I need a new game.

[Iroscato]

Since I am blessed with the twin gifts of laziness and low boredom threshold, I need someone to recommend me a game for PC.
It would preferably be a space conquest game, not necassarily online but fine if it is. Perhaps a RTS, I like those. With spaceships, it must have spaceships. Or an empire building RPG, they're good too! Again, with spaceships.

So please, SDN gamers, recommend me such a game.

EDIT: It should also have good graphics, satisfying gameplay and a good story.

[FaxModem1]

Do you like Space flight simulators? And Star Trek? Get Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It came out in 1997, its on PC, and while it might be hard to find nowadays, its a great game, with a great plot, and the gameplay is great.

[Iroscato]

Do you like Space flight simulators? And Star Trek? Get Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It came out in 1997, its on PC, and while it might be hard to find nowadays, its a great game, with a great plot, and the gameplay is great.

That's great then
If its made in 1997, I should be able to get it dirt cheap. Or just download it for freeeeee

[Feil]

Escape Velocity: Nova is pretty good. Isometric space ship scroller, a space trading and shooting game. Start in a shuttlecraft, build your way up to a battlefleet that can (and does, if you feel like it) conquer planets. It's a 2001 game (iirc), but sprites will never die. Unfortunately, its production company, Ambrosia Software, hasn't heard the news on how ten year old games are supposed to cost less than full price titles, so you have to spend 30 dollars if you want to do more than play the demo.

Homeworld 1 and 2 are known as the space ship RTS games. I haven't played them, but if that's what you like, they're probably a good bet.

[Stofsk]

Do you like Space flight simulators? And Star Trek? Get Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It came out in 1997, its on PC, and while it might be hard to find nowadays, its a great game, with a great plot, and the gameplay is great.

That's great then
If its made in 1997, I should be able to get it dirt cheap. Or just download it for freeeeee

If you don't care when it was made, then get Independence War 1 and 2. You can get them pretty cheap on gog.com

[TC Pilot]

Do you like Space flight simulators? And Star Trek? Get Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. It came out in 1997, its on PC, and while it might be hard to find nowadays, its a great game, with a great plot, and the gameplay is great.

Or Klingon Academy, if you can manage to get it to work.

[Rahvin]

Klingon Academy was spectacular, and I really, really wish I hadn't lost the install discs. I never had the compatibility issues that most people complained about.

[Stark]

Klingon Academy works (relatively) easily on Nvidia cards now; some time in the last six months Nvidia restored a bunch of support for old functions, it seems; Silent Storm works again too. It's still totally broken mechanically, of course, but it was never finished.

That the thread is 'a bunch of horribly broken ancient games' is bizarre. He wants space conquest/RTS with spaceships, and people say EV Nova? Space Rangers is even cheaper, because Ambrosia are a pack of morons.

Anyone who wants to play Starfleet Academy (ugh) would be better off playing Freespace. If you can get Nexus working, it's a laugh for a while, and spaceship RTS is Conquest, Sins or SOTS depending on your boredom threshold.

Maybe someone can explain to me how 'turn towards enemy, hold down fire button' counts as 'great gameplay' these days?!?!?!?!!?

[Zaune]

Is the "with SPACESHIPS!" thing hard and fast, or would you be willing to consider a few other genres?

But otherwise, the X-COM games are also dirt cheap on GOG.com.

[Stark]

Certainly, the thread needs more posts that ignore the request and simply post 'games I like'.

[evilsoup]

Have you played Galactic Civilizations II? With the expansions, of course. It's a 4X game (the space-based 4X game), nice graphics, good gameplay (assuming you like 4X), and a story mode (I haven't played this mode, but my little brother enjoyed it). The standard (non-story 'sandbox') mode is a bit slow to start, but the AI is scarily good on higher difficulties.

[Zaune]

Certainly, the thread needs more posts that ignore the request and simply post 'games I like'.

That would be why I asked whether Spiro objected to recommendations that didn't meet every single one of his parameters before posting any. (The X-COM series does indisputably meet the parameter for involving spaceships, if not necessarily in the way he had in mind.)

[Vendetta]

Certainly, the thread needs more posts that ignore the request and simply post 'games I like'.

The problem is that the original request is for rockinghorse shit. People can't really answer the question because the answer is "they don't make games like that really, and when they try there are usually horrible problems with them".

Or people could just say Sins again, or Sword of the Stars, but those have been pretty much discussed to death by now.

[Thanas]

Empire at war? It sucks, but has all the required elements.

[Stark]

The problem is that the original request is for rockinghorse shit. People can't really answer the question because the answer is "they don't make games like that really, and when they try there are usually horrible problems with them".

Or people could just say Sins again, or Sword of the Stars, but those have been pretty much discussed to death by now.

It's not OUR fault it's basically 'I didn't read that recent thread about space RTS games, so name some for me'.

We should make a thread about our favourite amazingly overpriced indie games, though. EV Nova is a good (if primitive) game, but it wasn't worth $30 then and it sure isn't now you can get Space Rangers 2 for like $15.

[TC Pilot]

Empire at war? It sucks, but has all the required elements.

Or, God forbid, the other Star Wars RTS (with spaceships), Rebellion. I'd actually rate that one higher than Empire at War.

I suppose while we're scraping for some rather old games, you might want to consider Star Trek: Armada (1 and/or 2).

[Stark]

It's a shame the STA games date so badly; even 2 has a really clunky, backwards interface. They weren't awful games at all (although 'torpedo turrets' were pretty unimaginative).

[Tolya]

Considering that RTS is "preferable" and not mandatory, I would recommend Independence War 2 (I-War 2). Interesting story, interesting missions although there is no empire building and trading is only rudimentary (you can sell your loot). Good game though.

And Independence War 1 which is a more military oriented game, perhaps the best space "sim" ever made, if you can overlook the fact that from time to time dogfights in space can become tedious exchanges of plasma and that AI generally sucks and the features that were supposed to make space dogfights interesting and realistic to a point are generally meaningless because your ship can fire in all directions anyway and turns on a dime.

[Stofsk]

Did anyone ever play Haegomonia?

[Thanas]

Empire at war? It sucks, but has all the required elements.

Or, God forbid, the other Star Wars RTS (with spaceships), Rebellion. I'd actually rate that one higher than Empire at War.

Yeah, me too. It has vastly superior gameplay on the galactic map (unlike EAW, which is just a chore) and has the advantage of not having the stupid ground combat.

[Stofsk]

Rebellion was an interesting premise, a tbs/4x space empire game predicated on asymmetrical warfare - but it was executed horribly. Bad UI, possibly the worse UI in a 4x game I've ever played.

I'd really like to see someone make a Rebellion 2. Most tbs games start everyone on equal footing. I really like the idea that if you play on say the Rebel's side, you're just one cell that has to make its mark against the huge juggernaut of the Galactic Empire. You have few resources at the start, maybe only one base, and you have to build yourself up while at the same time staying hidden and protecting yourself through stealth and secrecy. And on the other side, I'd love it if you actually start as like a Moff or something and trying to increase your power and influence amongst the other Moffs and with the Emperor, while the Rebellion is only one thing that's going on in a large galaxy map. You'd start off as governor of one province, with the ultimate aim of becoming like Grand Moff or whatever.

[Stark]

If only Rebellion had any but the most basic mechanics around being an insurgency, it might still be worth playing. As it is, it's just clumsy and broken. It's a real mark against the rest of the genre that it's even still mentioned.

If they made Rebellion now it'd be a bog-standard hero-based RTS of horrible, unfortunately.

[Thanas]

Rebellion was an interesting premise, a tbs/4x space empire game predicated on asymmetrical warfare - but it was executed horribly. Bad UI, possibly the worse UI in a 4x game I've ever played.

I'd really like to see someone make a Rebellion 2. Most tbs games start everyone on equal footing. I really like the idea that if you play on say the Rebel's side, you're just one cell that has to make its mark against the huge juggernaut of the Galactic Empire. You have few resources at the start, maybe only one base, and you have to build yourself up while at the same time staying hidden and protecting yourself through stealth and secrecy. And on the other side, I'd love it if you actually start as like a Moff or something and trying to increase your power and influence amongst the other Moffs and with the Emperor, while the Rebellion is only one thing that's going on in a large galaxy map. You'd start off as governor of one province, with the ultimate aim of becoming like Grand Moff or whatever.

The problem is that they nerfed the Empire because they did not know how to simulate it otherwise, which really crushed the immersion factor. I mean, I play as the Empire and I got Coruscant and a few other planets? Screw that. EAW suffers from the same problem.

[Stark]

Doesn't Rebellion have scenarios? Some of them are balanced, some of them aren't. I don't think it has the player tools to make wildly asymetrical play anything but character cheese.

I mean, it's a game where the goddamn converted ocean liner is more powerful than the Executor, which is pretty dumb.

[Stofsk]

Yes, and the Rebellion never behaves like an insurgency would. It basically becomes a race of 'who gets the most ships first wins'.

I'd like it if a hypothetical sequel put in more than two factions, and tons of sub factions. You can easily split the Empire into a dozen sub-factions each headed by a Moff, Grand Moff, or Grand Admiral. 'OK this is Grand Moff What's His Name's territory, he controls x number of sectors etc'.

So if you play as the Empire you're actually playing just one faction in it. There's more going on in the galaxy than just the Rebellion. You'd have 'neutral' factions too like the Hutts, who everyone does business with but few will admit it. You can make the game be more about politics and intrigue than just 'ok i build fifty star destroyers and i attack this world which is defended by one laser turret SO I WIN OK'