I often play Orbiter, you just can't find more realistic space simulation unless you are working already in the NASA or similar organisation
Sometime i really wished there was an Elite 4 that would use Orbiter as its basis for physics and the ship simulation. I doubt anyone would hear about me anymore if such game existed
Recently i went again in a loop playing the various Elite.
-ArcElite, thanks to the Red Squirrel archimedes emulator
-Frontier : Elite 2, thanks to DOSBox with my XP laptop (too bad the OpenGL version does not work on my old system that has a window 9x OS, it always ran old games better than my XP laptop)
-Frontier : First Encounter thanks to JFFE (sometime with the nic OpenGL 1.3 mod as it is superb with it)
And frankly, despite ArcElite is the best Elite 1 version ever made due to the improvements the AI has over the PC versions, i wondered how i could be so interested in it in my youth (and i lost countless of nightly hours to it).
Now that i tried other space games, i find that Elite 1 just features incredibly frustrating and simply "unfun" gameplay, space combat was hard in FFE due to the AI appearing out of nowhere around you (it was easier in FE2 as the AI was way less accurate in its shots), but in Elite1 it is not even remotely interesting to fight.
I believe the main responsible was the left/right making the ship to roll that actually ruin the game for me today.
Making arcade flight physics like in Elite1 is not really a problem (i had a very lot of fun in Freespace 2 despite its physics are completely arcade), but having arcade physics mixed with entirely unintuitive flight controls is a definitive no no today.
I can't imagine anyone that would really have fun today with the Elite 1 controls now if he has played lot of other space sims since that time.
But now talking about FE2 and FFE despite their old age are always as good, they are always like in my memory and i had great fun while replaying it, quickly finding my old reflexes, trade routes and flying around space stations while trying not to crash into the structures
FE2 and FFE are really piece of genius to have stand the test of the time after all those years, something unfortunately Elite 1 did not for me.
I continue to hope there will be an Elite4.
Lots of other elite-like games have been released bringing some good new ideas (build your own fleets and industry in X-Tension/X2 , lots of ships doing their own stuff in Freelancer etc...) and some bad (repetitive missions in Freelancer, every sector looking the same in X-Tension/X2, etc..) , i hope Elite 4 will use the good ideas and not the bad.
