Space sims...again...

[JudgeDredd]

I didn't want to hijack someone elses thread...

I would like to know...what space sims are out there that allow for manual insertion/execution of land forces?

I'd like a space sim that allows me to control a fleet (either immediately, or through prgression...either or) and, using that fleet, select planets to land forces on and control those forces.

I know the creator of Battle Cruiser 2000AD created a game that suggested you could do that...but two things...1, I couldn't force myself to play a game by that self righteous git and 2, I didn't believe it!

So...is there anything out there?

Thx [&o]

[sabre1]

Hey JD, I never mind someone hijacking a thread. [;)]
 
Good question. Lurk mode on.  The only one I remember is MOO2, and that was VERY abstracted.

[String]

It's called EvE Online. The AI can be a bit of a bitch sometimes though [:D]

EDIT:

Goddamnit! I thought i read the OP and then when I reread it I realised that i had missed the point totally. You won't get that from eve online for a few years atleast, although it's being planned.

I do think that a game called Star General, from the five general series should do it.

[hadberz]

Emperor of the Fading Suns might be what your looking for. It has fleet and planet combat. The AI is not the greatest. The game is old, so you may have a hard time finding a copy for sell. There are user mods out there. Check out this site for some mods. http://hyperion.twarriors.com/

I just reread your post, Emperor is more of a 4x game.

[Mike Dubost]

If you can find a copy of Space General, the mechanics are essentially Panzer General (hardly a shock, since it is part of the same series). You have space battles, and then you land your forces on the target planet and switch to air/ground combat. It has simplistic technological "levels", but each race has slightly different ships, so there is an element of R&D in it. I enjoy doing it in "expansion war" mode where the map is a randomly generated square "galaxy" and you start with one world and have to explore the "galaxy" to see what else is there.

The major drawback I have found is that it won't run under Windows XP. I haven't tried it under Vista though, since I still have my old Windows 95 desktop (I feel like an antique collector sometimes [:)]). I got it many years ago so I don't know if it can be purchased anywhere.

[Brigz]

I'm not so sure about Star General. I got it a long time ago when it first came out and it just didn't hold my interest. I've also read many negative comments on the game over the ten plus years since it came out. It was supposed to be Panzer General in space but was never the game that Panzer General was. You might be able to still find reviews on it scattered around the various websites and possibly abandon ware sites might have it. But I don't think it's the game JD is looking for.

It will run on XP but the 3D ship renderings don't come out very sharp. The rest of the graphics do look good though. To run it on XP you have to use the windows compatibility program when you install the game.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: String

I do think that a game called Star General, from the five general series should do it.

That's strategy/wargame, NOT sim! Only thing that comes to my mind (besides Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. serie) is Imperium Galactica 2, and it's RTS... [:(]

[noxious]

Judge, you were right : i bought battlecruiser 3000 AD Gold on a Dare (second hand, dirt cheap), and even with all patches, it was unrunnable, much less enjoyable. And yeah, you could land troops, more or less : the sky in ground environments was a messed up cube, where you could always feel the sky was a low height flat ceiling, yes the planets were huge, but also empty.
I won't even get into the AI.
Nasty.
That Phd ain't smart
He considered Torque back then for that project, and I now fully realize why he didn't : simply doesn't have the technical chops to lead a software or game project.
Imagine the result : they built the engine from the ground up and the game in record time...
He got lucky with that one : the Strategy First and Dreamcatcher Interactive scandal/fiascos turned the "fanbase" focus on those problems rather than the fact the game was released in as bad a state as that infamous 20 wheeler game that got the worse score on gamespot a few years back

Rant off.

Happy new year all

[JudgeDredd]

Yes...Mr Derek Smart. I had the unfortunate experience of posting on his forums many, many moons ago. Basically, a very, very angry crowd. He seemed to surround himself with yes men and get rid of the naysayers. Even people who had genuine gripes...I've never seen anyone get away with treating their customer base with such obnoxious self righteousness and get apologies from those who started to question the mechanics. Needless to say I never visited the forums again, shelved the broken game and never bought another piece of software.
 
But I digress...
 
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.
 
For my sim kicks, I have X3 Terran Conflict....but there are not any troop/invasion force managements. And it would have to be RTS I guess.

[Zap]

cancel

[mllange]

Supremacy: Four Paths To Power is a unique, fast-paced but deeply strategic game of interplanetary combat for one or two players. In the tradition of games such as Alpha Centauri and X-Com, Supremacy is a turn-based strategy game where players attempt to colonize planets in a variety of quadrants within a very unusual galaxy. Players choose one of four commanding officers, each with their own unique backstory, advantages and disadvantages, and start with at least one planet and one spaceship. From those humble beginnings, they must build up a fighting force and expand their empire while dealing with the opposition, a Commanding Officer of equal rank who is building up his own forces. In addition players will have to deal with merciless space pirates, who lurk hidden in the shadows of deep space. Scripted narrative segments move the story but the essential gameplay is extremely open-ended and non-linear, giving players unprecedented strategic freedom. In space or on land, through resource management, choice of vessels and ground troops, clever maneuvering or brute force, you must conquer the galaxy. Supremacy perfectly combines easy-to-learn addictive strategy gameplay with unprecedented depth and replayability.

It's been years since I fired up this game, but if memory serves it wasn't too bad.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Dave Briggs

I'm not so sure about Star General. I got it a long time ago when it first came out and it just didn't hold my interest. I've also read many negative comments on the game over the ten plus years since it came out. It was supposed to be Panzer General in space but was never the game that Panzer General was. You might be able to still find reviews on it scattered around the various websites and possibly abandon ware sites might have it. But I don't think it's the game JD is looking for.

It will run on XP but the 3D ship renderings don't come out very sharp. The rest of the graphics do look good though. To run it on XP you have to use the windows compatibility program when you install the game.

Well, everyone has their own taste in games. It is fun for me. I do still dust it off every now and then even after so many years, but maybe others would not like it as much.

I am not real computer savy some ways, so I never thought about the compatibility program. I may want to try that.

[mllange]

Another I forgot about earlier is Space Empires V.

[Valkyrie]

Way, way, way off the wall, but...

Would it be possible to Mod WiTP into a space sim? If we envisioned the naval forces as space ships, the fighter units as space going interceptors and bombers and the ground units as Space marines etc etc? It seems like the mechanics would actually transfer pretty well into a "space opera" type universe.

If not possible as a mod (I'm not experienced in such things) it certainly would be appealing as a new game design utilizing this level of detail and time scale as a space sim. WiTG... War in the Galaxy

[sabre1]

ORIGINAL: nim8or

Another I forgot about earlier is Space Empires V.

I wondered about that one, never played it, but I haven't heard great things about it. SEIV Deluxe was very good from all accounts. SEV was buggy on release from what I recall.

Something to look up and research, my favorite thing to do, check on interesting games, dang, I guess someone has to do it. [8D]

[sabre1]

JD,
 
Are you looking for turn based or RTS?  There is a game called Dropship, same place you got CMSF.

[sabre1]

Sheesh, my son reminded me that there is a Star Wars game, that transitions to the planet for battles.  I was just never into the Star Wars Universe.

[sabre1]

SEV is up to 1.77 patch and was just recently fixed, so the game is still being supported. 

[Valkyrie]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

SEV is up to 1.77 patch and was just recently fixed, so the game is still being supported. 

Thanks, I was still at 1.74. Downloading the latest now.

For those interested in SEV, here's the support site that I check fairly regularly:

http://www.spaceempires5.com/

The patches come very frequently as they fine tune the game. Just finished reading a few threads over there and the heavy duty players still think it is somewhat buggy, but not game stopping. I've never gotten deep enough into a game to hit any of them. It's fun and quite an ongoing project, it seems. As you can see, the patches are numbered sequentially so 1.77 reflects a LOT of patches.

Version 1.77:
Fixed - Mines will no longer detonate if they cannot damage the ship.
Fixed - A few more conditions where vehicle design statistics would not record a destroyed ship.
Fixed - The solar system display was not repainting and removing marked minefields.
Fixed - After all enemies are dead in combat, ships will hold position.
Fixed - Starting technology points were still incorrect.
Fixed - Starting techs from racial traits were not being supplied.


Version 1.76:
Added - "Display Speed Improvements" to the Options window. These settings allow you to turn off the display of certain column in the Ships, Colonies, and Systems window. Turning off the display of some columns will greatly increase the time is takes to display these windows when large numbers of objects are present.
Fixed - Text wrapping was incorrect.
Fixed - Error in intelligence events script preventing messages.
Fixed - Mines will no longer detonate if they cannot damage the ship.
Fixed - Fleets selected to move together were losing an extra movement point.
Fixed - Damaged ships were not receiving their full movement on the turn they were repaired.
Fixed - Ships were not getting their crew back when unmothballed even if a crew source was available.
Fixed - On a deconstruction and analyze, you might get a message for an impossible tech level.
Fixed - Units would lose supplies and ordnance when recovered during combat.
Changed - Units launched will take supplies and ordnance from their parent object if they do not have their maximum. They will only take supplies down to the level of "Ship Supply Amount for Low Supply Warning" in Settings.txt.
Fixed - Units recovered on a ship will add their supplies and ordnance to the parent ship until it reaches its maximum.

Version 1.75:
Fixed - Units entering combat from space would not have their full allotment of supplies and ordnance.
Fixed - Using orders, you could remove the last 1M population from a planet.
Fixed - Destroyed organic armor would still regenerate.
Fixed - Some system wide facility abilities were not stacking correctly.
Fixed - Some planet damaging weapons would not fire on planets.
Fixed - A critical failure on a ship will result in zero movement and no weapons fire from that ship. A critical failure is when a ship loses its bridge, master computer, all life support, all crew quarters, or all of its crew.
Fixed - Starting technology points were including race trait supplied tech areas.
Fixed - Alliance proposal vote requirements will now round up. For example, if the rules say that 60% of votes are needed to pass and there are 3 possible votes, then 2 votes are required to pass the proposal.
Fixed - Religious Studies should have only 1 tech level.
Fixed - You can only retrofit a ship once per turn.
Fixed - When you join an alliance, your empire becomes aware of all empires and alliances that any of the members are aware of.
Fixed - A component's supply and ordnance usage can never be lowered below 1 by abilities if the original value was greater than zero.
Fixed - Error in event script changing a planet's value.
Fixed - Error in event script increasing a population's anger.
Fixed - Fixed some overflow errors that could be generated in scripts.
Added - Field "Compress Savegames" to Settings.txt data file. This determines whether the game will compress and decompress savegames, map files, empire files, game setup files, and player order files. Setting this to false has trade offs: Your savegames will load and save much faster, but will be much larger in size (instead of a 30MB savegame, you'll have a 300MB savegame file). Also, with this setting false, the game will no longer be able to load compressed games. This field is really intended for single player games where the load times have become unbearably long. If you wish to manually compress\decompress a savegame file use the program SE5Compressor.exe in the se5\utilities directory.
Fixed - Treaties that shared designs could cause the savegame to bloat with designs kept around long after they were no longer being used.
Changed - Old designs are now deleted when no longer in use, marked as obsolete, and haven't been seen in at least 2 years.

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: nim8or

Another I forgot about earlier is Space Empires V.

Yes.. you might want to check that out, JD. It seems to fit your requirements. I actually got it yesterday in view of these threads and the Steam sale price (£4.49) to play about with and while it's far too early to comment on quality it certainly seems very deep, with both space and ground tactical combat as well as all the usual 4X stuff.