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Star Control II, but more so. Star Control II is a collection of different interrelated minigame mechanics. You have spacewar-style combat, planet exploration

Star Control II, but more so. Star Control II is a collection of different interrelated minigame mechanics. You have spacewar-style combat, planet exploration resource collection, interactive storytelling with the communications with other races, resource and time management, ship and fleet customization, and exploration of the universe. But some planets could require a side-scrolling platformer, instead of the top-down lander. Or you could put together a jRPG-style party and explore a settlement on a planet. You could play a Scumm-style adventure game on an abandoned space station. In addition to spacewar, you could have a bullet hell shooter for traversing an asteroid field. You could do economy management and trading, purchasing self-sealing stem bolts on Cardassia Prime and trading them for seal furs on Caladan. You could level up your crew to make them better at piloting ships in your fleet or participating in away missions. And of course we need procedural generation for the sake of replayability.

deleted 4y ago
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mayormcmatt 4y ago
All I have to say is, this game sounds bad ass!
superultra 4y ago
Or an update or sequel to the Electronic Arts Starflight series!
- presidentender 4y ago
  Star Control is a spiritual successor to Starflight - the star system exploration screen is virtually identical between Star Control II and Starflight.
  - superultra 4y ago
    Totally aware! Huge fan of both. However I think I in general prefer the overall vibe and lore or Starflight to SC2 myself. Both series are great though.
jadbox 4y ago
How do you feel about Stardock's Star Control reboot? For me, it felt like a big tech demo, but not fully fleshed out. Btw, Mass Effect was very inspired by Star Control with its use of minigames for mineral collection. I really want a game that's more of a 50/50 mix between Mass Effect and Star Control.
- jojohack 4y ago
  Interesting, I always thought of Mass Effect as a spiritual successor to Sentinel Worlds 1: Future Magic. Never played Star Control though, may need to check it out.
  - vvillena 4y ago
    Both Star Control II and Mass Effect create this sense of alien-ness, where you feel like you're really trying to deal with alien races using human concepts and, unless you can break out of that mold, you won't succeed. In SC2 this is quite literal, since the game runs on a clock of sorts, and it's possible to get into an unwinnable state. The best part of SC2 is that it is impossible to know ahead of time if your encounters will result in making loyal allies or barbaric enemies. The only way forward is to keep exploring the galaxy.
    - aasasd 4y ago
      If you like that feeling, you might enjoy the old game Vangers. It's not quite ‘take these completely foreign things and do barely understandable tasks with them’, but the mood is definitely there.
- presidentender 4y ago
  My disdain for Origins is just about Brad Wardell's treatment of Fred and Paul and his complete disregard for which rights he purchased versus which he didn't. And that really hurt because I liked Stardock so much - I remember reading something about how he built the original Galactic Civilizations and each ship was its own window due to how he misunderstood the system, and I really admired the pragmatism and get-things-done attitude. And then he was a massive jerk to these other people I think are cool. The game itself was lovely. The writing was good. The art was good. The combat was fine. The lander and everything adjacent to it was frustrating; not only did it bounce around like a caffeine-addled pigeon, the things you'd do with the resources were not satisfying. The game was short, but it was supposed to be a platform upon which other people would build using a campaign editor, and then the entire community hated Stardock and nobody wanted to create more content.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Halcyon 6 could be this, but ended up having far too many grinding fights. For me, the main appeal of SC2 and first Mass Effect game was a sense of a huge undiscovered galaxy where the wonders are. The joy of finding your first rainbow world was immense.
EamonnMR 4y ago
You're kinda describing EV and EV-likes.
- presidentender 4y ago
  When I google "EV," I get news articles about Tesla and their competitors. What does EV stand for in this context?
  - Comevius 4y ago
    Escape Velocity
goodpoint 4y ago
You mean Ur-Quan Masters? http://theurquanmasters.com/ http://theurquanmasters.com/ A new version is being developed!
- presidentender 4y ago
  I'm not up-to-date with the ongoing state of the UQM2 effort, other than awareness of the subreddit and the streams. They communicate mostly via video and I prefer text, so I haven't kept up since the kerfuffle with Stardock. I did only play Ur-Quan Masters, though, and in like 2006, at that. I wasn't aware of the original until UQM.
Comevius 4y ago
Starcom: Nexus temporarily scratched this particular itch for me. There is no economy in the game, but there is ship building, researching, collecting resources, interacting with ships and planets, discovering stuff, space battles and a mystery that takes 10-15 hours to unravel. It's a top-down 2D game with free movement. The gameplay is balanced and fun, and the game doesn't always give you quest markers to chase, so you are expected to be observant. https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/
aasasd 4y ago
‘Space Rangers’ does a bit of what you describe, though not much. In fact, I learned about SC2 much later after playing SR, and realized that SR borrowed a lot from SC2. But perhaps SR can satisfy some of the itch for a new game in the genre(s), for those who haven't seen it yet.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  Space Rangers have far too dense world. The vastness of the galaxy is part of what makes exploration so fun in SC2.
Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Btw, I'd love to have something like SC2 in the sense of the huge galaxy to explore and mystery to unravel, but with space combat like FTL!
tigerlily 4y ago
Well, you may be interested in the latest effort by the original devs: https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/ EDIT: Looks like this is being developed just presently: https://www.twitch.tv/pebby https://www.twitch.tv/pebby https://www.reddit.com/r/uqm2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uqm2/

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mayormcmatt 4y ago

All I have to say is, this game sounds bad ass!

superultra 4y ago

Or an update or sequel to the Electronic Arts Starflight series!

presidentender 4y ago
Star Control is a spiritual successor to Starflight - the star system exploration screen is virtually identical between Star Control II and Starflight.
- superultra 4y ago
  Totally aware! Huge fan of both. However I think I in general prefer the overall vibe and lore or Starflight to SC2 myself. Both series are great though.

jadbox 4y ago

How do you feel about Stardock's Star Control reboot? For me, it felt like a big tech demo, but not fully fleshed out. Btw, Mass Effect was very inspired by Star Control with its use of minigames for mineral collection. I really want a game that's more of a 50/50 mix between Mass Effect and Star Control.

jojohack 4y ago
Interesting, I always thought of Mass Effect as a spiritual successor to Sentinel Worlds 1: Future Magic. Never played Star Control though, may need to check it out.
- vvillena 4y ago
  Both Star Control II and Mass Effect create this sense of alien-ness, where you feel like you're really trying to deal with alien races using human concepts and, unless you can break out of that mold, you won't succeed. In SC2 this is quite literal, since the game runs on a clock of sorts, and it's possible to get into an unwinnable state. The best part of SC2 is that it is impossible to know ahead of time if your encounters will result in making loyal allies or barbaric enemies. The only way forward is to keep exploring the galaxy.
  - aasasd 4y ago
    If you like that feeling, you might enjoy the old game Vangers. It's not quite ‘take these completely foreign things and do barely understandable tasks with them’, but the mood is definitely there.
presidentender 4y ago
My disdain for Origins is just about Brad Wardell's treatment of Fred and Paul and his complete disregard for which rights he purchased versus which he didn't. And that really hurt because I liked Stardock so much - I remember reading something about how he built the original Galactic Civilizations and each ship was its own window due to how he misunderstood the system, and I really admired the pragmatism and get-things-done attitude. And then he was a massive jerk to these other people I think are cool. The game itself was lovely. The writing was good. The art was good. The combat was fine. The lander and everything adjacent to it was frustrating; not only did it bounce around like a caffeine-addled pigeon, the things you'd do with the resources were not satisfying. The game was short, but it was supposed to be a platform upon which other people would build using a campaign editor, and then the entire community hated Stardock and nobody wanted to create more content.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Halcyon 6 could be this, but ended up having far too many grinding fights. For me, the main appeal of SC2 and first Mass Effect game was a sense of a huge undiscovered galaxy where the wonders are. The joy of finding your first rainbow world was immense.

EamonnMR 4y ago

You're kinda describing EV and EV-likes.

presidentender 4y ago
When I google "EV," I get news articles about Tesla and their competitors. What does EV stand for in this context?
- Comevius 4y ago
  Escape Velocity

goodpoint 4y ago

You mean Ur-Quan Masters? http://theurquanmasters.com/ http://theurquanmasters.com/ A new version is being developed!

presidentender 4y ago
I'm not up-to-date with the ongoing state of the UQM2 effort, other than awareness of the subreddit and the streams. They communicate mostly via video and I prefer text, so I haven't kept up since the kerfuffle with Stardock. I did only play Ur-Quan Masters, though, and in like 2006, at that. I wasn't aware of the original until UQM.

Comevius 4y ago

Starcom: Nexus temporarily scratched this particular itch for me. There is no economy in the game, but there is ship building, researching, collecting resources, interacting with ships and planets, discovering stuff, space battles and a mystery that takes 10-15 hours to unravel. It's a top-down 2D game with free movement. The gameplay is balanced and fun, and the game doesn't always give you quest markers to chase, so you are expected to be observant. https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/863590/Starcom_Nexus/

aasasd 4y ago

‘Space Rangers’ does a bit of what you describe, though not much. In fact, I learned about SC2 much later after playing SR, and realized that SR borrowed a lot from SC2. But perhaps SR can satisfy some of the itch for a new game in the genre(s), for those who haven't seen it yet.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
Space Rangers have far too dense world. The vastness of the galaxy is part of what makes exploration so fun in SC2.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago

Btw, I'd love to have something like SC2 in the sense of the huge galaxy to explore and mystery to unravel, but with space combat like FTL!

tigerlily 4y ago

Well, you may be interested in the latest effort by the original devs: https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ https://www.dogarandkazon.com/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/ https://pistolshrimpgames.com/uqm2/ EDIT: Looks like this is being developed just presently: https://www.twitch.tv/pebby https://www.twitch.tv/pebby https://www.reddit.com/r/uqm2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/uqm2/