Add player assets such as fleets and stations and you've got a perfect game 😉

Basically as I said before cross Frontiers and MegaTraller and make the cities like GTA.

I want to see a game which includes the ability to go anywhere (space travel, leaving your ship, stations, planets) as much as everyone else, but FIRST what I'd like to see is much, much simpler.

What I really think games in the genre need is the grasp on the concept of "progression" that games in other genres have.  By progression I mean that over the course of playing the player is given new ways to interact with the game, new activities, the promise that if you keep playing the game will provide you with new tools to play more effectively or in different ways.  Now, I know there is a huge stigma against this word by dedicated fans of space-sims (which I think is a bad thing), and yes, I appreciate that "non-linearity" is one of the things that make space-sims special, and I absolutely would want that to continue to be the case, but a game can still have a sense of progression even if it does not involve leveling up a character.  There's a reason why finding a new gun in Borderlands is so exciting, there's a reason why so many people find Grim Dawn addictive, there's a reason why one feels compelled to complete Axiom Verge in one sitting, there's a reason why Stardew Valley is so unbelievably popular (even though I'd probably find that last example mind-numbing myself): it's because they do all the things I just mentioned, they give you new ways to interact with them as you keep playing, they give you very compelling reasons to keep going.

To my great frustration, recent space-sims (and other things in the "space" genre) have been failing to get this right over and over again.  The closest thing to a space-sim which I think has been at all successful with this is EVE, as long as one is willing to overlook the enormous temporal and monetary investment that game requires.  Let's look at some recent games: everything you get in Evochron Legacy (or previous Evochron games) is absurdly incremental (perhaps it would be a good tool for teaching calculus, that was an epsilon of a joke): the game gives you nearly direct control over continuous variables which let you tweak your damage and maneuverability by tiny increments, no weapon I have discovered seems to function in a way which is significantly different from the ones you start the game with.  Obtaining a new ship in Elite Dangerous is exciting, and yes, you have to spend a little time upgrading it, but with few exceptions those upgrades feel extremely incremental and, though flying a different ship can drastically alter the way you play the game, nothing you can mount on it really does, there is none of the endless experimenting with a bewildering variety of fitting options like there is in EVE, there really aren't any new activities to engage in other than the very few you discover within the first couple of hours of playing.  In Starpoint Gemini 2 you find progressively bigger and more powerful ships: but that's pretty much it, none of the new weapons or defenses cause you to play differently, you've seen everything there is to see in the first 15 minutes of playing.

Where is the excitement of finding a new gun in Borderlands or Nuclear Throne?  What is compelling me to take a new mission?  Where is the staggering number of different (meaningfully, gratifyingly different) ways to fit the modules on your ship like there is in EVE?  What is compelling me to keep playing at all?

The saddest part is that none of the games on the horizon seem certain to remedy this.  The complexity of the ship-fitting system in Star Citizen is encouraging, what they are saying about Elite Dangerous Engineers sounds like it's coming from people who at least have a little bit of understanding as to why their game is so widely disliked, No Man's Sky looks like it will be the most wonderful, spectacular walking-simulator I'll ever play that will incorporate precisely none of what I've been ranting about this whole time.  Perhaps something far simpler and less ambitious like Everspace will be the first to show other makers of space-sims what they are doing wrong.  Some people, like the folks in the Elite Dangerous forums, would mercilessly hammer me for (god-forbid) wanting to continually get new experiences from a game, but to those people I say that I PROMISE that adding some notion of "progression" to a game does NOT necessarily turn it into WOW (just look at EVE).

So yes, I want to see a game in which I can explore absolutely every part of an enormous universe, have the whole Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, Captain Kirk experiences that we all talk about, the development process of which will consume the equivalent of the entire GDP of Switzerland, but first I would really like to see some people get right the simple things that so many developers of games in other genres have understood for 30 years.  

Well put ExpandingMan, something worth exploring further into I think.

I suppose I can sum up my desire as: I want to explore ever layer! Walk around my own ship? check! board enemy ships while fighting their crew? check! explore derelict ships and stations? check! inhabited stations? check! cavernous asteroids? check! planets, the cities on planets, hidden installations on planets, some random cave on a planet? all the checks! Oh and of course explore space and visit different star systems? check!

(...)

I think you should take a look at Pulsar: Lost Colony, most of these features are present and the game has grown to a very interesting playable stage for up to now.

@ExpandingMan,

yes, your idea of 'Progression' is a real concern IMO. But you must realize that such a game would have to be huge-scaled in all sort of activities, planetside, space-side, quests etc. to make it worth such a progression.

I remember that The Precursors had such a progression system, it was more like a general Power-Up system where new places and activities were revealed after you had completed successfully a serie of missions on a planet. Same with the weapons you could use, but such 'simple' power-ups are now much more common-place in all space sims.

Has a space sim to be realistic? Well, not necessarily. It has to give IMO a good amount of fascination where you want to repeat your actions, but you realize that now they play differently, new elements in the same situation are leading to a new experience. Such virual worlds and NPC's behaviors are  probably very difficult to get coded for showing such results, but I expect some of the sims to come close to it in the near future.

XenonS

I want to see a game which includes the ability to go anywhere (space travel, leaving your ship, stations, planets) as much as everyone else, but FIRST what I'd like to see is much, much simpler.

 

What I really think games in the genre need is the grasp on the concept of "progression" that games in other genres have.  By progression I mean that over the course of playing the player is given new ways to interact with the game, new activities, the promise that if you keep playing the game will provide you with new tools to play more effectively or in different ways.  Now, I know there is a huge stigma against this word by dedicated fans of space-sims (which I think is a bad thing), and yes, I appreciate that "non-linearity" is one of the things that make space-sims special, and I absolutely would want that to continue to be the case, but a game can still have a sense of progression even if it does not involve leveling up a character.  There's a reason why finding a new gun in Borderlands is so exciting,... it's because they do all the things I just mentioned, they give you new ways to interact with them as you keep playing, they give you very compelling reasons to keep going.

 

To my great frustration, recent space-sims (and other things in the "space" genre) have been failing to get this right over and over again.   ... there is none of the endless experimenting with a bewildering variety of fitting options like there is in EVE, there really aren't any new activities to engage in other than the very few you discover within the first couple of hours of playing.

 

Where is the excitement of finding a new gun in Borderlands or Nuclear Throne?  What is compelling me to take a new mission?  Where is the staggering number of different (meaningfully, gratifyingly different) ways to fit the modules on your ship like there is in EVE?  What is compelling me to keep playing at all?

 

The saddest part is that none of the games on the horizon seem certain to remedy this. 

 

So yes, I want to see a game in which I can explore absolutely every part of an enormous universe, have the whole Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, Captain Kirk experiences that we all talk about, the development process of which will consume the equivalent of the entire GDP of Switzerland, but first I would really like to see some people get right the simple things that so many developers of games in other genres have understood for 30 years.  

You may want to keep an eye on Limit Theory.  It's a space game with the goal of delivering unique experiences every time the player generates a new game universe (using procedural content).

On the point of interaction:  As the player progresses through Limit Theory they will discover additional options to deal with hostile factions.  These range from researching better tech, stealing the enemies blueprint for the item (which would halt the production), attacking their miners or traders to drive up the cost of producing copies of said item, or just go the traditional route and strike with an over whelming force.

It is for these reasons, and the reasons stated in your post that I've been following the development of Limit Theory.

You may want to keep an eye on Limit Theory.  It's a space game with the goal of delivering unique experiences every time the player generates a new game universe (using procedural content).

 

On the point of interaction:  As the player progresses through Limit Theory they will discover additional options to deal with hostile factions.  These range from researching better tech, stealing the enemies blueprint for the item (which would halt the production), attacking their miners or traders to drive up the cost of producing copies of said item, or just go the traditional route and strike with an over whelming force.

 

It is for these reasons, and the reasons stated in your post that I've been following the development of Limit Theory.

But it's going slow atm. Josh had personal issues etc. I'm following it for years now.

Yeah I think I've popped in and out of the LT development stuff over the years ... for a single developer it is certainly an immense task and it seems to take its toll on him. Hopefully he continues to make progress, some of the stuff he's done already is quite impressive and as some suggested maybe could part with that as a sort of development tool, maybe recoup on the kickstarter thing ... I don't know if that would work.

By yes, sort why I put my ideas into the 'dream' category, at least for now.

 

 

Yeah I think I've popped in and out of the LT development stuff over the years ... for a single developer it is certainly an immense task and it seems to take its toll on him.

I had been following the development for a while, but sadly it certainly seems that the developer fell off the face of the Earth.  Quite a shame as it was looking very interesting.

Big interesting projects usually start with 1 or 2 persons (aka Microsoft). With only one, the whole development pressure rests on this single person, and if he wants to take a break then the whole project is stopped.

It is generally a good idea to involve more people when the project gets big-scaled like in Limit Theory. It's a delicate choice, I imagine (can't speak from own experience). But otherwise the LT project could never see the light of day, unaware how fantastic and great it is.

XenonS