space simulations

I've played Freelancer at a friends house and I absolutely love that game. Anyone know any other good space simulation games besides Descent Freespace( sorry, tried it but not appealing)?

Descent2 > Descent3 > Freespace
I've heard good things about both the Star Trek and Star Wars space games, but haven't seen them myself.

I've always loved the original Colony Wars on the PSX. That's a very good one, similar to Freespace, but it was done a heck of alot better. And for some reason, the Space in it looked cooler.

Heh, I like that one. Especially if you play in the dark, and then look at the nearest star, it makes you squint it's so bright.

,

Homeworld.

I suppose its really more of an action game, but the original Colony wars for the playstation is pretty good, and the graphics still look nice today

Descent 2 and X-Wing Gold.

I'm not sure the Descent games (talking about 1,2,3) fall in the space simulation category. They are just somewhat different first person shooters, with the SDF and all.

Freelancer is just a cheap remake of the elite series. Go with those.

For the ultimate in space exploration and simulation, go with First Encounters: Frontier 2. Its abandonware somewhere. The graphs are not all that exciting, but the game universe is so fucking huge! I mean LIFE SIZE from one end of the galaxy to the other. Somthing like 800,000 planets. Fucking great game.

Noctis

TGB said:

Noctis

Here's your crown.
FUCKING AWESOME, that game is. If you can call it a game, anyway.

It most definitely is. I've been a member of the Noctis community for a long time, and Alex Ghinola (the programmer) is a freaking genius. I recommend anyone who's interested in space exploration (minus the fighting/trading part) to give this one a chance.

TGB said:

Noctis

thanks man! Pretty cool game.

Huh, I went down to a planet and the screen went black. Does this mean my video card sucks or something?

Lesson Learned: don't try to set down on the night side of a planet. :P

Uh, probably not. It doesn't use acceleration to my knowledge. Are you sure you didn't land on the night side of the planet? Cause when there's no light source and no atmopshere, well... you have lots of dark.

EDIT: Too late. I tried. I also made that mistake years ago, so don't think you're the only one. Hell, I still can't figure out how to extract whatever power source to fuel my craft...

Numbermind said:
Hell, I still can't figure out how to extract whatever power source to fuel my craft... [/B]

You need to find a Grey Giant star (S06). Once you've found one, jump to it, and then select "Scope for Lithium" from the "Emergency Functions" menu. You can exit noctis if you want, and if you wait for a while your craft will be filled up.

EDIT: another tip, if you find yourself hopelessly stuck on a planet and can't get back, exit the game, go to the "data" folder in your noctis directory and delete surface.bin. That will get you back to your stardrifter.

is there anyway to get that to work in xp

It's probably got the same problem as Doom does. You can run in a DosBox, but sound will be disabled. Sound isn't really important to this game, though... anyway, I checked the site boards and this has been mentioned:

http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
The booting process, though, is notoriously long.

Others suggested VirtualPC, but I'm pretty sure that's a commercial product. Still others recommend(and I consider this to be a fantastic general recommendation) having an extra PC lying around that doesn't have XP on it.

PlanetSide maybe? Never played it but it looks like it could have some parts that are in space. (I stress that fact here that I haven't played the game AT ALL).

I recommend looking up Terminus - it's on Home of the Underdogs. HUGE download, but semi-realistic space physics and a Privateer-like atmosphere make that one worth looking at. I mean, imagine the physics of Asteroids combined with Privateer. Get yourself going at a steady 3.0 km/s drift, then switch off the inertial compensators and turn around to shoot right behind you.

Oh, the game is supposed to have sound? Eh, oh well.

I don't have any sound in my game...

Wasn't there a sequel to the classic Space Freelancer game Elite in the works? That would be so awesome!

I'm a big fan of the FreeSpace series, but it lacked a 'world' around it... you couldn't customize subspace-jump locations, and you couldn't wander around your carrier flagship.

That would be my idea of an ultimate game, where an entire world is simulated, down to the very basics.

Sorry for being vague; I still have to 'visualize' it...

Terminal Velocity.

Privateer II kicked ass. I love that game, too bad it takes an effort and a half to even install it nowadays.

ravage said:

Terminal Velocity.

pff

Wasn't there a sequel to the classic Space Freelancer game Elite in the works?

Yep, its gonna be called Elite 2, and it should be about by about 1989, its gonna be great man..5 ALL-NEW sound effects and 5 COLOURS!, should be a cross-platform release for both the Spectrum and the BBC Micro at the same time too..right, i'm off to listen to The human leauge, man...

lol.

actually elite two was dubbed frontier. it kicked ass.

frontier 2 (elite 3): first encounters is even better!

dl it NOW!