make this game. I am only speaking of single-player games, there might be a multiplayer game where they had more success.

[rusty_shackleford]

I am pretty sure these criteria eliminate just about every single game except Mass Effect. You want a controllable character and explorable planets, that means either (1) the planets were procedurally generated and the game will be a "treadmill" like No Man's Sky, or (2) they had the budget to handcraft a bunch of planets, which is limited to a small handful of well-known games, or (3) they mixed procedurally generated with handcrafted worlds to try to give the universe "scale" while having it not be a soulless treadmill and you end up with...starfield, or (4) they abandon any attempt at scale, in which case you have KOTOR.

Mass Effect is the only game I can think of that is a pretty good game overall while letting you transition between galaxy-level and on-foot exploration and maintaining a plausible illusion of scale/explorability. I'd be interested in playing the hypothetical game this thread describes if it existed, but devs keep attempting to and failing to make this game. I am only speaking of single-player games, there might be a multiplayer game where they had more success.

A bunch of games in the op alone meet the criteria

[DDC]

I am pretty sure these criteria eliminate just about every single game except Mass Effect. You want a controllable character and explorable planets, that means either (1) the planets were procedurally generated and the game will be a "treadmill" like No Man's Sky, or (2) they had the budget to handcraft a bunch of planets, which is limited to a small handful of well-known games, or (3) they mixed procedurally generated with handcrafted worlds to try to give the universe "scale" while having it not be a soulless treadmill and you end up with...starfield, or (4) they abandon any attempt at scale, in which case you have KOTOR.

Mass Effect is the only game I can think of that is a pretty good game overall while letting you transition between galaxy-level and on-foot exploration and maintaining a plausible illusion of scale/explorability. I'd be interested in playing the hypothetical game this thread describes if it existed, but devs keep attempting to and failing to make this game. I am only speaking of single-player games, there might be a multiplayer game where they had more success.

A bunch of games in the op alone meet the criteria

Which ones? It seems like the list at the start rules out a bunch of bad games and many of the ones in the lower lists are ship-only. PULSAR and Empyrion will probably be subject to largely the same complaints as No Mans Sky...I assume if we don't like No Man's Sky that crafting sandboxes are generally ruled out. That would leave Spacebourne and Stellar Tactics, I guess. One is an early access isometric rpg. To me, it's not really an "exploration" game if it has a distant, detached camera angle like that since you can't look off into the distance, although it looks like it might be worth checking out. The other looks really cool in the trailer, but one would expect the reviews to be higher if the game was as good as it appears.

The genre of on-foot explorable space games just seems really limited. We have almost a combined $1.5 BILLION into Starfield and Star Citizen and literally thousands of gamedevs and they still can't make the game. Sometimes I fantasize that maybe Mass Effect Andromeda really isn't as bad as I was lead to believe and that it might be worth playing.