Games where you command a starship

[The_Doctor]

I feel like playing a game where you are in command of a starship.

But not Starfleet Command, because I have all of them.

[Fragony]

I-War comes to mind, pretty good game if you like that sort of thing.

[lars573]

Startrek bridge commander, and the battlecrusier series. Those are the only ones I can think of right now.

[Forward Observer]

If you can find a copy, there is also Klingon Academy. This game is all about training for starship command and combat. The control is just how you would expect with lots of sub-commands for the various aspects of a capitol ship.

The game comes with a huge manual and is on 6 disks. The extra disks were needed to contain all the live filmed footage including Christopher Plummer as the Klingon academy instructor.

The ship to ship combat is filled lots of attention to control of sub-systems but the actual combat is a bit disappointing since the physics engine seems to be closely related to that of a carnival bumper car ride---meaning that you have to spend a lot of time avoiding collisions, and when you do collide, the two ships bounce off each other with no damage.

Can you imagine two capitol ships colliding at speed in outer space--I'm no physics expert, but I think that even if their shields prevented external ship damage, everything and everybody inside would be turned to mush.

Still, it's not a terrible game.

[The_Doctor]

-I-War. It is 11 years old.
-Star Trek bridge commander. I played a demo of it and did not like it.
-battlecrusier series. I have not played it, but it looks needlessly complicated.
-Klingon Academy. I once tried to download the demo, only to have my sister to press the "X" about 99%.

[Krusader]

Well the latest Battlecruiser game is free I think. Can't recall its name.

[The_Doctor]

Well the latest Battlecruiser game is free I think. Can't recall its name.

Yeah, I found it on fileplanet a while ago. I might give it a try.

[Crandaeolon]

-I-War. It is 11 years old.

I-War 2: Edge of Chaos is (c) 2001, and it's still a decent game. But, the playable ships are only corvette-size, so it might not be exactly what you're looking for.

You might want to check out Nexus, if you can get it for cheap. It's a tactical-level space combat simulation (about a dozen ships per side at maximum), and the combat system is somewhat detailed with lots of subsystems, different damage types, power management etc.

The downside is that it's very linear, as in almost zero replayability.

[Lehesu]

Just a slight tangent, but has anyone ever played Star Wars Rebellion? I am absolutely hooked. The critics complain about the cumbersome interface, nebulous resource management, and rather elementery tactical combat, but it is a real gem if you can get past all that. Very detailed.
I just get a sense of dark pleasure in being able to create a Super Star Destroyer in only 58 days at my built-from-scratch super stardock.

[lars573]

Just a slight tangent, but has anyone ever played Star Wars Rebellion? I am absolutely hooked. The critics complain about the cumbersome interface, nebulous resource management, and rather elementery tactical combat, but it is a real gem if you can get past all that. Very detailed.
I just get a sense of dark pleasure in being able to create a Super Star Destroyer in only 58 days at my built-from-scratch super stardock.

Perked interest. Request more information.

[Lehesu]

It is a strategy game set in the Star Wars universe that encompasses the entire galaxy (a lot of planets). You can play Rebel or Imperial. You start out with few ships, planets, troops, and characters, and work to increase planetary membership and strengthen fleets.

To this end, the discerning strategist utilizes fleets of capital ships, snubfighters, loyal characters, special forces, diplomacy, ground troops, and scientific development to beat the other side. Both factions have completely unique fleets, troops, characters, and spec forces, but they serve similar functions. But in order to build troops, fleets, and special forces, you must carefully cultivate planets and create troop training facilities, stardocks etc. You must also provide defense for these valuable investments. This all takes place in real time measured in days (the speed of the days can be changed...on the lowest setting, time moves very slowly and should give you more than enough time to issue orders).

The fleet combat takes place in a tactical setting. The graphics are crude, the ships are slow to respond, and the system is just plain inelegant. Nonetheless, it can still manage to make for some exciting battles. Combat takes place in a 3d box representing the space that the battle is being fought in. Orders can be given to individual capital ships (which can be named for whatever strikes your fancy) and snubfighter squadrons. Combat is actually reasonably complex: each ship has different ratings in weapons, shields, hull, damage control, etc.

For example, a Victory class Star Destroyer is excellent at orbital bombardments (pounding planets into submission) but is rather slow and has only turbolasers, which are effective against capital ships, but not so much against fighters. On the other hand, the Lancer class frigate is specifically designed to wipe out fighters; it is equipped with large numbers of laser cannons to shoot them down, but no turbolasers.

Another example: Although a Mon Cal cruiser is undergunned when compared to an Imperial Star Destroyer, redundant systems makes the ship highly resilient in combat. This allows the Mon Cal to "stick around" and end up destroying the Imp. However, the downside to so many redundant systems is that is takes so long to repair.

The game is an acquired taste, but the manual is thick and does a reasonable job of explaining things. If you can stomach some of Paradox Entertainment's stuff, than you should have no problem with this.

[frogbeastegg]

I played Rebellion (or Star Wars: Supremacy, as it was called here) for months back when it first came out. I really enjoyed it; must have finished something like 20 campaigns. I loved playing as the Imperials; they were much more fun for some reason. Mmmm, super star destroyers, mmmm ...

I'd say it was worth taking a look at, but be warned it was in the days of Windows 95. The advantage there is that, should you find a copy, it's likely to be very cheap.

[hoom]

Iwar is still the greatest.
Now playable at hi-res with AA & AF on modern PCs thanks to Zeckensacks glide wrapper found here: http://www.zeckensack.de/glide/index.html

A few tips to getting Iwar to run with modern PCs:
-Get the glidewrapper
-Make sure motion blur is off in the wrapper settings
-Set pagefile to 512MB or less
-Do it again so that Windoze actually does it
-Max physical RAM 1GB
-Game CTDs after every mission but progress is saved so just reload
-Drivers for Nvidia cards are a pain. Geforce 6 (& presumably 7) seems to be out of luck. Earlyish drivers are needed for FX generation & before
-No known problems with ATI drivers

[Megas Alexandros]

Well, first of all, I don't favourize the Star Trek world at all, nor the Star Wars galaxies, so on these matters, I cannot add any comments.

However, recently I did my research and tried to look up the best space sim available to PC. What I found:

Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos
it is a very detailed, complex sim, the physics are awesome, story-driven, but you pretty much can do whatever you want, the galaxy is all yours, the world is reasonable, and beautiful, self-changing economy system, you are only an outsider (pirate), only 2 shady and secretive alien races

Vega Strike
it is a game developed by enthusiastic gamers, it is free, it is still under programming, but the latest version is very impressive, the scene is our very own universe, detailed history (future, only a matter of the viewpoint), the most complex game ever developed, at least 20 factions (cca 15 races), constantly evolving world-system, battles, wars, conquests, trading contracts, bounty-hunting, rescue missions, pirating, trading, very detailed space-ship building (you may need to build it yourself out of the parts), discovering unkown planets, reaserching, simply anything you can dream of; no story = open-ended, very best space sim, only it is not finished yet

Freelancer
Never played it, but what I've heard: action-based, shooter, very beautiful, very nice, open-ended


Space-strategy games:

Homeworld 2
Simply the best. Very complex, story-driven, very nice graphics, realistic

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident
2nd best, in-depth, story-driven, easy to play, easy joy


Warning: these words may qualify as mere opinions

[Marshal Murat]

Freelancer is more along the lines of X- Wing fighter, or flight sims.
Intriguing story line, and amazng array of ships. However, you are not able to fly anything larger than a freighter.
They have cruisers, battleships (god I wish i could fly those) and more ships to deal with.
Very opened ended, and you get to collect bounties (getting backup is always nice) and gain or lose favor. Very nice graphics.

[Papewaio]

Eve Online

More of a Multiplayer version of Elite or Freelancer.

But very player driven economy. Ability to be a fighter or merchant or a miner.

Some of the galaxy is PvP some isn't.

The more dangerous a region (more PvP and harder pirates) then the more wealth is to be found there.

[Voigtkampf]

Nexus - The Jupiter Incident

One of the most beautiful games brought out in the last few years, where you get to be in control of one or more ships, it is always in third face perspective. Fluid, interesting, exciting gameplay, visually highly attractive. My recommendation.

[Productivity]

-I-War. It is 11 years old.

No it's not. If I had to take a guess I would say 7-8 years, but not 11.

[ChaosLord]

One note on Freelancer, you can fly the Destroyers, Battleships, etc... You just need mods to enable them. Go check out www.lancersreactor.com its a good site for Freelancer mods. I recommend the Evolutions mod, it adds more ships/sectors, and improves AI performance. The other nice thing about Freelancer is most popular mods have a few servers up running it. So you should be able to find a server that peaks around at least 15-20 people.

All that said, for a pure space sim I-War 2 or Freespace 2 is better. Freelancer is just nice for ease of use, mods, and online play.

[The_Doctor]

Freelancer is an excellant game.

Capital ships are hard to control in the mods have played.

[Zalmoxis]

I was gonna recommend Nexus as well.

[hoom]

Iwar is 1997.

There is a very good Babylon 5 mod for Iwar 2 for those interested in that kind of thing http://mods.firstones.com/buda5/iwar2/index.html

[Bob the Insane]

Vote for Nexus too... Fantastic visuals and a cool control interface once you get your head around it...

[Krauser]

This isn't quite Starfleet Command but it kind of is. It's a strategy game named Homeworld 2. If you love all the space stuff and like strategy games you would probably like it. There's a demo available too. Excellent graphics and sound, and pretty fun gameplay too. No bad AI like RTW. The computer gives a pretty good challenge. It's also fully 3D. You can use free camera and go anywhere, follow a particular ship, or view the battle from afar watching all the neat effects. The interface looks a lot like Star Trek too.

[The_Doctor]

I have Homeworld 2. It is a very good game.

Have you played the point defence systems mod?

[Zalmoxis]

On Nexus, has anyone been able to connect to multiplayer yet?

[hoom]

The Nexus multiplayer has been a huge dissapointment.
Nobody ever seems to be online.
This being rather ironic since in its earlier incarnation Imperium Galactica 3, its was singleplayer only and it was only after big public pressure for multiplayer that they started developing multiplayer.

Anyway, there is a patch that changes the IP address that you go to for multiplayer as the publisher changed the server.

[Zalmoxis]

Yeah, that worked and now there's only one server with only one person on it, and sadly, it won't connect to that one server, sad.

[Geoffrey S]

Babylon 5: I've Found Her ( http://ifh.firstones.com/ ) proved itself to be an enjoyable (but brief) experience, and it's free. I'd never seen a Babylon 5 episode in my life but the plot proved engaging and well written too.