You could just play gamepad + keyboard. You won't crash and burn if you take a hand off the gamepad for lesser-used/non-critical commands like "Target nearest repair ship" or "Subspace jump." I certainly think it would be a better experience than using the mouse or arrow keys.
I never got to play that one expansion that they mentioned about halfway during the game, just after
that mission where you're sent to that one sector that everybody fucking steers clear of, and you lock onto an unknown object about ten or so kilometers ahead of you right after jumping in, and as you fly towards it you pass by all these disabled fighters until you get just within range of that strange object to scan it when it goes into an in-engine cinematic where the object turns around to reveal its gigantic, gaping orange maw that then sucks your fighter in.
And then they give you a screen of text that basically says "Find out what happened by buying (expansion name)!" and you go on to de-briefing and your dude's basically going "well, that was one heck of an adventure!". Dicks.
I am one of those that played Freespace with the mouse and kb. Although I have the Saitek shown in the OP now so I think I will take it for another spin. Im looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution although I am somewhat saddened that it appears you will only fly smaller ships.
Any recommendations for cheap, good joysticks? I've been wanting to get into freespace 2 for a long while now, but I want the full spaceship experience. I don't want to drop money for a joystick when I'll never use it after freespace.
I'm also gonna build a cockpit out of blankets. DON"T JUDGE ME.
The first post has everything you need! Logitech Extreme 3d pro will never let you down. I don't see why you'd confine yourself only to Freespace 2 though. There are plenty of games that are almost as good or even better.
You don't typically hear a whole lot of love (or anything) for Jump to Lightspeed, though, whereas there are new Freespace threads every few months.
I thought Freelancer could really have benefited from some more ship classes. You're already in a third person view flying with the mouse, it seems like it would have been cool to have more corvettes, carriers, warships, huge freight haulers, etc. under player control, with elements like turret coverage, side/rear weapons and spinal cannons being more important. Playing as various fighters just seemed limited, especially since you weren't tied to the joystick any more.
Re: Precursors -- this game sounds like a spiritual successor to Battlecruisers 3000 AD, as in it's too ambitious to possibly be real.
This thread is going to make me spend several hundred dollars on space sims. I just know it.
It's not that complex of a game. It's not going to make your head hurt when you try to play it. To say it's too ambitious to be real isn't really correct. I don't believe they've made any giant sweeping promises. You can't grow your own trees, for instance. Nor is the space section a heavy and gigantic simulation.
From what I remember reading, traveling to other systems or planets is more akin to Mass Effect. You have a map you bring up and can select systems and planets, and this is even shown in some screenshots. You can do some flying around in, but it's probably not like the X3 or Freelancer type of exploration. And the OP's description of millions of planets is more than likely a giant exaggeration.
You can take on random missions and trade without dealing with the storyline, but it's a little more limited and less complex than what you're probably imagining it to be. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to explore numerous planets, but it's nothing like Battlecruisers 3000 AD. You won't get an aneurysm trying to figure out how to play the game. Hardcore is not what I'd describe Precursors.
Dashui on
Xbox Live, PSN & Origin: Vacorsis 3DS: 2638-0037-166
Re: Precursors -- this game sounds like a spiritual successor to Battlecruisers 3000 AD, as in it's too ambitious to possibly be real.
This thread is going to make me spend several hundred dollars on space sims. I just know it.
It's not that complex of a game. It's not going to make your head hurt when you try to play it. To say it's too ambitious to be real isn't really correct. I don't believe they've made any giant sweeping promises. You can't grow your own trees, for instance. Nor is the space section a heavy and gigantic simulation.
From what I remember reading, traveling to other systems or planets is more akin to Mass Effect. You have a map you bring up and can select systems and planets, and this is even shown in some screenshots. You can do some flying around in, but it's probably not like the X3 or Freelancer type of exploration. And the OP's description of millions of planets is more than likely a giant exaggeration.
You can take on random missions and trade without dealing with the storyline, but it's a little more limited and less complex than what you're probably imagining it to be. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to explore numerous planets, but it's nothing like Battlecruisers 3000 AD. You won't get an aneurysm trying to figure out how to play the game. Hardcore is not what I'd describe Precursors.
Must have just been the OP's description. I'm sure I'll give it a look-see when it comes out, as per usual. In any case it's time to download a whole shit-ton of demos because some of those space sims I've never even heard of.
You don't typically hear a whole lot of love (or anything) for Jump to Lightspeed, though, whereas there are new Freespace threads every few months.
I thought Freelancer could really have benefited from some more ship classes. You're already in a third person view flying with the mouse, it seems like it would have been cool to have more corvettes, carriers, warships, huge freight haulers, etc. under player control, with elements like turret coverage, side/rear weapons and spinal cannons being more important. Playing as various fighters just seemed limited, especially since you weren't tied to the joystick any more.
The freighters were pretty piddling, though, if I recall -- extra-large fighters, really, that would carry maybe 10-15 times as much cargo as your starting fighter, as opposed to something that someone would actually build and use to move cargo. And even if you wouldn't necessarily want to fly one yourself, it would be a nice touch to see them flying around.
The freighters were pretty piddling, though, if I recall -- extra-large fighters, really, that would carry maybe 10-15 times as much cargo as your starting fighter, as opposed to something that someone would actually build and use to move cargo. And even if you wouldn't necessarily want to fly one yourself, it would be a nice touch to see them flying around.
Dude, you weren't nearly creative enough with your freighters. There wasn't a huge difference in size between fighters and freighters, but there was a huge difference in that freighters had turrets. Fighter's weapons generally covered only the forward firing arc, but on the better freighters you could pump out a lot of punishment in any given direction.
Playing online I'd usually fit out a freighter to use as a corvette command ship while my brother and our friends fitted out fighters. We'd kill other freighters and then load up all the loot they dropped into my spacious cargo bay.
Tried that evo-legends demo last night. I dunno, couldn't really lock on to it for some reason, maybe ill try again from scratch tonight or tomorrow, cuz damn I could use a new space sim.
The problem with Evochron - to me, at least - is that it's very interesting as the results of basically one man with very good ideas working his butt off, but not so much as a game. Being able to upgrade your ship bit by bit at an orbital dock is cool, but is hindered by that it's a rather linear fighter-based "(Predacessor)+1" affair; the idea of a seamless universe where you can go anywhere without any real sense of loading and even buzz around/land on planets is awesome until you see how clunky, inaccurate, and time-consuming long-distance navigation is (landing on and launching from a planet is particularly bad about this, since you have to make the full descent/ascent in real time and its about three minutes each way); and the presentation is just extrordinarily dry (granted, I know he's doing it all on his own, but couldn't he have at least culled some volunteers from his fanbase to do some stuff?). It's certainely remarkable as a personal feat, and has quite a few ideas that should be integrated into other games, but nothing I'd get my wallet out for.
Of those that I've played, Independence War II is easily the best.
It was so totally rad. Also, how is that "the past" and freespace 2 "the present"?
Man I-War was totally awesome. You were a space pirate that had your own secret hideout ... that you inhereted from grandma!
Also, you could be such an asshole in that game if you wanted to. If you were careful combat was pretty easy (the computer isn't the best at handling the newtonian physics, so you could just outmaneuver anyone), but when things started going wrong you'd be dead in an instant. Kinda like "Oh, shi-" BOOOM!
Man, I'm trying to recall an old SSI game where you controlled a space base with it's compliment of figters and pilots after your CO bites it. Your pilots would levelup in typical RPG fashion and you could upgrade your fighters as the game progressed. Does anyone recall this game?
I think the only spaceship game that SSI made was the Renegade Legion title, Battle for Jacob's Star. So that, maybe?
Oh, and I detect a distinct lack of the Freespace series in the OP, Someone really ought to rectify that obvious mistake.
It's right there.
1) Ding ding ding, that was the title I was thinking about. I never played that game, do you know whether it was any decent?
2) Damn, so it was. Boy is my face red now, guess that ought to teach me to start typing before all the pictures have finished loading, eh?
So uh, got a joystick today, and grabbed freespace 2 off of GoG. I had a retail copy of FS1 at some point, but never finished it, so I wanna get it running in the FS2 engine with that Freespace SCP stuff, but trying to find clear directions as to what I need to do to actually accomplish that with everything intact is turning out to be a bit hard.
I somehow missed this thread when you made it, but bravo, sir. Some of those newish space sims look pretty good. I'll definitely have to give them a shot.
Other than the learning curve of X3, how is it? The description of an open ended universe sim sounds awesome. Is there a demo or anything?
I somehow missed this thread when you made it, but bravo, sir. Some of those newish space sims look pretty good. I'll definitely have to give them a shot.
Other than the learning curve of X3, how is it? The description of an open ended universe sim sounds awesome. Is there a demo or anything?
These space sims seem to get fancier and fancier, and yet I always wind up back with Frontier (or rather a modded version of Frontier's "sequel", First Encounters.)
Granted, it's graphics and sound haven't aged all that well, but it's so stupendously superior to anything else I've tried in any other way. What other game let's you fly around thousands of realistically scaled solar systems, seamlessly entering any planet atmosphere and land where ever the hell you like? - Sure, there's rarely a point in doing that, but you can.
I've had so many different careers too... Smugling narcotics in Ridequat, raiding imperial gemstone freighters i Achernar, doing bombing runs for the Federation on the outskirts of the inhabited parts of the galaxy, doing freelance assassinations all over the place... I don't think any other game has stolen as much of my life.
Oh, what I wouldn't give for an otherwise faithful remake of Frontier with state of the art graphics!
For now I'll settle for checking out that Starshatter thingy, though.
Starlancer co-op still ranks as some of the best co-op gaming I have ever done. Buddy and I played that mission for like 5 hours before we finally beat it. I have been trying to find a space sim game ever since Starlancer that can recreate the experience.
Heh, every time I use my Sidwinder joystick, I remember the good old days of Stalancer co-op.
Also that one time in singleplayer when I accidentally shot down a friendly fighter, and was executed
Terminus A low budget linux/Mac/Windows flight sim made by a small independent team of programmers. Sliding newtonian physics with an insane amount of ship customization. A rather simple story with 4 viewpoints to watch from not to mention a gauntlet mod where you fight increasingly hard waves of ships. I played this over several times over when a friend lent it to me back in 2001. After I got a lot of skill, I started up a pirate character and made it my mission to get as rich as possible so that I could down as many story related frigates and corvettes as possible. Lets see you wage war when I am in your face killing your ships!
Several Novel things:
+Newtonian physics
+low budget, high fun
+first game I heard of that had its own built in recorder
+you could load up on immobilizers and make ships dump their cargo
+set up and collect bounties on characters in the universe.
My terminus contribution
edit: Is that Redd from That 70's Show doing the voice in the Colossus video?
Anyone else obsessed with killing the Tiamat in Freespace 2?
Man this thread has brought a big wave of remorse for me. I never played any of those games except the Star Wars ones, and that's because they were Star Wars. I've never played Wing Commander or Freelancer or Freespace or any of those.
/sadface
You know another genre that's all but dead though? The Mech genre. I played the shit out of Mechwarrior 3 and 4 and Mercenaries. But that's an entirely off-topic discussion.
You know another genre that's all but dead though? The Mech genre. I played the shit out of Mechwarrior 3 and 4 and Mercenaries. But that's an entirely off-topic discussion.
Duuuude did you not read anything? If space sims are all but dead then your mom is all but classy. I listed a bunch of upcoming ones and current ones and people keep adding to the list. Someday I'll make a mech thread too but right now look at all the awesome spaceships!
Out of the current games (2006+) which would be a good "first buy." I really want to play a space sim, but I don't know which to pick.
And I look forward to your Mech thread. I've probably missed a lot of great mech games too. I have a bad habit of sticking with big name-brand IPs and I don't branch out much. That's why I've only played the SW sims, and why the only real mech games I've ever played were all Battletech.
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Man this thread has brought a big wave of remorse for me. I never played any of those games except the Star Wars ones, and that's because they were Star Wars. I've never played Wing Commander or Freelancer or Freespace or any of those.
/sadface
You know another genre that's all but dead though? The Mech genre. I played the shit out of Mechwarrior 3 and 4 and Mercenaries. But that's an entirely off-topic discussion.
Not familiar with Armored Core and Super Robot Taisen, I'm guessing.
(Okay, the latter is pushing it)
Out of the current games (2006+) which would be a good "first buy." I really want to play a space sim, but I don't know which to pick.
And I look forward to your Mech thread. I've probably missed a lot of great mech games too. I have a bad habit of sticking with big name-brand IPs and I don't branch out much. That's why I've only played the SW sims, and why the only real mech games I've ever played were all Battletech.
Freespace + Freespace 2. Buy them off of GoG.com then do the whole SCP thing.
Out of the current games (2006+) which would be a good "first buy." I really want to play a space sim, but I don't know which to pick.
And I look forward to your Mech thread. I've probably missed a lot of great mech games too. I have a bad habit of sticking with big name-brand IPs and I don't branch out much. That's why I've only played the SW sims, and why the only real mech games I've ever played were all Battletech.
Freespace + Freespace 2. Buy them off of GoG.com then do the whole SCP thing.
This is true.
Freespace is still the king.
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TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
edited May 2009
I would like to put forward Oolite. It's completely free, and easily moddable, resulting in ALOT of user-created content like ships, planets, systems, groups, etc. I particularly liked watching a gunship that belongs to the Black Monks hunt down and destroy a debtor who's pleading for an extension.
Also, anybody remember Solar Winds? I never managed to finish that game. I'm not sure how much it counts, seeing as it's more or less completely linear.
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Posts
You're not alone, no one played it.
Because it was never released.
AFAIK
The first post has everything you need! Logitech Extreme 3d pro will never let you down. I don't see why you'd confine yourself only to Freespace 2 though. There are plenty of games that are almost as good or even better.
This thread is going to make me spend several hundred dollars on space sims. I just know it.
Especially when the majority of Jump to Lightspeed players use a mouse with the exact same control scheme and nobody bats an eye.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I thought Freelancer could really have benefited from some more ship classes. You're already in a third person view flying with the mouse, it seems like it would have been cool to have more corvettes, carriers, warships, huge freight haulers, etc. under player control, with elements like turret coverage, side/rear weapons and spinal cannons being more important. Playing as various fighters just seemed limited, especially since you weren't tied to the joystick any more.
It's not that complex of a game. It's not going to make your head hurt when you try to play it. To say it's too ambitious to be real isn't really correct. I don't believe they've made any giant sweeping promises. You can't grow your own trees, for instance. Nor is the space section a heavy and gigantic simulation.
From what I remember reading, traveling to other systems or planets is more akin to Mass Effect. You have a map you bring up and can select systems and planets, and this is even shown in some screenshots. You can do some flying around in, but it's probably not like the X3 or Freelancer type of exploration. And the OP's description of millions of planets is more than likely a giant exaggeration.
You can take on random missions and trade without dealing with the storyline, but it's a little more limited and less complex than what you're probably imagining it to be. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait to explore numerous planets, but it's nothing like Battlecruisers 3000 AD. You won't get an aneurysm trying to figure out how to play the game. Hardcore is not what I'd describe Precursors.
Galaxy on Fire
For iPhone.
You can download it or buy it from http://www.matrixgames.com/products/334/store/Starshatter.-.The.Gathering.Storm.
Must have just been the OP's description. I'm sure I'll give it a look-see when it comes out, as per usual. In any case it's time to download a whole shit-ton of demos because some of those space sims I've never even heard of.
There were freighters in vanilla Freelancer, you know. It's just that nobody bought them, because who wants to haul freight when you can blow shit up?
Dude, you weren't nearly creative enough with your freighters. There wasn't a huge difference in size between fighters and freighters, but there was a huge difference in that freighters had turrets. Fighter's weapons generally covered only the forward firing arc, but on the better freighters you could pump out a lot of punishment in any given direction.
Playing online I'd usually fit out a freighter to use as a corvette command ship while my brother and our friends fitted out fighters. We'd kill other freighters and then load up all the loot they dropped into my spacious cargo bay.
It was so totally rad. Also, how is that "the past" and freespace 2 "the present"?
Man I-War was totally awesome. You were a space pirate that had your own secret hideout ... that you inhereted from grandma!
Also, you could be such an asshole in that game if you wanted to. If you were careful combat was pretty easy (the computer isn't the best at handling the newtonian physics, so you could just outmaneuver anyone), but when things started going wrong you'd be dead in an instant. Kinda like "Oh, shi-" BOOOM!
I think because:
1. The Freespace 2 Source Code Project is still updating, with 3.6.10 RC2 made available in April.
2. It's being sold on Good Old Games
And because FS2 is the greatest goddamned space sim ever made.
MEET THE GTVA COLOSSUS SHIVAN BITCHES!!
My kingdom for a link to the "Meet the Colossus" cutscene.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
2) Damn, so it was. Boy is my face red now, guess that ought to teach me to start typing before all the pictures have finished loading, eh?
Other than the learning curve of X3, how is it? The description of an open ended universe sim sounds awesome. Is there a demo or anything?
Go here.
Get the .exe file. It's a downloader/installer for all your Freespace needs, including the FS2 to FS1 mod.
Granted, it's graphics and sound haven't aged all that well, but it's so stupendously superior to anything else I've tried in any other way. What other game let's you fly around thousands of realistically scaled solar systems, seamlessly entering any planet atmosphere and land where ever the hell you like? - Sure, there's rarely a point in doing that, but you can.
I've had so many different careers too... Smugling narcotics in Ridequat, raiding imperial gemstone freighters i Achernar, doing bombing runs for the Federation on the outskirts of the inhabited parts of the galaxy, doing freelance assassinations all over the place... I don't think any other game has stolen as much of my life.
Oh, what I wouldn't give for an otherwise faithful remake of Frontier with state of the art graphics!
For now I'll settle for checking out that Starshatter thingy, though.
There is an ongoing Wing Commander port into the open Freespace 2 engine called WC Saga.
They recently release a prologue, which I suppose is a demo at 282~ MB.
I'm sure some of you are aware of it, but others interested may not be.
Also that one time in singleplayer when I accidentally shot down a friendly fighter, and was executed
Terminus A low budget linux/Mac/Windows flight sim made by a small independent team of programmers. Sliding newtonian physics with an insane amount of ship customization. A rather simple story with 4 viewpoints to watch from not to mention a gauntlet mod where you fight increasingly hard waves of ships. I played this over several times over when a friend lent it to me back in 2001. After I got a lot of skill, I started up a pirate character and made it my mission to get as rich as possible so that I could down as many story related frigates and corvettes as possible. Lets see you wage war when I am in your face killing your ships!
Several Novel things:
+Newtonian physics
+low budget, high fun
+first game I heard of that had its own built in recorder
+you could load up on immobilizers and make ships dump their cargo
+set up and collect bounties on characters in the universe.
My terminus contribution
edit: Is that Redd from That 70's Show doing the voice in the Colossus video?
Anyone else obsessed with killing the Tiamat in Freespace 2?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
It looks like a great SW mod.
/sadface
You know another genre that's all but dead though? The Mech genre. I played the shit out of Mechwarrior 3 and 4 and Mercenaries. But that's an entirely off-topic discussion.
Duuuude did you not read anything? If space sims are all but dead then your mom is all but classy. I listed a bunch of upcoming ones and current ones and people keep adding to the list. Someday I'll make a mech thread too but right now look at all the awesome spaceships!
And I look forward to your Mech thread. I've probably missed a lot of great mech games too. I have a bad habit of sticking with big name-brand IPs and I don't branch out much. That's why I've only played the SW sims, and why the only real mech games I've ever played were all Battletech.
Not familiar with Armored Core and Super Robot Taisen, I'm guessing.
(Okay, the latter is pushing it)
Freespace + Freespace 2. Buy them off of GoG.com then do the whole SCP thing.
This is true.
Freespace is still the king.
Also, anybody remember Solar Winds? I never managed to finish that game. I'm not sure how much it counts, seeing as it's more or less completely linear.
One: why are we not talking about Infinity: Quest for Earth?
Because seriously, look at this shit
Two: Freelancer deserves more of a mention for being a pretty awesome shoot 'em up and spawning mods like this:
holy fucking balls Itano Circus
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
That Freelancer vid is the most fucking amazing thing I have ever seen.
And now I'm sad because I know nobody's ever going to make a decent Macross mod for any of the more modern/popular titles.