Anybody try Artemis then?
I'm curious to give it a try..
It is amazingly fun, if a bit hard to get into at the start. I only played the demo version, but I might eventually spring for a full version copy soon enough, now that a few more of my friends got themselves computers capable of running it to have a full bridge crew.
a quick jaunt over the egosoft forums says you shouldnt really place albion prelude unless you care for the war and the 2 plotlines it has, because it does not have any of the plots of TC.
Meaning you cant get the hub, or your own headquarters, or anything.
Speaking of the hub, I am fighting a very strong urge to connect the 4 strongest xenon sectors to argon prime.
a quick jaunt over the egosoft forums says you shouldnt really place albion prelude unless you care for the war and the 2 plotlines it has, because it does not have any of the plots of TC.
Meaning you cant get the hub, or your own headquarters, or anything.
Speaking of the hub, I am fighting a very strong urge to connect the 4 strongest xenon sectors to argon prime.
I don't know about the hub, but there is a player hq.
TIE Fighter
Often considered the best space sim ever, and even among those who disagree, it's easily near the top. It's not hard to understand why: this followup to X-Wing let you play as the bad guys, which was novel back then and pretty novel now, and the fantastic story, dynamic music, and eventually upgraded graphics were all just icing on the sweet, sweet cake. Many Bothans died to bring us this game, because we killed them. Flying TIE Fighters is awesome.
One of the things that I really miss about X-Wing and TIE Fighter is the functional cockpit. Look at those instruments. They all work. All the meters and bars and numbers have meaning, and purpose. Later games just built everything into the HUD; and the cockpit, if there even was one, was just eye-candy that you wound up turning off after 60 seconds because it just got in the way.
A certain amount of immersion was lost when they gave that up. Different ships had different layouts. Your shields, hull, speed, and other vital information was in a different spot from one ship to the next. Put it all in the HUD, and every ship is the same.
Consider cars. While you have the same basic controls and data available, the layout is different in each one.
I will admit that having it all in the HUD/visor/neural interface is more efficient, maybe even more realistic (har har). But, you know, realism. None of these are realistic. We're not really going for that.
The best part about the cockpit was how, when you'd take hits, parts of it would break. And I don't mean "the readout won't function" break, I mean the instrument would explode, wires would be hanging out everywhere... there might have been sparks. And the more hits you took, the more would break. It really gave you the feeling of desperately trying to hold together, like the Millenium Falcon taking hits.
Immersion! So few games really understand what it takes to put you into a cockpit or into a body. Hell, I don't think even TIE Fighter or Wing Commander or any space sim has ever managed to do it as well as Red Orchestra (for instance) does it for a body. I want a space sim where I see my character's arms hitting the buttons. I want the joystick hat to actually turn my head when I try to look in a direction rather than instantly swapping the view. (Another thing X-Wing/TIE Fighter did well: when you looked behind you/to the side your view would be mostly blocked by parts of your ship, if you were flying something big/obscuring.)
one level, your character takes off her helmet since you are fighting in the atmosphere. If you get hit with shields down, you bash your head against the windshield and blood obscures your vision.
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Welp, just bought The Precursors from Gamersgate. $7.50 is hard to argue with when I've been interested in it since before it came out. I just hope it's not too buggy. Downloading now.
Welp, just bought The Precursors from Gamersgate. $7.50 is hard to argue with when I've been interested in it since before it came out. I just hope it's not too buggy. Downloading now.
I'd really be interested in hearing what you think. I'm on the fence about it.
TIE Fighter
Often considered the best space sim ever, and even among those who disagree, it's easily near the top. It's not hard to understand why: this followup to X-Wing let you play as the bad guys, which was novel back then and pretty novel now, and the fantastic story, dynamic music, and eventually upgraded graphics were all just icing on the sweet, sweet cake. Many Bothans died to bring us this game, because we killed them. Flying TIE Fighters is awesome.
Wow, this. So hard.
The best part was the optional objectives actually had a plot impact on the story and your character. You could ignore them, but accomplishing them gave you ranks in the secret order of the Empire as well as extra story info.
Honestly the reason space sims haven't grabbed my attention is because everything feels so 'empty'. You never get the sense you are actually 'on' a starship, you're a HUD floating in space. Even making a ship explorable internally doesn't solve the problem.
You need good crewmates with voice acting that respond to different situations. You need unique personalities at each space station and hub, and subquests (some repeatable and fully voice acted) to give the sense that the universe is alive. Freelancer and Privater both had this, but modern games could take it so, so much farther if any actual effort was put into world building and story as well as shiny ship textures and explosions.
For example, Snipes in Freespace 2 is a snarky, skilled wingman you want to keep alive because when fighting an enemy as terrifying as the Shivans, you don't want to go it alone.
Like, why is so much effort made in creating 'fully' explorable worlds instead of creating several similar ones but with unique starports, random encounters, and loot? That seems a much better solution than a 100 worlds you'll never explore because they're all equally as empty and boring.
Honestly the reason space sims haven't grabbed my attention is because everything feels so 'empty'. You never get the sense you are actually 'on' a starship, you're a HUD floating in space. Even making a ship explorable internally doesn't solve the problem.
You need good crewmates with voice acting that respond to different situations. You need unique personalities at each space station and hub, and subquests (some repeatable and fully voice acted) to give the sense that the universe is alive. Freelancer and Privater both had this, but modern games could take it so, so much farther if any actual effort was put into world building and story as well as shiny ship textures and explosions.
For example, Snipes in Freespace 2 is a snarky, skilled wingman you want to keep alive because when fighting an enemy as terrifying as the Shivans, you don't want to go it alone.
Like, why is so much effort made in creating 'fully' explorable worlds instead of creating several similar ones but with unique starports, random encounters, and loot? That seems a much better solution than a 100 worlds you'll never explore because they're all equally as empty and boring.
The answer is that 100 empty, boring worlds is a time-consuming but otherwise moderately easy undertaking. Make some space stations, make some worlds, make some asteroids, mix 'em together, BAM you're done. Actually crafting an interesting, immersive experience that feels authentic and engaging takes real skill, and most developers would prefer to take the easy way out so they can stick "100 worlds to explore!" as a bullet point on their game advertisement.
Honestly the reason space sims haven't grabbed my attention is because everything feels so 'empty'. You never get the sense you are actually 'on' a starship, you're a HUD floating in space. Even making a ship explorable internally doesn't solve the problem.
You need good crewmates with voice acting that respond to different situations. You need unique personalities at each space station and hub, and subquests (some repeatable and fully voice acted) to give the sense that the universe is alive. Freelancer and Privater both had this, but modern games could take it so, so much farther if any actual effort was put into world building and story as well as shiny ship textures and explosions.
For example, Snipes in Freespace 2 is a snarky, skilled wingman you want to keep alive because when fighting an enemy as terrifying as the Shivans, you don't want to go it alone.
Like, why is so much effort made in creating 'fully' explorable worlds instead of creating several similar ones but with unique starports, random encounters, and loot? That seems a much better solution than a 100 worlds you'll never explore because they're all equally as empty and boring.
The answer is that 100 empty, boring worlds is a time-consuming but otherwise moderately easy undertaking. Make some space stations, make some worlds, make some asteroids, mix 'em together, BAM you're done. Actually crafting an interesting, immersive experience that feels authentic and engaging takes real skill, and most developers would prefer to take the easy way out so they can stick "100 worlds to explore!" as a bullet point on their game advertisement.
AKA the world space in Mass Effect 1 vs Mass Effect 2
Welp, just bought The Precursors from Gamersgate. $7.50 is hard to argue with when I've been interested in it since before it came out. I just hope it's not too buggy. Downloading now.
I'd really be interested in hearing what you think. I'm on the fence about it.
I could have sworn I made a post about this when I bought it a couple months ago. It's... interesting. It's pretty much EXACTLY like their other open world games, Xenus/Boiling Point and it's sequel, only with sci-fi graphics. There's actually a lot less space travel than you'd think. There's only three real planets to go to, though a bunch of other single-mission ones. And you only get one ship that's fairly easy to max out, and the space combat's really basic.
As far as bugs go. It's not bad as far as crashes go. It did crash a couple times on me, and vehicles love to have one or two wheels pass through the ground. However, I will say I wasn't able to complete the game because one of the space missions towards the end just plain would not advance beyond the first couple objectives. So there's that.
Personally, despite the problems I thought it was neat. But then again I enjoy these sorts of bizarre experiments by eastern European and Russian teams. It's nowhere near the same caliber as most of the other games in this thread, but it does try to be different. If it's only 7 bucks right now it's probably worth looking at though.
Well no, the worlds in Mass Effect 2 were just as lifeless and lacking in character. The only difference is that each of them was uniquely designed and some of them had stupid gameplay changes
For the purpose of Artemis, I'll be your nerdy friend.
I forced a couple of my friends at one point to bring their laptops so we could cooperatively crew a Lost Angeles-class submarine in SCS: Dangerous Waters, with one person responsible for the various sonar displays, one person responsible for weapons management and firing solution plotting, and one person responsible for navigation. It...didn't live up to expectations, unfortunately. There's a lot of sitting around and waiting when it comes to submarine warfare.
Too bad I burned my bridges on cooperative ship crewing because I'd love to give that a try.
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Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
Well no, the worlds in Mass Effect 2 were just as lifeless and lacking in character. The only difference is that each of them was uniquely designed and some of them had stupid gameplay changes
I liked the premise of said game in the quote tree but found getting into gameplay was a bit jarring. Like it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do or who I was supposed to shoot.
I saw the X-series was on sale for 10 bucks on Steam and got it on a whim
was this a bad idea
Edit: I ask, having never played X3 and having purchased it solely because I haven't played a real space-sim in many years
Dongs Galore on
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Terran Conflict is all you really need, but it's a great game.
Just played a bit of Albion Prelude. It's pretty cool. Nothing really new that I saw except the state of the universe, which is at war. I'm guessing systems can change hands because some Terran kept telling me to go help take Treasure Chest.
Here's the problem I've had with the X series, if I was getting shot in Freespace or Terminus, I knew it and had some visual and audio feedback to denote this. Playing X3 and X2, I did not have this and was not eager to reinstall every time my windows installation took a dump.
Which of these games that is on sale now will have this problem THE LEAST?
So I started playing X3 again since I had never really put a lot of time into it (only about 4 hours sinec I got sidetracked by other games) and I was following along with this video tutorial on how to trade and make money and all sorts of stuff. While farting around and trading I heard the blip that means bad men are nearby so I checked the system map and holy fuckshit, there's like 40-50 Kha'ak (heh) and they're starting to fuck shit up. I got the hell out of Dodge and watched the carnage from the system over and they proceeded to destroy a couple of stations before getting overwhelmed by the local Argon military. Does that sort of thing happen often? Will those stations ever be replaced by the NPCs? I must say it was one of the cooler things that has happened to me in the short amount of time I've played the game.
edit: just wanted to add it was 1 destroyer, 3 carriers, some clusters, and a BUNCH of fighters and scouts. They fucking annihilated everything in their path until the Argon military showed up too.
Darmak on
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Yeah, the AI will repopulate sectors, usually. But that's the best time to get your own factories in there and corner the market.
I'm too poor to buy factories, I just have the one hauler and around 90k credits and I don't know shit about how to set them up or anything. But if it happens again I will keep that in mind.
Here's the problem I've had with the X series, if I was getting shot in Freespace or Terminus, I knew it and had some visual and audio feedback to denote this. Playing X3 and X2, I did not have this and was not eager to reinstall every time my windows installation took a dump.
Which of these games that is on sale now will have this problem THE LEAST?
I dont know about X2, but as far as X3TC, its pretty clear when something takes offense with your life, Music changing to fight music is the most obvious clue if you have audio. Theres also the sound of impacts against your shields/hull. Shield meter too, but I cant recall more than that because I'm so used to it by now I dont notice most things.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I've never had a problem knowing when I'm getting hit.
Other game developers saw Freespace 2, a game that saw universal acclaim for being fucking awesome, go down like the Hindenburg and just thought "fuck if that doesn't sell lets just give up".
Man, Freespace 2 flopping must have been one of the tragic stories of the video game industry. So much money, effort and love put in by Volition, only to crash due to Interplay's tragic marketing efforts. Some say that the hardcore space combat genre was about to deflate anyway, with hardcore flight sims following shortly after. Thankfully it didn't take Volition with them... who would've thought they would be making games like Saint's Row a decade later?
Here's a legitimate question: if jet combat games (stress on "games") with high production quality like the Ace Combat series consistently sell well on consoles for years, where's the equivalent space combat game? Apart from using stars instead of clouds, there's not really that much difference, right? I wouldn't mind having something with simplified controls but a good story and immersion.
Anyway, PEW-PEW-LAZORS.
My "midnight-summer-dream" game: A Robotech / Macross game with the Freespace 2 engine.
Other game developers saw Freespace 2, a game that saw universal acclaim for being fucking awesome, go down like the Hindenburg and just thought "fuck if that doesn't sell lets just give up".
Man, Freespace 2 flopping must have been one of the tragic stories of the video game industry. So much money, effort and love put in by Volition, only to crash due to Interplay's tragic marketing efforts. Some say that the hardcore space combat genre was about to deflate anyway, with hardcore flight sims following shortly after. Thankfully it didn't take Volition with them... who would've thought they would be making games like Saint's Row a decade later?
Here's a legitimate question: if jet combat games (stress on "games") with high production quality like the Ace Combat series consistently sell well on consoles for years, where's the equivalent space combat game? Apart from using stars instead of clouds, there's not really that much difference, right? I wouldn't mind having something with simplified controls but a good story and immersion.
Anyway, PEW-PEW-LAZORS.
My "midnight-summer-dream" game: A Robotech / Macross game with the Freespace 2 engine.
Ultra-cheesiness aside, I've always felt Macross with its transforming fighters, massive mega-capital ships and MISSILES EVERYWHERE! would be ideally suited for a Freespace style of game. Battroid mode for fast direction changes and concentrated aiming / firepower, but you lose a lot of speed apart from dodging.
Really though, Ijust want my space combat sim to have 3 things:
1) Decent on-the-fly management of some sort, be it energy, combat modes or whatever, to give the immediate gameplay some depth (because unlike flight sims, most space combat sims don't have any truck with that whole gravity thing to make dogfights tactical). Freelancer never really felt all that fulfilling when it came to combat.
2) Massive, spanish galleon style stand-offs between mega-capital ships, pelting each other with BIG LAZORS
Compared to the amount of stuff out there, that's the abridged version.
Really, it's amazing to me that there aren't more games that do the whole missile swarm thing.
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ConnoQuicksilverCurrent blackout status: Mass Effect 3, Batman: ACAthens. GreeceRegistered Userregular
Seeing the Mass Effect universe being mentioned before, I remembered that the ME Codex went into a lot of detail describing spaceship technologies & combat tactics. Stuff like engaging at long range with relativistic projectiles, distance vs accuracy, etc. Fighter combat doesn't seem very appealing, but fighting in a frigate or cruiser might be pretty cool, like in I-War or Nexus.
Posts
Oh.
Oh golly gee.
Let uh, let me just give that little demo a whirl there.
I'm curious to give it a try..
It is amazingly fun, if a bit hard to get into at the start. I only played the demo version, but I might eventually spring for a full version copy soon enough, now that a few more of my friends got themselves computers capable of running it to have a full bridge crew.
Meaning you cant get the hub, or your own headquarters, or anything.
Speaking of the hub, I am fighting a very strong urge to connect the 4 strongest xenon sectors to argon prime.
I don't know about the hub, but there is a player hq.
Wow, this. So hard.
A certain amount of immersion was lost when they gave that up. Different ships had different layouts. Your shields, hull, speed, and other vital information was in a different spot from one ship to the next. Put it all in the HUD, and every ship is the same.
Consider cars. While you have the same basic controls and data available, the layout is different in each one.
I will admit that having it all in the HUD/visor/neural interface is more efficient, maybe even more realistic (har har). But, you know, realism. None of these are realistic. We're not really going for that.
Immersion! So few games really understand what it takes to put you into a cockpit or into a body. Hell, I don't think even TIE Fighter or Wing Commander or any space sim has ever managed to do it as well as Red Orchestra (for instance) does it for a body. I want a space sim where I see my character's arms hitting the buttons. I want the joystick hat to actually turn my head when I try to look in a direction rather than instantly swapping the view. (Another thing X-Wing/TIE Fighter did well: when you looked behind you/to the side your view would be mostly blocked by parts of your ship, if you were flying something big/obscuring.)
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I'd really be interested in hearing what you think. I'm on the fence about it.
The best part was the optional objectives actually had a plot impact on the story and your character. You could ignore them, but accomplishing them gave you ranks in the secret order of the Empire as well as extra story info.
You need good crewmates with voice acting that respond to different situations. You need unique personalities at each space station and hub, and subquests (some repeatable and fully voice acted) to give the sense that the universe is alive. Freelancer and Privater both had this, but modern games could take it so, so much farther if any actual effort was put into world building and story as well as shiny ship textures and explosions.
For example, Snipes in Freespace 2 is a snarky, skilled wingman you want to keep alive because when fighting an enemy as terrifying as the Shivans, you don't want to go it alone.
Like, why is so much effort made in creating 'fully' explorable worlds instead of creating several similar ones but with unique starports, random encounters, and loot? That seems a much better solution than a 100 worlds you'll never explore because they're all equally as empty and boring.
AKA the world space in Mass Effect 1 vs Mass Effect 2
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
http://www.bc3000ad.com/downloads/
I hear if you type Derek Smart three times while looking in a mirror he'll show up in your thread and flame you to death.
I could have sworn I made a post about this when I bought it a couple months ago. It's... interesting. It's pretty much EXACTLY like their other open world games, Xenus/Boiling Point and it's sequel, only with sci-fi graphics. There's actually a lot less space travel than you'd think. There's only three real planets to go to, though a bunch of other single-mission ones. And you only get one ship that's fairly easy to max out, and the space combat's really basic.
As far as bugs go. It's not bad as far as crashes go. It did crash a couple times on me, and vehicles love to have one or two wheels pass through the ground. However, I will say I wasn't able to complete the game because one of the space missions towards the end just plain would not advance beyond the first couple objectives. So there's that.
Personally, despite the problems I thought it was neat. But then again I enjoy these sorts of bizarre experiments by eastern European and Russian teams. It's nowhere near the same caliber as most of the other games in this thread, but it does try to be different. If it's only 7 bucks right now it's probably worth looking at though.
Dude, I already said his name once in the OP! We're ONE MENTION AWAY from having this thread destroyed, so no more of that!
For the purpose of Artemis, I'll be your nerdy friend.
I forced a couple of my friends at one point to bring their laptops so we could cooperatively crew a Lost Angeles-class submarine in SCS: Dangerous Waters, with one person responsible for the various sonar displays, one person responsible for weapons management and firing solution plotting, and one person responsible for navigation. It...didn't live up to expectations, unfortunately. There's a lot of sitting around and waiting when it comes to submarine warfare.
Too bad I burned my bridges on cooperative ship crewing because I'd love to give that a try.
Lol, I hadn't read the OP that far down. Dammit!
Smart idea.
We don't want Derek to show up!
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
It's not fun.
was this a bad idea
Edit: I ask, having never played X3 and having purchased it solely because I haven't played a real space-sim in many years
Just played a bit of Albion Prelude. It's pretty cool. Nothing really new that I saw except the state of the universe, which is at war. I'm guessing systems can change hands because some Terran kept telling me to go help take Treasure Chest.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Which of these games that is on sale now will have this problem THE LEAST?
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
edit: just wanted to add it was 1 destroyer, 3 carriers, some clusters, and a BUNCH of fighters and scouts. They fucking annihilated everything in their path until the Argon military showed up too.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
I dont know about X2, but as far as X3TC, its pretty clear when something takes offense with your life, Music changing to fight music is the most obvious clue if you have audio. Theres also the sound of impacts against your shields/hull. Shield meter too, but I cant recall more than that because I'm so used to it by now I dont notice most things.
Steam Support is the worst. Seriously, the worst
Man, Freespace 2 flopping must have been one of the tragic stories of the video game industry. So much money, effort and love put in by Volition, only to crash due to Interplay's tragic marketing efforts. Some say that the hardcore space combat genre was about to deflate anyway, with hardcore flight sims following shortly after. Thankfully it didn't take Volition with them... who would've thought they would be making games like Saint's Row a decade later?
Here's a legitimate question: if jet combat games (stress on "games") with high production quality like the Ace Combat series consistently sell well on consoles for years, where's the equivalent space combat game? Apart from using stars instead of clouds, there's not really that much difference, right? I wouldn't mind having something with simplified controls but a good story and immersion.
Anyway, PEW-PEW-LAZORS.
Hey Secret Santa!
Ultra-cheesiness aside, I've always felt Macross with its transforming fighters, massive mega-capital ships and MISSILES EVERYWHERE! would be ideally suited for a Freespace style of game. Battroid mode for fast direction changes and concentrated aiming / firepower, but you lose a lot of speed apart from dodging.
Really though, Ijust want my space combat sim to have 3 things:
1) Decent on-the-fly management of some sort, be it energy, combat modes or whatever, to give the immediate gameplay some depth (because unlike flight sims, most space combat sims don't have any truck with that whole gravity thing to make dogfights tactical). Freelancer never really felt all that fulfilling when it came to combat.
2) Massive, spanish galleon style stand-offs between mega-capital ships, pelting each other with BIG LAZORS
3) Missiles everywhere
To me those are the important bits.
Really, it's amazing to me that there aren't more games that do the whole missile swarm thing.
Hey Secret Santa!