Space Sims Overview

[chuckster]

I dabbled in Frontier years ago, but these new space sims are pretty interesting. I just don't know where to start. I was wondering if someone could help me with a general comparison of game mechanics and objectives of three big ones:

EVE Online
Elite: Dangerous
Star Citizen

How are they similar (so far), how are they different? Do/will they all require monthly fees? How is the single-player experience in the latter two expected to be? Is there even a viable way to play any of these offline/single player? Am I missing any great space sims (made recently, maybe post 2005, or upcoming), that I should consider?

[meow a cat]

EVE is basically spreadsheets in space and point and click combat, and requires a monthly sub. Some people really like it, but I could never get into it. The community is really interesting though.

Star Citizen and Elite are buy once play forever.

Elite was going to have single player offline, but they scrapped it because it wasn't technically feasible to do.

Star Citizen will have private servers and offline single player, the scope of these modes isn't really known yet AFAIK. The single player campaign will be offline or online with co-op, and the campaign will affect the persistent universe. I'm not entirely sure if there will be a single player offline universe. If you run a private server though, you could do whatever you want with it.

Elite is alot of fun right now, it's pretty amazing exploring the Milky Way. Frontier did a really great job with everything.

Star Citizen is pretty barebones right now, but I'm really pleased with the way it's shaping up. I've been a backer for a year and a bit now. It's been a lot of fun watching the development progress.

Star Citizen is also much more ambitious than Elite, it really gets my imagination going. I think if they pull it off it will easily be one of the greatest games ever made.

The combo of piloting, FPS, and life sim should be really great. They seem to be taking everything really in-depth and detailed.

Have you played Freelancer? Strike Suit Zero is fun if you just want to do some shooting. I would also check out Wing Commander Saga, it's free. As well as Freespace 1/2 if you haven't already.

You could also give X3 a try too.

[plegnic]

I think you can get a demo account on EVE if you want to try it. E:D and StarCitizen are a lot more action-ey than EVE (1st vs. 3rd person). Although since EVE is older and not as resource-intensive, the battles can be huge. EVE is notorious for people spreadsheeting and how you might have to set late-night alarms for Corp events or to set your skill-queue (skill-queue is actually changed now though iirc).

I'm a backer of StarCitizen as well. SC is definitely focusing on detail, it's a beautiful game so far and I think they are going to keep improving it. I don't know how that will fare when they try to start including carriers and large-scale battles, though. Right now there's just arcade fighting and racing. (It's probably going to be cheaper to pledge for SC rather than wait for full release if you decide you want it.)

Sadly, I haven't played E:D personally, but it looks really great and seems to have a pretty good community overall.

[Belfong]

necro-ing this. Due to Steam Sale, I bought Elite Dangerous and is having a blast. Do we have the Geekhack group? I searched for it and couldn't find any. Let me know if you are joining!