SpaceSimCentral

Hi, my name is Tom and I am new here. I found this page when searching for space sims. I am a die hard fan of X-wing and Tie-fighter aswell as Freespace 1 and 2. Sadly, as we all know, these days the space sim is a dying genre, except for some indie developers or small companies still making mods or some new games.But I have not found one of these to be my taste. I have tried the X games, X2 and X3. Didn't like em. Same with the Evochron series; Didn't like them. I even was so desperate that I tried EVE Online one week back, went through all the tutorials, still I didn't like it. Why? Well maybe because I feel all these games mentioned seems all cold and without a soul and where EVE shines, it lacks cockpit-view and sim-like flight controls. And where Evochron shines it lacks the feeling of a live universe. Everything allso looks so shiny and flashy and fake. I rather have old rusted space ships and stations :)I am here because I want to create a new space sim with a sort of 1980 feeling. I know nothing about making computer games, but I have a slight talent in drawing and I will start in a 3d programming school in a few months from now.As you can see in the attached picture, this is the graphic style I want. Simple, clean and with 80's style and colors. What it lacks of in the graphic department is where the sound and gameplay department will shine:Think sandbox with dynamic A.I, base building, ship building, repairing your ship, giving orders to multiple ships, wings, squadrons or even big star-ship cruisers aswell as star-bases, trading, looting, pirating, travelling to any planet or system you want with seamless transition to planet surfaces or other systems. Just travel to your system's NAV point and hyperdrive to the next system plotting the course into your space ship wich you now know after buying a star maps that covers a few systems . Or you can fly to the other system manually if you want :)Allso free of HUD; all the info you see is on your computers screen with simple numbers and colors. The benefit of this simple graphic is that you can hundreds of objects on the screen at once resulting in huge chaotic wars in space. Coop will ofcourse be an important thing in the game and allso death matches with your friend to test your ship abilities :)I know this is just a dream by the moment, but as I will gain knowledge in 3d programming and starts making models I will try to hire some programmers with the same goal as mine.What I was wondering if there is already an enginge capable of doing all this at the moment?

Nice art btw and I like the retro look of this :)But some engines that are currently free to use:- UDK- Unity3D- CryEngine3- Blender 3D- ScirrcaThe first 3 are free but if you sell the game you will have to give some royalties to them, Blender 3D is all free and yeah its a 3D tool but it also has a game engine and Scirrca is a new engine that I have seen a lot of people start to use as well.

Thanks! Glad you liked the retro look :)I will check blender 3d out first

Sounds like an awesome game! From personal experience I'd choose Unity 3D because it's easiest to learn, in my opinion at least.EDIT: Scirra's Construct may not be the way to go for you, as it's designed for 2D games rather than 3D. Asuming you meant Scrra, DarkOne.