This. No need to buy Star Control 2, just google Ur-Quan Masters. Loved that game.

..i did mention that didnt i? :)

Anyhow, i did buy SC2 here as well. Never even in my life have i seen boxed version of this game. And i did look for it "back then".

btw, this has the best pc beeper sounds ever. we were quite shocked actually.

edit:

Link for the lazy: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

FYI
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/frontier_have_decided_to_make_elite_dangerous_online_only/page1

No, thanks. I'm already sick of federations, corporations, organizations and other shit built by other people in real life.

I think it would actually be great if life had a single-player mode, with a reasonable learning curve and enough time to learn from your mistakes. Also, a restart button :)

My recommendation:

1. Buy Star Control 1+2 here. The game is definitely worth paying for. It's also at 50% off right now, and $2.99 is an absolute steal for that game. Show the "powers that be" that those kinds of games are worth making and selling.

2. Having bought the game here, ignore it and download The Ur-Quan Masters instead, since that's a lot better for actually playing. Remember to download the voice pack and 3DO music pack as well.

3. The original graphics are great, but the HD graphics pack is awesome too. The ones who made it did a beautiful job, sticking rigidly to the original design while remaking it in high resolution.

Ah, you bring back memories! Elite was one of my favourite games back in the eighties. I played the C 64, the Schneider (Amstrad) CPC and the Amiga version back then. I still remember how difficult it was to land in the space station without destroying your ship and how happy I was when I got a landing computer!

Elite is quite a deep game. Frontier improved on the formula in nearly every way. Let's hope the new Elite Dangerous lives up to the depth of its forefathers.

Welcome to the Elite club! :-)

That's pretty much EVE online you're describing there, ED is not like that. It's not an MMO, just requires an always online DRM and players interact in a very limited way.

Another space game worth checking out, just found:

http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

You seem to appreciate a game on its merits and are not afraid of old graphics which is commendable, you might want give Wing Commander Privateer a try, which is basically an Elite clone, albeit a very good one.

If you don't mind a brutal learning curve, I-War 2 is the game to try, this game has the deepest ship customization I have seen in a game and these are not the usual stat upgrades which most games use, different systems really make an impact on how combat is played. If you want a medium to close range combat craft, just fill every hardpoint with lowly but common PBC's and a good reactor and the Advanced Patcom almost becomes unstoppeble, but you can also make a stealth craft with longrange sniper capabilitys, or if you fancy missiles you can turn it into a missileboat.
Trade in this game is for the most part replaced with piracy which it handles very clever if I might say and scanning cargopods is like it's always christmas.
All this is coupled with a go where you want universe with a good traveling system for interplanetary travel and wormholelike jumps, you can visit planets and stars but sadly there are no planetary landings in this game.

Then there are the X games, a lot of people seem to like them though I'm not one of them as the whole game is like a boring grind to me.
I can appreciate the economics/logistics in this game but shipcombat is meh as is the whole clustered universe in which it takes place doesn't really make you feel like you are a spacetraveler, it more feels like you enter another room each time you use a jumpgate.

Yeah that does suck in X. But the economy stuff is unparalled in such games.

There is a commercial fork of Pioneer known as . [url=http://www.desura.com/games/paragon] It's available DRM-free on Desura and also available on Steam. Unfortunately devs have pretty much moved to Steam since it passed greenlight. Last I heard, Desura is on Alpha 6 and Steam seems to have received Alpha 9 just over week ago. :-/

Edit: got correction from one Desura owner that Paragon on Desura has been updated to Alpha 8 but only after Desura was contacted about it so any updates will likely be come late to Desura and only if Devs remember to put them there.

That's highly improbable. People are still playing/discovering Elite decades into the future. I doubt Elite Dangerous will even have a single decade of a run, with them making it an online-required game. Servers go off, POOF, you're screwed.