5266

Thanks for this.

5267

Nice. Thanks.

5268

In another thread @rho21 championed Endless Sky:

Other mentions around the forum are from @mprod and @BrianRubin in this very thread from August 2015.

Does anyone have any experience of it? I started playing last night and so far it’s a very good EV:N clone, though I haven’t had any real combat yet. But I’m liking what I’m seeing so far/

It’s a free and open-source game being worked on by a single main volunteer, which leaves me worried about playing further incase the game ends up being really empty and devoid of scripted content, which is the opposite of EV:N, which was jam packed full of content. I don’t really want to “waste” my time, if you know what I mean!

5269

I enjoyed both Endless Sky and Naev a lot.

Both are free, so just play and enjoy.

5270

I can’t enjoy if it turns out to be EMPTY and MEANINGLESS! I don’t want to play through only to hit a brick wall of “todo: insert content here” and have all of the fun turn to ashes in my mouth! I want a complete “experience”. This is basically Tom’s complaint about EA, I think?

I looked this up myself earlier today and it turns out that only a single major “storyline” is implemented associated with one of the factions. Whereas EV:N had like at least one major story line for each faction.

Naev is similar and still half-finished.

I think, rather than playing half-complete EV:N clones, I might see if EV:N can still be installed and run on Windows 10…

5271

A major storyline in ES is picking which side of the emerging conflict you want to join and helping them for the duration. You’d definitely be able to do only one per playthrough anyway. So yeah, you’ll only get the one playthrough at the moment, and no choice of which faction you prefer.

5272

Shrug Then go play Space Rangers HD, or Rebel Galaxy, or Beyond Sol, or Drox Operative, or any of the numerous other top-down, 2D space games that are complete, man.

5273

Question: are there any of these kinds of games that don’t focus on combat? I’m more interested in something story driven, really, with interactions with aliens/people (aliens are people, too?), rather than just going around, blowing everything up. I mean, I like stuff like Everspace or Rebel Galaxy, but sometimes I just want something more substantial than fight this, now go fight that, you know?

5274

Well, there’s No Man’s Sky… (ducks his head and runs away)

5275

Well, recently we have Scavenger SV-4, but beyond that, you’re gonna have to go back a bit to games like:

  • Noctis
  • Millennia: Altered Destinies
  • Starflight
  • Nomad

Because most spaceship-focused games have quite a bit of combat.

5276

Yeah, sure, but it’s still got combat and the story elements aren’t all that interesting.

Hmm. Haven’t heard of this before. I’m re-installing Starflight, but perhaps I’ll take a look at this, too. Though the horror elements aren’t really what I’m looking for right now. Thanks!

True, but a bit of a pity.

5277

I’ll also mention that, in Evochron Legacy, you can get by without doing any combat if you like. There is a war going on, but you can totally avoid it by mining, exploring, racing, cleaning (yes, cleaning) and so on. It’s far easier to avoid combat in that game than, say, Space Rangers or Elite, where combat just happens all over the damned place.

5278

Man, I’m trying to think of other spaceship-focused games that are less focused on combat, and I am having a REALLY tough time.

In looking through my list, games with minimal combat are very few and far between, but I guess you could also add:

  • Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
  • Star Trek: Judgement Rites

Guh, that might be it.

5279

Helium Rain? I admit I havent got that far in it but I was playing pure trader when I was. The lore was pretty bad ass too.

5280

Thanks for the suggestions! Yeah, the Star Trek adventure games I break out at least once a year. Final Unity (the TNG one) is also really good.

5281

Good call on Helium Rain. It DOES have combat, but it’s a while before you can even think of engaging in it.

5282

This is a great game, but if I recall, it lacks the spaceship combat parts of its predecessors.

5283

No, it has space combat, complete with wildly spinning Enterprise-D and Romulan warbirds! Frankly, it can look rather ridiculous. Fortunately, you can “delegate” combat and then you don’t have to worry about it.

To be honest, I always delegate; I also pick the difficulty in Judgment Rites that allows you to skip all combat (which was no doubt an acknowledgement on the part of the developers that space combat in 25th Anniversary was… an acquired taste, shall we say. I much preferred the adventure elements, the puzzles, the stories.

5284

Wow, it must’ve been terrible because I’ve completely forgotten about it.

5285

It is! (Rest of the game’s pretty great, tho.)