Good space exploration/combat/colonising games

[Monsterfurby]

Space Empires IV and V are awesome if you can do with solid but not exactly amazing graphics. These two pretty much set out to simulate every scifi franchise out there, and are quite successful at that.

Also, very active modding community.

 

[pffh]

Sword of the stars (the first game not the second, the second is still being fixed). It's basically civilization + total war in space.


*You can customize your ships
*Each race has a different playstyle and different FTL travel
*The tech tree is semi-randomized so you must work with what you have access to
*You can destroy individual parts on the enemy ships all the way down to individual guns
*Each shot fired is calculated in real time so you can dodge them or they can hit someone behind your target if it moves out of the way.
*Each NPC player behaves differently depending on what race he is

All in all it's a solid 4X game with huge amount of options and customization.

 

[Jark212]

I'd recommend Star Ruler. It's your poor man's Sin's of a Solar Empire...

 

[Fidelias]

Sins of a Solar Empire. It has an expansion pack coming out soon, so I suggest you wait untill that.

I'd put up another vote for Sins of a Solar Empire, as long as you know what you're doing with strategy games.

I don't, so I'm constantly getting zerged by the pirates...

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Sins of a Solar Empire. It has an expansion pack coming out soon, so I suggest you wait untill that.

I'd put up another vote for Sins of a Solar Empire, as long as you know what you're doing with strategy games.

I don't, so I'm constantly getting zerged by the pirates...

Turn the Pirates off. In multiplayer, people barely use them, since they just add an annoyance that takes away from the pvp competition.

Another vote for Sins of a Solar Empire, but I'd also recommend an older game: Hegemonia Legions of Iron.

It's pretty neat.

 

[Jadak]

Star Ruler: An indie 4x with a rather elegant research and ship design system. It's constantly being updated and improved and is also one of the most realistic space strategy games in how it uses newtonian physics and in its ship design. Well worth a look as an alternative to the other 4x space strategy games.

"Was" constantly being updated and improved. That's pretty much done with now as the studio moves on to other projects. Any changes now are few and far between and not of any particular significance.

 

[loc978]

Put down another vote for Sins of a Solar Empire from me. Also, Sins of a Galactic Empire [http://www.moddb.com/mods/sins-of-a-galactic-empire] (a mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment). It turns the whole thing into a Star Wars game and completely rebalances the combat (not necessarily into anything better, just very different. Definitely requires re-learning early resource management)

 

[Do4600]

First one that comes to mind is the classic Master of Orion. 2 is great, I haven't played 3 but apparently it's a disaster.

The problem with 3 is that they made it so complex that you almost can't play it without turning on all the auto-management systems. For instance, each planet has something like 10 regions and you need to manage the economic potential for each region building by building. That and missiles do so much damage that every battle is over in 8 seconds once you move your ships into firing range, and usually there is almost nothing left of either side.

I vote for Master of Orion 2.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Put down another vote for Sins of a Solar Empire from me. Also, Sins of a Galactic Empire [http://www.moddb.com/mods/sins-of-a-galactic-empire] (a mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment). It turns the whole thing into a Star Wars game and completely rebalances the combat (not necessarily into anything better, just very different. Definitely requires re-learning early resource management)

Man, that mod is vicious. Fights with Pirates last mere minutes, and if you don't coordinate, your fleet will be smashed to bits.

I love how there is more emphasis on maintaining your shields. If they drop, your ship is as good as dead. Really makes for some tense battles, where your Star Destroyer might be dominating several smaller frigates before it gets nuked because you missed the broadside get behind it.