any others?, i hunger for games

I might be mistaken, I've never gotten into the whole space/sea/otherwise trading genre, but DarkStar One might be worth a shot if you're really hungry for it.
Haven't played it all that much, there's a plotline involving you making your way across the galaxy (at first anyway) but there do seem to be ample opportunity to go bounty hunting, helping the law out, trading and such. gog even has it in their catalog though it does go on sale on other sites as well too. Personally I got it in an Ascaron package which contained Port Royal 2, Darkstar one and Sacred gold for $2 so worth looking around.

Also I seem to recall something about a game called Hardware, which if I recall branded itself as a sort of MMO of that kind of game, set in small societies in craters on a planet. Having humans as pirates or bounty hunters (if you played pirate) and such might add a bit, but no clue how it works.

Also there's a Free to play MMO out there I've been peeking at called Black Prophecy. Not sure if it's released yet. Looks like a sort of take on Freespace, but knowing MMO games it'll likely contain some trading and such too.

Again, apart from DarkStar One I haven't played any of these, but they're what I recall being intrigued by off the top of my head.

Also....are you related to Sinistar?
Youtube

There is a game called Hardwar that mostly fits the description, but its not an MMO.

Not an MMO as such, I just got the impression that the game had rather large servers with players able to play how they liked and run into other players like such in a way much remniscent of what an MMO is. And don't mind me adding an e to the name, I've been trying to figure out benchmarks and such to find a for me proper relation between CPU power and price on a new laptop I'm looking for after my old one fried it's graphics chip and will now only boot Linux.

I have the game somewhere but I never really got around to it. I didn't know it even had a multiplayer, but that's something I wouldn't have known. I don't do multiplayer. From what I did play of the game though, it seemed like it may be more like Freelancer or Darkstar One where you can trade and take on missions, but the game is more built around a story. Usually the freeplay elements in those games suffer for it. Again though, I didn't play much of Hardwar, so it may still be a good choice. If you do go with it, there were some patches put out unofficially by a member of the dev team. You really need to track them down. I believe the last one broke the economy pretty good, but the one before that is essential.

I've heard Freelancer does both well. X3 is considered the best but good luck figuring it out.

Hardwar was great, it's a shame that barely anyone played it.

Any more? ASCII Sector website is down:(

Yes Evochron is a good space sim. Oolite is simply wonderful and so polished considering its an open source game. Also don't forget that Pioneer is progressing quite nicely now (Elite II open source based re-make)and has reached the alpha 13 stage, at the time of writing. But I am glad to see GOG put the first 2 Wing Commander games on their boards.

Has anyone here played Starfarer? You can currently play the alpha version if you pre-order it (50 & off during alpha stage, Minecraft-style), and it looks like a fairly awesome mixture of Gratitious Space Battles and the well-known Elite-style exploration. Someone at RPS described it as Mount and Blade in space, which seems fitting.

Just wondering if it's any good, it looks so cool in the gameplay demonstration on their website.

Hello,

Some mentioned Space Pirates VS Zombies, but i think it does not fit the bill right for the OP. Combat gets boring really fast. Its only about using the biggest available ships with the biggest punch possible. Gets repetive really fast, especially in the last third of the game, when you have to fight off neverending waves of zombie ships. The trading part is not developed either.

But another 2D game has caught my attention. It has exploring, mining, researching, trading, raiding, huge battles, ship customization, different weapon types und direct control of your command ship, but an intuitive fleet control too.

It is called Starfarer. But is in alpha state but playable right now. _http://fractalsoftworks.com/. For alpha state it has quite the impressive game features. It feels a little like mount & blade or Total War in space.

Have a nice day

Edit: ups i did not read all post till the end. KOC did mention Starfarer one post before me. Sorry about this. Seems a nice game nethertheless.

More info on Starfarer from the folks at Rock Paper Shotgun:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/20/fair-of-face-filled-with-space-starfarer/

includes a video of the combat.

Worth reading the comments too, seems that people like to compare it to Mount & Blade.

Been a while since I mentioned Pioneer (a game similar to Elite II) on here.

It's now reached Alpha build 24 and progress continues steadily.

It also has a presence on ModDB now. Have a look here

http://www.moddb.com/games/pioneer

as well as Windows, Mac OSX and Linux builds available from its own site here

http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

Also, here is an early (Alpha 3) vid to give you some idea of the gameplay, although the game looks much better these days!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVf-8qVdsg