musing on the perils of a pan-galactic society

[Hauldren Collider]

I just want to know when someone makes another Freelancer.

[DaShi]

I just think you should make it instantaneous. It's the only realistic method of space travel.

[Elok]

When is someone going to come out with another decent "4X" space computer game? I'm really peeved that the MOO series is dead.

I never played MOO3; was it bad enough to kill the series for good? I mean, the latest generation of gamers will vaguely remember Master of Orion being about the careful allocation of galactic healthcare or something like that, but GOG might keep memory of the franchise alive, maybe?

Alternatively, how's the Galactic Civilizations series? I've heard of it but never played it either.

[Egbert]

Alternatively, how's the Galactic Civilizations series? I've heard of it but never played it either.

Gal Civ is an excellent game. Search for "Galactic Civilizations" to check it out on Stardock's website.

BTW Master of Orion 2 is a first rate game. It is now dirt cheap. Well worth a shot for only a few dollars.

[regexcellent]

My roommate is a religious player of EVE Online. Somehow he manages to reconcile that with his AFROTC commitments.

[MikeH]

You need to take onboard the Paranoia philosophy of GMing a bit more I think.

GM : "it'll take you 10 days to get to the jump point"
Player : "why does it take 10 days? Isn't our acceleration x and we only need to go y"
GM : starts looking thoughtful and rolling dice
Player : "er, did I say that out loud, sorry just idly speculating. I'm sorry, can I grab you another beer?"

[MikeH]

And the only reason to make it take 10 days is if it makes it more fun. I'd make it instant except in the cases when there was a funkotrino storm for plotting purposes which means you can't use your jump engine until you get to x.

[Elok]

Gal Civ is an excellent game. Search for "Galactic Civilizations" to check it out on Stardock's website.

BTW Master of Orion 2 is a first rate game. It is now dirt cheap. Well worth a shot for only a few dollars.

I've had MOOII for a couple of years now via GOG.com. Good fun, albeit the Creative pick is ridiculously overpowered. I still sometimes play the first MOO; the two games are both still fun but in very different ways.

[rah]

Yeah, I played I and II. Was III as bad as everyone said? It scared me off and I never tried it.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I don't recall Traveller being quite so intimidatingly anal.

It was a lot simpler when I played it 30 something years ago.

[Dr Strangelove]

In MOO 3 the research functions and planetary development functions became so unweildy that players lost control of them. At best a player could adjust the amount of research points allocated in each area of research, but attempting to actually guide it towards a specific item became impossible. Likewise with planetary development. The main thing a player could do was design ships and build fleets, then move the fleets around. Space combat became primarily fleet- to-fleet actions. If you put an effort into it there was a degree of tactical finesse that could be applied, enough to make space combat interesting.

[self biased]

F*CK YEAH, LEFTY SCAEVOLA!

i really want to preserve the age of sail kind of feeling to the game. things don't need to be super technical mechanically, but i still feel i should know how things are put together.

[The Mad Monk]

Did you check the link I posted? I just realized that I didn't leave an explanation. It leads to a "plug in the numbers" site that gives travel times for any distance and accelaration, with an option for including deceleration.