Eterium Hopes to Rekindle Space Flight Sims

[StewShearerOld]

Eterium Hopes to Rekindle Space Flight Sims


Eterium's two-man development team hopes to emulate classic games like X-Wing and Wing Commander.

There was a time when the space flight simulator <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/misc/9228-From-X-Wing-to-X3-Space-Combat-Sim-Timeline>reigned supreme. Those days have been long gone, but there have been voices, recently, from within the industry hoping to give this classic genre a new lease on life. Whereas games like <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120340-Star-Citizen-is-Officially-Go>Chris Roberts' Star Citizen are striving to restore the genre with multi-million dollar budgets however, others are hoping to do the same on a smaller scale. Eterium, a space flight sim being developed by a two-man indie team, is one such project.

Hoping to channel franchises like Wing Commander and X-Wing, Eterium's developers are hoping to deliver a "complex game based on games from a time when people read the manual." While the game currently has no planned released date, it was recently added to <a href=http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148853023>Steam's Greenlight service. The game's description on Greenlight promises features like fully customizable controllers, advanced artificial intelligence, dynamic difficult settings, procedural mission generation and advanced ship damage systems, among others.

A demo and a trailer are both currently available for Eterium and it looks as though it does a fairly good job replicating the gameplay of the genre's classic franchises. Just from watching the trailer there are moments that very closely resemble bits of other games. The visuals of launching from your mothership, for instance, look like they were ripped straight from the later Wing Commander games. Eterium's combat also strikes a particularly close resemblance to that series. Granted, the game isn't the best looking, especially during its story sequences, but we're hoping its rough edges will someday belie a quality experience grounded in old school trappings.

Source: Siliconera



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[BabySinclair]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

I don't care how the story sections look so long as I can get my fix of Zero-G combat.

 

[rayen020]

i want this to be successful so bad. I'm going to play the demo now. And i didn't play xwing for the story. i played because i got to do the death star trench runs and attack a star destroyer. let me take on a big ship with a bunch of little ones and zero g dogfights that's all it needs.

 

[Nurb]

If we're talking non-multiplayer stuff, this is fantastic.

 

[grigjd3]

The secret to good space sims is play-testing, lots and lots of play-testing.

 

[Weaver]

Looks fun! I really miss the wing commander series. I will say though, that has to be one of the cheesiest songs I've ever heard in my life.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

I'm with BabySinclair. Thank the fucking Pillars of Creation.

Those of us who thrived in space combat sims are starved. Starved, mind you, for this stuff.

238U

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Awesome! I don't care for Newtonian physics-based combat sims where you can tilt your ship in one direction and drift in another, as it feels like I'm kinda cheating at a certain point; I just prefer my space combat with fighters whose propulsion makes them go in the direction they're facing!

 

[Infernai]

Well, this game looks like a hybridization of Darklight Conflict and Descent.

Incidentally, a shout out to all three people on the planet that played Darklight Conflict!

 

[Zer0Saber]

That looked like it was made with a modified Freespace engine. I hope it turns out good, but there are tons of other freeware games made on that engine. (Wing Commander Saga) So if I want to play a game on the Freespace engine, I'll just play Freespace. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[RicoADF]

I could never understand how publishers could abandob the genre. Considering Freespace SCP's popularity and what they've achieved surely itshows there is serious demand for an awesome space sim/arcade

 

[Gizmo1990]

I have only one thing to say to this.

About.Damn.Time!!!!!!!

 

[Signa]

I hate to be a neighsayer, but I kinda hated that trailer. I totally have a hard-on for space combat, but the sound effects sounded like some music producer from the 80's idea of "cool sound effects". Top that off with static character sprites that look like I[footnote]I don't think I can overstate how bad my artistic talent is.[/footnote] drew them in Flash, and my interest has dwindled significantly.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Awesome! I don't care for Newtonian physics-based combat sims where you can tilt your ship in one direction and drift in another, as it feels like I'm kinda cheating at a certain point; I just prefer my space combat with fighters whose propulsion makes them go in the direction they're facing!

Ah, but the games that implement 'newtonian physics' never do it properly...

You see, an object moving through a vacuum has not just linear inertia, but rotational inertia as well.

So... If the game you're playing allows you to turn without effort while still moving in the same direction, then it's not doing the physics properly.

What would actually happen, is that if you start turning, you won't stop spinning until you counter-act the rotation.

Let's just say that actually aiming at anything at all with a full implementation of Newtonian physics would be incredibly difficult.
Far from making things easier, the ability to rotate away from your direction of travel would become incredibly disorienting, and even keeping your orientation stable would become a challenge in it's own right, let alone trying to shoot at something while doing it...

I think a space combat sim with full Newtonian physics could be interesting, but would be so difficult to play, that it'd probably drive most people nuts.

(Consider for instance, that you'd have to balance out your rotation, would continue moving in the same direction, and would, with even a semi-realistic model of rocket engines, need to turn the ship 180 degrees and thrust back in the opposite direction to slow down, and manuevering would become a seriously messy business. Especially considering if you power up the main engine for 10 seconds, you now would need those same 10 seconds to come to a stop, and would need a considerable effort to change direction too...)

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

As PC gaming becomes more and more popular again, I really hope the space-sim genre gets a fresh revisiting. Between this and Star Citizen (<3), I remain ever hopeful!

 

[Zetatrain]

Make it and they will come.

Seriously please make this. Oh how I long for the days or X-wing/Tie Fighter and Wing Commander.

 

[Ytmh]

For anyone interested in this, there's also:

http://wingsofstnazaire.com/

So, yeah! Awesomecakes!

 

[infohippie]

Thank all the gods of gaming! We need more games like this, I have been waiting for new space sim titles since last freaking century! The few that have appeared, such as Egosoft's X series, have been lacking something. This might help tide me over until Star Citizen.