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Pioneer?
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44 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Dude, do you know that frontier had LIFE SIZE SCALE planets you could land on? ;-) I expect that elite will also have them when they decide they have a reasonable way to implement that in a modern way.
Caiming the elite has small planets is a bit weird.
Also, a clone of frontier : http://pioneerspacesim.net/#&panel1-1
It was explictly stated during kickstarter they will NOT go for same "empty planet" approach with elite dangerous and they dont know how to figure it out yet gameplay wise to make sense.
You had "big" planets in X series. I seriously doubt that cry engine will be able to deliver anything reasonable for "space scale simulation" - and I'm not sure elite dangerous aims to do at this point. But if some game could deliver that i would expect it would be exactly elite - because they done that twice flawlessly. I think the only reason we might not see this would be multiplayer component and "modern" console gameplay style.
I expect that flight model and world simulation will be entirely different between those 2 games because they took completly different routes but if i had to bet - I'd say elite or frontier clones would be the ones to implement this scale "correctly".
If some of you younger commanders want to go about trying out Frontier on some of your newer computers, there are a few options to try:
Pioneer Space Sim is an excellent reimagining of Frontier. It is not exactly Frontier though as the game universe is completely different. It works almost exactly the same though.
Pioneer: Scout+ is Pioneer plus the ships and universe of Frontier. I think it's based on an older version of Pioneer so it's not as stable (for me, at least) as Pioneer but it should do you good.
glFrontier, despite being old, is probably the most faithful of the games on this list. It works on just about anything.
X is one of the worse ones for this - the world is literally just a bunch of small interconnected cubes with space-themed skyboxes and ridiculous speed limits. The cheesiness doesn't help my suspense of disbelief either :/
Oh well, there's always Pioneer.
well, there is space engine,
all of the predecessors of Elite:Dangerous (Frontier:Elite 2, Frontier First Encounters, etc..)
or one of it's remakes like Pioneer,
Orbiter Space Flight Simulator if having fun isn't nerdy enough for you and you just want something you can put on your resume if you want to work at nasa
and of course Kerbal Space Program.
I'm not sure it works like that. I ran a quick and dirty test as follows:
- clone open source project: http://pioneerspacesim.net/#&panel1-1
- compile on a single thread resulting in a compile time of 9m 28s
- compile with -j 8 resulting in a compile time of 2m 21s
- compile with -j 16 resulting in a compile time of 2m 22s
This is not at all scientific (and I'm about to go to bed) but I would imagine you cannot throw additional threads at a task when they aren't available.
Check <em>Orbiter</em> for a realistic space-flightsim with hardcore procedures and avionics, but no combat.
Check [Rogue System](/r/RogueSystem) for a fictional space combat sim with hardcore procedures, avionics switchology and also BVR combat.
Check <em>Pioneer Space Sim</em> for a realistic Milky Way galaxy in a fictional setting, with real orbital flight dynamics, but simplified avionics and WVR combat.
Check <em>Elite: Dangerous</em> for a really realistic Milky Way galaxy in a fictional setting, but simplified avionics and WVR combat.
Yeah , Frontier had time acceleration which made realistic speeds bearable. Combat at thousands of kph does not mix well with realime gameplay. If you overshoot, it can take hours (in game time) to decellerate and re-align.
You can try http://pioneerspacesim.net/ for a fan-made remake of Elite 2, and see what real-speed combat feels like.
It'll be on PC... but any old PC will do...
You can try going through the games that inspired Sean to make No Man's Sky, notably the Elite games (Frontier: Elite II comes to mind) ... or an open source game in that direction like Pioneer Space Simulator.
Pioneer is an indie game that's still being updated and patched and refined, but it's free and enormous! Worth a look! Bit of a steep learning curve though so I suggest watching a few YouTube tutorials before playing.
Pioneer is a remake of Elite 2.
Ascii Sector a space game with text graphics.
Noctis is really old and all but entirely abandoned but an interesting title none the less.
I'm a long term Elite fan but I found X3 'too much'. I appreciate that it's probably a very good game for the type of person into that sort of thing, but if you want something a bit more casual there's a couple of good options.
Firstly there's Pioneer, which is a more accesible game than X3, and is based on Frontier, which is the best space game ever created in my opinion. Of course, it also has much less depth than X3 and it's still very much in development, but it's worth a look.
On the more arcadey, action orientated end of the spectrum is Freelancer, which is a brilliant space game thats more about arcade style space shooting but does have trading and RPG elements as well. It's more closed in than most of the other games in this list but you're free to explore it's entire galaxy once the story is over and there are some rather excellent multiplayer servers available as well.
Frontier had much of what you describe back in 1993. Pioneer is a modern remake that I'm involved with. We do have a little bit of handwaving because ultimately we're making a game, but we think long and hard about the balance between realism and fun, and I think we're doing pretty good.
Its still early days, but we're putting flesh on the bones. Nerds welcome!
I was always more fond of the realistic style of Frontier. And not only does it have multiple reworks of the original games, but it's being remade from scratch as an open source project.
You can check out indie games like evochron mercenary and free projects like Pioneer the sad truth of the matter is publishers have avoided this type of game for quite a long time so I'm not aware of any others with big teams behind besides Infinity Battlescape which isn't released and is more arena style anyway. There's also that Rogue System game, but that looks to be more space simulation than exploration.
Combat isn't even remotely intuitive with newtonian physics. If you don't believe me, play Pioneer (it's free and it's great! — but not intuitive). Note, I'm not talking about fake newtonian physics like elite:dangerous or freelancer, where you can pivot in a direction other than prograde. That's the smallest consequence of newtonian physics.
The much bigger consequence is that rendezvous often happens from completely different orbits. If you accelerate toward your target, you'll almost always end up drifting apart anyway.
> How much space would you need to host your own virtual copy of Elite: Dangerous' galaxy
Not much. All you'd need is disk space for the database to store those first discovered tags. If this was for single player, well, even if you spent the rest of your life exploring the database would still be tiny by modern standards.
By the way, Pioneer (http://pioneerspacesim.net/) is open source. If you know a bit of C, you can download the source, and play with the values for the system generation.
I did it once to increase the number of earth like planets.
If you're looking for an updated Elite clone that will run on a mashed potato, check out Pioneer It's free and been recently updated.
Edit: Also, if you're new to it, I suggest starting of on Barnard's Star as it's a space station without any gravity and makes it easier to learn than trying to get into orbit from a planet surface.
Oolite is an <em>Elite</em> remake, Also check <em>Pioneer</em>, which started as an opensource remake of <em>Frontier: Elite 2</em>.
The issues with symmetric rotational control is the deathblossom maneuver or turreting, meaning that a sufficiently well-armed ship can just more or less sit in space and there's no way outmaneuvering it. Which makes for a boring game.
External camera will be coming for nice pictures and things like that. By design. The virtual cockpit works pretty well in Elite: Dangerous, so visibility is a lot better than in Elite II.
The casualty with the current physics is that there's no way to make slingshot maneuvers or realistic orbits (yes, I've been in a geostationary orbit of the Earth in Elite II) and the like with sublight drives, but on the other hand, with no time speedup those would take days, anyway. Variable time doesn't work with multiplayer well. Also, full Newtonian acceleration might be a bit hard for a game intended for wider markets. I understand that once the "frameshift drive" has been properly implemented, you should be able to do the slingshot while "warping".
If you want a Frontier: Elite II with upgraded graphics (and Frontier: First Encounters and/or the fan patches such as GLFFE aren't just good enough), you'll need to watch Pioneer. (Pioneer has been mentioned already - I'll leave finding JJFFE, GLFFE, D3DFFE and the like as an exercise to the reader.)
Welcome commander. Frontier can be obtained in shareware form and played in DosBox but you might want to look at GLFrontier for something that just works and doesn't require too much tweaking to run at a reasonable speed. Really for a modern(ish) Frontier Elite II experience you might want to look at Pioneer http://pioneerspacesim.net which is an Elite II clone with really nice planetary landings but lacks the original ships, also notable for the extraordinary way in which it makes the avatars you meet at stations even worse than the original game (which was bad enough).
Yeah, the new elite:dangerous seems amazing.
But if you can't wait, have a look at Pioneer Space Simulator, it's kind of a remake of Frontier:Elite, and really well made.
Pioneer is now being advertised on this reddit. It's a remake of Elite, and it looks very impressive. It's more about being a spaceship than it is about being a space captain, but it still seems cool.
Frontier did it, and it's preserved in an open source remake.
Yeah, it makes dog fighting "interesting", but frankly I think that's a hint to stop shoehorning dogfights into every damn space sim just because everyone else does it. You don't see Silent Hunter having dogfights just because Subwar 2050 did it.
glFrontier and FFED3D are worth a look. Also Pioneer, effectively an open-source remake.
For everyone interested in space sims, I highly recommend to check out Pioneer, a FE2 inspired space sim written in C++\Lua. It's already playable and has a dozen of ships, but still has many things to improve.
For your space boner:
I'd say pick up one of the Elite clones and see if you enjoy that. I like Pioneer since it's free. There's also Evochron: Mercenary which has a demo. That's more like Privateer though. A lot of the core gameplay is the same. Buy good, go from point A to point B to trade them. You'll be treated to some very pretty stellar vistas along the way but if they don't mesmerize you you might find yourself looking for more that just isn't' there at the moment.
You might give Pioneer Space Sim a try. It's freeware so nothing to lose. It falls quite heavily on the 'sim' side of things, but it models the Milky Way galaxy and fills in with procedural content where necessary.
There is game in there, but it's a bit rough around the edges. Combat isn't the greatest, and other than that you're basically playing courier and finding trade routes. But it has full newtonian physics and the graphics aren't half bad.
Nah, man - it's very old in computer terms. Frontier: Elite II - and it's being remade by these guys.
The other game is the new game, Elite: Dangerous, made by the same guy who made the original.
Just to make it absolutely clear how old the series is, this is a screenshot from the first game, from 1984
I love Elite Dangerous because it gave me an opportunity to be what I wanted to be for years, a space man. It was my dream since I was a kid, to go to space, explore new worlds and fight pirates for justice. Sadly I was born in the late 90's after every game of Elite was made. I tried various games, even a game called Pioneer, a fan made game based on Frontier Elite 2, but it just wasn't right for me. When I saw that Elite: Dangrouse is an actual thing that came out, I bought it and I absoultly loved it. Elite: Dangerous has everything I want, the option to explore now places where no one has ever been, fight factions for my cause or trade for profit. Now with Horizons release I would be able to finally set foot on planets, where no one was before.
Theres oolite and then theres pioneer which isnt a direct remake but very much worth checking out better graphics but its combat and mission system are broken ( and its an open source project)
The closest thing to Elite 2 Frontier out there is Pioneer which is really just a fan made remake. Elite Dangerous is naturally the closest of current 'high fidelity' in development titles. It lacks planetary landings naturally, and the mission system needs work. But the availability of space games that even make this kind of effort is minimal, it's worth having ED in your collection.
As far as E:D find a Elite clone like Pioneer or something. If you like that pacing and general type of activities it's a safe bet you'll enjoy E:D. If not you may want to wait till some more of the stuff comes online.
These things are quite tricky to do, the only games I recall having this feature is Pioneer and No Man's Sky.
I take it your "level" is a small area on the planet, and not the planet as a whole? If so, I would try either your cloud approach, or generate a terrain that has increases in detail the closer it is to the level. The cloud approach is simpler, but wouldnt work on planets without an atmosphere.
But I have to say, if the sole reason for having this feature is to mask a loading screen, you might find that the level finishes loading before your ship even reaches the clouds. Though it may sound boring, if you are always landing at a fixed area such as a level, it be better just to have a fancy animation where your ship flies out of view while in orbit, and then your camera moves to the level and sees the ship landing. Like this, only in reverse.
As for the engine, it depends on what your core gameplay is about. In short, Unreal is optimized for FPS while you can do just about anything with Unity.
Pioneer fits what you're looking for, but I'm hesitating on recommending it because it's been in development since the dawn of time. It's got a good heart, as it started as a modern remake of Frontier: Elite II, and eventually grew into its own little project. The developers are really good about regular updates, and it's free.
Gemini Gold is a remake of Privateer built in the open-source Vegastrike engine. I've only toyed with it but it seems pretty faithful.
And if you don't mind 2D -- and you're willing to go one step further -- there's ASCII Sector, the ASCII remake of Privateer. It's fun!
FW Pioneer Seeing how much Dan loves Rodina I think he would quite like this. It has a ton of star systems and you can land on every planet that has a surface its inspired by Elite Frontier and best of all its completely free!!
A backend and orbital space flight (the easiest part of the project) isn't even close to a game, let alone a polished game. It will stay primarily a planetarium for many years.
Pioneer, which started as an Elite 2 clone and also has full orbital spaceflight has been around for many years and qualifies as a game, although far from complete and yet isn't even close to the gameplay Elite: Dangerous offers.
Pioneer might be the closest technically just due to having planets and a galaxy and AI factions and such along with your own customizable ships. Essentially this is an updated and expanded remake of Frontier: Elite II with modern graphics and such.
Also Space Engine is amazing. It may not have hardset goals or things that kill you (besides your GPU 'sploding) but saying that it's not a game makes it sound like it's just a cheap half passed program, which it is far from. It has trillions of full-sized galaxies, and with billions of stars, each with comets and planets and moons and asteroids, and you can fly down to the very detailed surface of any of those things, and graphically it looks great.
Both games are free on their respective sites. Space Engine is also on Steam Greenlight currently.
Elite 2 came out in 1993, and simulated the entire milky way (though squashed slightly on the vertical axis for the sake of game play), with several real-world star systems close to Sol, and procedural generation the rest of the way out. And it fit on a single 1.44MB Floppy.
There's an open-source remake called Pioneer which is a very good clone of the game for modern systems.
This is a fork (of mostly art assets for now) of the the open source Pioneer Space Sim (which has done the majority of the development for years) which in turn started as a modern clone of Frontier: Elite 2
<strong>Elite: Dangerous</strong> and Pioneer Space Sim and Paragon are doing almost the same thing too, what's your point?
If you want a sim with economic simulation and combat, there's Pioneer, which is pretty much a remake of Frontier. Been some neat reworks of First Encounters too.