Space sims...again...

[leastonh1]

SEIV was great with all the patches. I'm not a fan of the system myself as I prefer to have an actual file on my pooter, but both SEIV and SEV are available to buy on Steam now for £6.99 as a pack.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

If people consider what Battlecruiser 3000AD was meant to be, it's along those lines what I'm looking for.

Be in charge of a battlecruiser and target a system, load marines onto their transports and send them in. Not necessarily control the ground forces....simply that I am given the power and the tools to load and send an invasion force....a bit like Carrier Command, but on a planetary scale.

Space sim which comes pretty close of that: Starshatter. No ground units though, but otherwise player can command carrier battlegroup. On the plus side, all the fleet assets have been modelled by real military navies (carrier is ONLY ship capable of maintaining fighter operations). Planets are there too, where player mostly engages enemy airfields and defense structures (AA batteries), and sometimes escorts shuttle from space down to planet (what shuttle holds is anybody's guess)

[edit]
Check out demo [;)]

[mllange]

@Sabre1 re: Star Wars

Actually, the Star Wars: Empire at War games (core w/ expansion) are quite good. Even if you don't like the Star Wars universe, the gameplay is engaging with strategic and to a lesser extent, tactical depth. My teenage boys bought me the gold pack for my birthday last year and I found myself enjoying it much more than I would have imagined. For $19.99 at Amazon it provides solid entertainment; I highly recommend giving it a go.

[Kuokkanen]

Not a bad game, but IMHO Imperium Galactica 2 is STILL better game [;)]

[sabre1]

Imperium Glactica 2 does look interesting.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

Imperium Glactica 2 does look interesting.

Imperium Galactica 2 and Empire at War are very similar with some variations. What I can tell from playing the demos, Empire at War has more weight on tactical scale combat, and ground combat in particular is more detailed. Everything else (like getting new units) is straigthforward and simple.

IG2 has much more detailed economy, research, and diplomacy. Some parts of those (colony construction) need some micromanagement. Space combat happens on mostly empty space, where starships can be moved around, but for fighters is only slidebar which defines how far they are allowed to depart from starships. Even though it is possible to move around and engage at long range, there isn't need for that with superior endurance and firepower. Ground combat features only combat vehicles, fortifications, and everything else are unarmed colony structures. When own weapons outrange enemy fortifications, only tactical depth is to destroy forts beyond their range. Combination of MBTs and some kind of (rocket) artillery gets the job done. Customizing starships and combat vehicles is fun though.

So if you're interested about tactical level combat with some strategy, EAW is way to go. For more 4X style game, IG2. Both are RTS all the way.

[wdboyd]

Salutations,

UNIVERSAL COMBAT Collectors' Edition should meet your requirements.

It is a final compilation of ALL EIGHT GAMES from Derek Smart.

I know, I know, Smart comes across as a opinionated jerk, but his game(s) are actually very good, albeit very challenging. You might want to check it out.

Oh, as a measure of difficulty and depth... it comes with a 97 page game tutorial. Mr. Smart used to adamantly disparage all those desiring a tutorial for his complex games. It looks like he came to his senses in this regard at least.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

Imperium Glactica 2 does look interesting.

Got the game installed earlier this week, and beated one of the campaigns just moment ago! There are 3 campaigns, each on its separate disc. First campaign on list was Solarian (comes from our star, Sol). I decided to play it through as peacefully as possible... but then on one of my planets was rebellion/revolt, and it changed flag to Kra'Hen. I decided it was without doubt it was work of Kra'Hen spies. When I retook planet back with force, Kra'Hen declared war. Kra'Hen was at war with everybody else too, and kicked serious ass. Tide turned when my heavy cruisers fought off series of battles against main Kra'Hen fleet (AI pools all warships to one fleet, which may get HUGE).

It started with 7 warships against 29 & 300 fighters. Kra'Hen ships were armed with torps, which takes same item slot as shield, so they all were unshielded. Therefore I swapped torps of my ships to shield and ECM. ECM fooled off enemy torps while shields absorbed brunt of other weapons. When HPs of my ships got low, I pulled them to edge of map and hit retreat button. Repeat couple times, and Kra'Hen fleet was beaten with 2 casualties for myself! Then it was just matter of time: cruiser fleet & associated tanks rolled over one planet at the time while lesser formations were hunting fighters & occasional ship that were Kra'Hen's attempt of restoring its fleet assets. Planets with too strong ground defences for cruiser fleet's tank force, were left for slow mobile space base, which can carry whopping 20 tanks alone! (other ships below battleship can take just 2 without additional cargo which is away from other equipment). Alliance with two other empires secured inevitable victory, and as last planet & ships of Kra'Hen fell, campaign was over.

There is more to it. Traders cry help against pirates, powerful religious sect is looking for data crystals all over galaxy, earth quakes threaten existence of planet, mercenaries offer their services... There are enough events, but much of them are scripted. Everything are not thrown at the player at once: it all starts with small region of space where greatest threat are small pirate bands. Later map area is expanded larger and larger, just like in first game of the serie and Supreme Commander. Anyways this was just one campaign out of 3, and there are plenty of scenarios too.

One small gripe about it: at some point there are so many planets that some people (including me) don't want to bother to micromanage. I concentrated on handful of planets, and others were there just for tax pay. Otherwise I have just 2 other complaints: discs were dirty even though seller says they have machine for cleaninig them (game's used), and sometimes cut scenes lag like they were played by 4x CD-ROM drive even though they're coming from disc image loaded on DAEMON Tools Lite (same with original CDs). But it's still great game if real-time play and other points mentioned aren't showstoppers.

[cdbeck]

I enjoyed Imperium Galactica 2, back in the day. Now it is a bit long in the tooth and certainly harder to abide by the poor graphics and old style UI. Emperor of the Fading Suns is a game whose sun shall never fade, but you practically MUST have the Hyperion or Nova fan-made patches. Both of the games are turn based fleet to planet warfare games - you won't control only your fleet but all units out there. EotFS is far more of a "wargame" and IG2 is real time and includes a more fast-paced MoO2 feel.

Otherwise the pickings are slim. You have the X3 series for fleet control, but no ground combat and far more oriented toward trade than anything. I have recently come across a series of Elite style games, the Evochron series. A new one released yesterday, Evochron Legends. You can only have one ship, and it is much more a survival "lone wolf" space game, but you can land on planets and do some pretty nice dog-fighting. Not even close to what you are looking for (more like a competitor to X3), but it is pretty cool.

I never played Derek Smart's games, but I understand some of them are out there for free now. They always seemed rather ambitious, and were literaly panned worse than a Uwe Boll film. I would love to be proved wrong, as the it would be awesome to have the BSG style experience that they might provide.

Other than that, I would say the X3 series gives you the best "fleet control" even without the troops.

I would love to see if other come up with some good stuff here, I'm always up for space control games!

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Son_of_Montfort

I would love to see if other come up with some good stuff here, I'm always up for space control games!

Homeworld and Starshatter series

[sabre1]

Matti,
 
I agree with your choices, but, so far with Starshtter, at least with the Matrix edition, it has been less than stellar.  I have had mouse and graphic problems, and I own LOTS of various games of all types.  Starshatter is the only one so far that has given me headaches.  I will say the game looks interesting.  Yes, I did post problems in the tech area and help desk.  WDBOYD seemed to think that the new beta patch does not work with the Matrix edtion.  Of course that is his opinon, but for now he is the only one offering any help.
 
Homeworld is excellent, difficult, but excellent.  The opening scenes and music are worth the price of admission.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen

Not a bad game, but IMHO Imperium Galactica 2 is STILL better game [;)]

Month ago I bought both Galciv 1 & 2 and I have to say they are superb. I was truly suprised. The series ends with prequel nexus: jupiter incident that is more like mission based spacefleet wargame than 4x: http://www.mobygames.com/game/nexus-the ... r-incident

[wdboyd]

Hi,

I patched Starshatter from version 5.0.1 to the 5.0.3 beta and have had good results overall. I do not use TrackIR, which was introduced with the version 5.0.2 patch. I had all kinds of CTD problems with this particualar patch. A lot of people apparently did.

If one can load the game and patch up to version 5.0.1, things should work very well. [:)]

The recent 5.0.3 patch has corrected problems that were within the games dynamic campaign. I cant' comment upon any 5.0.3 TrackIR fixes though.

Fianlly, I have encountered NO problems modding tactical sci-fi games with Starshatter:TGS. Modding is my recent focus of the games use. I have found Starshatter to be a great platform for these endeavours.

Keep Em Flying Commanders.

[sabre1]

Zakhal,
 
Gal Civ2 is excellent without a doubt.  You might want to take a look at Sins of a Solar Empire.  For an RTS it is outstanding.  I also have Sword of the Stars and all of it's add ons, but I still prefer the later two over it.
 
If Sins added ground combat, now that would be over the top.
 
WD,
 
Patching from 5.0.1 to the beta is not currently an option for me since Matrix only offers the 5.02 download.  Maybe you could ask Matrix about this situation, since no one seems to be listening. 

[Charles2222]

I can't recall if I responded to this thread before, but I bought GalCiv1 and hated it. It was WAY too difficult on the default level, which is the level I play games at exclusively. Even assuming I could adjust to that, I see no point in playing a game where one enemy basically just builds a huge fleet and comes at you in the opening turns (I'm talking AI enemy here) and demolishes you. For a game of that sort to interest me, they at least got to give me some chance to both explore, research and build before they do that, otherwise, I'm just in a bore to build what that one or more enemy will build just to survive. Inevitably, another enemy or two will do basically what I was trying to do, get something of a research lead, which of course means I get beat no matter what I do, by either the early bully or the tech builders. I certainly wouldn't buy the 2nd game based on my dissatisfaction with that one. I also hesitated very strongly on buying Sins of a Solar Empire, because I think it's made by the same group. I only bought it because one of our bigtime turn-based only guys got hot on it, and figured for a guy who hates real-time more than I do (though I've had maybe 5 or 6 real-time games over the years), maybe it's worth a gamble. It's not the greatest game in the world, but it does have quite a lot of life in it, and I have been playing it for some time now. At least I can get pretty deep into the game before I'm ganged up on and I can at least see that winning is possible, and that learning more tweaking can help quite a bit.

[milkweg]

For MOO like games the best there is now is Swords of the Stars and it's expansions. You can download purchase those from Gamer's Gate. Also Sins of a Solar Empires is good if you prefer something more like Homeworld but better. I have Space Empires V and I think it is good but it is also complex, I never played SEIV though so I am not looking at it in comparison to that game. Then there is GalCivII also but I like Sword of the Stars better. As for space sims, X3 I guess is the closest to what you want really. Gamer's Gate ahs a number of Space Sims I have never heard of before and a couple of those might be hidden gems but I doubt it. Install Battlecrusier now and again just so I can shake my fist at Derek Smart and call him an idiot. I would recommend Starshatter if they would just get the bugs fixed and it had graphics like X3.

[sabre1]

Well with Starshatter if you have Vista, Matrix basically wrote me to say to bad so sad, but you should read the operating requirements.  So for Starshatter I just shelved it, and moved on.  I have X3, haven't gotten into yet, but it looks like there is a large learning curve to it.  It is very nice to look at though.
 
I will give Swords of the Stars another shot.  I could not figure out the RTS of the ship combat, and have not warmed up to the 3d star system, and yes I have all the addons.  Starship Unlimited looks good, but haven't given it any serious time.  Lately when wanting my space fix Sins is my tool of choice, along with GalCivII.
 
Charles,
 
You are definitely a Geezer, like me. I do that all the time, forgeting if I posted in a particular forum, and it only gets worse.[;)]

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

Zakhal,

Gal Civ2 is excellent without a doubt.  You might want to take a look at Sins of a Solar Empire.  For an RTS it is outstanding.  I also have Sword of the Stars and all of it's add ons, but I still prefer the later two over it.

If Sins added ground combat, now that would be over the top.

I have all of those too. Including complete galciv2, the special version of sword of stars and the new addon. I didnt really like sins though. Viewing is awful and I dont like the user interface. Trying to move multiple tiny ships realtime in a gigantic map hopping from one zoom to another is just not fun.

Also after playing all RTS since dune2 I simply cant stand them anymore. My mousearm starts to hurt if I even think of the word RTS.

Galciv2 is okay but its battles are still way worse than those in master of orion series. And I find most of the ship designing pretty useless because the only thing it affects is the visual outlook of the ship. Galciv2 needs badly a decent tactical combat.

[cdbeck]

Actually, there is a way to make the Sword of the Stars tactical camera go into free mode, but I always forget the keys.

SoM