I hate EVE, mainly because of the fighting style. Its stupid, You click a button and you shoot. wtf.

You could argue that that method is more similar to commanding a capital ship. Still, there's more to the request than combat.

well freelancer has a static world. The only thing that changes is the factions attitude toward you.

How do the larger ships handle? Sorry to sound like someone so new...

my best advice is stick with freelancer, I have also tried most of the games on your list ( except EVE, I have SWG and one pay per month mmo is enough for me) Of cource X3 seems interesting, if they fixed the caracter adamation,that is what did it for me on the X2 game. For freelancer I play mainly the evolutions mod because it mainly sticks with the trader aspects of the game, and it helps that there was a recent released mod that randomizes the economy and were you can buy ships. Hope this helps.

Blessed Be to all those that still dream of the flight to the stars.

Actually, that helps greatly. Thank you very much. All other suggestions are most welcome. I'll be playing tonight for sure. What is the best or latest Evolutions mod?

There are a couple of games, but none of them matches all of the requirements.

Strange Adventures In Outer Space...
... if I rember the title correctly. You are hired by some sort of galactic billionaire and have to explore some area in space off limits to normal folks. Your goal is to bring back as many exciting and valuable artifacts as possible, while trying to survice space monsters, super novae, pirates or hostile aliens. During your journey you can upgrade your ship with the stuff you've found and even hire wingmen to support you fighting the baddies. Trade is limited to trading for artefacts with other races you come across. Each game is limited to 15 minutes realtime, but despite thar short period of time the game is great fun.

Escape Velocity Nova
You play as the hero created by the universe itself, althou not yet knowing. All of the races were once human, but due to some dark fate the colonies were separated and developed independently from each other. Some mastered the art of using the power of their mind to shapeshift into shipy, allowing them to travel through space without the help of anything else. Others made psychical and technical advancements, so they can build ships which don't rely on true newtonian space physics as we know it anymore and have the best equipment for theit ships, but live so isolated it's very hard to make contact with them. It's your choice which party you help to achieve their goals.

Flatspace
Nothing extraordinary, but dynamic trade (iirc) and a lot of exploration.

Space Rangers
Dynamic trade, upgradeable ship, part 2 also has freighter hulls, and extremely difficult to beat. Has planetary quests in the form of text adventures, where you mostly have to solve riddles. In the beginning, cash is hard to come by and best earned by trading. Once you break the 300.000 credits barrier, you can start making missions given to you by the planetary secretary. That's not because of the difficulty level of the missions, but rather because of the limited number of missions which give more pay the more cash you already have. Part two also has planetary RTS quests. A german magazine gave it around 60%. Althou the game is very difficult, that rating IMHO is too low. I'd give it some 80%. It's the best I have played in a long while.

What all titles have in common: 2D and singleplayer only.

There are of course the old classics like Elite, Frontier, Privateer, Solar Winds, Hardwar and newer titles like the "X" series. Alas, I surely forgot to mention half of similar titles. I'll post them as soon as I remember them

EVE's not too bad actually i've played about 5 14 day trials and my brother played it for a few months before he ran out of money

it still takes skill to win in combat, are you going to mount that capacitor booster or aa shield booster, missiles or lasers, drones or no drones, just because it doesn't rely on you aiming and actually firing doesn't mean theres no skill you can still do evasive manouvers and all, also you can increase you chances of hitting an opponent if you take the time to improve certain skills like gunnery or w/e its called.

But its not real-time, like with freelancer. And with the evo mod in freelancer, you can still try and figure out, "Which capacitator should i mount?" Without the boring fighting style.


FL:CE Mod Team Leader