Evochron Legends, a freeform space-sim

Games
1

For those having the blank screen problems, apparently it was an issue with the beta being mistakenly available on several download servers. The updated version works fine, and fixes a few annoying bugs I found in the main game.

http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/about.htm

I just found out about this game, which is a rather pretty open ended space-sim which I think is being made by an indy developer. One of the things that piqued my interest about it was how it has seamless planet travel and space travel.

here are some screens:
http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/screenshots.htm



the features:

[I] -True freeform gameplay without plot restrictions, conditions, or limitations. No character attribute/skill limitations to hold you back. Experience ultimate gameplay freedom and play the game the way you want to. Your decisions and abilities define your role in the game and establish your reputations, wealth, progress, and ranking.

-Diverse gameplay choices and activities. New options including passenger transport, capital ship escort, military war zone missions, multiple waypoint patrols, and planet atmosphere combat contracts. There are many ways to make money and advance in the game.

-A vast seamless universe that lets you fly anywhere without loading screens. Fly from planet to planet, star to star, solar system to solar system seamlessly.

-Interactive training mode with selectable stages to provide the necessary basics for flying your ship, managing its systems, docking/landing, and surviving in combat.

-Unified gameplay architecture and profiles lets you keep the ship, upgrades, equipment, money, weapons, crew, and commodities you acquire in the game for use in both single player and multiplayer.

-Multiplayer capacity increased (for both human players and AI controlled ships).

-Clan ID linking system lets you establish your indicated threat levels with other players in multiplayer. Players sharing a common ID in their callsigns are linked together as friendly contacts while different ID’s are indicated as hostile. You can also link together in-game with another clan to form a larger group for better odds of success.
-Cooperative multiplayer objectives that pay all linked players. Join forces with other players to complete more challenging activities that can offer much better pay. More advanced players can link with new players to give them access to higher paying contracts that they would not otherwise have access to early in the game. Being part of the same team lets you combine reputations and contract pay for improved results.

-Challenge other players to multiplayer ship-vs-ship races and place the race course where you want in space. Players can each have their own track to race the clock against each other or race each other on the same track.

-Seamless planet descents that can include weather effects such as rain, snow, and turbulence. Explore planets for hidden benefits, trade at city stations, mine their surfaces for valuable materials, recover cells from plants for valuable biological material, or hide in their atmospheres… they are an important part of the game’s interactive universe… not just background scenery you can only look at.

-Ship-to-ship trading and cargo system. Ship and trade weapons, upgrades, and equipment in addition to commodities. You can even load items from your cargo bay onto your ship, letting you carry more weapons, upgrades, and equipment beyond what you can install on your ship.

-New energy pod generators and receivers, which players can use to set up ‘capture the flag’ scenarios and receive free fuel.

-New constructor stations that you can take raw materials to for crafting components and items.

-Optional customizable universe that lets you move objects in space, replace them, remove them, and change the local environment.

-Enhanced 3D game engine with new effects, objects, and textures.

-Dynamic economies with realistic variable item availability and specialized industries.

-Three weapon classes - beam weapons, particle cannons, and secondary missiles/equipment. New weapons and equipment include the Lynx, Rage and Cyclone missiles, proximity mines, probes, and new stealth technology.

-Explore for hidden commodity and weapon storage containers which offer free reloading, upgrades, and other valuable items.

-Use your wealth to design and build a new ship, buy better weapons, hire crew members, recruit other ships, install upgrades, load commodities, and more.

-All new Shipyard lets you design and customize your ship for the role you want to play. Optimize your ship for defense, exploration, combat, racing, or transporting… the choice is yours. You can also position and scale each component to give your ship a unique appearance. Civilian ships can also be painted a variety of colors.

-No required trade lanes or warp gates to hold you back. The game’s universe is yours to explore with an open space navigation system and built-in jump drives. Optional warp gates are available for faster long distance travel and you can also install new gates in desired locations with the game’s customizable universe.

-Realistic zero gravity inertia based ‘Newtonian’ style flight model including complete 3-way rotation and 3-way direction control with optional variable input. An advanced inertial dampening system helps keep flight control simple in space, atmospheres, and gravity fields. The physics system has been enhanced for improved realism based on ship type and design, including thruster-to-weight and acceleration/deceleration agility. Heavier and lighter ships alike now handle more realistically for their mass and configurations.

-Realistic environment interaction far beyond the genre’s typical ‘background wallpaper’. Nebula clouds, asteroid fields, planet atmospheres, moons, and more all provide unique options for shelter and strategy. Such environment elements include changes in gravity, fuel consumption, physics, sensor range, and visibility.

-Quick one-key access to jump drive navigation and inventory management. You control all system travel and inventory decisions right from the cockpit.

-Explore the game’s massive universe with several secret locations to discover and many unique objects/obstacles to encounter including black holes, asteroid caves, wormholes, and stars.

-Clue-based integrated story you can continue at virtually any time. Follow the beacons, solve the clues and voyage through many systems in a quest to discover the mystery of what happened at Arvoch and the device the Alliance found. Players who take on the challenge of the story quest and succeed will discover a very beneficial feature.

-Supports keyboard, mouse, gamepad, and joystick flight control. Use the control device you prefer to play the game. Force feedback control is also supported.

-Supports Natural Point’s TrackIR 3D head control system for managing the viewpoint from the cockpit with all six degrees of movement.

The next generation of Evochron launches soon![/I]
I don’t know what the release date is, but I figured I should spread the word about this game, since it seems like a more accessible version of the X games with planet exploration.

2

damn text limit

here’s the main description of the game:

[I] Evochron Legends is a freeform mercenary space-sim that focuses on ‘lone-wolf’ survival gameplay. You can play the game in a variety of ways and complete many activities including buying, trading, negotiating, bribing, spying, racing, escorting, transporting, mining, exploring, cleaning equipment, clearing paths through asteroid fields, recruiting, protecting, hiring crew members, fuel harvesting, and designing your ship. Evochron Legends is a technical simulation, not a character based simulator, so you are not limited by pre-selected character roles, skills, or attributes. Your decisions and actions define your role in the game and establish your reputations, wealth, progress, and ranking. The emphasis is on real-time tactical gameplay strategy for both combat and non-combat objectives. You are in control of your ship virtually all of the time in open space, including player controlled combat and planetary descents. Your ability to successfully pilot around or through dangerous objects in space, develop trade strategies, evade detection, harvest resources, efficiently explore for hidden benefits, and transport people and items can be just as important as your skill in combat. The game also rewards players who devise their own gameplay strategies and ‘think outside the box’. With diverse optional objectives and many paths to choose from, Evochron Legends offers an amazing level of freeform gameplay.

Evochron Legends features unified gameplay profiles for both single player and multiplayer. The upgrades, ships, equipment, money, and commodities you earn in the game can be used in both the single player and multiplayer modes. You don’t have to give up your progress in these areas when switching between single player and multiplayer, nor do you have to give up what you earn when you join different multiplayer sessions.

Everything you do in the game takes place in a seamless universe without system ‘walls’ or ‘rooms’ that require a jumpgate ‘door’ to access. There are no required warp gates or trade lanes to restrict your travel and hold you back. You can travel anywhere you want, with or without jump drives and gates, as long as you have the fuel and time to get there. You can descend into planet atmospheres (without loading screens or sudden environment flipping) to land at city trade stations, mine valuable materials, or explore for hidden items. You can escape to nebula clouds for sensor cover or hide in a massive asteroid cave for protection.

Design your ship for the role you want to play and customize the appearance by adjusting the position/scaling of the various parts of your ship. Whether it’s combat, exploration, mining, trading, racing, or a variety of other activities, you’ll find many ways to play and advance in the game. Below is a list of many features available in Evochron Legends.[/I]

3

This looks very interesting, not an MMO, right? wonder how pvp works,…

4

yup. single player with some multi

5

Today, according to their forum.

6

If it came out today, I think I will be purchasing it. It looks very interesting :)

7

I think they are shooting for tomorrow, Feb 5. Atleast thats what it says on a sticky in the forum.

8

What features set Evochron Legends apart from other space-sims?

  • Below is a list of unique features found in Evochron Legends. Some other space-sims might have some of these features, but Evochron Legends is the only one that includes all of them in one game:
  • Direct Ship-to-Ship trading in addition to stations and planet cities
  • Player controlled seamless planetary descents with city landings, plants, water, and weather effects
  • Atmosphere effects (drag, lift, descent burn/glow, maneuvering limitations, etc)
  • Diverse gameplay objectives including buying, trading, negotiating, bribing, spying, escorting, racing, transporting, mining, exploring, cleaning equipment, clearing asteroids, recruiting, protecting, and designing your ship.
  • Constructor stations that take materials and build valuable items
  • Unified single player and multiplayer architecture (keep what you earn in both modes)
  • Mouse, Keyboard, AND Joystick/Gamepad control options
  • Real-time gameplay docking and trading
  • Unrestricted, open space jump drive system travel
    - Realistic Newtonian physics
  • Hiring and managing specialized crew members
  • 3D cockpit with functional displays and readout text rendered as part of the 3D scene, not merely a 2D layer of text and pasted images
  • Fuel resource management
  • Dynamic changing economy
  • Customize HUD, cockpit, and ship/item names
  • Per ship reputations with optional bribing
  • Realistic revolving inventory availability
  • Radar (with 3D spherical direction indication)
  • Target direction tracking display (with optional multiple target tracking)
  • In-cockpit inventory and trade management
  • Directional shielding with augment control
  • Auto-repair ship upgrade devices
  • Stealth/cloaking devices
  • EMP weapons
  • Gravity effects
  • Multiplayer
  • AI based trade negotiating
  • HUD based direction and orientation guides
  • Variable maneuvering thruster control (for all directions and rotations)
  • All degrees of freedom of motion (forward/reverse, left/right, up/down, pitch, roll, and yaw)

Oh hell yeah

9

I can’t play a space game that doesn’t model all 11 dimensions of string theory, sorry.

10

If it models newtonian physics at this scale, it’s also modeling (supposed) string theory.

11

How is this different than Evochron: Renegades?

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from a quick glance at the screenshots, it has much better graphics

and since it’s a sequel, I’m going to assume it has new features/improved gameplay

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How is Evochron Legends different from previous Evochron games?

  • Evochron Legends adds many player requested features and changes. I’ve been able to implement most of the features I’ve had on my to-do list, some of which have been on the list for several years and weren’t feasible under the older game’s design. Here is a list of some of the changes and new features found in Legends compared to the older games:
  • New contract options including passenger transport, capital ship escort, military war zone missions, multiple waypoint patrols, and planet atmosphere combat.
  • Improved planetary descent effects, terrain (including plants), and cities.
  • All planetary cities can now be docked with.
  • High detail space stations with shape specific gravity repelling collision system.
  • New constructor stations that can take raw materials for constructing components and items.
  • Optional military role with new missions and dedicated ranking system.
  • New objective based beacon quest following the path of Michael Gerret in his search for answers to what happened to his brother and the mystery of the Vonari device from Arvoch Conflict.
  • Dockable Alliance military carriers.
  • New military ships available to own and fly.
  • Multiplayer capacity increased (for both human players and AI controlled ships).
  • New energy pod generators and receivers which can be used to set up ‘capture the flag’ scenarios in multiplayer and can be used to acquire free fuel.
  • ‘War Zones’ where large military battles take place and the player can join in a war against the Vonari.
  • Vonari interceptor and bomber class spacecraft to battle against in addition to the original fighters.
  • New weapons and equipment like the Lynx, Rage and Cyclone missiles, proximity mines, probes, and new stealth technology that can be installed as equipment and used repeatedly.
  • Updated training system with selectable stages available in the main menu.
  • New materials for harvesting and mining including oxygen, plant cells (biological material), water, gold, silver, and armor. - High energy nebulae that prevent jump drives from engaging, giving players PvP zones that prevent quick escape.
  • New high detail 3D cockpit with revised HUD, displays, and indicators.
  • Updated navigaton map with color coded icons, larger text (with shadows), and much greater range.
  • Painting options added for civilian ships.
  • New capital ships including Cruisers, Battleships, Command Ships, and Destroyers which also join in war zone battles, including the use of beam weapons.
  • Inbound missile direction and range indicators.
  • Improved AI with a wider variety of difficulty. AI ships also follow more structured traffic patterns.
  • Additional background radio chatter near populated areas to help give the game’s universe a more ‘living’ feel.
  • Many more gameplay, graphics, and sound improvements.

From here.

14

Cool. I own Renegades (and don’t play it enough what with the Holiday 2008 deluge) but this is tempting to fork out some $ for the new+shiny.

15

How was it?

16

I was always interested in Evochron, and even tried the demo of the first one-but it was a little too rough for my tastes. I am really excited for this one though, and would really like to try it.

17

So is it out or what? I’m a little hesitant to buy it because their website is pretty shitty.

18

I’m suddenly curious… I wonder what Derek’s up to nowadays?

19

The future of tactical warfare, naturally.

20

it’s out:

http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/purchase.htm