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Space Frigates

spacefrigates.com

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Re: Space Frigates

#61

Post by ethbro »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #60
Neverending wrote: post #13

If you're interested in a free game that has had this core functionality (online multiplayer Asteroids) since 1995 - visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum... (edit: replaced with Steam link) There has been a dedicated community of thousands of players, many of which have been playing well over a decade. Plenty of videos on youtube under either "Subspace" or more recently "Continuum". http…

Can I ask what the compelling gameplay is of this game, where people spend thousands of hours on it? From a distance it doesn't seem like e.g. a bit persistent world, but more of an arena, short one-off games kinda thing; I find it hard to comprehend you could spend thousands of hours on that.

I'd say that SubSpace and its predecessors were the first "haiku-competitives" -- a lineage that eventually resulted in DotA and League of Legends.

Essentially: distill gameplay to a relatively small number of rules + iterate balance until it's incredibly finely tuned + let the playerbase go nuts with whatever strategies they can come up with.

The attraction being that they're easy to pick up (few rules to learn) but incredibly deep (complex interactions and strategies).

Coupled with the fact that circa-late-90s, the idea of an MMO was still mind blowing. Games with friends and strangers?!

From memory, SubSpace also had a fairly addictive loot mechanic (tiered materials, item construction, randomly timed rare enemy spawns).

Re: Space Frigates

#62

Post by tootie »

Neverending wrote: post #13

If you're interested in a free game that has had this core functionality (online multiplayer Asteroids) since 1995 - visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum... (edit: replaced with Steam link) There has been a dedicated community of thousands of players, many of which have been playing well over a decade. Plenty of videos on youtube under either "Subspace" or more recently "Continuum". http…

I remember playing one called Gravitron maybe on my old PC. The kind you launch from the DOS prompt. You have to navigate planetary terrain and defense systems while you're ship is in constant free fall, so you give tiny controlled thrusts to keep from crashing and slide left and right.

Re: Space Frigates

#67

Post by nbrempel »

mLuby wrote: post #65
nbrempel wrote: post #31

I’m suddenly reminded of this game I played the hell out of back in the day: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_Velocity_Nova

Endless Sky is a well-polished FOSS version of the same thing. https://endless-sky.github.io

Here we go...

Re: Space Frigates

#69

Post by bovermyer »

Neverending wrote: post #13

If you're interested in a free game that has had this core functionality (online multiplayer Asteroids) since 1995 - visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum... (edit: replaced with Steam link) There has been a dedicated community of thousands of players, many of which have been playing well over a decade. Plenty of videos on youtube under either "Subspace" or more recently "Continuum". http…

I lost many, many hours to Subspace in the late 90s.

Screw Spiders.

Re: Space Frigates

#70

Post by solotronics »

wonnage wrote: post #40
Neverending wrote: post #13

If you're interested in a free game that has had this core functionality (online multiplayer Asteroids) since 1995 - visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/352700/Subspace_Continuum... (edit: replaced with Steam link) There has been a dedicated community of thousands of players, many of which have been playing well over a decade. Plenty of videos on youtube under either "Subspace" or more recently "Continuum". http…

Amazing game - I spent several years in the early 2000s playing a spinoff called Infantry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infantry_(video_game) . Sony ran it into the ground and I wound up trying SubSpace since it was supposedly the predecessor and had the same engine, but never got into it. While typing this up I discovered Infantry is actually still alive, resurrected by some diehards on free player-maintained serve…

Definitely one of my favorite games of all time! I liked the server that had the economic model with all the different kinds of guns, shields, and armors it was super fun.
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