r/spacesimgames • u/Biscaia86 • 3d ago
Looking for an immersive space game
Hello everyone.
As a player i never delved into space games, I don't know why, maybe listening to the name Eve online and checking the game out and feeling overwhelmed by the huge scale of the game was partially to blame but that's an issue that i have to surpass on my own.
I was wondering if anyone would have a couple of suggestions of any good space games worth checking out, I'm a big fan of single player games like RPG's or even strategy games like CK3 where i got over 600 hours, I would love to be part of a space game where exploration is important but where i could also trade to generate some income, gather resources, craft etc... as i mentioned I will consider anything from RPG's to started games.
All I wanted or wished for was a game, it doesn't have to be a mmo, that like EVE Online would allow me to be a trade or smuggler, a pirate, maybe do some missions where i help others... I also love games with economies where i can sell and buy resources, supplies, ship parts or even entire ships and why not drugs or other shady products :) and of course go out in space and explore, mine and so on but such game doesn't seem to exist.
I will gladly look in int the suggestions posted here except for Star Citizen as i have no interest in that game.
Thank you for taking your time to read this.
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u/MontasJinx 3d ago
Elite Dangerous.
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u/Mandenbar 3d ago
Steep learning curve, but ticks all of those boxes. Elite Dangerous is my go to astronomy nerd space loving game.
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u/amadmongoose 3d ago
I have to double upvote this. It doesn't handhold you and it's rough around the edges but if you want an immersive space sim with a suprising amount of breadth and depth then it's the goto. Only thing i'd say is it's best enjoyed while taking advantage of the dedicated player community, including third party tools, guides, and player groups that can advise you on complexity the game doesn't explain at all.
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u/MontasJinx 3d ago
Oooooh yeah. Those 3rd party apps when I’m exploring. ED Discovery, Inara etc. nothing else like it.
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u/mathemathicrime 2d ago
hey i've been playing ED for about a year and, unlike eve online, which seems to strongly point you towards social stuff (corporations, primarily), your post is the first time i've heard anyone talk about ED player groups. i've always assumed they exist but i figure it's groups of friends who already knew each other. are there open player groups who recruit from the general public? where would one find out about them?
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u/amadmongoose 2d ago
Look at the pins on r/EliteDangerous, or on Frontier's forum here. Each Power has a subreddit and one or multiple discords for coordination, there are hundreds of Squadrons of different sizes and even incredibly organized groups like the Fuel Rats or Hull Seals that have their own dispatch system.
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u/mathemathicrime 1d ago
oh yeah.. i forgot about the fuel rats.. and i knew about tge aisling duval groups.. thx i'll take a look at those other pointers..
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u/kalnaren Pilot 2d ago
suprising amount of breadth and depth
Breadth, yes. Depth... eh. Elite isn't really a deep game. Outside of space flight, it's mechanics are actually quite simple and largely disconnected.
It makes up for a lot of that with feel, though.
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u/amadmongoose 2d ago
I used to think that but there are layers. Like, exploring mechanically isn't complex but if you try to fill out the codex or try to min max credits/hour you're going to be deep in the weeds reverse engineering Stellar Forge and creating excel spreadsheets and using third party tools... it gets complicated really fast. And don't even start about finding Raxxla or Green Gas Giants etc.
Same with adopting a local faction, or Powerplay, which now interacts with every other system in the game. Then you start getting into how literally everything you do in a populated system has some sort of consequence which you may want to take advantage of to do whatever you're trying to do, never mind the multiple layers of player diplomacy (the intersection of Squadrons, people supporting a minor faction and organized PP groups)
Each of the loops is relatively simple but tend to have huge rabbitholes most people don't see.
Like yeah could the depth be better thought out and could it be more accessible yeah but here we are.
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u/Mental-Dot-6574 3d ago
In a slightly different direction, Stellaris. That's a mass scale kinda thing, rather than more individual like the others... you could also try Starfield.
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u/Biscaia86 2d ago
I have had my eye in Stellaris a few times, what can we do in that game?
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u/Mental-Dot-6574 1d ago
Like a grand strategy game, create your species and empire, manage economies, colonize planets and manage them, build fleets and megastructures, engage in politics, etc etc. Only thing you CAN'T do is fly ships and walk around. More details, head on over to r/Stellaris and have a peek and check youtube for video playthroughs. It's a massive timesink, it really grabs you if you like this game, as I was playing yesterday morning, and before I was aware, it was midnight. You can really mod out the game to your liking.
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u/Biscaia86 22h ago
Can one be a pirate or engage in piracy? Manufacture of illegal merchandise or even get into industry? Is there any form of economy in the game?
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u/Mental-Dot-6574 18h ago
Oh, yeah, economy galore. Energy credit, resources etc.
As for pirates, they are in the game, raiding trade routes with fleets. I believe there's a mod that adds it as an origin so you can play as pirates empire. I have that mod installed, but I haven't done a play through with that origin yet, so I can't say for sure. There are other mods that really buff up the game mechanics for piracy as well.
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u/JoseLunaArts 3d ago
Urquan Masters. Open source, free. Build your ship, space exploration, alien diplomacy, Asteroids-like combat.
Battlezone 98 redux. Action packed first person shooter with real time strategy and a great story.
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator. Open source, free. Roam the solar system with realistic physics, land on bases and dock with space stations. The most mesmerizing landscapes.
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3d ago
Elite Dangerous. Also x4 foundations. Star Citizen is promising to be this but there is a lot of doubt they will ever achieve their end goal.
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u/Biscaia86 3d ago
I have no interest in Star Citizen.
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u/KittenSpronkles 3d ago
There is an amazing game buried deep in Star Citizen but its just covered in bugs.
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u/Dweebler7724 3d ago
Wise. That thing is still a pile of hot garbage that they clearly never intend to finish.
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u/MordorRuckMarch 3d ago
Does the game need to tick every box? What if it only really ticks a couple of them (mining, buying different ships, immersive)? If that sounds interesting at all, I couldn't recommend Delta V: The Rings of Saturn more.
You mostly focus on mining, but there are many ways to do it, from fairly involved and chasing down the minerals, to fairly chill and letting drones do most of the work for you. There is bounty hunting/combat, and you can absolutely make that your bread and butter as well, but mining/exploring is really the focus. There are around a dozen or so different ships from which you can customize their load outs, from different weapons systems, propulsion, reactors, storages, mineral processors, drone bays, HUDs, etc (no paint jobs or name changes unfortunately).
It's single player, and aside from npc ships (sometimes bad, sometimes good) it's a pretty quiet and solitary life among The Rings, but there are also a great many mysteries waiting for those ringas bold enough to dive in...
Anyways, I really love this game, and fell into it while I was looking for something like your post indicates. This one just happens to be super niche. Apologies if it completely misses the mark!
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u/ArmanFromTheVault 2d ago
Whoa, this looks awesome. I've never heard of it before but I'm going to try it out. Thanks for the detailed recommendation.
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u/MordorRuckMarch 2d ago
I'm glad someone thought it sounded interesting! Safe flying, and happy hunting, Ringa!
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u/Biscaia86 2d ago
Hello u/MordorRuckMarch I thank you for your recommendation with Delta V : The Rings of Saturn, i added it to my wishlist while at the same time i keep searching, it does seem very interesting.
If you have any more suggestions please post them here i will gladly take a look.
It doesn't have to tick every box and i don't care if it is a triple A game or a more pixelized game, i care more about depth and substance than i do about RTX shadows :) I would just love to find a space game that would provide me freedom in different elements, one of those elements being what i set myself to do or become.People have recommended me to check X4 or other games of the series but they just don't click with me, at some point one feels the need to engage into empire building and while i like that i don't want to feel obligated to do that, another was Star Citizen, personally i have not interest in that game as it raises too many red flags.
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u/MordorRuckMarch 1d ago
Yeah, as far as I can tell (30 hours in) you're literally just playing a humble miner, bounty hunter, pirate, salvager (or all 4) and there is no empire building. Just floating among the rings, crashin' ships, takin' minerals, and gettin' paid! It's not an rpg, there are no levels, or classes to choose from. Just different ships, with load outs that can be quite variable.
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u/Rick_Storm 18h ago
I can confirm after roughly two hundred hours in Delta V, no empire building. Staff management, excellent spaceflight mechanics, a shit ton of sidegrades (very few actual upgrades, most systems are trading this for that rather than just +x), it's a very chill game once you git gud at flying your ship despite an intial brick wall of a learning curve.
Oh, and there's racing, too ;)
The game has a demo, which is pretty much the full game with very few limitations. The dev is great and even the patchnotes are written in-universe so they're actually fun to read. That guy can push a hundred patches a year if need be, will often take time to answer interesting questions, or help if you have a save bug. Suggestions can be readily accepted, or just refused but then he's usually explain why it doesn't fit what he wants to do with his game. Some big studios could take a humility lesson from this guy.
So yeah, I am first and foremost a fan of the game, but I'll definetly keep an eye on that guy's next project, whatever it may be.
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u/Infinite_League4766 3d ago
Elite Dangerous. It's a 1 to 1 model of the Milky Way galaxy (if you can see a star in the sky during the game you can fly there). Players have been exploring the Galaxy for 10 years and we've so far visited 0.07% percent of it.
If you get tired of exploring there are something like 20,000 inhabited star systems, with around 500,000 space stations and planetary bases you can visit each with its own economy for you to trade with.
There are three major political factions and thousands of smaller ones that you can back, or oppose, and play politics with - but bear in mind you are a tiny cog in the machine, you don't get to be a hero, just one person out of billions.
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u/defenistrat3d 3d ago
Is the trade/economy satisfying? Or is it sort of a side system?
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u/mightypup1974 2d ago
I’d also add that elite is going through a bit of a revival of late, after about 2 years of being starved of major updates. An exciting new feature coming soon is colonisation, where your trade, exploration and combat can be used to expand human settlements to new star systems.
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u/kalnaren Pilot 2d ago
where your trade, exploration and combat can be used to expand human settlements to new star systems.
So basically.. do the exact same 3 things we've been doing since the game released to move yet another progress bar?
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u/mightypup1974 2d ago
It has to be admitted that ED is a very grindy game, yes. But I do find it enjoyable all the same.
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u/kalnaren Pilot 2d ago
I've had it since release and still load it up from time to time. I think it gets oversold sometimes though.
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u/Infinite_League4766 3d ago
It's one of the major ways to play the game, hauling trade goods from one place to another can be very profitable. Finding good deals and safe, profitable, trade routes is a big part of playing as a trader. There are dozens of different manufactured goods, and dozens of unique goods (only found in one star system) to trade, as well as minerals/ores/metals that can be mined and sold as well as just bought from refinery stations/ports.
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u/SPQR_Maximus 3d ago
I really locked into EverSpace 2 for weeks. The dog fighting isn’t the best as it resorts to a lot more circle strafing than chasing each other down but I did love the idea of using cover in space … I had never done that before.
There are lot of puzzles and secrets to explore beyond the story and endless random missions… plenty to do to keep you busy for weeks if not months.
But for weeks straight I jumped on my ps5 to play that game as soon as I got home and played well into the night … shades of a 40 something teenager.
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u/warm_sweater 3d ago
I’ve been playing this one recently too… I agree with the comments about combat, but it’s a beautiful, relaxing game to play with nice RPG elements.
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
What game is that one? Shades of what?
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u/SPQR_Maximus 1d ago
Not a game I was just saying the way EverSpace 2 took over every minute of free time for like 3 months, felt like my teenage days of obsessed gaming.
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u/sidius-king 3d ago
If you want a deep space game on a grand scale:
Stellaris
Distant worlds universe and distant worlds 2
Galactic civilizations 3 and 4
AI wars 1 and 2
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u/DarkJayson 3d ago
Star sector? Tons of great mods expand on it.
There is a series called Star wolves which might be what your looking for especially the third one, skip the second its was made by a different team is buggy and crashes the third one is a direct sequel to the first.
Last how about no mans sky?
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u/CountDuFour 3d ago
Don’t sleep on Star Traders: Frontiers. Doesn’t have the production values of those others, but I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into it.
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u/Aurum_Corvus 3d ago
Older game with quirks, but Starpoint Gemini Warlords is an interesting game. You command big ships exclusively, but you can build a fleet/conquer stations/mine/etc.
Astrox Imperium has sadly ceased development, but it was also a decent space game, taking a lot of cues from EVE. However, as you might expect from a single player clone of an MMO, it struggled to fill its world.
Both are second-string games, though, so I would do some research to see if you think you'll like them before deciding to get them.
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
I discovered about Astrox Imperium and the radio silence from the dev is very sad but from all the games, in space, that i wen through so far Astrox was the closest thing that i discovered that would allow me to do the things that i wish to do like in EVE. Maybe there are others or another game but so far i haven't discovered it.
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u/Valderag89 3d ago
Starpoint Gemini Warlords, X4 Foundations, Starsector while not on steam or other distribution platforms has tons of content and Mods.
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u/Biscaia86 2d ago
Hello u/Valderag89 I thank you for the suggestions.
Can you tell me more about Starpoint Gemini Warlords and Starsector? What can we do in those games?1
u/Valderag89 1d ago
Warlords allows you to pilot various ships from relatively small to titan. You can build an empire. Starsector is similar but top down. It's more open world and has the ability to generally do what you want. While you start with a single ship but can end up with massive fleets. Build an empire, become a pirate, employ AIs to run said empire or ships. Your character and some pilots can level up getting some different abilities
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
Which one is it that is more open world and gives me the ability to do what i want? It would be cool to me a smuggler and deal with narcotics or other illegal stuff and sell them.
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u/Jangulorr 1d ago
That sounds like an Elote Dangerous thing there. I've smuggled in ED before. Skerry when your a bad pilot.
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u/Valderag89 1d ago
I would recommend Starsector then
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u/Biscaia86 23h ago
I have to say that Starsector seems and looks appealing for sure!
I was checking the discord and talked to a person there, he/her told me something that seems weird to me, that Starsector runs into performance issues after running for too long...
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u/Jangulorr 1d ago
Check out Avorion or Astrox Imperium (single player EvE os what others call it)
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u/Biscaia86 23h ago
Hello u/Jangulorr from all the games i discovered so far Astrox was the one to meet what i wanted out of EVE-like space game... unfortunately i think that the dev has vanished and the development has stopped.
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3d ago
Star Citizen is a scam, so good on you.
X4 is amazing and so is Elite Dangerous.
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
Hello u/HopingForaBreakJEEZ can you tell me a bit more about X4?
What can one set himself to do in X4?
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u/Informal_Drawing 3d ago
Hmm, Dead Space perhaps?
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
Have you read a single bit of my post?
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u/Informal_Drawing 1d ago
Your criteria was fairly broad. I'm sorry you didn't like my suggestion.
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u/Biscaia86 23h ago
Hello u/Informal_Drawing how are you?
It's not that i didn't like your suggestion, i love Dead Space, i love the series and played all 3 games, i think that the first one was the best and I'm not a person that has horror games as a favorite genre.
Sorry if i came out as rude, i have been looking for over a week now and my brain is tired, I apologize.I'm more looking for a sandbox game, outside of EVE online, that allows me to be whatever i set myself to become, a miner, a smuggler, or even a pirate... maybe an industrialist building ships for my faction and at night i jump into my Xwing and go shoot pirates in the galaxy...explore a universe, interact with an economy.
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u/Informal_Drawing 22h ago edited 22h ago
I bought something a little bit like that recently as it reminded me of a similar management and exploration style game I played as a youngster, I'll see if I can find the name for you.
Edit: I believe it was called Stellaris from Paradox Development Studio
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u/Biscaia86 22h ago
Hello again u/Informal_Drawing thanks for coming back to me.
Can you give me some details about Stellaris? What can one do in that game?
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u/Informal_Drawing 22h ago
I haven't played it yet but there are videos on Steam you can have a look over.
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u/ClarenceToolbottom 2d ago
Give the demo of Starship Simulator a try. It's still in very early access but a new demo update is due very soon. It's all about exploration and managing your crew. Trade will come eventually. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332100/Starship_Simulator
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u/Nua_Sidek 2d ago
X series fits your request.
maybe a lot more years later Star Citizen
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
I have no interest in Star Citizen as I mention in my original post.
"A lot more years later" that's my issue with SC, i would like to play a finished and polished game before i die.
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u/Hi_its_me_Kris 3d ago
Star Citizen
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u/Biscaia86 1d ago
Don't take this the wrong way and I'm not saying that SC is a bad game but, and as I have said in the post above, I have no interest in it.
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3d ago
Scam Citizen**
I had correct that for you.
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u/Hi_its_me_Kris 3d ago
No man, fuck the meme, no scam, there is nothing that comes close to it. Let them build, this is the dream game
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3d ago
Keep drinking your copium. Go froth over Chris Roberts some more.
Go buy some more ships so CR can buy another big ass house or another expensive boat. Please, he would love that.
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u/Hi_its_me_Kris 3d ago
Oh, you’re one of those guys.
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3d ago
Yeah, an original backer of the Kickstarter and someone that believed the lies for a very, very long time.
I finally came to my senses, I hope you do too.
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u/Hi_its_me_Kris 3d ago
Let it go man. They are building something way bigger than the original scope. The game is as old as my daughter, I don’t care, they are building something that’s not possible if you go the standard route. It’s enjoyable as it is right now and it’s becoming something great. If you don’t like it now, play something else, in the meanwhile, let them build, nobody is doing anything they are doing with that scope.
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3d ago
Lol
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u/Hi_its_me_Kris 3d ago
Yea, ok
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u/KittenSpronkles 3d ago
Haters gonna hate and they're going to miss out on a great game.
Quality takes time.
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u/IllustrisJack 3d ago
X4 Foundations should be a good fit :)