other elite clones payware or freeware

[luckyluca]

Hello,

I've been searching this on google for a while, I was wondering if you could point me to some other nice elite/frontier clones (even payware) that sport nice manual docking to space stations, frontier style.

I've tried X3 but its economic complexity makes it really hard to get into, also the docking is not really pleasant as the spacesim snaps and a big screen appears just before docking, breaking the experience.

I was looking into darkstar or tachyon but can't get any info regarding docking.

Thanks
Luca

[Selezen]

The original X: BTF was good - I liked the little cutscenes of docking. It made it seem more realistic and pretty. That and the economic model was much simpler compared to the later ones.

Battlecruiser 3000AD is another one, but it's more a military sim than a trading one. It's still damn pretty though.

There's a Babylon 5 game out there too. Babylon 5: I've Found Her. Again, more a plot-based space sim. Not sure if there's a docking thingy in the game.

If you're into the online MMORPG thing, then there's EVE Online. No docking as such, and you fly by point and click, but it's definitely pretty.

There's the oldies too - Freelancer and Privateer (1 and 2).

There's an online game called Allegiance too. Other than that I'm not sure!

EDIT: a quick look on Wikipedia finds this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_simulator

A few nice looking things there, including Evochron Renegades, which looks nice. Interesting that they start paragraph 2 by saying "Space simulation video games, at one time popular, have been referred to as a "dead" genre." So why is Oolite doing so well?

[luckyluca]

Thanks.
I bumped into the evochron renegade demo:
it seems well made, nice gameplay, pseudo newtonian physics perhaps too bright saturated colors to my taste but worth having a look I guess.
Luca

The original X: BTF was good - I liked the little cutscenes of docking. It made it seem more realistic and pretty. That and the economic model was much simpler compared to the later ones.

Battlecruiser 3000AD is another one, but it's more a military sim than a trading one. It's still damn pretty though.

There's a Babylon 5 game out there too. Babylon 5: I've Found Her. Again, more a plot-based space sim. Not sure if there's a docking thingy in the game.

If you're into the online MMORPG thing, then there's EVE Online. No docking as such, and you fly by point and click, but it's definitely pretty.

There's the oldies too - Freelancer and Privateer (1 and 2).

There's an online game called Allegiance too. Other than that I'm not sure!

EDIT: a quick look on Wikipedia finds this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_simulator

A few nice looking things there, including Evochron Renegades, which looks nice. Interesting that they start paragraph 2 by saying "Space simulation video games, at one time popular, have been referred to as a "dead" genre." So why is Oolite doing so well?

[Commander McLane]

A couple of years ago there was an open source project called Parsec, IIRC. Looked promising, but I didn't follow up, because it was PC-only, like so many other stuff. (Don't know whether they are still out there, though.)

And have you seen the link to Ad Astra a few topics down in this forum? (Again PC only! )

[ramon]

There is a space simulator called Orbiter (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/)
which is apparently really good if you've got the time to get into it.

[Gareth3377]

It's a shame that the space sim is a dying breed considering how well Eve is doing. The X series is good, but is a bit souless. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems to be missing something. Bought X3 a couple of months ago, played it for a while and then left it. Must return to it sometime. The X-Wing series was excellent and I think Lucasarts missed a trick and could have done an Elite type game set in the SW universe (taking missions on for both empire and alliance, trading, upgrading ships) it would have been a nice angle on the universe rather that the dogfighting sims they produced.

Freelancer showed a lot of promise, but was a bit shallow. There have been one or two efforts commericially, but nothing has set the gaming market on fire. It's a shame really, but everyone seems to be into FPS (I'm guilty of this though I must admit), or the GTA series (again guilty as charged, but they are influenced by Elite...)

Oolite, is the only space sim that I'm finding myself returning to again and again.

[JensAyton]

I know of a group working on a commercial space-shooter MMO, with a very large procedural universe. I haven’t seen their work yet, though. It won’t be an Elite clone.

[pagroove]

@Ahruman

Is that Infinity Quest for Earth that you mean?
It looks the best I ever have seen (look in the forums for pics of the terain engine it is amazing!), however it is a very long project and I hope the gameplay will be good because a good spacegame is not all graphics.

http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/

[Disembodied]

It's a shame that the space sim is a dying breed...

It is an oddity, especially considering the industry's current FPS obsession. After all, a space sim is, for the combat at least, an FPS in 3D (OK, I know FPSs are all 3D, but you know what I mean... not bounded to a landscape). Maybe part of it is that in the past the space sim was easier to do since there was no need for geography or even much in the way of physics, so earlier processors can handle it. I think there's an element of "because we can": because games designers can now have realistic(ish) shrubbery, destructible environments and so on, they feel obliged to ladle them in, confusing graphics with gameplay. Which is not to say that there are no good ground-based FPSs, but one has to question if we need quite so many versions of the same experience...

Even within the space-sim genre there is a tradition of "because we can", going back to Frontier. Too many seem preoccupied with simulating every tweak and blip of Newtonian physics, producing games that are increasingly complicated to get in to. They have their fans, and good luck to them, but they're never going to break into the mass market the way Elite, or TIE Fighter, or other "non-realistic", pick-up-and-play games managed.

Combine this with the decline in the numbers of commercial games producers, as more and more money gets spent on more and more graphic designers and more and more time on the render farms, and you get an industry almost completely unable to do anything new -- even when "new" means resurrecting a successful idea from the past. Like Hollywood studios they just produce clones of each others' products, big-budget action games with very little option for expansion or continuation after the game has been played through, because they want you to go out and buy Bald Space Marine XIV (now he can wear a hat!), or Sub-Tolkien Fantasy Bash XXVII (now with slightly different Orcs), or the latest version of Ghastly Movie Cash-In, or the annual Sports Game update, where you get to select what mousse to put in a player's hair before each match. I hate capitalism.

[Frame]

It's a shame that the space sim is a dying breed...

It is an oddity, especially considering the industry's current FPS obsession. After all, a space sim is, for the combat at least, an FPS in 3D (OK, I know FPSs are all 3D, but you know what I mean... not bounded to a landscape). Maybe part of it is that in the past the space sim was easier to do since there was no need for geography or even much in the way of physics, so earlier processors can handle it. I think there's an element of "because we can": because games designers can now have realistic(ish) shrubbery, destructible environments and so on, they feel obliged to ladle them in, confusing graphics with gameplay. Which is not to say that there are no good ground-based FPSs, but one has to question if we need quite so many versions of the same experience...

Even within the space-sim genre there is a tradition of "because we can", going back to Frontier. Too many seem preoccupied with simulating every tweak and blip of Newtonian physics, producing games that are increasingly complicated to get in to. They have their fans, and good luck to them, but they're never going to break into the mass market the way Elite, or TIE Fighter, or other "non-realistic", pick-up-and-play games managed.

Combine this with the decline in the numbers of commercial games producers, as more and more money gets spent on more and more graphic designers and more and more time on the render farms, and you get an industry almost completely unable to do anything new -- even when "new" means resurrecting a successful idea from the past. Like Hollywood studios they just produce clones of each others' products, big-budget action games with very little option for expansion or continuation after the game has been played through, because they want you to go out and buy Bald Space Marine XIV (now he can wear a hat!), or Sub-Tolkien Fantasy Bash XXVII (now with slightly different Orcs), or the latest version of Ghastly Movie Cash-In, or the annual Sports Game update, where you get to select what mousse to put in a player's hair before each match. I hate capitalism.

Right on Commander!...

Many of todays games, are just copies of each others work, but with fabulous Graphics to die for... and many new gamers are today used to having the Graphics served to them on a plate. i mean its cool you can destory walls and stuff, but i think its unrealistics, that then suddenly, some of the walls you can´t destroy.

i regulary try out new games, but same for them all is,, LOOK at our DAM´n nice Charachter Creation interface.. i mean, thats like. oh, okay,boring. you spend perhaps 10 min or 20, in creating your charachter
then never again... unless you see something you really dont like..

i´m old age in gaming, from the time of Commodore 64. in new games today i often find myself doing this..

Why cant i do this, Why on earth is that like that, when there allready has been shown a way todo it right, and it is not even copy-righted..

Answer: many Game Designers dont care, or is pressured by the suit boys not to care... this is the gaming industry again, putting out FAR to many titles. the Scene Will take a dive again, they didnt learn from the late 80´s therefore and thats why, we get less and less Game developers.

Some are bought by EA, "the great satan" some say, and EA is known for pressuring the game developers. while this offcourse is undocumented. I did once know a Q&A guy from EA(while i was in the modding scene for bf1942)

But You just need to take a glance at the amount of bugs you will find in anyone of EA´s titles.. now it has been a while since i bought an EA game... the latest was Battlefield 2... so this might have changed, but dont bet on it. and i do steer clear of EA titles, cause they are IMO buggy...

[JensAyton]

Is that Infinity Quest for Earth that you mean?

No. If I was in a position to be specific I would have been. :-)

[Disembodied]

@ Frame: it just seems to be that the more money publishers have to spend on a project, the less willing they are to take any risks at all in terms of format. Understandable, I suppose, but it makes for a damned dull industry. At least in some respects the graphics obsession seems to have bitten EA on the arse. Crysis cost them buckets to make, and it hasn't sold well at all because of to the vastly powerful PC required to play it. I think the willingness of the public to shell out fortunes every year or two to keep up with the bleeding edge has fallen away. Combine this with the success of the relatively low-end Nintendo Wii compared to the 360 or PS3 and maybe publishers will start to consider gameplay over graphics again. Although they're just as likely to churn out endless Brain Training clones and party games instead.