Space Games

Is KSP really exploration? I love the game but I never truly felt like I was exploring.

Children of a Dead Earth.

I'm openly shilling that game because I really enjoy it and it satisfies the /k/tard in me.

Elite: Dangerous is probably the closest thing, honestly.

There's early access stuff like Rodina and Empyrion but ehhhhhh

Elite Dangerous is okayish

SpaceEngine

But what does he have to do with this?

Well no, though there are some easter eggs on the bodies, it's mostly luck to find them. It's very much an "it's about the journey, not the destination" game.

But if you're looking more for planet exploration instead, maybe Starbound?

>maybe Starbound?

en.spaceengine.org

KSP has been fixed quite a bit in the last few weeks, actually runs decent without crashing or melting the GPU

youtube.com/watch?v=OW7dOnmjTnk
Space Engine.

I like my games to have gameplay, m8
And if I want to play Homeworld, I'll play Homeworld

Still has more gameplay than NMS an Elite Dangerous combined.

spore's space stage

Listen, I love space engine. Boot it up at least once a week and just relax and wander the stars.

But it doesn't have much gameplay to speak of. Its a planetarium, just as it advertises. You look at the pretty planets and stars and take beautiful, unmatched screenshots. But thats it. Elite and NMS at least have combat and mining and shit.

Space Engine is the better experience. But it doesn't really have gameplay.

Well. It has spaceships, and an Edit function (Even knowing that it doesn't works).
But, even being a simulator, it's far more enjoyable than, for example,

Did it get more fun?
Grinding science points always burns me out, and sandbox just has no objectives.

Would be nice if there was something meaningful to do in it. Not much point building space stations either since they don't really do anything useful.

space engine literally scares the shit out of me.

theres just so much space between everything and i found a black hole and had to alt f4 because it was making me feel really uneasy.

Apparently, almost everyone that plays this game develops astrophobia.
Also, abou the Black Holes, just for you:

Stellaris is damned good, big patch coming out this month so the meta doesn't matter.
Conquer, enslave, purge.

>Planet near black hole with accretion disk
Coordinates? Or did you edit it?

looking at pictures of black holes and space doesn't scare me, its just being inside space engine.

Should be classed as a space-horror game.

Taked at the image dump. My images are here:
en.spaceengine.org/forum/10-432-409
User is arturuniverse.

Freelancer, of course.

Also.

what is this?

What do you expect? Dense jungles and vibrant plains on planets barely considered habitable?

You could also try the Discovery mod.

It's an planet orbiting a black hole with an accretion disk.

a black hole bending/warping the light around it because of the immense gravity

Kerbal Space Program.

youtube.com/watch?v=eEPiwhpSa48

It's exploration. Though most of the game is trying to actually get there.

Freelancer is the best space-sim I've ever played. How has this 13 year old game not been bested yet?

>that feel when you loose track of the Milky Way for the first time
>that feel when you are VERY careful about your movement speed around a black hole to avoid touching the event horizon

Elite dangerous is decent but basically boils down to being Eurotrucker in space

Not bad if that's your thing
I manage to have my fun as a pirate killing said truckers

The game is a massive grind though from one ship to the next and making money is so slow. And there are no real objectives beyond grinding for ships.

reminder

Depends on what you mean by space sim. If were talking combat and story then Freespace 2 is better. If were talking trading/management sims and just overall sheer amount of content then x3: Albion Prelude is far better. Both games also become even better if you factor in mods. X3 while good on its own becomes infinitely better and pretty much the best trading/space sandbox experience to date with mods, where as the BSG Diaspora mod for Freespace 2 provides one of the best feeling space combat experiences of all time.

Freelancer has some of the best exploration don't get me wrong, mostly because they have designated routes but there's still a lot to discover if you travel off those paths and fly through radioactive nebulas or large empty expanses to colonies not connected to gates. There are other games with good space exploration but it's hard to name a game that actually does it better.

And I thought oceans were scary. Space is terrifying. I want to play a good space exploration game in theory but in practice I just can't do it.

I was shouting at my screen to stop as they were stacking suns at the end.

>space
>real

Less spooky than interesting. Scale only works when it's at the limit of comprehension imo

KSP was better when it was nearly impossible. They made it too easy.

I like these animations. Where'd you find it user?

I can't believe our idiot ancestors back in the 21st century thought space was flat.

Space is flat though, you cosmic nigger. In the 3D sense anyway

I can't believe the scientists of today think space is REAL.

I just played Stellaris for about two days.

It's shit. Like most 4x games, the AI sucks, the combat sucks and diplomacy sucks. The only cool thing it did was ideology, but that is hardly something that hard to do in the first place. The combat allows for some tactics, but not much. I can't spy my enemies, I can barely scan their ships to know their weakness.

Everspace

everspace-game.com/

Though, it's not standard exploration. It's FTL-style exploration with randomly generated sectors.

What ever happened to Outerra? Did they realize that while a realistically sized planet is cool it's pretty impossible to fill it? Terrain generation is set, now find a way to generate cities with interiors.

The worst part about these posts is that I can never tell if they're legit or not.

Like I'm aware that some people legitimately believe that all of space is a hoax. And some people with really weird views post here. So I can never 100% dismiss them as just ironic.

That scares me more than space does.

>believing NASA's lies

You can't fool me. I know all you flat spacers are just trolls practicing your argumentative skills.

Xenoblade Chronicles X is a better No Man's Sky than No Man's Sky.

All games are space exploration games.

I want space discovery games.

I know a guy who actually thinks the earth if flat. It took several hours for him to convince me he wasn't just joking and is actually that retarded.

>implying God has time for all these planets with different Jesus's.

captcha: No entry

NO REAL TREES ON FLAT EARTH!!!

I am just downloading Homeworld. What am I in for?

Flat Earth is just a couple steps removed from Timecube in terms of crazy.

>even Ghost from TCR believes flat earth

Big space battles and some fucking baller atmosphere.

I just finished watching The Expanse and now I am thirsty for more. Is there any fun hard sci-fi game? Is it even possible? Disregard KSP, it isn't sci-fi at all.

X3 is pretty damn fun, traveling to the far reaches of a sector to warp into some hellhole filled with like 5 xenon capital ships will never not be scary

also for those who know, in Albion Prelude, are there Kha-ak anywhere? I'm not really seeing any compared to TC

Ghost is satire.

I can't believe idiots in the 21st century thought about space as a 3 dimensional area with time as an indepedent variable analogous with their day-to-day experiences

I know a lot of people bitch about it, But Elite Dangerous has been the best Space Exploration game I've come across yet. I went to it after accepting that No Mans Sky was shit and found to be a great game. I've got almost 80 hours in it now.

That being said, It isn't for everyone. The comparisons to be Euro Truck Simulator in Space are are really not that far off. And the first probably 10 or so hours I spent mainly learning how to Pilot my ship and use its many functions Aswell as Googling questions I had about the game and reading up about different things in forums.

There's no real goal or anything to it, You have to set your own goals and make your own fun. Try out different kinds of gameplay and see what you're into. Be it Mining, Trading, Bounty Hunting, Soldier Of Fortune, Exploring. All are viable and offer there own fun. Its up to you to figure out what works best for you and what you want.

I'd really recommend it OP, But if it doesn't seem like something you'd like, Then perhaps stay clear. It does take a certain kind of Faggot to appreciate this game.

If you like strategy you're in for one hell of an experience.

Space stations do exactly what you build them to do. Mine's a science lab and a fuel station.

You need to give yourself your own objectives, or play career mode.

There are mods for that, user.
Did the game get easier, or did you just get better?

>are there Kha-ak anywhere?

They definitely should be. It's been a while since i've played vanilla AP but i'm almost certain they're in there. Try checking near the edges of frontier sectors without many patrols. Khaak don't use jumpgates and instead fly through deepspace in lore, so they mainly spawn just near the map borders of sectors. I haven't seen anything larger than a corvette in owned systems though.

Also not sure if this is modded but if you have a Jumpdrive installed you can make a blind jump and sometimes it will bring you to a Khaak sector. Don't go there unless you are in at least an M1/M2 as there's usually a massive fleet waiting for you with several Khaak M1 class ships.

I thought it was a good story. Gameplay is non existent. Your enjoyment of the game will depend on your enjoyment of tragedies.

I set up my trusty t flight hotas and i've been having a blast with house of the dying sun.

It's really light on content but what's there is top notch.

If you think about it, black holes are what hold this strange universe together.

Immeasurably important beasts that should be both respected and feared.

'freelancer Rodger that' as poorly animated as was... but looked amazing on any 16 Meg Voodoo card lol ... so welcome to 2016 zero man sky, so what if game frame rate suicidal but it's gravitational pull its far better than the Ark

I'm sad they renamed the game

I can never get into it, plus the game seems to favor trading and spreadsheets over combat and exploration.

If I wanted to Jew I'd trade real stocks.

black holes are what hold this strange universe together.
how so?

it can be a bit slow to start out, but trading isn't really necessary, you can make almost all your money with combat and story missions

and there's even automated ship programs you can buy that makes your trading ships you plunder automatically go out and make money for you

Give it another try if you can, it has a buttload to offer

They keep galaxies together. Not that it matter much locally, be if we ever become a spacing faring civilization, that is very important.

Any highly recommended mods or is vanilla fine. Same thing with m+kB vs stick

Universe is constantly expanding, meaning stuff is getting further away. Black holes exert huge amounts of gravity that keep local celestial bodies close. There is likely one at the center of every galaxy including our own milky way

>ctrl+v "escape velocity"
>zero results
I am very disappointed with you, Cred Forums

vanilla is pretty good for starting out with, as is m+k (lots of menus to navigate through)

there's some mods like bouncy ships and complex box that are big QoL things, but aren't absolutely necessary

I thought dark matter did more of that.

>ctrl+v
>expecting results
dumb Google

It took No Man's Sky being a piece of shit to make me realise that Elite: Dangerous wasn't all that bad.

I am very disappointed with myself for making such a dumb mistake.

No, user, what you're looking for is "compared to the liquid diarrhoea that is No Man's Sky, the massive turd that is Elite: Dangerous doesn't seem so bad"

Looking better in comparison doesn't make a bad game less bad

You should.

Pioneer is my comfy space sim. Realistic Newtonian physics and distances between celestial bodies, relaxing music, it's perfect for unwinding after a long day.

pioneerspacesim.net/

Dark matter is more what we think fills most of the actual space if I remember right.

Diving into vanilla first is probably better. As for mods the most popular method is to install a lager overhaul and then stack tons of smaller mods/scripts on top of that as you go to suit your needs. the two most popular large overhauls for X3 TC/AP are Litcube's Universe and XRM. Playing the story first for X3 isn't necessary but that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

If you're new to the series and don't mind playing a much older game though i'd recommend starting with X2: The Threat. It has a far better atmosphere and story and the core gameplay is a bit less complex but essentially the same as X3 making it a much easier game to get into. X2 also has a few little things that were absent from x3 as well such as flight in space station interiors and ship cockpits. Be warned though, visually X2 doesn't hold up quite as well as Freelancer despite technically not looking any worse at the time of it's release.

Wasn't it hydrogen?

EVE

...

what the fuck

fucken saved
things that show relative scale are awesome

>Timecube

Leave my mom alone

>your ignorance of Harmonic Cube is demonic
The fuck does that mean?

It means Gene Ray is crazy.

Also, "Gene Ray" is about the best name you could possibly hope for if you're a total nutcase. Your name sounds like its own conspiracy theory.

I can't decipher this. What is he trying to say? Why are there four days at once?

>cumming on your device
yyy

Holy shit. My eyes have been opened.

KSP can look quite pretty with graphics mods.

Also, it's not exactly space exploration, but Subnautica shares a lot in common with No Man's Sky, but is actually good. It is an alien planet, but it's the only planet in the game.

You don't "understand" Timecube, user

You just amuse yourself with the insanity of it and then move on with your life

>"When the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 – major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth – known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown. The 4-equidistant Time points can be considered as Time Square imprinted upon the circle of Earth. In a single rotation of the Earth sphere, each Time corner point rotates through the other 3-corner Time points, thus creating 16 corners, 96 hours and 4-simultaneous 24-hour Days within a single rotation of Earth – equated to a Higher Order of Life Time Cube."

>I went to it after No Mans Sky was shit

Christ. NMS is so bad people think ED is now good. OP, don't play ED. ED is a shitty game, with one of the worst player bases I've ever experienced, and a developer that releases broken update after broken update with shitty design philosophies

...

>game

Space Engine is amazing, but 100% not a game.

...

game could be so much better if they didn't cater to forumdads so much
also remove sandro

What's so bad about it? I hear it's a shallow grindfest but is it worse than that?

It's a good story but bad as a game.
If you're honestly interested just watch an LP

I wrote an extensive review a while ago, here's a quick summary

>Ship combat is alright, however it suffers severely from meta combat
>All activities in the game are grind, if you want to bounty hunt, you'll be doing the same thing over and over
>Repetition is so bad that once you do an activity once, you've experienced the entirety of that activity
>Progression is primarily done through money, however there is no player market, you cannot directly trade
>The only other progression is to become members of two faction navies, but it takes literal weeks of your time to rank up and it's mind numbing-ly not fun
>The game doesn't know whether it wants to be a simulator or not, and neither do the players
>Jumping from point A to B can take hours to do
>There are some systems which can take several hours just to travel from a star to a station
>NPCs don't follow the same rules players are forced to follow
>Exploration consists of pointing at a celestial body and holding a button to scan, rinse repeat
>Trading is the same going from point a to point b bullshit
>There is no economy that you can affect, people traded billions of slaves to a station that generated them out of thin air and the price stayed the same for a week before Frontier "nerfed" this and removed the ability to do it
>Every update they introduce more and more grind, such as with Horizons which introduced more grind through weapon upgrades
>Landing on planets is boring, there is nothing to see but rocks and driving the SRV is bad

The game looks good though, I guess that's a positive.

I can't speak for how the game use to be. How long ago did you play it?

My experiences have been pretty much the exact opposite of everything you've said.

The community has been great, Fun interactions with the few people i've ran into and chatted with. Updates that are rolling out right now look awesome and everyone on the forums (who are all helpfull and friendly) seems to be happy with the beta for all the new content. I'm excited for it to get out of beta and officially release.

>Updates that are rolling out right now look awesme

You mean the shitty ship launched fighters look awesome? No shit people are happy with that shit. People are happy with having taxi missions. People are happy that ship transfer takes hours and billions of credits

Fuck the ED community, they're terrible human beings.

is Elite Dangerous playable with kb+m or xbone controller?

totally, possibly best played with kb+m during dogfights

Dragon Quest x Space would be the shit

Hahahahaha, Jesus dude you seem like the type of person who wouldn't enjoy elite ever.

The games biggest draw is being able to choose your own goals and pursue them, if you don't enjoy that or having to put in time to reach pretty hard to reach goals, you'll never enjoy this type of game. I think is meant for a specific type of player who likes freedom, grinding, and being able to have unexpected experiences with other players.

>the game is about having nothing to do and "making your own fun"

>Wouldn't enjoy Elite ever

I put in 300 hours into the game.

>Being able to choose your own goals and pursue them

You mean being able to grind money for hours doing the same one activity over and over? I definitely enjoyed bounty Hunting. Sitting in an RES site and killing the same respawning NPCs. Oh what's that? There's another way to bounty hunt? Oh, it's just sitting in supercruise and interdicting faggots.

There isn't even any multiplayer content. Powerplay is still broken.

>who likes freedom

What freedom? There is no freedom other than doing the small amount of predetermined fucking activities that frontier has given you. I cannot do a thing with the capital ships in game. I can't join a pirate faction. I can't set up a business. I can't do anything that I would expect to come with a sandbox game. There's so much missing to the game. It should have never been a multiplayer game and should have been a modern day Frontier Elite. At least that would have been fun and wouldn't be tainted by shit like supercruise or players who want to spend 10 hours traveling from the bubble to Jacques Station.

>mfw thinking about how shit in space works

Never again. I'm not thinking too hard about it. Fuck space.

Space is cool.

Space Engine t.bh