Notifications
Clear all

Space Simulation Best Features


xeoncat
(@xeoncat)
Petty Officer Registered
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 33
Topic starter  

I'm trying to find a specific feature for my would be space game, so I'd like to know what are your favorite things in a space flight simulator in terms of experience. You may mention stuff from existing games. For example I like exploration, but more specifically I like the feeling of driving the Mako in Mass Effect and not so much scanning planets in Elite Dangerous. I love the newtonian flight of KSP, but it would probably be too realistic for a game with close quarters combat, those are the nuances I'm looking for in order to find unique stuff.


Quote
xeoncat
(@xeoncat)
Petty Officer Registered
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 33
Topic starter  

I loved explore planets with the Mako in ME, with Horizons ED will be an explorer's dream come true 😉

 

Yeah, I'm really hyped for Horizons, I hope I'll be able to get it. I made exploration my main trade and I decided to make the trip to Sag A* but  stopped playing for a while because of how repetitive planet scanning is (still, it's interesting to find terrestrial planets)


ReplyQuote
Halfgeek
(@halfgeek)
Petty Officer Registered
Joined: 10 years ago
Posts: 28
 

Definitely the economies and factional dynamics.


ReplyQuote
Pinback
(@pinback)
99 Star General Site Moderator
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 9066
 

For me it would be

Seamless planetary flight from Frontiers.

Drive, fight, explore planets From Precursors.

Internal space station docking from X2.

Real Universe

Freedom to jump at any point in space although I like the idea of having a jump gate network or a number of different means of travel as in Star Point Gemini 2.

A ship with an interior and A.I. crew mate as in Pulsar.

 

Also offline single player, none of that online nonsense.


ReplyQuote
MV2000
(@mv2000)
Warrant Officer Registered
Joined: 11 years ago
Posts: 209
 

Not in order: Storyline & branching path (Wing Commander, Colony Wars), ship customization, empire/fleet building (X series), seamless planetary flight, extensive moddability.


ReplyQuote
auryx
(@auryx)
Warrant Officer Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 202
 

Pinback's list is excellent and very close to mine. My dream elements are:

 

- real universe (like Elite: Dangerous)

- no/minimal aliens (ditto)

- vast warring interstellar empires or noble houses

- 1st person cockpit view, with different cockpits per ship

- lots of ship customisation

- trading/bounty hunting (Privateer stuff)

- live action cutscenes (like in my beloved Privateer 2: The Darkening)

- Seamless planetary flight, or at least great landing cutscenes (again like Privateer 2)

- A grand plot which you're free to ignore (think Skyrim)

- engaging combat

- lots of interesting anomalies, side quests, and easter eggs

 

...not that I'm fussy or anything 😀

 

auryx

You look good through a crosshair.


ReplyQuote
ExpandingMan
(@expandingman)
Warrant Officer Registered
Joined: 10 years ago
Posts: 300
 

This discussion seems pretty broad; I don't think I'd ever try comparing Mass Effect with Elite Dangerous.  Some comments I felt compelled to make:

 

- I usually find myself wishing that game developers would be as minimalist as possible when it comes to lore/story, except in the rare instances when they are willing to wholly commit to it.  Generally speaking, I think most video game plots are irredeemably terrible, and for some reason the writing in video games still seems lightyears behind novels, and even (in many cases) television shows.  I think this is starting to change, but I still think it will be a long time before one can reasonably expect most video game plot/story/lore not to seem like they were written by 10-year-olds.

 

- In most "space sims" (perhaps a vaguely defined genre these days) I find that it is very important that the flight model "feels" something like I'm expecting it to feel.  In particular: it should in some way feel like a space-ship should feel.  For me, the pinnacle is still Independence War 2 (Evochron Mercenary also feels pretty nice to me, even if I don't enjoy the combat nearly as much as in IWar2).  Elite Dangerous, for example, does NOT feel like you are flying a space-ship (for various reasons) and I am still asymptotically overcoming this frustration with it.  I have even avoided going back to IWar2 lately because I don't want to renew my frustration with Elite.  On the other hand, expectations have a lot to do with it, I never really expected Freespace or Freelancer to feel like a space-ship, so I was never quite so frustrated with them.

 

- Freedom and non-linearity of progression is, to me, one of the most attractive features of space sims, but that doesn't mean it should feel like there is no progression.  In the best games, the player is always striving for new and more effective ways to play the game.  I've been hooked on Metal Gear Solid lately because I am constantly striving to get new guns, and new technologies that significantly alter the options I have available for approaching missions.  I have a huge amount of time in Borderlands because there is no experience in gaming that has quite matched the feeling of finding an effective new gun, often one I wasn't even expecting.  There's a lot to strive for in Elite Dangerous (just as a recent example), but at the same time it takes far too long before there is any interesting change in the options available to players.

 

- I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a really innovative way to make exploration in space sims much more exciting and interesting than it usually is.  I don't have any good ideas about what the solution is, but I believe it's out there.

 

- I absolutely love when things are to-scale.  It's just glorious.  There are some experiences which just can't be fully captured in screen-shots. 


ReplyQuote
xeoncat
(@xeoncat)
Petty Officer Registered
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 33
Topic starter  

Thank you everyone for replying. Most of these features seem well above my capacity for a first game, but it's good to dream =)

 

 

 

- In most "space sims" (perhaps a vaguely defined genre these days) I find that it is very important that the flight model "feels" something like I'm expecting it to feel.  In particular: it should in some way feel like a space-ship should feel.  For me, the pinnacle is still Independence War 2 (Evochron Mercenary also feels pretty nice to me, even if I don't enjoy the combat nearly as much as in IWar2).  Elite Dangerous, for example, does NOT feel like you are flying a space-ship

 

My thoughts exactly about ED. My frustration with flight models is my main reason for wanting to do a space sim and not other genre. I have never played IWar 2 though, but it's now on my list to play.

 

 

 

- Freedom and non-linearity of progression is, to me, one of the most attractive features of space sims, but that doesn't mean it should feel like there is no progression.  In the best games, the player is always striving for new and more effective ways to play the game.

 

I have thought about the GTA/Freelancer free roam stuff and I believe that works very well in a space sim, provided there is enough development resources. 


ReplyQuote
ExpandingMan
(@expandingman)
Warrant Officer Registered
Joined: 10 years ago
Posts: 300
 

 

My frustration with flight models is my main reason for wanting to do a space sim and not other genre. I have never played IWar 2 though, but it's now on my list to play.

 

Yeah, in that case, can't overstate the importance of IWar2.  In my mind, this is the only game that really got it, and it's unfortunate that in all the conversation lately about reviving space-sims, the significance of IWar so often seems missed.  It had Newtonian physics with a velocity cap, but the cap was high enough (relative to typical velocities of other objects) that you didn't fully saturate it too often.  Of course it supported full 6 dof.  Most of the weapons were fairly slow, so aiming was quite a tactical business.  Mechanically it was similar to Evochron Mercenary, but it was much better in various ways, many of which are tough to pin down.  Figuring out in concrete terms why IWar2 feels so much  better than Evochron (and I'm not the only one who thinks this) is probably an important task for people wanting to develop space sims.

 

A bit of warning though: it's still an older game and it wasn't balanced that well.  There are some baffling difficulty spikes.  In particular, there is an early mission that seems about a hundred times more difficult than most of the subsequent missions.  This might lead some people to think that the game is just innately impossibly hard, and not worth playing.  Just be aware that this is an aberration.  People have been modding the game over the years, and there may now be a mod which largely solves the wonky difficulty curve.

 

http://www.i-war2.com/

 

is still active.


ReplyQuote
xeoncat
(@xeoncat)
Petty Officer Registered
Joined: 9 years ago
Posts: 33
Topic starter  

Will definitely look into it.

I think AAA games dumb down the flight model to make it easy to play, but I think that a good clean UI can make up to it and make a flight just as easy. For example, Orbiter shows the direction of your actual vector, it displays as just a + or X, but it's likely one of the most important pieces of information for a newtonian flight. And of course, velocity cap I think is fundamental for playability too.


ReplyQuote