A Good SpaceOpera

W

weirdculture

Spaceman
hi all,

does anybody know a realy good SpaceOpera game today?

I love(ed) WC and all sequels, spin-offs etc and now I'm searching for good games which are played in space.
I search these games with a military or economic background, but nothing from the x-Series (egosoft).

I'm searching this kind of games for the last years, the last good candidate was freelancer, but freelancer miss something like longterm-motivation, huge space etc.

My personally impression is that these games are like dinosaurs: extinct and you can see them in (online)museums.

maybe you can help me.


Cheers WeirdCulture
 
Not really - the earlier thread was about space sims in particular (in the flight-sims-in-space) sense.

Those are pretty scarce, but there are a number of good strategy games out there that might qualify - Galactic Civilizations 2, the Final Frontier mod in Civ IV: Beyond the Sword. Space Empires V might qualify, but if you thought Freelancer was 'dry' then you probably would like it even less (on the other hand, if you want very, very long-term motivation and huge amounts of space then it might work.)

There's also Sins of a Solar Empire, which looks very interesting, but I'm concerned that the real-time gameplay might make it too fast to follow and require more micromanagement then should be the case. I've been following some gameplay videos of it and it seems a bit like Conquest: Frontier Wars, except that you don't need to manage your fleet in person. It worries me that it might boil down to a pure economic game where weight of numbers wins - but if they work that out it could be very good (and there's some kind of open beta available to people who pre-order the game that launched yesterday). The scale is a bit odd - it emphasizes the size of star systems over space in general; it doesn't seem to fit the idea of
'space opera' as much.

There are a lot of interesting things being done with the Homeworld 2 engine, too. It's fairly old, but there are graphical hacks being made (normal mapping, if you follow that) and the experience of the last four years seems to be finally paying off - and as far as combat goes, it's still the best. Worth looking at again.
 
Hey! Don't forget the classics! Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2 are still my favoured space strategy games! :D
 
Well, he asked for recent games - and MOO and MOO2, regardless of how good they might be, certainly don't qualify as "recent."
 
thanks for anwsers. the most games which you listed, are Strategy-games. (which most of them i owe, Moo, Moo2, Moo3; GC 1+2, Homeworld).

Well mayby I'm a nostalgic guy but i search a game which can bring my adrenaline to some levels like Privateer some years ago:

Paid nearly all resources for goods. Just have to bring tjem to the small Space station in the small System, all running fine... just 3 Jumppoints away... the flight is boring... 2 jumpoints... *JUMP*... all clear.. cool... set the navpoint to the last.... just this one and I'm save... just this one.. ... ohoh... blips on the radar screen... hmm police? pirates? or just a friendly Merchant, but ifI know about my luck.. DAMN... Pirates... Fight or Escape.. maybe I should fight? with my two small Mass Drivers? hmm ok.. 2 more Blips.. thanks guys for decission.. the Jump Point isn't so far away now.. ESCAPE! Turning the Afteburner on heading to the Small blue cloud.... just 3000 Klicks away... whats that? how can they came so fast in firing range.. ok,.. but they small lasers disn't hurt realy... BEEP BEEP! Ohoh..rockets hurts.... BAMM... ouch! this one hurted... how far is the jump point? 2000 ok.. i will made it.... reconfigure the shields to 100% to the back maybe this will help... did I told you that the small lasers didn't hurt? many of them does. 1500 Klicks... shields at 60%... falling...... 1000 Kliks away.. the shimmring blue of the jump point is hypnotising me, but I'm beeing awoke from the Alarm hat a Missile is on my tail... WHOT?... this impact was harder then the first one... shild are completly down... 700 Klicks... I hear like the lasers penetrating the armory.. 500 klicks... damn.. the afterburner is at 70% Damage and begings to stutter, the radar is blinking, and i see sparks comming out of my right MFD, 250 Klicks.. Alarm.... another one... damn... this one will kill me when itl hit me... the cloud is now as big a the main window...in the front the heaven.. the hell in the back... i didn't even notice the alarm that a second missile trys to send me into the cold space... just hammering on the button to activate the jump drive... nothing happens... DAMN... look at the MFD which is blinking, but i see then a red 90% folowed with the system name which fails: Jumpdrive... NO! THAT CAN'T BE!.. i can see the missile now... the small dot which is getting bigger faster then you can immaging... steering the ship with the nose towards the enemy, hammering on the jumpdrive button.. maybe the front armory will hold? without shields? the last missile destory my shilds AND the armory..... I'm preparing for the impact... 4....3....2.. BUT... then.. a music like singing from angels came to my headphones... the Jumpdrive didn't wanted to be lost in space... and get all of his soul and start working for a last time...... save.....
Click to expand...

I miss this kind of games... the last one was freelancer.. but its unfinished and mouse controlled..


but I'm afraid that this kind of games are exticted. todays games are looking wonderfull... but have no depth :(


Cheers WeirdCulture
 
If I may ask:

What's wrong with the X-Series (egosoft) ?
Those are IMHO the best space operas since Elite and Privateer.
(I prefer X2 over X3, it had very nice addons and much cooler ship designs)

Apart from Freelancer and X1-3 I haven't played any games like that recently.
 
the space design.. ist to small.. all the quadratic systems, noth, south, east and west.... no landing on planets, no "cool" configuration for energy etc.. but a great econimical system (one of the best which I've seen in space-computergames)

There are good games.. but X3 has so much frustrting points that it makes me crazy. no cockpits, no possibility to configure your input (i have some kind of special input: a USB joystick + a gameport jostick which is just a dummy for the Rudderpedald, and the throttle)..

if freelancer had 4times more space systems this would be a great game... but it hasn't.

well i got a dream about a OFMMOSO (Open Free massive Multiplayer space opera): open source (maybe the vegastrike engine?), expandalbe,, huge,
a server = space stration., or a big server: a system *sigh* this will be a dream forever
 
There is a mod for X3 which brings cockpits back. Was the first thing I installed, it adds a lot of athmosphere.
And xou can configure your stick. (I did that, there is an options menu in the launcher)

X2 was better because it had cockpits, the possibility of flying IN the stations etc.

And yeah, I want something like Privateer online.
 
the problem with the Steering in X is that i have to split the Acceleration/rudder and the mainsteering (stick) to two different hardware devices. :(

the cockpit mod which i've tested a half year ago came, doesn't look good.. it looks like cockpits from X2 in X3...

maybe this project will be something more, what I'm searching for: http://www.blackprophecy.com/ but I'm afraid that this will be a Paid-MMO :( and it will be released 2008 (so I think 2009 or early 2010)
 
Off topic, If your looking for a good Space Opera in the book dept., the Hope Series by David Fentuch was pretty good.
 
Aginor said:
If I may ask:

What's wrong with the X-Series (egosoft) ?
Those are IMHO the best space operas since Elite and Privateer.
(I prefer X2 over X3, it had very nice addons and much cooler ship designs)

Apart from Freelancer and X1-3 I haven't played any games like that recently.
Click to expand...

They play like a MS Excel Spreadsheet, and the interface sucks. They're actually pretty games with lots of potencial, and very deep economy systems, but the learning curve is more like a learning chasm, and you're in the botton of it.
 
The old computer in my university's archives had that and I would sit around playing it for hours on end. That thing was so cool...

Anyway, would Mass Effect count as a space opera?
 
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