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

[aimless]

As in:
-ships don't just suddenly stop after they get to the place you ordered them to move
-space is utterly massive and ships generally don't fight within shouting distance of each other
-combat might happen at such long ranges that light speed lag becomes an issue
-running out of remass to due frenzied combat maneuvers and/or long journey to target is an issue (ie no magic propulsion systems).
-a projectile fired at your opponent when you're moving towards each other is going to do a hell of a lot more damage
-no stealth

Anyways I could go on but those are the main points and you get the idea. Note that I'm not saying that a videogame with all that would necessarily be a good thing or that the vast majority of games which ignore these things are bad because of it (though I'm interested in that topic and would be happy to discuss it ). I just want to know if there is a game/games out there that include some of these points.

[Nephtys]

Relativistic effects don't make a fun game. Nor does shooting at icons because a target is a million kilometers away. And to be honest, if the relative velocity of the projectile matters so much, you're going to be dead no matter if that shell hits you at 1 km/s or 10 km/s.

Other than that, I think I-War is pretty much it. Whee for newtonian dogfights!

[Darth Wong]

In the old days, there were some text-based space combat simulation games. Pretty lame by modern standards, but because they lacked graphics except for an ASCII star map, they did not feel any need to draw pretty ships onscreen (and hence force the combat ranges to be small enough for those pretty visuals to look good).

[weemadando]

The closest I can personally recall is I-War, but that was only realistic in that it had some semblance of physics and you did a lot of BVR combat.

[Meest]

The scrapped Babylon 5 game used real space physics. It was available as a demo or fan completed, can't remember but couldn't get it to run. So not sure how the controls were or the ranges but it was advertised the Starfuries would behave with real physics.

[aimless]

Thanks for the I-war suggestion, looks pretty interesting and I'll be checking it out. Might dig around for that Bab5 game too.

As for those old text based ones, I'm not sure if I'll brave that for now :p

Relativistic effects don't make a fun game. Nor does shooting at icons because a target is a million kilometers away. And to be honest, if the relative velocity of the projectile matters so much, you're going to be dead no matter if that shell hits you at 1 km/s or 10 km/s.

You're telling me that your shots hitting being based entirely on chance because you're firing at where the enemy could be in a few seconds based on information on where he was a few seconds ago isn't totally awesome?!?

Actually, you could abstract that into a sort of rock/paper/scissors-ish game where the shooter picks a section of the 'possibility area' of places the enemy could be based on their ship specs, and the defender picks a section where he wants to move, the quantity of sections in the possibility area scaling with distance, and the number of sections the shooter can cover (as well as damage) based on weapon selection. Doesn't that sound like pulse-pounding action?

As for relative velocity mattering, I guess for some reason I was assuming a situation with reasonably effective ship armoring, which isn't particularly hard sci-fi...

Shooting at icons isn't so much of a problem with an RTS game because you could have your pretty 3d ships and just say that they're an abstraction blown up hundreds of times their actual size to make things playable.

[Steel]

The B5 space combat game is here.

http://ifh.babylonfive.ru/

Holy crap it looks like theres been a release recently! I think I remember nothing happening there since about 2002...

It has full newtonian motion, so you can control thrust in 6 directions and rotate in 6. There are 2 flight modes, one is inertial where you control everything (which is good) and then theres one where it automatically uses all your other thrusters to make the ship move like an aeroplane (which works as well as it should, but is a stupid way to fly).

Space is unlimited in the missions, and you actually make some journies of more than 20km (in the 100,000km ranges actually) so you have to make sure you dont misjudge your burn and zip past the waypoint at 60km/s and take several minutes to decelerate. If you use your main engines at full power they're much more effective than the reverse thrusters, so you'll want to be flipping round and using your afterburners to slow down on the second half of the trip to maximise speed (and of course minimise fuel economy, but its quite hard to run out of fuel).

[aimless]

Arg curse I-war2, it's apparently impossible to play without a joystick (I set controls to 'keyboard only' and after literally trying every single button on my keyboard none of them controlled which direction I pointed, merely forward/back and strafing). Pretty silly that you can't customize the controls or even look at them in game, but enough ranting about that. Time to try this Bab5 thing.

[Ghost Rider]

Off we go...

[Melchior]

http://www.x-plane.com/SpaceCombat.html
It's extremely unpolished, but relatively realistic, I suppose.

[Starglider]

Frontier : Elite 2 and its sequel First Encounters both had Newtonian space combat, accurately scaled systems and planets, meaningful fuel limitations and accurate trajectories (given that most ships could accelerate in the 5-20g range). In fact the only thing it doesn't have is light speed lag; sensors and comms are FTL, and engagement ranges are usually tens of km (for large ships) down to a few km (for fighters). Anyway I'd highly recommend both games - I spent many, many hours playing them when I was young.

[Karza]

Frontier : Elite 2 and its sequel First Encounters both had Newtonian space combat, accurately scaled systems and planets, meaningful fuel limitations and accurate trajectories (given that most ships could accelerate in the 5-20g range). In fact the only thing it doesn't have is light speed lag; sensors and comms are FTL, and engagement ranges are usually tens of km (for large ships) down to a few km (for fighters). Anyway I'd highly recommend both games - I spent many, many hours playing them when I was young.

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, and the flight control system wasn't exactly user-friendly. The game is available as a free windows-compatible version nowadays (GLFrontier I think that version was called), but IMO it has aged really badly.

[Covenant]

I-War and that BSG game where you could use newtonian drift during a dogfight are the only ones I can recall--there are boardgames that do it, but videogames are sparse.

It wouldn't be that hard to inject realism and make it playable, but you'd need to move away from a 'dogfight' mechanic and more towards a 'WWII battleship' style of sim, where you order shots fired. The drama of combat would come from having a roving camera follow your shot, switching to the enemy, showing their craft rocked by explosion--since you obviously can't see them on your viewports, and sensors make for boring viewing, just put it in "omniscent movie spectator" mode. If the combat were roughly turn-based, which isn't terribly unfeasible due to sensor lag and such, you could do that pretty easily.

Anyway, no, there aren't many. When people think "Space Combat Game" they know the consumer thinks star wars, star trek, and those kinds of things. Game designers would generally rather make a bad game that'll sell than a good game that'll confuse the hell out of people.

[Korvan]

There was one game I played quite a while back that was definitely on the realistic side. For the life of me, I can't remember its name. It was fighter based combat with Newtonian physics and your weapons were all missiles. I think you had a couple nukes that could take out formations Most of the time all you could see of your target was a reticule with maybe a single pixel at the centre being the actual enemy. Fuel was a concern, tho it was mostly used for your booster.

If I remember correctly, you were fighting some sort of insect race. The combat, while somewhat realistic was also quite boring. It was basically firing missiles at targets, saving nukes for clusters and then trying to dodge incoming fire.

Just did a bit of searching and I think the game is Mantis.

[open_sketchbook]

A friend of mine is making one, actually. It's graphics are just going to be dots and icons on a viewscreen, and there are several speed settings, fuel is a major issue, and so forth. The only place that it isn't super-hard science is that there is FTL travel (wormhole tunneling) that you can use both tactically and for interstellar travel.

[aimless]

Thanks for all the further suggestions

I've tried a bit of the Babylon 5 game and so far pretty good for a work in progress freeware. However holy balls is newtonian dogfighting a pain in the ass when you're just coming into it. Combined with it being difficult to hit things with your weapons, it takes me a long time to kill anything, which I wouldn't mind since I assume I'll get better at it, but the first mission is shortsightedly an escort mission where you have to take out the enemies extremely quickly or fail

It wouldn't be that hard to inject realism and make it playable, but you'd need to move away from a 'dogfight' mechanic and more towards a 'WWII battleship' style of sim, where you order shots fired. The drama of combat would come from having a roving camera follow your shot, switching to the enemy, showing their craft rocked by explosion--since you obviously can't see them on your viewports, and sensors make for boring viewing, just put it in "omniscent movie spectator" mode. If the combat were roughly turn-based, which isn't terribly unfeasible due to sensor lag and such, you could do that pretty easily.

Anyway, no, there aren't many. When people think "Space Combat Game" they know the consumer thinks star wars, star trek, and those kinds of things. Game designers would generally rather make a bad game that'll sell than a good game that'll confuse the hell out of people.

I kinda like the slower battleship style idea, though I wonder if you could use it to build a realistic RTS type game as opposed to a fighter pilot single ship one, since it would probably just be too boring for that.

Also I guess there are no realistic space RTS games, but after dogfighting with newtonian physics I wonder how mind-bogglingly frustrating newtonian RTS with dozens of units would be >< Though smaller fleets with decent automation would be manageable I'm sure. I suppose you could argue that maybe the Homeworld ships have automated thrusters that make them move like cars instead of spaceships, but they still stop on a dime.

[Commander 598]

If there is a market for the Silent Hunter series, there is a viable market for a "realistic" spaceship game, so long as time acceleration is included.

[Covenant]

The problem with a space RTS is the issue of accelleration. If you wanted it to be at all realistic, you'd probably want to do something very-very strage: Have the 'background' depict stars zipping past you at extremely high velocity, and play the map as if you were actually a group of fleets travelling at high speed through the cosmos, battling it out, with ships 'warping' in using FTL before joining the fight.

In any game that accurately depicts any kind of kinetic weapon, ranges should be infinite, and accuracy would be the big issue. You'd need to stay moving at all times. Any game that depicts any kind of beam weapon with a shred of realism should also have extremely long ranges and nearly impossible-to-avoid blasts of laserlight. If you can imagine the biggest Homeworld map with all sides being able to relatively accurately fire upon each other from maximum distance, you begin to see the problem.

You could make an RTS if you took the genre a little farther away from Starcraft, and made it so combat was a bit more like an auto-resolution without much micromanagement. Then you could deploy ships, have them track down the enemy, and play it all at a 'strategic' level with the map being roughly the size of a solar system and each ship just an icon indicating where your forces are. When they fight you'd get a feed telling you how the combat is going, and what's happening. It's be like a real-time version of Masters of Orion with the battles completely done in auto-resolution. Or, as I like to imagine it, more like a game of DEFCON than C&C. This might be realistic, but is it fun? I wouldn't know what to tell ya'.

You could probably hybridize the systems and take the "WWII Battleship" sim as the base, and have that be your flagship--and you pull in reinforcements, direct your force's attacks, and battle it out kinda like a Real Time Turn Based Strategic Simulation. RTTBSS. IE, more like those first person shooters where one takes the role of "commander" than actually a literal RTS.

[Covenant]

Crap, made a mistaken doublepost.

[Karza]

I've tried a bit of the Babylon 5 game and so far pretty good for a work in progress freeware. However holy balls is newtonian dogfighting a pain in the ass when you're just coming into it. Combined with it being difficult to hit things with your weapons, it takes me a long time to kill anything, which I wouldn't mind since I assume I'll get better at it, but the first mission is shortsightedly an escort mission where you have to take out the enemies extremely quickly or fail

In that respect, I-War would probably be a better place to start, since its tutorial missions do a pretty good job of easing you into newtonian space combat. Yeah, you need a joystick for it, but the game is worth it .

Also I guess there are no realistic space RTS games, but after dogfighting with newtonian physics I wonder how mind-bogglingly frustrating newtonian RTS with dozens of units would be >< Though smaller fleets with decent automation would be manageable I'm sure. I suppose you could argue that maybe the Homeworld ships have automated thrusters that make them move like cars instead of spaceships, but they still stop on a dime.

Well, in a strategy game handling the actual brass tacks of maneuvering would be left to the AI anyway, and shouldn't really be the player's concern. I think Nexus: The Jupiter Incident actually had newtonian physics, though IIRC that game suffers from bad interface, micromanagement and bugs.

Another game came to mind: Starshatter. It has newtonian space combat as well some sort of a strategic part, so you might want to check it out. There used to be a free beta version around, but now it's been taken over by Matrix Games and is apparently on the cusp of final release so it might not be available right now at all.

EDIT: Nevermind the free beta, that's just me talking out of my ass.

[Drooling Iguana]

The MMOG Vendetta Online has semi-realistic Newtonian movement, in that you can thrust in any direction and keep moving after you stop your engines, however it does impose a maximum speed which you can't accelerate past using normal engines.

[Netko]

For I-war, I would actually start with the sequel, since the stories are only marginally (setting) related, and the latter one has a lot of refinement in the controls, gameplay and story (although the story part depends on if you prefer a more character-driven or faction-driven plot).

As far as other semi-hard sci-fi games, there is also Nexus: the Jupiter Incident. Starts as a pretty much "hardest" depiction I've seen - you literally spend several months on a Earth-Jupiter trip, ships are rotating-sections based, etc. However, it fast devolves into traditional sci-fi cliche stories with your main ship being essentially a cross between the Andromeda and a Whitestar. A shame really.

[Alan Bolte]

Thanks for all the further suggestions

I've tried a bit of the Babylon 5 game and so far pretty good for a work in progress freeware. However holy balls is newtonian dogfighting a pain in the ass when you're just coming into it. Combined with it being difficult to hit things with your weapons, it takes me a long time to kill anything, which I wouldn't mind since I assume I'll get better at it, but the first mission is shortsightedly an escort mission where you have to take out the enemies extremely quickly or fail

I remember the first mission as being relatively easy, that is, the later missions are mostly more difficult. That said, I've beaten all of them more than once. It definitely takes some time to learn how to fly. The main thing is to focus on putting yourself within range of your target, and at a low relative speed to it, and then worry about trying to shoot at it. When possible, focus on targets that are attacking something besides you, and just keep moving in arcs so that anyone shooting at you doesn't have an easy shot. There are probably more dogfighting tips in the forums.

Also, have you tried altering the difficulty settings? I'm not entirely certain that easy is easiest and ace is hardest, it's funny how these things can be.

Finally, if you'd rather, you could try the skirmish mode first, so there's not the time limit. You can download some custom missions from the forums too.

[Stark]

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?!??!?!?!?!?!

[Adrian Laguna]

Shooting at icons isn't so much of a problem with an RTS game because you could have your pretty 3d ships and just say that they're an abstraction blown up hundreds of times their actual size to make things playable.

That's how the Starfleet Command games handle it. Visually it looks a lot like typical Star Trek combat, but the game make it rather clear that the distances are in tens of megametres, so while visually ships at a distance of 1 maybe seem to be within spitting range of each other, they're actually trading shots from 10,000 km away. Maximum firing range is just over one light second, but most combat is conducted at around 80,000 km. Space stations can blast ships from a million km away (lol spinal mounts), which can make assaulting them rather difficult. Being a Star Trek game, however, that's pretty much the only aspect of the game that at all realistic.

In any game that accurately depicts any kind of kinetic weapon, ranges should be infinite, and accuracy would be the big issue. You'd need to stay moving at all times. Any game that depicts any kind of beam weapon with a shred of realism should also have extremely long ranges and nearly impossible-to-avoid blasts of laserlight. If you can imagine the biggest Homeworld map with all sides being able to relatively accurately fire upon each other from maximum distance, you begin to see the problem.

See above, you could have the ships out of scale with the combat ranges.

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.

Some guy made a combat generator for it, I like to set up fights between the early ships, that can be fun. Especially with the nukes, I can't believe Nexus is the only dammed game that has nuclear weapons make very large flashes in space (though they last too long, and should be white, not yellow).But yeah, Nexus is a pretty crappy game, the combat generator is only worth it if you already have the game.