The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
On marketing a modern space sim.
Velmeran
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The space sims of yesteryear are dead from a marketing stand point it seems these days. Being the lone pilot to survive terrible campaigns, to pull your side up when its down, and then to delivering the killing blow has no more appeal to the marketers it seems.
Now, just before we put them up against the wall (their days are numbered though), lets look at some of the reasons why we haven't seen space sims as promenant as they were during the Wing commander/X-wing years.
In a not organized list really:
1. Joysticks, and the death of them. It used to be a REQUIRED part of a computer gamers hardware list, right after keyboard and mouse. These days its hard to find anyone still using them except hard core simulator fans playing the few games that come out every three or four years. Companies know form console sales that requiring additional controllers lowers sales, and they can't package in joysticks like they can guitars sadly enough due to the cost of the game then going up too high.
The result has been a move towards mouse flying, FreeLancer and the more recent Tarr Chronicles both did away completely with joysticks, and for the most part in-cockpit view. While these games work from a technical stand point, I always just felt a disconnect from them compared to Freespace 2 and the wing commanders where your in your ships cockpit and the joysticks force feedback feels real and more solid thenjust pointing a mouse.
2. Too many buttons. Imagine trying to map old x-wing controls to an xbox360 controller, you could get the basic sim controls down pretty easily. But these games had so many little micromanagement screens and controls that it becomes a jumbled mess on a console. Now luckily we've had lots of improvements in UI's since then, and better game design decisions too. The tough part though is can we really make a simulator that only uses two joy sticks, d-pad, 2 triggers, and eight buttons (counting select/start). I say yes, because it seems Voice commands are becoming more common, and the mic/headset IS standard issue for all multiplayer gamers this generation.
3. Multiplayer balancing/making it fun. One of the reasons I think space sims have died off is that their multiplayer is very hard to make fun and balanced. I've played tons of Freespace 2, Xwing vs Tie Fighter, and even the terrible Wing commander Armada with my brother over the years, and while we love the series, we always just felt frustrated and annoyed with the multiplayer aspects.
3a. Turning battles. In space there is no gravity (
) and so dogfighting get affected from turning battles like it does in the atmosphere where you bleed speed and will need to lose altitude to regain it or try and break and gain distance and build your speed back up. Instead, in a 1v1 you just get into incredably dull turning battles. This problem also leads to imbalances towards the more nimble fighters over all others in most situations. Sadly no developer has ever thought about putting Black-outs or Red-outs into space sims to my knowledge, which would help alleviate this issue because turning battles would end up in someone blacking out and then getting popped.
3b. Missles, every space sim has them, some just have more then others. Generally these are a pain in every space sim because getting a lock is easy, especially at range. Once launched they cause the enemy pilot to perform evasive manuevers to dodge, but this allows you to get a second lock on them, leading to them constantly being under attack with no real way to fight back except when you run out of missles. It gets worse in larger groups too since you'll start getting locks from enemies far away while also dogfighting a much closer enemy.
Freespace 2 is highly guilty of this, what with the ships having massive missle payloads and incredibly easy locks. The counter measures worked well enough, but it was still a tedious multiplayer scenario of hoping you get your lock on them first. Wing commander had probably the smallest missle payloads, moderate locking challenge (except for Friend of Foes) but sadly its multiplayer varients had alot more issues going wrong for this to be the developers biggest worries.
3c. No real killer-app for a multiplayer mode. Some games tried to give more in the way of direction for gameplay in SSs (Space Sim). Xwing had lots of specific battles to replay, Freespace had an odd Space Hockey mode along with attack/defend. The two most stand out were Alliegance and to a lesser extent Tachyon. Alliegence was beyond its time and while you can play for free these days, its dated and filled with veterans that will splatter most new players dealing with a learning curve thats straight up. Both of the games main idea for multiplayer was to turn it into an RTS, novel, and it worked okay at times.
Tachyon did this by having the two teams have control of a base, and the players would go out to get resources and tech from different areas and thus allow new ships and weapons to be purchased, very very very similar to Savage in that respect, but no over view commander.
Allegiance was basically Savage before there was Savage, you have one commander for each that plays in top down, gather resources, research upgrades, and try to destroy the others base. Sounds great, why didn't it catch on? Well Microsoft bungled the whole pooch on this by making it have a subscription fee, back when those were terrible dirty things, and so that was an instant turn off. Another problem was that while the servers could support 64 players, the 56k modems of the day couldn't. Trying to walk around and shoot someone in counter-strike with both of you having 400-500 ping is pretty annoying, not try hitting another ship and dealing with newtonian physics.
Lets also not forget that fans of the genre still aren't sure what they want from multiplayer space sims. Do we want Allegiance style servers we jump into and simply battle it out and when the fights over it resets? Maybe an MMO like EVE where we form fleets and fighter wings, taking over systems on a grand scale. Maybe we just want small 10-16 player servers with simple objectives to be met so there can be clan ladders and tournaments akin to counter-strike. Frankly, its been a mess since they stopped really making space sims and everyone seems to be left in a lurch.
4. Many people don't like it wheny you blow them up. I grew up playing games against my brother all the time, we both enjoy a good competative game were skill matters and there are no one hit win combo's and such. On the other side though I have a few friends that I couldn't get to play a competative game against me if I promised them a $100, co-op being the only real games they enjoy.
Its hard to make a space sim where a new pilot will have much of a chance against a seasoned veteran. There are no walls to hide behind, or corners to camp. They really are just thrown into the deep end, told to swim, and generally fast because a missle (or eight) is already heading for them. Given the most common mentality of "I'm being killed to much, this game must suck and is imbalanced" player population will go down and with out fresh blood the veterans will slowly fade away and the game dies.
Basically the multiplayer has to be newby friendly, some how starting the learning curve low, and yet allowing them to be effective in combat. COD4 is good at this in that grenades and all starting guns are pretty effective, and with perks like martyrdom and last stand, even if they do die alot they have a chance of getting kills.
(for the TL:DR people, here's a synopsis)
Well, theres what I've come up with so far. These are the hurdles I see in getting new space sims on the market. Joysticks have to make a return, console controllers little joysticks might pass, but its just not the same. Controls need to be streamlined to be easier to use during combat. Multiplayer needs to be balanced because the old ones are generally annoying and imbalanced towards the fastest more agile ships with the tightest turning radiuses. Finally, a killer-app of a multiplayer mode needs to be found, something that can be replayed time and again and still be addictive while having a learning curve friendly to new players.
Once we get those things hammered out, we just need to over-come the stigma the genre has gotten the last decade or so.
For the record, my brother and I's favorite space sim in multiplayer was setting up with both of us in tie-interceptors in a dense asteroid field with no missles. Asteroids kept the turning battles from being constant boring things, no missles made it more skillful, and no shields made it much more intense and quick paced.
Now, just before we put them up against the wall (their days are numbered though), lets look at some of the reasons why we haven't seen space sims as promenant as they were during the Wing commander/X-wing years.
In a not organized list really:
1. Joysticks, and the death of them. It used to be a REQUIRED part of a computer gamers hardware list, right after keyboard and mouse. These days its hard to find anyone still using them except hard core simulator fans playing the few games that come out every three or four years. Companies know form console sales that requiring additional controllers lowers sales, and they can't package in joysticks like they can guitars sadly enough due to the cost of the game then going up too high.
The result has been a move towards mouse flying, FreeLancer and the more recent Tarr Chronicles both did away completely with joysticks, and for the most part in-cockpit view. While these games work from a technical stand point, I always just felt a disconnect from them compared to Freespace 2 and the wing commanders where your in your ships cockpit and the joysticks force feedback feels real and more solid thenjust pointing a mouse.
2. Too many buttons. Imagine trying to map old x-wing controls to an xbox360 controller, you could get the basic sim controls down pretty easily. But these games had so many little micromanagement screens and controls that it becomes a jumbled mess on a console. Now luckily we've had lots of improvements in UI's since then, and better game design decisions too. The tough part though is can we really make a simulator that only uses two joy sticks, d-pad, 2 triggers, and eight buttons (counting select/start). I say yes, because it seems Voice commands are becoming more common, and the mic/headset IS standard issue for all multiplayer gamers this generation.
3. Multiplayer balancing/making it fun. One of the reasons I think space sims have died off is that their multiplayer is very hard to make fun and balanced. I've played tons of Freespace 2, Xwing vs Tie Fighter, and even the terrible Wing commander Armada with my brother over the years, and while we love the series, we always just felt frustrated and annoyed with the multiplayer aspects.
3a. Turning battles. In space there is no gravity (
) and so dogfighting get affected from turning battles like it does in the atmosphere where you bleed speed and will need to lose altitude to regain it or try and break and gain distance and build your speed back up. Instead, in a 1v1 you just get into incredably dull turning battles. This problem also leads to imbalances towards the more nimble fighters over all others in most situations. Sadly no developer has ever thought about putting Black-outs or Red-outs into space sims to my knowledge, which would help alleviate this issue because turning battles would end up in someone blacking out and then getting popped.3b. Missles, every space sim has them, some just have more then others. Generally these are a pain in every space sim because getting a lock is easy, especially at range. Once launched they cause the enemy pilot to perform evasive manuevers to dodge, but this allows you to get a second lock on them, leading to them constantly being under attack with no real way to fight back except when you run out of missles. It gets worse in larger groups too since you'll start getting locks from enemies far away while also dogfighting a much closer enemy.
Freespace 2 is highly guilty of this, what with the ships having massive missle payloads and incredibly easy locks. The counter measures worked well enough, but it was still a tedious multiplayer scenario of hoping you get your lock on them first. Wing commander had probably the smallest missle payloads, moderate locking challenge (except for Friend of Foes) but sadly its multiplayer varients had alot more issues going wrong for this to be the developers biggest worries.
3c. No real killer-app for a multiplayer mode. Some games tried to give more in the way of direction for gameplay in SSs (Space Sim). Xwing had lots of specific battles to replay, Freespace had an odd Space Hockey mode along with attack/defend. The two most stand out were Alliegance and to a lesser extent Tachyon. Alliegence was beyond its time and while you can play for free these days, its dated and filled with veterans that will splatter most new players dealing with a learning curve thats straight up. Both of the games main idea for multiplayer was to turn it into an RTS, novel, and it worked okay at times.
Tachyon did this by having the two teams have control of a base, and the players would go out to get resources and tech from different areas and thus allow new ships and weapons to be purchased, very very very similar to Savage in that respect, but no over view commander.
Allegiance was basically Savage before there was Savage, you have one commander for each that plays in top down, gather resources, research upgrades, and try to destroy the others base. Sounds great, why didn't it catch on? Well Microsoft bungled the whole pooch on this by making it have a subscription fee, back when those were terrible dirty things, and so that was an instant turn off. Another problem was that while the servers could support 64 players, the 56k modems of the day couldn't. Trying to walk around and shoot someone in counter-strike with both of you having 400-500 ping is pretty annoying, not try hitting another ship and dealing with newtonian physics.
Lets also not forget that fans of the genre still aren't sure what they want from multiplayer space sims. Do we want Allegiance style servers we jump into and simply battle it out and when the fights over it resets? Maybe an MMO like EVE where we form fleets and fighter wings, taking over systems on a grand scale. Maybe we just want small 10-16 player servers with simple objectives to be met so there can be clan ladders and tournaments akin to counter-strike. Frankly, its been a mess since they stopped really making space sims and everyone seems to be left in a lurch.
4. Many people don't like it wheny you blow them up. I grew up playing games against my brother all the time, we both enjoy a good competative game were skill matters and there are no one hit win combo's and such. On the other side though I have a few friends that I couldn't get to play a competative game against me if I promised them a $100, co-op being the only real games they enjoy.
Its hard to make a space sim where a new pilot will have much of a chance against a seasoned veteran. There are no walls to hide behind, or corners to camp. They really are just thrown into the deep end, told to swim, and generally fast because a missle (or eight) is already heading for them. Given the most common mentality of "I'm being killed to much, this game must suck and is imbalanced" player population will go down and with out fresh blood the veterans will slowly fade away and the game dies.
Basically the multiplayer has to be newby friendly, some how starting the learning curve low, and yet allowing them to be effective in combat. COD4 is good at this in that grenades and all starting guns are pretty effective, and with perks like martyrdom and last stand, even if they do die alot they have a chance of getting kills.
(for the TL:DR people, here's a synopsis)
Well, theres what I've come up with so far. These are the hurdles I see in getting new space sims on the market. Joysticks have to make a return, console controllers little joysticks might pass, but its just not the same. Controls need to be streamlined to be easier to use during combat. Multiplayer needs to be balanced because the old ones are generally annoying and imbalanced towards the fastest more agile ships with the tightest turning radiuses. Finally, a killer-app of a multiplayer mode needs to be found, something that can be replayed time and again and still be addictive while having a learning curve friendly to new players.
Once we get those things hammered out, we just need to over-come the stigma the genre has gotten the last decade or so.
For the record, my brother and I's favorite space sim in multiplayer was setting up with both of us in tie-interceptors in a dense asteroid field with no missles. Asteroids kept the turning battles from being constant boring things, no missles made it more skillful, and no shields made it much more intense and quick paced.
Velmeran on
0
Posts
Not just space.
Yes, I'm aware this would defeat the point of the whole thing for many.
And yes to streamlined controls.
It's hard to sell space games that don't require joysticks.
If you require joysticks, only space sim nerds will buy it. Not exactly a huge market as X3 has proven.
If you don't require joysticks, then you either get EVE which has its own special problems or you get something like Rogue Squadron which is just an arcade game.
This is just one of the problems faced in funding a space sim project.
Another is the graphics. Space is space, the intersection between realistic graphics and space is fairly underwhelming. So there have already been games like X3 and EVE which take it as far as it can. If you aren't an EVE zealot then you can probably look at the game for an hour or two and see past all the fancy nebula backgrounds and glow effects and realize that there isn't too much else about it that's stimulating.
Also most space games tend to take the same queue's from one other on technological things. Look at EVE, look at X3, look at Sins of a Solar Empire. All the humans are all goddam the same. The ships are virtually identical, the motives and stories are similar. There's a severe shortage of creative force behind these games which is why many of them never get out of the dark.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Star Wars Galaxies did that. So did Allegiance.
Oh, and a game where space is goddamn huge, like literal-scale huge, and so is everything in it. One of the things that gets me about X3 is how god damn cramped every sector is and how your typical sector is only around 40km in diameter, and then pretty much in every space sim ever made your puny little fighter craft is something like 1/10th the size of this supposedly-key trading station that everybody and his mother visits. Where are the Stanford toruses, the o'Neil cylinders, the other 30+-kilometer structures that people've been coming up with over the years?
And am I the only one here who thinks Newtonian physics are overrated? It's fine for a neat little exploit by turning off whatever device counters it, but all the additional complexity and fiddling only detracts from other things (and after space-faring for 1000 years I see no reason any sentient being wouldn't have found a way to counter it).
There's nothing really wrong with that as long as there's some accommodation made for the player -- like the time multiplier used in Elite or the LDS drives in Independence War (which, if I recall correctly, could throw you across a system pretty quickly).
I'd know, I won the European league with my squad.
Also, its multiplayer aspects - missiles are useless. They're good for single player against the dumb AI, but in multiplayer against skilled opponents, you do not use missiles to take people down. I personally can evade your entire payload of any missile that's in the game, eternally, without countermeasures.
Marketing was a big problem with the game, mostly because Interplay stole something like $40-50 000 of the money that was supposed to go to promotion, which was one of the main reasons why Volition split from Interplay.
Generally, flight simulators of any kind went in decline because it's hard to make them stupid for the majority that were to buy them. Come Ace Combat and stuff like that, and it's more of an arcade than anything else, which receives some sales, but nothing too significant.
Sad fact is, games today, unlike the MOO's and old games of yore, are simplified (See shit like Fable 2 and most this generation games) so that they would appeal to a larger market.
In a world like that, there are no space sims.
You want a to-scale representation of it...?
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Space is really REALLY big. [/Adams]
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I understand the desire for big stations - I agree there. But how would you accurately represent how big space is, without being boring as hell to travel (also like Eve).
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
How realistic are we talking
Realistic?
Celestia
You know...something.
Apologies for the redundant point, but look at Elite, Independence War, Noctis, Rules of Engagement, and probably a dozen other less well-known sims... The way this is generally handled is to compress time somehow -- either by making the vessels travel faster or by reducing the perceived time to travel for the player. It can be done without boring everyone to death.
Oh, like I have more hard drive space. Thanks a lot, asshole.
............ downloading now.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of I-War, but the more you make travel through space fast, the less "big" it feels. That's all I was trying to say, but apparently I am word-retarded.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
No bro you're retarded.
There are already true to scale sims out there like Celestia.
The key to making utterly massive universes is procedural programming. We have already seen that its possible to create entire true to scale planets, without blowing peoples computers away.
Imagine generating entire planets, species, histories, civilizations, conflicts randomly. Lots and lots of randomly generated content, a universe so big that exploration would be endless. Noctis already does some of this. But Noctis is a shitty old game, imagine with modern technology what we could have.
Of course for this there would have to be some kind of special form of travel so one could move around and not be bored.
Imagine every star you see is an actual real place you can go to. Massive.
How has X3 proven this exactly? It's the third game in a succesful series with a sequel on the way. It seems it's found a sufficient market to be more succesful than most games.
It's also a pretty silly example because one of the most notable things about X3 is that it doesn't require a joystick.
I think there's room for space sims, and other more hardcore games, it's just that they need to be made by indie outfits.
If it's possible to turn out games like Silent Hunter and Sins of a Solar Empire to look good enough and play to the hardcore market whilst still turning a profit, then there ought to be room for space combat sims.
I also miss their land based brethren, mech sims.
These days even adventure games are making a comeback purely due to the indie market, and a lot of them are actually quite good too. Sooner or later someone has to make a decent space combat sim. The closest we got as of late was probably Tarr Chronicles, which was from Russia. Largely an indie development as well, but it looked quite good. Gameplay wasn't quite up to the level I was looking for, but I'd be interested in any sequels.
I'm sure that good stuff ought to be coming soon.
Ignoring Freespace Open Source Projects like Wing Commander, Beyond the Red Line (Battlestar Galactica) and Starfox, looking at this site reveals a few possibilities on the horizon. Dark Horizon looks like it might fit the bill (From Paradox Interactive).
Another game that looks like it has potential is North Star. This one's being made by Kerberos (the people that originally did Homeworld: Cataclysm) and is more of a space combat RPG, more along the lines of Privateer.
There's some others, but those were the two that seem most interesting.
AFAIK Turambar or whoever the hell (Omni?) was doing the models, you can be sure the assets (models and textures) are gonna be top notch, if they're not already done.
I'd imagine a lot of the problem was, when you do campaigns you need to know where to take them. And the series kept us clueless to many things because it's not finished, and is still ongoing. Now that it's near the end, I'm fairly certain they'll figure out how to make some fun missions.
Perhaps this is going into too much geekery, but I'd really like to see a game (multiplayer, of course) where you were crew aboard a large capitol ship. You choose your profession (Engineer, medic, science, bridge crew, tactical), and you were manning that section.
So if you were an Engineer, you'd be down in the bowels of the ship. You could feel the ship shake as it took hits, and such... but your goal would be to repair damage, redirect power to necessary systems, and such.
A medic would take in casualties as they arrived from around the ship when it takes damage.
The science crew would be more for non-combat space simming... they'd be evaluating planets or resources in space, analyzing data, etc...
The bridge crew and tactical would be the only people actually seeing/participating in the fight itself directly.
I guess what I really want is to have a space game that's more like what would really happen on a large ship. Not to the point where someone could be a cook or something, but where you could fulfill an interesting but secondary role to the actual action. It would require a lot of teamwork, but in a different way than the "wingmen" approach to teamwork in most space sims.
What I'm imagining, I suppose, would be more like a Star Trek simulator. I'd love to be an Engineer aboard a large space-faring vessel.
While I agree that this idea would be fucking awesome, how many people outside these forums would agree? How many would be willing to play a medical or engineering position where they get no true action compared to the tactical/command crew?
The problem which was already mentioned is that space is just big stupid empty space. The fundamental gameplay of the oldest space sims just isn't that far off from the fundamental gameplay of the newest space sims. Yes, there is something altogether right and good about dog-fighting through the void using real physics. But when you get right down to it, playing a space sim is usually playing descent without a map. Pretty backdrops only go so far and capital ships have rarely been done properly.
I think you could make a really awesome space-sim game by adopting a few changes. These ideas probably don't sound fun to purists.
1. Revamp wing-men. The concept is so old and unrewarding. Tell a guy to go attack a target? Thanks, but space is boring enough already without emptying it of enemies that the player WANTS to kill. And that's if the wing-men don't just go die uselessly. And it's not like they ever protect you.
Replace four or five useless AI's with a formation of four or five ships flying loosely around the player that fires in the general direction of the players reticule (... I sure hope I've got the right word there) when he fires. Represent their real position around the player with a small HUD showing relative wing-mate positions where the icons change colour as ships in the formation take damage or fade out if destroyed. Put the player in the healthiest ship in his formation if his ship is destroyed. For missions where the player flies bombers, put fighter screens around his bomber group in a tertiary formation that engages ships trying to hit the bombers. Give the player a function to call the fighter screen back, and maybe let the player set an 'aggression level' for how many of the fighter screen would tend to peel off to engage opponents, and for what distance before falling back to the bombers.
Otherwise the traditional wing-man system should be for giving mission commands to story-related ships. For example, in a planet-busting mission, giving orders to the doomsday ship.
I stress that the action should be with the player.
2. Environments. Okay, space is big and empty, I get that. But if people are going through the trouble to find and blow each other up in it, surely one way or another most of the action is going to happen where one of the two unfortunate parties lives and has a bunch of stuff.
I want to fly through the immense scaffolding and girders of a huge shipyard, then tear the whole works apart with a few precisely aimed dumbfire missiles, spilling open the contents of the habitation section as I systematically separate chaff from the wheat of my prize: a shining new capital ship, still with that fresh smell.
I want to shatter moon-bases. I want to fight thick atmosphere and heavy gravity as I struggle to evade the fortified defenses of a mining facility on a molten planet. I want to bore through the ice of a comet to bypass force-fields and let the air out of a water-plant whose workers were overcome by inadvisable sentiments of separatism. I want to form up in a parade line on Treaty Day, one ship among hundreds facing a similar line composed of one time enemies, feared and ill-understood but, twenty years later, grudgingly trusted. I want to stare, aghast, as meteors accelerated to near-relativistic speeds cut swaths through the ships in my ceremonial parade group, and the one-time enemy surge forward.
I don't want escort missions. If something needs to be delivered, at least make me the guy to deliver it.
3. Capital ships / space stations / big constructions in general. Make them destructible environments. Make that huge particle cannon that slices right through the shield of your capital ships into a real target. Show vented chambers depressurize before emergency bulkheads slam closed. Let me carve my way into the center of a crippled space-station, a desperate fighter-sparse capital ship firing devastating bolts of energy at me, past me, the cure worse than the disease.
Well that's what I think, anyway. I had a lot of crap for multiplayer too but I think I'm tired.
Really, Mass Effect and Escape Velocity are closer to what I want in a space sim than Freespace.
It's pretty awesome.
It's pirate-themed, but it sounds like what you want is Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (www.puzzlepirates.com). It's a free-ish MMO (there's a currency you need to use to unlock most in-game features, which you can either purchase with real money or trade for in-game. I think there's also a more traditional pay-per-month server) where each of the positions on a pirate ship (navigating, sailing, bilging, etc) is represented by a different puzzle game. It works because the games are light and entertaining, and you can easily switch between them - being forced to do nothing but be an engineer on an in-game space ship would very boring very quickly when there's so much else you could be out there doing.
I never asked for this!
You mean where the planets aren't just part of the skybox?
A game like Freelancer?
Or Evochron Renegades? http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronrenegades/index.htm
And both have great multiplayer, too. I've been playing the Discovery mod with Freelancer; would anyone be up for playing that?
Freelancer and Evochron have proper systems with proper 3D planets for you to actually interact with. Their systems are not simply a small area of space with a few warp gates and a planet in the skybox. You can land on the planets in both, although Freelancer has you dock with a docking ring and cuts to a loading animation. Evochron allows you to freely fly to and from atmospheres of planets, and it has more depth, but a colder atmosphere than Freelancer and less instant gratification.
The warp gates in Evochron are merely a convenience, as you can fly to any system freely with your own warp drives. As far as buying new ships, you simply buy new parts (wings, hull, cargo, etc) and customize your ship accordingly to your play style, as well as being able to move each individual part on an x, y, z axis for your own personal look. There are too many interesting features to list, however, so if you like sandbox space games, I recommend you check out the website for a bigger list of features and maybe we can play online sometime.
Here's a screenshot I took, resized, of the dark side of a planet. I just thought it was a neat shot when I was freely looking at my ship. If I wanted to, I could fly right down to the surface of that planet with no loading screen.
They're both space games worth looking into, both with completely open multiplayer, Freelancer especially. As I said, they have proper systems, and I hope we'll see more space games like that. I like the ability to land on planets, and I want to see that more and with the ability to freely fly to and from them.
Infinity is another game doing that, and the scale of space is realistic with literally millions to billions of planets (procedurally generated universe), but it's an indie-MMO and who knows when they'll finish. It's a gorgeous looking game, though. They don't know if they'll make it free to play or not yet, and they've even alluded to including a single-player mode, so that might be worth keeping an eye on, too.
One last feature I'd like to see is the ability to walk around your ship. If you've got a big carrier, you can walk to areas like the docking bay and take out a transport ship is the carrier is too big to land on a planet. That feature could also be used for boarding enemy ships. If you can walk around your ship, then you can invade and walk around theirs.
"The Kha'ak are thrusting through our systems, and nothing seems to be able to stop it's great and powerful might!"
It's a horrible name, indeed. I've been tempted to install X3 again, but the learning curve is too steep, at least in terms of getting money. You have to become a trader to do that, or at least capture ships, although the latter is more tedius and made far more difficult with a recent patch. I'm pretty happy playing Freelancer right now, as the scope of the game world is bigger and I can jump in and play right away, all without even touching my keyboard and pressing countless buttons and combinations just to move my ship.
Aye. Walk around your ship, board enemy ships, explore planets on foot with mighty space pistol in hand. It would be cool. Maybe we should just make our own space game. :P