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

RamirezKurita

R
Never played the original Elite, but I did play a bit of FE2 and FFE during the 90s.

In more recent years, spent far too many hours building my trading empires in X3:R and X3:TC (and the XTM and XTC mods for them), while also having an enjoyable ride through Space Rangers 2 before settling into ED.
 

Mohrgan

Mohrgan
I came to Elite: Dangerous at release. On the 1st Saturday it was generally available. I bought, and fired E|D up as my 2nd space game, but my 1st with Sim leanings. I don;t consider E|D as a Simulator, except for the Galaxy. I describe E|D as a Space Game grafted onto a simulation of our Milky Way galaxy. Galaxy = Science-ish, Ships/Game = Entertainment.
 

Chorda

Chorda
The original Elite was one of the first games I played on my Speccy 128K. It came in a compilation with The Sentinel and some others that I forget. Being only 8 or 9, I had no idea what I was supposed to do, but a few years later I had graduated to an Amiga 500 and bought Frontier as soon as it came out. Lost a few summer holidays to that one. Other than Wing Commander 1 and Freespace 2, the only other space sim I've touched since is Evochron Mercenary. It was alright, if a bit bland.

Anyone remember Mercenary / Damocles? They were more exploration and puzzle-solving than space sim, but still great fun.
 

colprice2002

C
The first one I played was Star Trek - using a keyboard and printer... I think it was PDP based mainframe, but it would have been mid 1970s or so, followed by the Lander one.
I've still got the 101 computer games book with the Basic listings to type in...

Then, of course, in 1984 Elite on the BBC Micro. Tape version then disc. I built my own analogue joystick...

My Cobra has the date as the ship code
 

Deadspin

Deadspin
Fishy said:
I was just gratuitously forum-griefing you because DCS is a thing and Falcon BMS is another. There is no F-16 in DCS. ;)

If you're into rotary flight, the DCS modules are pretty good. The Huey is great to fly and pretty simple tech-wise, and the Gazelle is good fun and won't disconnect your multicrew partner. X-Plane does a good job too, but doesn't have guns or rockets.
Click to expand...

Whoops, must have been BMS then, all I know is that my buddy's dad was a sim freak and, having been a helo pilot, had a pretty nice cockpit setup at his home computer. That's where I played them before getting my own computer that could play games. I think he had the cockpit setup because he helped design some SAR helicopter game. Who knows, this is all like back in 1997-98 I think.

I go to ARMA 3 and its attempt at a realistic flight model to get my helicopter kicks in these days. That way I can load/unload players and cargo at LZs and have fun with it at the same time. My old group awarded me the Blue Falcon medal for killing us 3 times in a row on an insertion flight. I kept trying to show off by dragging the tail gear on the ground at speed while flying down a highway. Hit a light pole with the rotors, hit a street sign, hit a car..
 

simpilotblues

simpilotblues
Navigare Necesse Est said:
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.
Click to expand...

Played Elite a lot around the mid 80's on the ZX Spectrum.
When I moved to PC and college got in the way, gaming became less of a priority, so I never heard about Elite II and FFE being released, and unfortunately never played them.
Afterwards my focus turned to flight sims, mostly the Microsoft series, but also played some space titles.
In the simulation genre the best for me were Independence War 1 (incl. the Defiance expansion) and 2.
Not only the newtonian space motion was very well modelled, as Navigare mentioned, it also featured free or flight assist modes, the 3 navigation modes we have in ED and a Power Distributor to balance power between systems, engines and weapons. Always wondered if those concepts were original to those titles, but I guess they existed already on previous games, like Elite II or FFE.
Although not being a sim, the Homeworld series was another space title that occupied a lot of my playing time.
Then in mid 2014 I accidentally saw online that ED was already on Beta phase after a successful kickstarter and became a beta backer.
 

Fishy

Fishy
Deadspin said:
Whoops, must have been BMS then, all I know is that my buddy's dad was a sim freak and, having been a helo pilot, had a pretty nice cockpit setup at his home computer. That's where I played them before getting my own computer that could play games. I think he had the cockpit setup because he helped design some SAR helicopter game. Who knows, this is all like back in 1997-98 I think.

I go to ARMA 3 and its attempt at a realistic flight model to get my helicopter kicks in these days. That way I can load/unload players and cargo at LZs and have fun with it at the same time. My old group awarded me the Blue Falcon medal for killing us 3 times in a row on an insertion flight. I kept trying to show off by dragging the tail gear on the ground at speed while flying down a highway. Hit a light pole with the rotors, hit a street sign, hit a car..
Click to expand...

Yeah, ArmA 3 does a good job imho. The placeholder model from launch is laughable, but the advanced model is pretty decent. And as imperfect as it might be, it comes with two massive advantages: a gorgeously detailed ground scenery, and the joy of being integrated into combined arms operations.
 

Rankaze

Rankaze
Lunar Lander - the TRS-80 version in my case - was probably technically the first space "simulation" I played.
Super Star Trek for the TRS-80 might sort of count, too.
Starmaster for the Atari 2600 was about as space-sim-like as the Atari 2600 could handle.
after that, the Wing Commander series and X-Wing series.
Then there was a dearth of good space sim for a long time before the current revival of the genre. Oh, how I missed it.
 

Deadspin

Deadspin
Fishy said:
Yeah, ArmA 3 does a good job imho. The placeholder model from launch is laughable, but the advanced model is pretty decent. And as imperfect as it might be, it comes with two massive advantages: a gorgeously detailed ground scenery, and the joy of being integrated into combined arms operations.
Click to expand...

I haven't look at the mod pages in awhile but if the Seahawks and Blackhawks from A2 got imported over I would be incredibly happy. I ported them myself to A3 for my clan to use but the implementation was buggy at best due to seat animations not lining up properly and sound being a bit off (super loud). Gorgeous helicopters though.
 

Frank

Frank
The first space sim I bought was Time Gate

[video=youtube;BrNfUOEVCxY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrNfUOEVCxY[/video]

It's the reason I bought a Kempston joystick, which came in handy for Elite.

After that I fancied getting more immersive so I got the 3D anaglyph game, Starion.

I bought a few other space game for a whole bunch of computers and consoles, but I never found any as satisfying to fly as original Elite, including it's own sucessors.

...that is until now
 

Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
simpilotblues said:
Played Elite a lot around the mid 80's on the ZX Spectrum.
When I moved to PC and college got in the way, gaming became less of a priority, so I never heard about Elite II and FFE being released, and unfortunately never played them.
Afterwards my focus turned to flight sims, mostly the Microsoft series, but also played some space titles.
In the simulation genre the best for me were Independence War 1 (incl. the Defiance expansion) and 2.
Not only the newtonian space motion was very well modelled, as Navigare mentioned, it also featured free or flight assist modes, the 3 navigation modes we have in ED and a Power Distributor to balance power between systems, engines and weapons. Always wondered if those concepts were original to those titles, but I guess they existed already on previous games, like Elite II or FFE.
Although not being a sim, the Homeworld series was another space title that occupied a lot of my playing time.
Then in mid 2014 I accidentally saw online that ED was already on Beta phase after a successful kickstarter and became a beta backer.
Click to expand...

The power management was already a feature that Tie Fighter and the rebel counterpart had. Good features tend to stick around. Just like the 3 D radar of Elite - I don't really know whether that is originally from Elite, but that was the first time I saw it I think.
 

Doolittle

D
Saw a glimpse of the original Elite while taking programming class in college. Wasn't interested in it much at the time. After dropping out due to the horrible political correct education system I moved to the horrible state of California where I meet a friend who turned me onto Frontier Elite in '93. Played for several months when I could. Bought a 286 when IBM put them out, and played just about everything on the market looking for that same element found in Frontier Elite. Game after space game all were nothing more than clones of Elite and all the media reviews would basically call them out as close copies but still just another Elite clone. The ones that didn't try to capture that aspect but ran down the pew-pew path such as X-Wing, Tie Fighter or Wing Commander were all great at what they did. The great X-series (X2 in particular) that probably did the overall best job and making an Elite clone. I still have my save file If I ever decide to load it back up. Then the consoles hit the market and the PC gaming experience turned into a giant Binky. No more great sims, no more great PC games, no more intelligence in games at all. Got to the point where almost all the media outlets on the internet devoted to PC gaming slowely deluded into the mentality of the Binky crowd who needs it all handed to them on a silver platter so they don't have to think. Hell most games even have all the stuff you need to find flashing in the distance with pointers making the whole exploration aspect of their game meaningless. Games you buy nowadays make you feel you need to don a helmet and use a corked fork just to get into the mindset required to play it.
 
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AceFlares

AceFlares
Doolittle said:
Saw a glimpse of the original Elite while taking programming class in college. Wasn't interested in it much at the time. After dropping out due to the horrible political correct education system I moved to the horrible state of California where I meet a friend who turned me onto Frontier Elite in '93. Played for several months when I could. Bought a 286 when IBM put them out, and played just about everything on the market looking for that same element found in Frontier Elite. Game after space game all were nothing more than clones of Elite and all the media reviews would basically call them out as close copies but still just another Elite clone. The ones that didn't try to capture that aspect but ran down the pew-pew path such as X-Wing, Tie Fighter or Wing Commander were all great at what they did. The great X-series (X2 in particular) that probably did the overall best job and making an Elite clone. I still have my save file If I ever decide to load it back up. Then the consoles hit the market and the PC gaming experience turned into a giant Binky. No more great sims, no more great PC games, no more intelligence in games at all. Got to the point where almost all the media outlets on the internet devoted to PC gaming slowely deluded into the mentality of the Binky crowd who needs it all handed to them on a silver platter so they don't have to think. Hell most games even have all the stuff you need to find flashing in the distance with pointers making the whole exploration aspect of their game meaningless. Games you buy nowadays make you feel you need to don a helmet and use a corked fork just to get into the mindset required to play it.
Click to expand...

When you moved to North Korea was there a good selection of space games?
 

Fishy

Fishy
Doolittle said:
Saw a glimpse of the original Elite while taking programming class in college. Wasn't interested in it much at the time. After dropping out due to the horrible political correct education system I moved to the horrible state of California where I meet a friend who turned me onto Frontier Elite in '93. Played for several months when I could. Bought a 286 when IBM put them out, and played just about everything on the market looking for that same element found in Frontier Elite. Game after space game all were nothing more than clones of Elite and all the media reviews would basically call them out as close copies but still just another Elite clone. The ones that didn't try to capture that aspect but ran down the pew-pew path such as X-Wing, Tie Fighter or Wing Commander were all great at what they did. The great X-series (X2 in particular) that probably did the overall best job and making an Elite clone. I still have my save file If I ever decide to load it back up. Then the consoles hit the market and the PC gaming experience turned into a giant Binky. No more great sims, no more great PC games, no more intelligence in games at all. Got to the point where almost all the media outlets on the internet devoted to PC gaming slowely deluded into the mentality of the Binky crowd who needs it all handed to them on a silver platter so they don't have to think. Hell most games even have all the stuff you need to find flashing in the distance with pointers making the whole exploration aspect of their game meaningless. Games you buy nowadays make you feel you need to don a helmet and use a corked fork just to get into the mindset required to play it.
Click to expand...

Quality rant. Ticks so many boxes it's pretty much a bingo by itself. [up]
 

Kingston@#

Kingston@#
ED is the first space sim I have stuck with more than 2 hrs.. nearly hitting 2.5yrs of time and approx 30weeks game play..
I have dabbled with. Eve flying ship from outside put me off in 5 min.
NMS put me off it because I was still searching for stuff to fix ship to be able to leave the planet. 2hrs after starting.
 
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