After seeing a whole bunch of stuff about Star Citizen and its crowd sourcing, I've decided I want to try and give space sims a go. Though I have no idea where to start. Any ideas of what would considered required playing?

I'd recommend Freespace series for a good start, both are really good and very well balanced, Also Wing Commander is good too, 3 and 4 are the best.

I was looking at wing commander. Is there any specific order i need to play the games in order for the plot to make sense? or can I just skip to 3 and 4?

How realistic of a physics model do you want? If you want actual Newtonian Physics, I would recommend Independence War I and/or II.

Although not available through GOG, I would also highly recommend
- Star Shatter: The Gathering Storm
- Babylon 5: I've found her

Both use newtonian physics, Star shatter has a dynamic campaign and B5 uses a story driven (non-dynamic) campaign.

If you're not interested in realistic physics, any of the Freespace and Wing Commander games are good, although I would strongly lean towards WC 2-5. Great stories, and the graphics were way ahead of their time. Need? You don't need to play them in order. I would recommend you find a synopsis of the story to read, though, for the game's story line to make a bit more sense.

Honestly, I would just play them all in order, it's worth it, IMO.

I started with Freelancer. The game eases you in pretty nicely and the game mechanics aren't too complicated. It's also kind of a free-roaming game in that you're free to travel to different star systems and planets between missions to trade, trade ships/equipment, hunt pirates, conduct piracy yourself, etc.

Really nice game, but unfortunately it's not really sold anywhere now. You can probably find some copies on eBay though.

Best I can think of
Freespace series
Wing Commander series
and if you don't mind off GOG
X series
Evochron Mercenary

Do you want combat heavy or trading heavy?

They tend to fall into one of those two categories (the latter can always go combat heavy but generally only after trading to get there or expect trading to get the best toys).


If you want combat heavy I would suggest checking out Freelancer - simple controls, easy to get into and generally a lot of fun, with a well written storyline to it as well.

If you want trading heavy I would suggest checking out the X series of games. The latest ones are generally the best to go for in terms of features and functionality, but all of them feature the same basic concept that you start up from a single ship and either trade or shoot your way to forming your own little space fleet/trading empire. The game generally expects you to trade though (or to setup automatic trading fleets in the newer games) but otherwies its some fantastic visuals, multiple races and some big ships.

This game isn't here but EV: Nova is pretty fantastic by Ambrosia SW. At the very least you can download the demo.

freelancer first to get used to some space sims and then freespace 2,

IM in agreement with Freelancer as a starter, and the X series - theres quite a few of the others I have not played - though I'm making a follow up list!

Elite ;)

My advice would be Freelancer, if you can get a copy.

True,
but for the record: it's 2 dimensional - top down perspective but still solid fun to play.

If you liked that way you could give Space Pirates & Zombies a try.

--- [Edit]

I just played another great Indie game without trading.
A space combat shooter named SOL: Exodus.
It's a fantastic shooter with great story and doesn't look Indie at all.
Check it out!!!





Last but not least:

The only REAL SpaceSIM is Space Colony (look for it here at GOG). But it has nothing to do with flying around but is very "The Sims" like.
And as an added bonus you can play with my cool tough guy avatar.