Has there ever been a 'hard' sci-fi space combat videogame?

[Nephtys]

Jesus christ people have to let Nexus go. Yes, there are no spaceship games anymore. No, it wasn't good. It was a cripplingly lame ubership-based paper-scissors-stone game with delusions of grandeur. It wasn't even REMOTELY hard, especially not by the critera expressed in the OP. Ugh. Even mentioning is wrong.

If it had stayed weak ships with long-range weapons like in the first mission, it might have not sucked shit from my dog's anus.

Starshatter (if it's the game I'm thinking of) has been in 'development' for like a million years and is a buggy, boring mess. I wouldn't recommend it either.

It's time to face facts guys; the genre died.

Ironically, Cov's mod for Sword of the Stars is pretty 'hard', weapons wise anyway. What you mean railguns are limited by accuracy and not magical 'bullet disappears' distances?!??!?!?!?!?!

Starshatter is a broken capital ship game that doesn't work, and a passable fighter sim where you are shot down way beyond your reasonable non-missile engagement range by hundreds of automated laser interceptor turrets. Sounds about right.

The main appeal of that game was chilling aboard the carrier, waiting for sorties and watching CIC update your carrier's bomber waves on the main plot engaging an enemy cruiser, or dying because they were shot down by fighters because you never bothered to take off and protect them

[Starglider]

Not sure about First Encounters, but at least Frontier's combat was mind-numbingly boring, simply because you only ever got attacked by one craft at once

Are you sure? I used to tool around in a massively upgunned freighter, and I seem to recall being jumped by multiple pirate fighters fairly often. That said First Encounters definitely had more ships and better enemy AI, though it is still very primitive by modern standards.

[Karza]

Are you sure? I used to tool around in a massively upgunned freighter, and I seem to recall being jumped by multiple pirate fighters fairly often. That said First Encounters definitely had more ships and better enemy AI, though it is still very primitive by modern standards.

Dead certain. The only exception is when you do something to provoke a space station's police, I think they didn't attack alone. But those random combats when travelling from jump point to some in-system destination are always just you and a lone pirate. That was one of the areas First Encounters improved on I think, but I haven't played that one myself.

[Covenant]

Ironically, Cov's mod for Sword of the Stars is pretty 'hard', weapons wise anyway. What you mean railguns are limited by accuracy and not magical 'bullet disappears' distances?!??!?!?!?!?!

It was the best I could do within the context of the game and not have it be utterly retarded. Annoyingly, people's favorite weapons were the biggest and least realistic ones, but the beam lasers and BSG Bullets worked well. I think a game built on that basis would work just fine if it was consistantly employed.

Homeworld's really most unrealistic elements came from the lack of inertia, as always, and the absurdly short engagement distances. But in a game that includes point-to-point spacefold drives, I see no reason to limit people's mapsize to such small ones. Let their ships have poor acceleration--that's easy to justify once you consider the fact that they can essentially teleport. Teleporting ships don't need good accel, and we can assume most wouldn't get THAT fast in a short engagement. Anyway... meh.

The starship genre is buried for the moment. It'll come back later, for certain. But it's just not en vogue at the moment and few people have had any good ideas about how to fix it.

[Satori]

Ambrosia Software's "Escape Velocity" series of games at least tries to have space combat follow some semblance of newtonian physics, even if it is only 2D.

It's also very fun and easy to learn. Plus, the modding community for it is FANTASTIC. The New Horizons and Frozen Heart total conversions are fantastically written and implemented... you really feel like you're engaging with the game-world.

Also you can try out "Vega Strike", which is open source and free, but I personally found the game both a pain to play (it takes forever to get anywhere) and very stupid in gameplay mechanics... "high speed mode" turns off your SHIELDS... WTF? If I'm going faster, I need my shields to be on in case of micro-(or not so micro) meteorites.

[Starglider]

Not a video game, but I just noticed that Ad Astra's Attack Vector : Tactical has a significant play-by-email community. I haven't played it, but I borrowed the rulebooks from a friend a few years back and I can confirm that it's about as realistic as it's possible to be while still being playable. It looks like there were a few amateur attempts to make a computer version, but they all stalled.

[Stark]

Fuck off. People are honestly posting EV fucking NOVA in a 'hard scifi game' thread? Now I've seen it all. Once again, a thread looking for xyz type of game recommendations has devolved into a 'games I like' thread.

I've looked at AV:T myself, Starglider, but I've never been able to look at any of the materials. It's a shame that sort of game is limited to 'prop you bit of cardboard up with a wedge and do 8000 paperwork tasks' instead of being on a computer where you could hide all that stuff. The barrier to entry in the boardgame market is way lower I guess.

[Darth Wong]

Fuck off. People are honestly posting EV fucking NOVA in a 'hard scifi game' thread? Now I've seen it all. Once again, a thread looking for xyz type of game recommendations has devolved into a 'games I like' thread.

I've looked at AV:T myself, Starglider, but I've never been able to look at any of the materials. It's a shame that sort of game is limited to 'prop you bit of cardboard up with a wedge and do 8000 paperwork tasks' instead of being on a computer where you could hide all that stuff. The barrier to entry in the boardgame market is way lower I guess.

It seems like the sort of thing that would be really easy to write as a computer program, if anyone wanted to bother. One might say the barrier to entry in the boardgame market is low, but on the Internet we have plenty of free games that people just make up and distribute for nothing but a bit of recognition. How high can the barrier to entry be?

[Stark]

I'm not even sure such super-complex boardgames make little book-keeping applications that do the maths for you and track all the variables, either. Maybe it's actually a tough-nerd thing where they like that it's manual and clunky and full of points for player error.

[Starglider]

Maybe it's actually a tough-nerd thing where they like that it's manual and clunky and full of points for player error.

From the forums, I got the impression that the publisher didn't have the funds to hire a professional development team, and the amateur attempts just didn't manage to snag any decent, committed programmers. It's a very niche game after all.

[Stark]

Yeah but as Mike says, some guy could just bash up an applet to manage the paperwork task by themselves. There's just no pressure to do so.

[Starglider]

Yeah but as Mike says, some guy could just bash up an applet to manage the paperwork task by themselves. There's just no pressure to do so.

I recall seeing quite a few Excel spreadsheets on the forums, mainly for making the ships but a few for playing the actual game. GURPS is similar, there are tons of spreadsheets available online. I guess writing a stand-alone program isn't worth it for a marginal usability improvement, if you're not going to capture the entire game logic. For all games in this category there are probably a fair amount of personal play aids that aren't published. I wrote several programs to speed up my AD&D campaigns (mass combat and mapping, mainly) when I was a teenager and didn't bother trying to distribute them.

[aimless]

The starship genre is buried for the moment. It'll come back later, for certain. But it's just not en vogue at the moment and few people have had any good ideas about how to fix it.

Well at least I have tons of examples of older games to try out hehe. A lot of what I'm looking for is ideas and to see how things have been done in the past. I've been thinking about making a really basic game just for kicks and to expand my almost nonexistent programming skills, and when I discovered the Atomic Rocket site a couple weeks ago I was like "zomg I should make a hard sci fi starship game"

[Darth Wong]

It seems to me like it wouldn't be all that difficult for some intrepid programmer to whip up something with PHP and MySQL to host games using these fancy starship rules on an Internet server, since it's text-based anyway. It's not as if you need fancy graphics. Throw on some pretty icons and a star map that updates between turns, and you have something that's already far easier to play than the old-style manual method.

[Satori]

Fuck off. People are honestly posting EV fucking NOVA in a 'hard scifi game' thread? Now I've seen it all. Once again, a thread looking for xyz type of game recommendations has devolved into a 'games I like' thread.

Can you ever post in a thread without criticizing other people?

EV at least has newtonian physics, which puts it above Freelancer/Freespace/X on the harness scale, since they have spaceships apparently work like they are cars or something. You know, the old "in space, constant thrust = constant velocity" crap. And it's fun to play, unlike half of the games people have been mentioning.

And Nova, while it had neat new features, had a crappy storyline, and crappy campaigns. Using it as a baseline for the EV series isn't really fair. The real goodies of EV were in the superbly done mods, as I mentioned. I've yet to see a professionally developed space game that could match New Horizons or Frozen Heart for writing quality.

[Stark]

EV Nova is no more 'hard scifi' than fucking Star Control. It's 'storyline' and 'missions' has no impact on this fact. The entire EV series is NOT HARD SCIFI. The end.

BTW, when someone laughs at you for posting something inappropriate just because you like it, going on about HOW MUCH you like it isn't really a response, lol.

[Starglider]

It seems to me like it wouldn't be all that difficult for some intrepid programmer to whip up something with PHP and MySQL to host games using these fancy starship rules on an Internet server, since it's text-based anyway.

If you can play the whole game without needing to buy the paper version, then you're subject to a copyright lawsuit from the publishers (deservedly so). You'd have to charge for it and offer the publishers a revenue stream, and even if you did I imagine there's a strong chance they'd just turn you down (might not be up to quality, might affect imagined future licensing deals to a major studio, simple not-invented-here syndrome).

It's not as if you need fancy graphics. Throw on some pretty icons and a star map that updates between turns, and you have something that's already far easier to play than the old-style manual method.

I was thinking of writing something like that to support an STGOD here, but alas I just don't have the time ATM. Hopefully I will be able to do a targeteering simulation game later this year.

[Stark]

Ha! The obviuos reason why boardgame manufacturers would resist a simple java app that plays their game is because it would instantly put them out of business. Thus we get stuck with clunky and book-keeping intensive games that could easily be streamlined by a computer, but then the market for cardboard squares dries up.

[Starglider]

The obviuos reason why boardgame manufacturers would resist a simple java app that plays their game is because it would instantly put them out of business.

Wait, are you implying that gamers wouldn't rush out and buy the paper versions just so that they can read all the campaign setting fluff text? Next you'll claim that two-bit game studio writers aren't cranking out masterpieces of literature!

[Nyrath]

From the forums, I got the impression that the publisher didn't have the funds to hire a professional development team, and the amateur attempts just didn't manage to snag any decent, committed programmers. It's a very niche game after all.

That and the support issue. If somebody purchases your computer game and it does not work on their particular set-up, the company has to fix it, somehow.

Ken Burnside crunched the numbers for hiring a programming team, development, product fulfillment, support, expected number of sales. He concluded that it would not be profitable, in fact it would lose lots of money.

[Losonti Tokash]

Fuck off. People are honestly posting EV fucking NOVA in a 'hard scifi game' thread? Now I've seen it all. Once again, a thread looking for xyz type of game recommendations has devolved into a 'games I like' thread.

Can you ever post in a thread without criticizing other people?

EV at least has newtonian physics, which puts it above Freelancer/Freespace/X on the harness scale, since they have spaceships apparently work like they are cars or something. You know, the old "in space, constant thrust = constant velocity" crap. And it's fun to play, unlike half of the games people have been mentioning.

And Nova, while it had neat new features, had a crappy storyline, and crappy campaigns. Using it as a baseline for the EV series isn't really fair. The real goodies of EV were in the superbly done mods, as I mentioned. I've yet to see a professionally developed space game that could match New Horizons or Frozen Heart for writing quality.

Yep, EV definitely didn't have anything like that. Except for half the Polaris ships or all those ships that were actually psychic manifestations of some colony of earth that left thousands of years ago.

I think there were also space bugs that had reactionless drives for asses.

Also, at one point does EV become "fun?" Is it something you unlock after the 500th delivery mission (alternatively go here and try not to get murdered)?

[Ace Pace]

Ha! The obviuos reason why boardgame manufacturers would resist a simple java app that plays their game is because it would instantly put them out of business. Thus we get stuck with clunky and book-keeping intensive games that could easily be streamlined by a computer, but then the market for cardboard squares dries up.

I'm not sure... I personally know quite a few nerds (among them myself) who enjoy playing board games like Twilight Imperium with actual pieces because of the weight and feel. Maybe it's because it's actual quality stuff and not paper cut in nice shapes, like most board games out there.

[Faqa]

Ha! The obviuos reason why boardgame manufacturers would resist a simple java app that plays their game is because it would instantly put them out of business. Thus we get stuck with clunky and book-keeping intensive games that could easily be streamlined by a computer, but then the market for cardboard squares dries up.

I'm not sure... I personally know quite a few nerds (among them myself) who enjoy playing board games like Twilight Imperium with actual pieces because of the weight and feel. Maybe it's because it's actual quality stuff and not paper cut in nice shapes, like most board games out there.

Also that playing a boardgame is a social experience. One cannot duplicate the table chatter and atmosphere with a chat program.

This is beyond the fact that board games can lend themselves to a greater degree of freedom and flexiblity at need.

As well say that STGODs make tabletop RPG sessions obsolete.

[Starglider]

I'm not sure... I personally know quite a few nerds (among them myself) who enjoy playing board games like Twilight Imperium with actual pieces because of the weight and feel. Maybe it's because it's actual quality stuff and not paper cut in nice shapes, like most board games out there.

That's true, but games like Star Fleet Battles and Attack Vector Tactical have hugely complex rules compared to a typical wargame (say WH40K). Software support would be really useful even when playing the games physically - as it is if you've ever wanted to actual play out a 300-person skirmish in D&D instead of just deciding the outcome of the non-PC fights by GM fiat.

[Satori]

Playing out a 300 man skirmish in D&D isn't at all complex. only the 5-10 High level casters at all matter. the rest are just scenery.

Hell, i did a much larger battle in D&D for fun. Mages on two teams throwing out spells to "control" the enemy army and gain a tactical advantage for the mooks on their side. Dance, puppets, Dance!

But i take your point.