Reviews

(all titles and names listed here are trademarks of their respective owners...)

Games

if you know of any cool/interesting space game not listed here, please tell and/or add infos here

TODO : more games to investigate :

os : vegastrike(+mods), nogravity, parsec, oolite(dead?), freespace(partly os), uqm nonfree : freelancer, infinity, darkstarone, elite, sundog, EVE-Online, StarWolves, wingcommander, X2,X3, EscapeVelocityNova, iwars2, Privateer, Battlecruiser Millennium

Elite2

Old (1995?) but really cool (see happypenguin.org for linux/win2k/xp patch, original was for dos/amiga/c64...)

• Pro
  • Fuel Scoop a gas giant / sun
  • fly around and land on (anywhere) planets
  • reconnaissance foto missions
  • Go Sight Seeing (golden gate bridge, mount olympus...)
  • slingshot around large masses/planets
  • nice trading system and interface
  • "realistic" physics : gravity, acceleration (as opposed to max-speed) based engines, "unlimited" speed
  • rather unusual musik
• Con
  • no story
  • bad autopilot
  • time acceleration is concept that is not usable in multiplayer games
  • the main problem in buying bigger starships, is not money, but finding enough crew
  • combat often requires time-stop-cheating, as there is no usable indicator WHERE your enemies are (scanner is too rough)
  • there is no way to look up prices in other systems, you have to take paper notes to
  • once you have found a good trade route (BARNARDS:robots - SOL:luxury) , you can just repeat it to earn all the cash you ever need fast

Privateer

quite similar to Elite2 as i have heard (*cough*justAnotherEliteClone*cough*)

Freelancer

• Pro
  • Nice Graphics (Cool SkyBoxes, different kinds of Asteroid-fields, Nebulae, Weapons ...)
  • nice pricing info
    • display: cheap(buy-here),medium,expensive(sell-here)
    • you could look up prices for all systems you have visited so far in map
  • Nice SPEC-interrupters
  • interesting maps for travel-routes, mining, police/pirate coverage ...
  • like/hate list of different political factions (police, military, outlaws, corporations, bounty-hunters...)
  • interesting weapon/shield types, each has weakness/strength for certain other types
• Con
  • only boring random missions (destroy pirates at x,y)
  • quite boring due to long travel times (especially in Multiplayer)
  • clumsy trading/equipping lists : vertical lists showing only about 5 items at once
  • Overly long docking procedures, deadly while under attack
  • only portal based travel between systems, one portal is connected to exactly one other portal -> not free enough
  • small universe, only a few dozen systems

EscapeVelocityNova

2D-Space Game

• Pro
  • hire up to 6 escorts, either traders or fighters
  • if you don't "overkill" your opponents, their ships get disabled, and can be robbed, used as escort, or own ship...
  • you can dominate planets to pay you dayly tribute after destroying their defence fleet
  • cool cloaking (i especially like the sound)
  • 5 different storylines, however only one can be played
  • you can choose live from trading, bounty hunting, pirating, passengerflying(taxi) or urgent-delivery/parcel-service
  • funny little events (better pick up some of that "anti-drop-bear" spray)
  • quite a large universe with around 100+ systems
• Con
  • probably not suitable multiplayer (although many have requested for it)
  • the two story lines i tried were both totally exceeded power-crazy
    • you ended up beeing a kinda god like figure, the single most powerful entity in the universe
    • everyone keeps telling you how overly cool you are, and whole planets bow in awe as you land... lousy slimers
  • most ships are far too small to fit all that cool equipment you can buy into them =)
  • once you have found a good trade route (SOL : luxury from one planet on the lower left to earth) , you can just repeat it to earn all the cache you ever need fast

IWar2

In iwar2 you are a escaped prisoner with his friends, who begins a career as pirate with the help of an old mobile-station in a nebula, that was once home to your grandmother, who was a famous pirate. Cool Game, Sadly some mission-scripts were broken, and

• Pro
  • LaGrange Points were quite interesting
  • Display of Healt/Speed bars as part of a circle around the crosshair was quite practical (no need to look down in combat)
  • exchange based trading system
    • no credits, just "i give you X if you give me y"
  • hierarchical tradegood categories
    • the "price" could be general (4 tons Luxury Goods) or very specific ( Chocolates, Tennis-Equipment )
  • Ammonition & Weapon Production with Build-Plans from Recycled Goods
  • your main job was beeing a pirate and robbing traders, quite a difference to most other spacegames
  • (flyfast)-drives, damping zones (near stations) + missiles (as in freelancer, travel-flight disruptor-rockets)
    • flyfast = SPEC = space folding = travel-flight : you loose your shields, but you can fly really fast, if you are far away from large masses (planets)
  • you could freelance instead of continuing in the story
  • flexible ship-equipment
  • intersting and funny sneak missions
    • spray rebel logo on government flagship with little remote controlled drone
    • broken autoturrets that switch on and off, you have to hide until they switch off, then quickly approach and dock to repair
    • cut off a habitat-module of a space station with a remote-controlled cutter-drone, where the police-commander is celebrating his birthday, and then steal a rather large support ship
  • Reaktor-Temperature, power distribution...
  • occassional random missions/events (steal zz from blabla at x,y, distress signals..)
  • commandable wingmen
  • i kinda like some of the musik
• Cons
  • ugly map (with bad mouse support)
  • scanning for freight before raiding a trader was nearly impossible, due to bad display and clumsy selection
  • joystick game, had to severely change config FILE to be able to play with mouse
  • no mouse support for menus (all using arrow keys)
  • some mission scripts were badly broken
  • story seemed rather linear
  • space-stations were liveless, only used for main story, no missions, no trading (only in own base)
  • cloaking was quite useless outside the scripted missions
  • small universe, only a few dozen systems

X2

• Pro
  • nice economy circles
  • you could exit your ship and fly around in a space suit
  • can remote controll multiple ships
  • can plant
• Con
  • totally ugly controls (no mouse usage in menus)
  • boring fights (only slug-thrower weapons and ai has good evasion, i killed them mostly by ramming in the tuts..)

VegaStrike

• Pro
  • mass-based SPEC
  • seems to have something similar to LaGrange Points, but i'm not sure about that
  • i kinda liked some of the audio tracks
• Con
  • you have to guess where on the "pretty" in stations pictures you have to click, to find the trading post, hopping with rightclick ist no real solution
  • space is liveless, no npcs near stations, only a pirate every once in a while, you are basically alone in the universe
  • only very limited mouse support (map is basically useless)
  • misses a tutorial intro
  • looks like just wingcommander + trading
  • really shitty graphics / effect on some parts
    • the stars (immovable lines) in SPEC (flyfast) mode
    • in-flight menu sucks, map is basically useless
    • when you are hit, your ship starts wobbling as if it was made of yelly
  • no recognisable (ingame) story as far as i have played
  • ugly trading/mission/equipment/... menus (totally nongraphical)
  • ugly hud (message log is not scrollable, fuel & temperature gauge are really shitty...)
  • font & musik/sound problems under linux installation (might be just my maschine though)

WingCommander

i don't know them really (long time no see), as far as i remember it was mostly combat-flight-simulator with many cinematics

StarWolves

A "tactical" space game with rpg elements, where you command a mothership and a small wing of fighters on bounty hunting missions.

• Pro
  • one MotherShip/Carrier + a few fighters is an interesting combo
  • cool trading / equipment slots system with drag & drop
  • interesting datafile (rename to zip and decompress, most things are heavily scripted)
  • i kinda like some of the musik
  • characters can gain experience and can be trained skills (accuracy, maneuvering, powermodes : sniper-shot, missile-salvo..)
  • interesting missile/missile-defence system (active:AMS:one of your fighters is shooting down missiles + passive:ECM)
• Con
  • only mission based levels (no free movement, only way to fly around in a SINGLE system is accepting missions)
  • basically only one shop / station, where you come after every mission
  • very simple grafik engine (limited farplane cuts stations in half)
  • unusable for multiplayer due to time pause
  • only indirect fighting, you tell your pilots to attack something, as in a strategy game

AquaNox

not really a space game, but rather a sub-marine game, but quite similar to space

• Pro
  • "compass"-hud element
    • useful for orientation, modify to reflect sun position, main planet orbits..
    • helps for leveling nose, and maintain orientation while diving/liftoff...
    • two additional vertical "compass"-circles might also be nice
  • straving tilts ship to the side, felt kinda nice
  • i kinda liked the humorous description of the drinks,food,drugdealers,...
    • all-time-favourites like tsunami-booster, shark-intestine-sandwich
  • weirdest voice-actor you have EVER heard : some girl named "frog", in one of the first two missions
• con
  • boring weapons (only real difference is damage)
  • wingmen not commandable (plain ai)
  • no mouse support for menus (all using arrow keys)
  • lame trading
  • almost totally linear gameplay (just boring optional missions)
  • mission-based levels : no free movement between stations
  • 4 different shields, one on every side, hud-display was very confusing

UQM

• descripton
  • "UrQuanMasters" is a "StarControl" remake as far as i know
  • 2d-pixel game
  • hyperspace : see Ideas/Concepts
  • quasispace : see Ideas/Concepts
• pro
  • planet landing (using lander craft)
  • collecting ressources
  • building ship parts and converting ship from cargo to fighter
  • mothership has small defence fleet
  • cool arcade combat
• con
  • only arcade fighting is usable for multiplayer

EVE-Online

MMORPG in space, trailers look great, havn't played it though....

Infinity, the quest for earth

http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/ (closed source private project) nice shaders, but little else  : probably vaporvare

Battlecruiser Millennium

• http://www.golem.de/0505/38201.html
• http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/bcm.shtml
• freeware, lots of interesting features

• fly capships
• launch in fighter
• exit ships in space-suit
• fly shuttle to planet surface
• control tanks and combat airplanes
• walk around on foot and fly around with jetpack
• command ai-units (fighters, fleet)
• trading
• find special artefacts (see manual)
• crew-management (health, training, sleep...)
• capture starbases
• cloaking

but crappy graphics and physics, and irritating gui

x3:terran conflict

• capital ships : big : x3:capships size comparison
• terran sector : huge stations, autopilot has problems navigating
• campaign missions : bugged
• interface : crappy, made for keyboard
• autopilot/ai : stupid, fighters bump into capital ships, capital ships fail to destroy fighter directly in front of him..
• interesting economy : stations consume and produce things, prices depend on how much is on stock, consumed stuff isn't sold, produced stuff isn't bought, player can buy and place new stations.
• fleet control : player can remote control arbitrary number of ships, install software etc.
• travelling : gate network, jump drive to next gate, consumes energy cells
• missions like patrol sectors a,b,c , kill pirate x,y
• police license + freight scanner : police like bounty hunting searching for smugglers and destroying them
• illegal goods like slaves and drugs
• ships have shield and weapon energy output
• cargospace,accel and speed can be upgraded until a certain limit, price for upgrades increase.
• capturing ships is possible if the pilot jumps (do damage quickly)
• repairing ships at stations is insanely expensive, but repairing can also be done for free with space-suit laser, but that's boring like hell and takes eternity : jam mousebutton and go do something else
• boarding of capital ships using mercenaries in spacesuits that cut through the hull while you hold the shields of the enemy down seems to be theoretically possible, but kinda bugged in the campaign missions that use it.

Ideas/Concepts

(InterStellar)Travel

"Raidability"

Pro

I think it is important to limit the freedom of movement a little, so that raids and ambushes are possible, it is different to make raids and ambushes if the victim can virtually take any route. There should be some sort of trade routes or points that the victims must pass...

Con

If there is no PVP combat but rather coop, raidability of the player groups is not so important, it should be enough if the npc traders are raidable, and the players are attacked randomly by pirates. Raidability could be replaced by Espionage information of favoured (fuel/time saving) routes, or maybe drive-signatur-sensors or something like that

Hyperspace (UQM)

after flying outside into a solarsystem, you enter hyperspace

• pro
  • really free movement
• con
  • there is nothing between systems that is worth visiting
  • not "raidable" (see above)
  • too few "meeting" places, not suited for multiplayer

SubSpace (Babylon5)

• description
  • the scifi-movie-series is about a space station at the end of a "wormhole" which serves as an entry-point to subspace (or something like that)
  • free navigation in subspace is not possible, only the signals from the stations at the exits prevent you from getting lost
  • there can be ancient drifting derelicts or attacks by an alien species native to subspace
• pro
  • interesting concept
• con
  • to "risky" for multiplayer, if you get lost, you are dead meat without a fight, not really funny

Trade Routes (Freelancer)

• description
  • you can travel significantly faster between planets if you use a trade route, sort of like a line dottet with rings
• pro
  • "raidable"
• con
  • hard balancing : it is always either too fast or too slow
  • probably not suited for orbiting planets

Portals (Freelancer)

• description
  • the only way to get from one starsystem to another is to use a portal
  • every portal is connected to exactly one other portal
• pro
  • "raidable"
• con
  • no real freedom of movement
  • starsystems have to be manually "attached" to each other
  • how did the portals get there in the first place ?
  • what happens if a portal is destroyed ?

LaGrange Points (IWar2)

• description
  • LaGrange Points are in the middle of two big masses (planets,suns..)
  • they enable the use of "JumpDrives" to jump to ANY other LaGrange Point (max-distance should probably be limited in a big universe)
  • there is one side to fly into, and another side to fly out, so there can be constant traffic in both directions
  • represented as two colored double cone or something like that (color = direction : coming or going)
• pro
  • "raidable" (see above)
  • no manual placement required, can be calculated from
• con
  • cluttering of enemies at these points with nothing in between

WormHole

• as the ultimate portal, quite useful, funny, often hidden, and present in many games...

WarpDrive (StarTrek)

different to spec drive, as the velocities are at discrete levels (warp 1 - 9 , equalling multitudes of light-speed as far as i know)

• pro
  • discrete warp-speed-levels might make interception of victim on the run interesting
  • great freedom of movement
  • raidability is unclear
• con
  • might be too time consuming for inter-system travel ? (but could be resolved by adding portals...)

SPEC (VegaStrike,Freelancer,IWar2)

• description
  • SPEC=FlyFast=SpaceFolding...
  • disruptable with fields (near stations) and missiles/mines
  • weakened by proximity of large masses (planets)
• pro
  • intersting realism ?
  • great freedom of movement
• con
  • not really good raidable, except with long range disruptor-missiles and scanners
  • only suitable for interplanetary travel (not interstellar)
  • if you make it too fast, it is not "raidable"
  • if you make it too slow, the high travel time makes it boring

Fuel Usage

• there should be fuel
• usage for interplanetery travel should be very low
• usage for interstellar travel can be quite high
• more fuel for more mass to be transported
• different drives classes (and types : elite : military & hydrogen fuel, military produces radioactive waste)

CompanyRanks

• not just freelancing jobs but rather a more or less permanent employment for a special ingame company
• different type of companies : bounty hunting, mining, prospecting/exploring, military, police, spionage/recon, assasin, trading, delivery..
• when you get the job you can optionally be provided with a ship suited for the missions, with rare equipment..., that maybe you cannot modify, or you have to pay it back if you quit, or something like that
• company intern shops & hired escorts/wingmen
• missions give credits and ranking points , and maybe assets
• you can get higher ranks, and access to better equipment/ships, more lucrative/dangerous missions..., more escorts..
• player gets associated with a certain contact persons, freelancing is not so anonymous anymore
• easy automatic creation of many slightly different companies possible
• fights with assasins / pirates / spies / sabouteurs hired by other companies

Hired Escorts/Wingmen (EscapeVelocity)

• pro
  • could be used on a limited-time-contract
  • the number of ships could be limited (see CompanyRanks)
• con
  • money should not be able to buy so much power to gain even more money (no traders, only fighters)

Sensors/Scanners

• easy to generate exploration missions for "scan planet/nebula/sun/asteroid/military-base/shiptype/alien-life-forms.,, at x,y with this new xxxyyyzzz scanner"
• fly around and take photos / sensorsweeps of planets, store them, and sell them later as in one playstation/n64 game where you photograph animals
• photo equipment for ingame usage of screenshots

Missiles/Torpedoes

• how powerful should they be ?
• what defensive measures ? (AMS,ECM, See StarWolves)

Piracy,Police,Smuggling

• how is it possible to become a pirate ? (contact in bar ? neutral outcasts ? not attacked if no cargo ? bribing ?)
• constant attacks by pirates replaced by constant attacks by police/military

Dynamic Difficulty

• the problems (e.g. procentual damage, time spent, lost wingmen..) that the players are having is measured
• controlled combat / pause duration, adjusted to mission and system piracy/police rate (sneak = low, run/defence = high)
  • this means the interval/frequency of random attacks
• the strength (eg shiptype & equipment) of the enemies depends on that of the players
• the server can adjust the difficulty (no steps, continuous up / down, logarithmic, 0 = default = fair)
• dynamic runtime adjustment based on measured "problems"
• should prevent letting the game get to boring or taxing, as the players and the server=game-master can adjust it anytime
• random attacks should not be mindless "ressource factories" for players, but should be rewarded, not too much, not too less
• fighting strong enemies gives strong equipment, possibility to search out specific types of enemies ? political ? pirates ?...

Alien Races

• should there be any ?
• should peaceful contact / trading be at all possible ?

War,Military Missions

• essential for major story ?
• heavily disputed border zones with constant fighting might be interesting
• planetary bombing...

Flying/Driving around on Planets

• elite just rocks ! (though vehicles as in uqm would be nice)

Walking in Cities,Stations,SpaceShips

• first person combat / boarding ships / sneak in and sabotage ?

SpacePort Bars

• gimmik : funny drinks with 3d particle/shader/texture effects... -> see AquaNox

Ship Interior Detail

• automatically generate blueprints
• damage/hit zones for more interesing combat

Weight-VS-Room based Trading

• hybrid approach where the user can toggle the unit to normalize in trade list
• weight is nice for fuel usage
• room is nice for ship construction

Mining

• asteroid mining laser : chip off miniral/ore/rock/ice-chunks
• planetary mining using a mining vehicle/station/robot (automated or player-controlled)
• i would really love to land my spaceship on a rocky moon, open the hangar, and drive out with my turbodriller mining machine to dig a few tunnels, and maybe create an underground bunker/base or something

Equipment/Starship Construction

• from MULTIPLE ressources (metals,alloys, elecronics, wiring, energy cells, processors, chemical elements...)
• i haven't seen that in a single space game yet, ... i kinda miss it.. a few games were close :
  • ammo-production in iwar2
  • and the factories in X2
  • mineral collection and module "buying" in UQM
• might be called "alchemy" system, as you produce something from a receipe(=buildingplan) and ingredients