Looking at Elite like games

Hey fellow pilots,
Ive been playing Elite dangerous on the xb1,
anyhow my computer isn't quite up to spec to run Dangerous let alone Horizons.
so I've been looking at these games which I pick up on the chreap (free with my Game credit), I was after some second opinions recommendations
-Please excuse my ignorance but what is X4? is it a series, a genre I keep seeing lots of refences too it, it seems like its elite gameplay with some rts thrown in for good measure
---this is the list of games I can getr with my credit
sword of the stars II enhanced version
Sol Exodus - collectors edition
Legends of pegasus: special edition
UFO trilogy

---PS some reason the enter formatting isn't working properly so this post is probably difficult to read
dark horizon
Endless Space: Disharmony expansion
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - New Frontiers Edition
Starpoint Gemini 2PC Games



anyway i'm looking for exploring, trading some combat and possibly planetary landings of some sort if possible
 
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Out of that list I would get
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion - New Frontiers Edition
It's nothing like elite, it's a 4x (eXplore,eXpand,eXploit,eXterminate) like masters of orion or Civilization but with more of an RTS feel.
It is a great game though if you like strategy and space

Starpoint Gemini 2 is probably your most elite type game in that list but it doesn't have planetary landings.
 
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The X games were the spiritual successors to elite (before the actual successor came out).
They're pretty good from what I hear but I've never gotten into them myself.

I think X3 and it's expansions are where you want to start with it as X:rebirth wasn't well received.

Evochron mercenary is pretty elite like and has planetary landings. It's fairly old so should run well and be cheap.

I'd highly recommend Kerbal Space Program. Nothing like Elite really but is a space game that IMO has no equal. It's amazeballs!

There's Rodina too which I haven't tried yet so can't comment on.
Thankyou will check those out
 
If you're looking for an "Elite" like game to play, you could do a lot worse than Oolite.
Great game, lovely graphics yet runs on low spec machines.
Highly customisable, with lots of additional content, including all sorts of missions.
 
I found Endless Space a lot more interesting than Sins of a Solar empire. Closest I've found to a GalCiv type game that wasn't GalCiv, with a ton of variety on each of the races, their perks and so on. Each one plays so much differently. The visuals aren't bad either. I was pretty surprised. Not on the tactical and strategic level of Sword of the Stars 1 and 2, it's still a fun 4x game.

Rebel Galaxy is a lot more fun than Starpoint Gemini. More dynamic and tons of variety both in ships and how you can build them. Far more explroation as well. A single system in Rebel Galaxy has as many if not more places to explore than StarPoint Gemini does total... no joke. So many nebulas, asteroid fields, junk yard and whatnot that you could literally spend a month going over a sector with a fine toothed comb and still not find everything.

Allegedly according to review threads for IGN, PC Gamer and the like, X-Rebirth is in better shape now than Elite Dangerous is. I haven't tried it since the launch fiasco so I can't comment there. X3 was fun with the Xtended mods, but they're so slow that they can't even keep up with releases anymore. X3TC was basically X3R and the Xtended mod combined and packed into a new game. The problem with the X3 games is they're relatively boring unless you like building massive stations and factories, or buildling a fleet of capital ships. I did the latter and found it fun but mods are a necessity pretty much. Carrier operations and task forces really can't be done well without using Lucike's mods for CODEA, turrets crews and the like. In fact, X3 is pretty bland without mods.
 
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I found Endless Space a lot more interesting than Sins of a Solar empire. Closest I've found to a GalCiv type game that wasn't GalCiv, with a ton of variety on each of the races, their perks and so on. Each one plays so much differently. The visuals aren't bad either. I was pretty surprised. Not on the tactical and strategic level of Sword of the Stars 1 and 2, it's still a fun 4x game.

I think it was just the expansion not the full game for Endless space
"Endless Space: Disharmony expansion"

It could be a stand alone thing though, can't remember.
 
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Rebel Galaxy is also like Elite in that it's pretty shallow--just not in quite the same places. It's still a decent amount of fun, albeit a bit glitchy at times. Worth the price of admission, however.

Haven't yet done much with Endless Space--sounds like I should! Sins is a pretty good RTS, and fairly challenging at tougher AI levels.

Go play Freelancer--that's an old space game that can be a fair amount of fun. Should run fine on your hardware.
 

Avago Earo

Banned
Oolite. Fans of the original made it. Free to download. Loads of mods and enhancements. In fact, it's because of Oolite that I found out about ED. I use PC to record music (instruments, not copy/pasting samples), and had a PS3 for casual racing car gaming. I wanted to relive 1984 so downloaded BeebEm (BBC Micro Emulator) and Elite (you can get this from the Frontier store for free). I then found Oolite. It will run on a pretty basic machine.

http://www.oolite.org/

Hope you look at this. I had a great time with it and all the fan based add ons and mods. Based on the original Elite but more solid graphically. Not on a par with ED but it was never meant to be.
 
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Oolite. Fans of the original made it. Free to download. Loads of mods and enhancements. In fact, it's because of Oolite that I found out about ED. I use PC to record music (instruments, not copy/pasting samples), and had a PS3 for casual racing car gaming. I wanted to relive 1984 so downloaded BeebEm (BBC Micro Emulator) and Elite (you can get this from the Frontier store for free). I then found Oolite. It will run on a pretty basic machine.

http://www.oolite.org/

Hope you look at this. I had a great time with it and all the fan based add ons and mods. Based on the original Elite but more solid graphically. Not on a par with ED but it was never meant to be.

Pretty much this. I found ED because of Oolite, and the modding of Oolite allowed me to make an even better experience (much like the mods for X3 did).

I'd have tried some of these others if I'd known about them before ED, but honestly I don't have time for immersing myself in multiple games anymore ;)
 
Evochron Mercenary

More ED than Elite. Not as slick but you can do more! Also, multiplayer behaves the same as ED. Seriously well worth a look. Small but loyal player base and superb developer support.
http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/

I second Evochron - there is nothing quite like it
It's made by a single developer, that's absolutely amazing considering what you can do in this game

It's old and the grafics are a bit dated sure but it has absolutely everything one could want from a game like this
Seemless planetary landing, precission jumping inside asteroid caves or black holes, stations, terrain walker, customizable ships and much more

Sure it cannot compete with the beauty of elite - but before ED came out Evochron was ( and in my opinion it still is ) an absolute gem

Also it's not very expensive and there is even some modding support for different cockpits and city and nebula textures and such
 
I second the recommendations for Evochron and Oolite.

Also an amazing game, that happens to be called Dangerous, a 2011 game that is the closest to what I wanted the sequels to Elite to be. You can play it on the PC or Android and the commander saves work with both.
Here:
http://whoisdangerous.com/
It is very much worth the time to get into and is actually consistent and appears to have a BGS. Doesn't have 400,000,000 Stars though.

Edit - Just noticed it is on steam, I wasn't expecting and I don't understand the negative reviews on there. TBH it seems that people just have not played it but maybe I just experience the game differently to these people. There ya go anyway.
 
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I was wondering if someone would mention Freelancer (Microsoft 2003). It's a space exploration trading combat game with both offline and online modes with numerous servers and players still supporting it. It starts out as a 10 hour interactive movie where you can do whatever you want between missions. After completing it you are free to roam. Offline there are many mods and support websites including custom ships. Want to fly the Millennium Falcon or Serenity from Firefly? Online no mods allowed on most servers (some do) but one can have multiple accounts and even fly two at the same time with two different computers. It even includes the server side edition if you want to host your own site. There are no required costs for playing online and easily found on eBay.

While certainly nowhere close to the complexity of ED it is a lot more user friendly.

Freelancer Video

Support Page

Freelancer Universe
 
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Evochron is nice but I preffered the x-games X3TC is the best of the x-series, pro tip you can go eva and repair your ship with the repair laser on your suit. there's no planetary landings though.
 
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