Dust off your Thrustmasters and unfold your quick reference keysheets - it's time to talk all things Space Combat.Games such as:Wing Commander seriesX-Wing SeriesI-WarPrivateer SeriesX SeriesTachyon the FringeFreespace SeriesStarlancerFreelancerMaybe Battlecruiser? I never really managed to get into playing it...Aiming more for the PC-focused 'Sim' type games, rather than the more console-focused shooters like Rogue Squadron, Incoming etc. I guess you can talk about them too.
>>11252780Have a bump. Here are two you didn't mention:HyperspeedXF57000 Mantis Experimental Fighter
>>11253660Thanks man - I certainly love these games. Amazing how popular they were vs. how obscure the genre feels now.These are two games I was not aware of, may well give them a go if I can get my Joystick working with DOSBox.
>>11253660>HyperspeedAlso - apparently the original promo site is still up: https://www.planetmic.com/orbit/hyperspd/hspd01.htm
>>11252780Haven't played many space combat sims.. Sadly most of that list. >-<; I was largely a console weeb most of my young life. I did play things like Colony Wars, EVE, I want to say G-police but it was hard as balls.. Also Star trek on gameboy brick, SW Battlefront, Infinite Space. :3
>>11252780I'm currently playing through X-Wing, but I'm using keyboard and mouse because I suck with joysticks.
>>11254225For my money, Tie Fighter is the better game, though X-Wing is still good.X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter wouldn't let you play unless you had a joystick IIR.If mentioning the series, obligatory mention also of the X-Wing Alliance hi-res mod, it really does look special.https://www.xwaupgrade.com/I think they were also remaking Tie Fighter in that engine, not sure where it got to.
>>11253914I think ultimately the games you listed are probably what won out and killed the genre overall. I loved the Space Combat Sim genre, but it's very difficult to have Sim like controls if you only have a max of 12 buttons to work with. I think Post-PS2, lots of distributors took the mindset that games had to be console friendly to be profitable. As generally these games took quite a lot of money to make - it effectively ended a lot of the franchises.If you're interested, and wanting to start with a friendlier one, Freelancer is abandonware and is playable purely on Mouse and Keys. You get to experience the whole, fighting space pirates, doing cargo runs and going through the story thing. I love being able to use a joystick though.
>>11254990Knew about several of these but since I kept moving it was hard to really settle in. I have a joystick but it's pretty outdated was using it back in early days of Microsoft Flight Sim|Combat :P so.. Good almost 2 or so decades lol.
>>11255021I still have a Sidewinder 3D Pro somewhere with the Serial connection from about 1997! Useless on today's PCs unfortunately. I need to get a new one really, my current USB joystick is the most basic Thrustmaster model. In the 'budget' range (£0-£100) it looks like this guy is the one to go for (picrel): https://amzn.eu/d/6n02Yf7
"Incoming jump signature, hostile configuration!" - the "shits getting real" of all shits getting real moments.
>>11255109I never managed to play Freespace, but a friend of mine used to love the netplay on 2; kind of sad I missed that.
>>11255085That TM is servicable until it isn't. I understand where you're coming from though.>"In the 'budget' rangeSucks that we must choose between good for now at an ok price or something more expensive but is approaching 'investment' territory.For anyone wondering, the usual suspects are Virpil and VKB. I've heard about a chink company called Winwing that gets shilled in the sim community, but I have no other info about them.
>>11255114Freespace actually passed me by back in the day, when I finally played them a few years ago I couldn't believe what i missed out on. I guess I was too busy with HL and Unreal in the late 90s to care about much else.
>>11255123I've really only recently got back to looking into this stuff after a long time away. I think the last time I checked in a Cyborg 3D Gold was still a good option before you got into full flight sim hobbyist gear.Sucks as well that build quality just isn't what it was before from the sounds of it.>good for now at an ok price or something more expensive but is approaching 'investment' territory.That was very much my feeling - it's either £50 or £150+ or £300+ unless you want to go for the aforementioned Winwing - they seem to have quite a lot of youtubers on their payroll!
>>11255134This shit looks rad as hell.
>>11255141It's definitely got that late 90s/early 00s Cyberpunk pirate space ship vibe down. I always remember wondering whether that massive lump on the stick wouldn't be uncomfortable.
I replay this shit once a year and it's about that time again.>>11255141I had that stick back in the day and still miss it. Shit felt fucking perfect, loads of adjustment, sturdy as fuck.
>>11254990What killed the genre, of flight sims, and not just space sims in general, is the autism of the flight sim community, and their preference for complex control schemes over interesting gameplay. This is why retro flight sims are the best. Games like Wing Commander and Harrier Jump Jet had complexity and depth, but also gameplay to back them up.
>>11255296I'm guessing here, but I'd say probably a bit of both - for a while, selling games to flight sim autists was genuinely seen as a decent market, with complexity, realism and compatibility with complex control panels and multi-monitor setups being major selling points. When Flight Sim 2004 sold 670,000 units (impressive for a PC game at that point) and multiplats were selling nearly double to five times that in 2003 - I'd say perhaps the writing was on the wall.If it was the case they were lumped in, it's sad space sims were seen in that space, as they weren't quite as detail focused, and they did have more action packed stuff.I'm sure someone's written an essay or done a 2 hour youtube exploration on the topic that I can't be bothered to look up right now!
>>11255229Based. Classic or HD upgrade?I've managed to finish the story, never quite manage to upgrade my ship to the highest level - I've never quite managed to get enough money to buy a positive rep back with the Corsairs.
>>11255476screenshots are from the HD edition.Honestly once you figure out some trade routes it's extremely easy to get max level and a top tier ship. I rarely do that or bribes anymore though as I just enjoy the combat mechanics and wanna shoot shit.
I'm one of the crazy neguars who played I-War 2 on keyboard and mouse. It actually worked reasonably well, since you needed a decent number of buttons for commands. Oh, and I played Freelancer on m+kb as well.
>>11255614>Oh, and I played Freelancer on m+kb as well.Anon, that game is entirely made for m+kb didn't stop me from playing it with a gamepad though.
>>11255614iwar2 is great with keyboard and mouse. i play it once a year. its awesome in ultrawide too
>>11255589I got pretty near the top (I think an Eagle or a Sabre - it's been a while), it's just the Titan, for which you need to be onside with the Corsairs that's eluded me (if you've been blasting them and their buddies for credits the whole game, you need crazy money for bribery before you even get to buying the ship).Yeah - particularly later on, the bounties pay more, you have fighters that can carry more and the credits can rack up pretty quickly. Perhaps I need to do an 'Outlaw' playthrough sometime soon.
>>11255229>>11255476>>11255589What is this? Infinite space?
>>11256278Freelancer - great game, definitely worth a play if you've never given it a go, it's abandonware currently so reasonably easy to find. Information on the HD mod here:https://www.moddb.com/mods/freelancer-hd-edition
>>11256327Top man, thank you!
>>11252780Gotta add elite and elite frontier/first encounters/etc...
>>11255085>T16000M FCSThe main stick axes are fine, but the twist rudder and throttle slider aren't Hall effect and will wear out (become jittery) after a while. They're stopgaps until you can buy a separate throttle and pedals (or whatever; depending on the game you may not need direct yaw control anyway, and throttle can go on buttons or something since you've got a visual thrust indicator in a lot of games)
>>11252780i have a question does anyone remember an online space sim called Alliance or something? it was one of the first sims with persistent online faction warfare afaik. never actually played it but I remember seeing ads for it and it looked so fucking cool. I think it was published by Microsoft but I'm not sure.
>>11257228Allegiance, and it's on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/700480/Microsoft_Allegiance/Not sure if anyone still plays it
>>11256441Thanks - good to know. I guess it's partly a question of how often it's being used. If it's for daily gaming then probably I will need to consider more of a seperate throttle/rudder unit at some point soon.Right now, my busted and very basic stick (yes, it's this one: https://www.thrustmaster.com/en-gb/products/usb-joystick/ and yes I wish I was joking) is putting me off playing a lot of these games, so it may be the T16000M FCS is a decent stopgap while I work out if it's worth investing in a decent HOTAS setup.
>>11257265Seems like there's a discord at least, but a lot of the reviews are noting it's a bit quiet at the moment.I haven't given it a go yet, but there's also this mod for Freelancer: https://discoverygc.com/ that looks linteresting - the base game/HD pack also has some multiplayer features, and around a year ago folk seemed to be saying there were generally around 50 people online.Looking around - Freespace 2 also has a scene still going, but for a lot of these older games you're needing to use custom clients and really get into the Discord/forums to find players.
>>11256361Yeah - that was an oversight!I haven't played Elite Frontier in a while - might be worth a go.
