How long have you been playing Elite or other space sims?

Dirtbird

D
I've had a fair history with space sim type games. I've always them, from a young age. I even tried to write my own when I was about 8 but my level of sophistication in coding was a static star field. I didn't figure out animated star fields for several years...

Anyway, I started off with BBC Elite (enhanced, for Master 128) that I played for ages, back in 1986.
Since then, I have played all 5 of the Wing Commander games plus special ops and missions, both Privateer games, Freespace 1, 2 and Open, Freelancer, Dark Star One, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Archimedes Elite and Oolite.

I didn't get to Elite Dangerous until just after Christmas 2016, and I haven't looked back.
 

GreyAreaUK

GreyAreaUK
Oh...and if you were to look juuuust to the right of my current setup (above) you'd see this little lot:
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M9u6Pcz.jpg


So....yeah, that keeps happening...
 

Sir.Tj

The Moderator who shall not be Blamed....
Volunteer Moderator
Sir.Tj
Christ on a bike....

Not jealous at all..

banhammer...banhemmer... where did I leave it again?
 

juddadredd

J
Since way back in the 70s think it was about 1973-1974, played and beaten pretty much every game that has taken my fancy since. I'm a bit OCD when it comes to pitting my skills against the developers and winning a game - doesn't matter how long it takes me lol.

Pong, Atari 2600, Intellivision, BBC Micro, Commodore Pet, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Atari Falcon, then went to PC's, Xbox and Playstations.
 

Fishy

Fishy
Started on the Apple //c (well, and the Intellivision if Star Strike counts). Pretty much all of the stuff I played through got mentioned already, so for an alternative one, I also played Vega Strike, a multiplatform Open Source effort that took a lot of inspiration from Privateer, but with a ton of additional stuff, including a large galaxy with AI-controlled empires that would build fleets and move them through space and fight even if you were not in the same area. The news would let you know about the conflicts though, and you could fly there, find the fleets and take part. Every play would be different since those wars made for fluid borders. Of notable interest too was the fact that they wanted multiplayer but realistic systems, so since time compression was out of the picture, they came up with the kind of travel that ED calls Supercruise (the nearer to a gravity source, the slower).

It was highly moddable, and some folks forked it into a full remake of Privateer but with the much more modern engine and some additions (buying/flying the other ships from the Privateer universe, owning a fleet...). Being the Open Source community though, that project soon found itself also split across ideological lines, with hardcore traditionalists revolting against the additions, and forking the project into their own pure remake called Gemini Gold.
 

GreyAreaUK

GreyAreaUK
Sir Tj said:
Arrgh.. I've been searching for one of them for ages.....
Click to expand...

I used to have a couple of really rare items, like a Camputers Lynx. I ended up donating those to the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes. Well worth a visit.


Still don't have a ZX80 or a Jupiter Ace, mind.
 

Deadspin

Deadspin
God, you're all so old.

Space sims.. space sims..

Huh, pretty much just Elite for me, the present day version since premium beta. Of course I've dabbled in space RTS but sims weren't really something I looked at (beyond DCS Falcon) as a young whippersnapper. I've checked out a lot of the world engines and smaller independent offerings that have cropped up here and there since the SC popularity boom kicked things off but Elite is probably the only space "sim" I've actually dumped time into. I think it's also the only one that's really a complete product (despite it's shortcomings).

I kind of want to check out the X series but am hesitant to do so due to mixed reviews from friends.
 

GreyAreaUK

GreyAreaUK
Deadspin said:
I kind of want to check out the X series but am hesitant to do so due to mixed reviews from friends.
Click to expand...

I can vouch for them up to (and including) X3, but I get the feeling that they went wrong sometime after that. The graphics on the older ones will be not up to much by today's standards, and the first game takes you a few hours of horrible, horrible grind to get started in, but they're entertaining and quite a nice alternative to Elite.
 

Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
Deadspin said:
God, you're all so old.

Space sims.. space sims..

Huh, pretty much just Elite for me, the present day version since premium beta. Of course I've dabbled in space RTS but sims weren't really something I looked at (beyond DCS Falcon) as a young whippersnapper. I've checked out a lot of the world engines and smaller independent offerings that have cropped up here and there since the SC popularity boom kicked things off but Elite is probably the only space "sim" I've actually dumped time into. I think it's also the only one that's really a complete product (despite it's shortcomings).

I kind of want to check out the X series but am hesitant to do so due to mixed reviews from friends.
Click to expand...

Mixed reviews? X3 Terran Conflict is one of the best in the genre. X4 flopped, maybe they refer to that one? In X3 you can build your own factories. There is nothing like hovering over your yuge solarpanel arrays under the sun the colour of your own choice.

Then there is I-War (1+2), sometimes dubbed "Independence War" depending on region it was sold: Best Newtonian combat space sim I ever played.

And of course: Kerbal Space Program if you always wanted to know how orbits and navigation in space really work.
 

Fishy

Fishy
Navigare Necesse Est said:
Mixed reviews? X3 Terran Conflict is one of the best in the genre. X4 flopped, maybe they refer to that one? In X3 you can build your own factories. There is nothing like hovering over your yuge solarpanel arrays under the sun the colour of your own choice.

Then there is I-War (1+2), sometimes dubbed "Independence War" depending on region it was sold: Best Newtonian combat space sim I ever played.

And of course: Kerbal Space Program if you always wanted to know how orbits and navigation in space really work.
Click to expand...

And Rogue System for an early access that probably won't ever be finished. It's quite impressive, but being a one man job, the project's truck factor is uncomfortably low.
 
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MickyG1982

M
CmdrKull said:
I was definitely playing Starglider II in 1987, Elite I think I first bought in 1992. I apparently lived under a rock for a while because I didn't know about Frontier until the late 90s at which time I was playing X Wing and Tie Fighter games. X 1 and X 2 were in the mix after that, then a hiatus from gaming in general that wasn't able to withstand Elite Dangerous, although I played Galaxy On Fire 1 and 2 on my phone during the supposed hiatus... all in all over 20 years where space sims were in the mix. Sometimes they dominated my time (Elite 1) and other times they were just one of many.
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Starglider II is the very first game I can remember playing in this genre, I'm pretty sure I had no idea what I was doing, but things exploded. (I was 4/5 at the time) From there it was Wing Commander & Frontier Elite II. Frontier II first Encounters & all the "modern" Wing Commanders in the 90's plus the X series later on (I still love the X series - even Rebirth has it's place now). Then, of course ED - I still flit between here & X.
 
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