Hey Bullwinkle

Welcome to SSC.

Good ole Chris Roberts hasn't been working on any games that I know of for quite some time. He did jump entirely into the movie producing career. Which up until now Outlander is by far his best effort (people should watch it). Wing Commander games will always be held high on my list because of the game design and presentation.

Hmmm right now not many games out or coming that are trying to replicate FL game style, I know Infinity: Quest for Earth would be my first pick but that is still at least a year away. Heresy War (MP demo & mod tools coming soon) has a nice design but is more mission based like WC games and doesn't have the open game concept right now, but authors said anything might be possible with the mod tools. Northstar is another game that you will want to look at as well.

How about recommendations for already-released games that are newer than Freelancer?

I do have a box full of joysticks and a fast computer to play on if I have to. 🙂

I also liked the Mechwarrior series... I think it is the combination of strategy and action that appeals to me.

Hi Bullwinkle

Welcome to the SSC! 😀

There are a few recommendations, if you need that "trader" fix, the X series might suit you, or perhaps Darkstar One and don't forget Frontier First Encounters 3D, which is kindly provided as a download by Darkone on this very forum. The whole game has been updated by Russian coders and looks splendid. Also various new ship models are coming out for it all the time.

For mission based games, I still love Tachyon The Fringe, its older than Freelancer, but oh so playable. Recently bought The Tarr Chronicles and its pre-equal Dark Horizon. Just started on these, but like them, although if you do go for them, remember and get all the latest patches, eg the Patches Scrolls site is quite good. Here is a link:

http://www.patches-scrolls.de/

Hope that helps! 😉

Is it not the 20th anniversary of Wing Commander sometime next year and is EA doing anything

to mark it. ❓

you might want to have a look at Space Merchants Conquerors.Only thing is it in strange foreign language.But it is free.

Looks like they may be starting work on it again.

http://www.dataweb.sk/projektsm/index.htm

Yeah SMC is a decent game, I have it in the download area as well here: Space Merchants: Conquerers

I remember seeing that work on a MMO style version of this was going to happen and didn't post anything on this. Bad me 🙂

Speaking of free freelancer type game there also SIGNUM would be worth a look.

http://signum.lokiman.com/

Just press escape to get out of the intro.

Never tried signum Pinback, I thought it was unfinished?

No idea,I had a play around with last year but I can't remmender the details of the game.

Thank you all for the suggestions. I have looked at a couple and will look at all of them.

But, somehow, the consensus answer sounds like, "No, nobody has ever done anything like Freelancer, and probably never will." OK, so that's an exaggeration to make a point, but this is why I am looking for help from you folks.

What I am looking for

I just feel like playing a game, that's all. I do it once a year or so -- find a really intriguing game, play it night and day for a week or two, then put it on the shelf until my next binge. Chris Roberts was perfect for my schedule... I didn't have to think or shop for a game... I just waited until his next release.

Now I find myself looking at an endless list of games and being disappointed by all of them. That's what brought me to SpaceSimCentral.

What appeals to me

I like the combination of puzzle-solving and action. Wolfenstien, Doom, Quake, Tomb Raider, Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer, MechWarrior. I love it when there is a twisted sense of humor, like Black and White, or taunting Retros in Privateer. Adventure, the Zork series, and anything by Infocom, too... largely because of the quality of the writing. The first Privateer was the most fun game I've ever played, although Freelancer perfected the interface.

Pure strategy games don't cut it for me. Neither do pure action games. I need both.

I did try the DarkStar One demo when it was first released and I bought the first game in the X series. Neither seemed anything at all like Freelancer to me. The only other sci-fi game series I have found that has similar appeal is MechWarrior. Microsoft bought both Freelancer and MechWarrior then disbanded the teams (heavy sigh).

The thing that I like about Privateer, Freelancer, and MechWarrior is the ability to hot-rod my own equipment. It is not important to me whether the player earns money by hauling cargo or smuggling or pirating or blowing things up... I just like the fact that there is some way to earn money and then go to the equipment shop to trick out my ride.

I think that multi-player games are amazing and can be a lot of fun for a party... but I don't care about playing them in general. It's just not my thing. To paraphrase Trent, "[Multi-player servers] come and go. I would prefer to keep on Freelancing if it is all the same to you." 🙂

My sense of SpaceSimCentral is that others share some of my tastes, and I am hoping that you folks can help me to find the next great game.

Thanks for all your help!

B

Do you have a console? I'd recommend Armore Core For Answer. If hot-rodding is your thing, believe me that's all you'd be doing for the next week or two, or however long your binge lasts. It's a mech building/fighting game with online coop & pvp, although like you I prefer single player but the only way to really prove your mech design is by testing it vs. other players' designs. Game has over 300 different parts/weapons. 10s of thousands of players online and I've never seen the same mech twice.

For Freelancer type games, the closest thing I've played to it since Freelancer came out was Darkstar One, and it's not nearly as fun. Still a good game, but if you really want something close to FL that's newer than FL, you're probably out of luck mate. I'm in the same boat...that's why I'm looking at trying some FL mods for the first time, which you've so kindly helped me with in the other thread.

I am like this in a lot of the games I play I enjoy a great single player game more than a multi-player. A game you should keep your eye on is Heresy Wars, NorthStar and Wing Commander Saga. I will do a Q&A with C0mas shortly to get a lot more feedback on the story and progression and what you can/cannot do in HW. Northstar will be a freelancer style game, definitely one to watch and WC Saga is of course in the WC universe but using an updated FSO engine and these guys are doing amazing work... I have a lot of their work in the Community Gaming section.

I have always enjoyed BioWare games (SW:KOTOR 1&2 and of course BG2), Deus Ex (only #1), Gothic I & II. All those games had great stories and good to great gameplay elements. I am in a state of limbo myself waiting on a game to play.

Mass Effect. Yeah I'm gonna beat it to death. 😎

Cool. Thanks, DarkOne, Shant, Geraldine, et al. At least I know that I am not alone in my quest! And you have given me some good leads to follow up and/or watch for.

No console... I usually play on my laptop or a development server with a good video card. I work with servers so I usually have one around, and they tend to have big memory and fast disk arrays which are ideal for gaming. They usually have the cheapest video card in the world, but that is an easy fix.

I sometimes have trouble with drivers, because the high-end video guys don't make drivers for server operating systems. I had that trouble with Mass Effect when it first came out. I could never get it to work. I'll try again... hardware has come a long way since then.

Since you asked about consoles, Shant, an interesting side-note is that I read somewhere that the Air Force has tens of thousands of PS3's in a big network! Maybe they use them for cheap flight simulators or something. 😕

B

I didn't know about the Airforce, but I know that there's a study (can't recall the name at the moment) that networks all the ps3s concurrently. The ps3 has an extremely powerful cpu called the cell processor, and apparently when amassed like that it can do a lot of math at an accelerated rate.

Oh yeah, do try Mass Effect again. You absolutely cannot go wrong with that game mate.

Yeah they are buying 2200 more of them and since they can run Linux OS it is a very powerful linux machine for the price of $300. I believe I read something when the USAF is done with the PS3 cluster it will be one of the most powerful super computers around.

Just think of the LAN party you could have 🙂

Also, looking at picking up Dragon Age: Origins. All the reviews and some of my friends say they enjoy it thoroughly.

I got Dragon Age for the PC and was a bit disappointed. Story seems great, but fighting is nothing but mouse clicking.

I have a few of these ideas on my list to try, I but just fired up Tachyon and I can immediately appreciate it. It reminds me of the X-Wing series in many ways -- balancing shields, engines, and weapons like Captain Kirk; pressing 9 to keep pace with another ship, etc.

The interface is nauseatingly complex... so many games attempt to add "realism" with all of these controls but, without a real-life cockpit and three displays for all of the necessary indicators, it just makes playing them annoying. At least, that's my two cents on the subject. 🙂

I have "flown" a lot of flight simulators, too. They are interesting, but I always felt as though I needed a Thrustmaster Cockpit in order to really "fly" them well!

Simplifying the interface is one thing that Chris Roberts did beautifully. He put realistic Newtonian flight into Freelancer and made it so simple that you could play it with a mouse -- no joystick required! He did the same thing with F-15s in Strike Commander, which was the most fun flight simulator for my tastes, even if it was not as realistic as others.

Anyway, thanks for the tip. I am having fun trying out all of these ideas from you folks at SSC.

B

You'll love Tachyon, stick with it! Do take full advantage of the 'slide' feature too.

Oh, yeah! The first thing I did was slide... just like Freelancer and the Wing Commander series.

This Mako is pathetic, though... both the lasers and the shields are wimpy, and the hull is like an eggshell. How am I supposed to take on six superior fighters in this?!

It seems as though Bruce Campbell ought to get more work than he does. He is good in Burn Notice and was great as Briscoe County.

B

Freelancer had slide?? To think I played through the whole game without realizing it. More a statement about their tutorial (or lack of one) than anything.

Ah wait, you mean the engine kill? Almost forgot about that, scratch the last post. The freelancer & Tachyon slides are somewhat different though, no?

Yes, "engine kill" and "slide" produce identical motion. The only difference is that the Freelancer version is a more convenient toggle... just do it once at the beginning of combat and slide your way through the battle using the [after]burner for bursts of speed.

Yeah, Freelancer gets tough toward the end if you don't learn to slide.. you probably figured that out! With a little practice and a more difficult mod, you'll quickly see that you can do much tougher missions in a lesser ship. Try a Rhino just for fun... the larger cargo hold makes it easier to earn credits.

I agree that sliding should be in the tutorial. There are signs of some kind of struggle between Chris Roberts and Microsoft: the repetitive bar dialog, the fact that the single-player story doesn't last long enough for you to get to a high enough rank to buy the ships that you see at the ship dealer, and the lack of a more advanced tutorial are just some of the clues.

The Freelancer engine is a nearly perfect space sim engine, but little content was built for it. These game companies don't make their games mod-able for the fans, they do it so that it is easier for themselves to make sequels and add-on packs. But no more content for the brilliant Freelancer engine. 🙁

I know I have mentioned Crossfire a couple of times... this reminds me of another feature. The AI in Freelancer is the best I have seen, and you don't even see it working at its best during the official game. For example, one of the favorite ways of improving your Rep with almost all factions is by killing Xenos. Everybody hates the Xenos, so hang around near one of their bases and kill 50 or so and everybody else will like you. Kill too many and the authorities will like you so much that the Outcasts and Corsairs start to dislike you again.

However, if you try that approach in Crossfire, the Xenos quickly learn that you are an ace and they scurry away when they see you coming... whimpering that they do not want to die while they do it! One of the bar rumors points out that they are too pathetic to bother killing. 🙂 And, when you fight the more experienced AI aces, they run once their shields and hull are down, which makes it hard to actually get a "kill" without a cruise disruptor. They also duck and recharge their shields when you knock them down too quickly, which can make it much more difficult to take out a Very Heavy Fighter (Eagle, Sabre, Titan). It would be nearly impossible without sliding.

Oh, I almost forgot... there was a point in Crossfire where some suspicious neutral ships were kind of checking me out. I was stopped for some reason, and they slowly circled me and came to a dead stop, too. The instant that I targeted one of them, all four turned red and blew me out of the sky.

I had to laugh... I thought that was pretty cool AI work!

Wow...I don't recall seeing anything like that! Gotta stop lagging and install one of these mods before I lose the feel of how to play Freelancer. I'm a controller person and it doesn't take very long at all before the gameplay is 'no longer in my fingers', so to speak.

Tell me, in Freelancer, after you kill the engines, you continue flying in one direction. But can you turn while you travel in that direction, the way you can in Tachyon?

Yep, that's the point of the maneuver. You don't do Immelmans or barrel rolls in a star fighter... you do slides and flip backwards while firing forward (it's faster than turning at high speed) and fly in loops around a capital ship while keeping your guns facing the target. Most decent space sims have some way to do it.

The first ship I ever saw sliding like that was a Kilrathi in Wing Commander (an early Chris Roberts game). They were tough to hit until I learned to slide myself.

Tip: If you use "Go To" to autopilot to a waypoint, you won't be able to slide until you cancel from autopilot mode (Esc), even if you get knocked out of cruise speed by a cruise disruptor. You're still in "Go To" mode until you cancel. There is no visual indication... you just don't slide. That took me a few minutes to figure out -- while pressing frantically on the "Z" key trying to get the slide to work. 🙂

I'm playing BigDaddy Storyline (FL mod) now. The AI has been cranked up to a comically high level. If you try to run from pirates, half of them cruise past you so that you run right into them while trying to escape the rest.

They also turn off their engines and shields and lurk near wrecks -- undetectable to your scanners. You think you are safe as you slowly approach the wreck to grab the loot and then, suddenly, two wings of pirates appear on your scanner; all shooting at you from close range!

It's pretty bad-ass. In fact, it is so tough that it is hard even with double-strength guns.

Here's another Freelancer tip: If you highlight your Countermeasures in the weapons section of your HUD, they don't fire along with the rest of your guns. Instead, they fire automatically every time the ship's computer detects a missile locking on to you. It's a huge help in a big fray. It also increases your chances of being able to escape using cruise drive.

Yeah, try the mods. They aren't the same as an official expansion pack, but they show off some of the excellent features of the Freelancer game engine - including some features that you don't even see while playing the plain vanilla game.