SpaceSimCentral

Hey guys. I've just registered, but I've lurked here for years. Like many on here, I do like space sims, but have always struggled to find one that fitted my needs. Basically I'm looking for a sandbox type game (honestly doesn't matter if it's 3D or top-down 2D, as long as it's not ancient), that puts you in control of a ship which is preferably a large ship, but if it's a 2D top down game then imagination can go a long way . I'm not really interested in 'dog fighting', which is what 90% of the space sim games seem to revolve around, but rather a game centred around exploration and random procedural generated events and what not. Of course I don't mind combat, but every new game out there these days seems to be 'accept trade mission or fight pirates mission, rinse, repeat'. A good example would be FTL with actual controllable gameplay. I mean consider the Star Trek Voyager series for an ideal storyline in terms of gameplay. Your ship is stranded thousands of lightyears from home, your mission is to find a way home, but you have to traverse through uncharted alien galaxies, upgrading and repairing your ship along the way and meeting new species good and bad. I don't think such a game exists unfortunately, but anything flexible and sandboxish like that would surely fit the bill.

Limit Theory might be a good fit here when it is done that is (early 2015).

No Man's Sky. Out There looks like a more 'peaceful' version of FTL.

Ok listen here laddie! There are plenty of them Isometric space exploration space sims. Here they are -Deathwar 3030: You can download from this site in the "downloads" section.-Transcendence: You can find it here http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/[/url] This can also be downloaded from here.-Epoch star: Yes you can download it from here too.-ASCii sector: And again, this site is your friend. Do you want one extra dimention? Then we have... -Ad Astra: Can be downloaded from here also.-pioneer: Here is where you can download it http://pioneerspacesim.net/#&panel1-1[/url] The two above are kinda klunky to play. So, exercise patience. Oh and BTW they are all free! Ok, lets go to payware I suggest you take a look at... -Space pirates and zombies: not strictly sandbox and its isometric. You can take a look at Steam. There is a demo too-Egosoft's Space sims: These are sandbox to the extreme and fairly complicated. They can also be found in Steam as the superbox. The superbox contains 3 games plus their stand alone expansions. So thats that. I wont go suggesting games that are not out yet. Have fun, chap. PS: No man's sky is, so far, only announced for PS4 and there is a slight possibility that its going to be online only, which means it will probably need PSN+ (me when I learned all this :suicide: ). Update: Oh god, I almost forgot! The Ur-quan Masters. You can find it here http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php[/url]

Ok listen here laddie! There are plenty of them Isometric space exploration space sims. ...-Transcendence: You can find it here http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/[/url] Thanks for mentioning Transcendence! I'm the developer of the game, and I'm not sure if it's exactly what the OP is looking for, since it has a great deal of combat. Nevertheless, I hope he/she gives it a try: it's a sandbox game with a very large universe and an amazing variety of things to explore. Here's a list of the kinds of things you can do in Transcendence: http://trans.kronosaur.com/guidePage.hexm?id=transcendence20Things[/url] I lurk on the forums, so if there's anything you want to ask about the game, feel free to ask me.

[edit]OP, I have reduced this wall of text to a link to this[/url] topicI'm hopeful it will be of interest to you.

Would be a good idea to start your own thread for the game Orionsyndrome. 

will do, sorry. I figured I might've got carried away a bit for a single post.