This is an oddly specific request which I figure the groggies are uniquely suited to answer.
I'm looking for the best games the revolve around managing a ship and its crew - whether it's a space ship, a boat, a submarine, or what-have-you.
The first few that come to mind are:
- UBOAT - bought it but haven't played it
- Silent Hunter 3 - the classic sub sim that everyone's played to death
- Barotrauma - a different take on the sub sim, you control an individual crew member in a 2D perspective. Best suited for multiplayer though which is my big gripe :nono2:
- FTL: Faster Than Light - another tried-and-true one I've already played to death
Any others I'm missing that I should check out?
EDIT - A quick mosey on the board shows this adaptation of the U-Boot board game which looks promising: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1897450/UBoot_The_Board_Game__Digital_Edition/
Bomber Crew
Space Crew
Star Trek: Bridge Commander
Star Trek: Klingon Academy
Between the Stars
Carrier Command 2 (no real crew other than drones)
Mass Effect series
Aircraft Carrier Survival
Pulsar Lost Colony
Destroyer Uboat Hunter
Dangerous Waters
Genesis Alpha One
Universal Combat, dare I say?
Sub Commander
It's free, it's good, it's merciless
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/sub-commander
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-flare-path-wharf-fortress
B-17 Flying Fortress : The Mighty 8th (2000)
Crew Management and RP is central to to this sim. Crews members are are specialized (pilot, navigator, bombardier, gunners, etc). Crew members are trained by player, and improve with combat. They can be moved around by the player to build better crews, etc. This Sim is all about completing the mission objectives and crew survival so they gain experience.
Quote from: Vox on January 17, 2023, 08:24:48 AMB-17 Flying Fortress : The Mighty 8th (2000)
Crew Management and RP is central to to this sim. Crews members are are specialized (pilot, navigator, bombardier, gunners, etc). Crew members are trained by player, and improve with combat. They can be moved around by the player to build better crews, etc. This Sim is all about completing the mission objectives and crew survival so they gain experience.
Good call. A classic.
...or if you fancy progressing onto board games :laugh:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/44890/picket-duty-kamikaze-attacks-against-us-destroyers
Star Trader: Frontiers is a space combat/trading game with a plot that you can follow if and when you care to. I've had a lot of fun with it.
The ship is highly customizable, and you can also save up and buy a bigger ship or a ship of another class.
You have a large crew, 20 or more, that you assign to particular jobs. Each one is an individual with skill ratings in a number of skills and the ratings can improve.
https://startraders.fandom.com/wiki/Ship_Combat_Strategies
https://startraders.fandom.com/wiki/Starting_Crew_Guide
I'll second Glen's sentiment. I'm not that into RPG games, but this one is a very nice RPG/spaceship commander sim.
There are a few games out that involve "base and crew" where it's a starbase (or a restaurant, or a weapons shop) that design pretty deep interactions with your crew and customers in, but I assume that's outside your range? I've had Oxygen Not Included on my "Following" list on Steam for a while, but never pulled the trigger on it.
I would second Aircraft Carrier Survival. Hate the name, but it's a good ship/crewamagement game.
Armored Commander II is a frequently updated and expanded (for free) inexpensive game on Steam which involves quite a bit of crew management on a tank platoon in WW2.
Which tank platoon?
"YES!"
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1292020/Armoured
"ArmCom2 is a game of survival rather than destruction. You will frequently find yourself outnumbered and outgunned. Your success in a campaign will depend on your ability to deal with a variety of challenges, and to make best use of all the tactics and tools that you have at your disposal. Different tanks, historical eras, and regions of the world will produce a very different play experiences, from the initial armoured clashes in Asia and Poland in 1939, to the final drive on Berlin and the Pacific Islands of the Japanese Empire in 1945."
The graphics intentionally evoke the Commodore 64, but anyone considering Sub Commander won't mind that. ;)
The dev has ceased active development as of Nov 27th, although he encourages mods, and anyone who'd like to officially take the challenge of designing ArmCom3, plus he'll continue to do bug fixes. (He included one today, coincidentally.) But as of quitting, he has include 816 units types (from infantry to battleships) and 57 historical campaigns from Khalkin-Gol through the invasion of Okinawa.
Be aware, the game is designed to work with a gamepad primarily; mice do not work (or mine didn't just now), and keyboard functionality seems only partial.
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 17, 2023, 09:27:14 PMArmored Commander II is a frequently updated and expanded (for free) inexpensive game on Steam which involves quite a bit of crew management on a tank platoon in WW2.
Which tank platoon?
"YES!"
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1292020/Armoured
"ArmCom2 is a game of survival rather than destruction. You will frequently find yourself outnumbered and outgunned. Your success in a campaign will depend on your ability to deal with a variety of challenges, and to make best use of all the tactics and tools that you have at your disposal. Different tanks, historical eras, and regions of the world will produce a very different play experiences, from the initial armoured clashes in Asia and Poland in 1939, to the final drive on Berlin and the Pacific Islands of the Japanese Empire in 1945."
The graphics intentionally evoke the Commodore 64, but anyone considering Sub Commander won't mind that. ;)
The dev has ceased active development as of Nov 27th, although he encourages mods, and anyone who'd like to officially take the challenge of designing ArmCom3, plus he'll continue to do bug fixes. (He included one today, coincidentally.) But as of quitting, he has include 816 units types (from infantry to battleships) and 57 historical campaigns from Khalkin-Gol through the invasion of Okinawa.
Be aware, the game is designed to work with a gamepad primarily; mice do not work (or mine didn't just now), and keyboard functionality seems only partial.
Oh yeah, I forgot about this one! This game is absolutely excellent as well.
just came out on epic games store tortuga-a pirate's tale. played about an hour or so and seems pretty good. you are a captain with upgradeable skills. you have to please your crew by making them promises and fulfilling them otherwise they get rid of ya! ship combat is turn based which makes it easier to control your fleet of ships which have their own captains and skills.
Nobody mentioned Naval Action? You do manage your crew in that game. If not in an RPG sort of way at least in battle.
Naval Action is free to try now.
There's also a surprising amount of crew management in Warhammer: Man-o-War: Corsair! -- which I really like. Isn't sold on Steam anymore, but I discovered it's still sold on GoG! At a hefty discount this past week, too, although I'm not where I can check at the moment.
You hire each crewmember, adjust their names and look (to some degree), assign them to stations based on their stats, outfit them with armor and weapons, sometimes move them between stations during actions, pay them off on a regular basis, pick perks for them as they level up.
If you like to buy and sail your ships and walk around the deck during fights or while your first mate is sailing it, upgrading it, buying/building new ones... some of the tweaking options are slim (because development barely managed to putt in before being cancelled) but there's a full game there.
^Is Corsair a finished game? How many hours did you get out of it?
It is definitely a finished game, even though it doesn't have all the content the developer originally planned. Very stable for me, too.
I've gotten plenty of value out of it for my money, 33 hours, and I could do a lot more with it except there are other shiny things to do. I've covered MAYBE 20 percent of the game area.
When I say it doesn't have all the planned content, the main example I'm thinking of it this: it has a good number of human factions from Warhammer (from Kislev in the north down to those Spanish types allied with the Empire in the south, I forget who they're called), plus dwarves and orcs, plus four flavors of Chaos, plus the undead -- I'm not sure elves are in the game -- and some of the factions have unique ship designs. You can capture and sail practically any ship type in the game, too. But you can only start as a pretty generic male or female Bretonia captain (because they have the eponymous Corsair), and toward the end of development they added a (male only?) Chaos captain start. That's all. Now, your captain will be decked out eventually in the gear you buy or find or win for him/her. But the original plan was to allow players a start in any available faction on the map, and to add more of the exotic factions over time, probably as paid expansions.
The special weapons and gear were going to be expanded a lot, and the missions and mission types and special monsters. The ports were going to get some more artistic love, and the shoreline art. (You can walk around the ports to do your shopping and trading and missions, and they're complete but look somewhat spare and rather rough on the art. Certainly not like walking around in Vermintide for example.)
It really is a Sea Dogs-style 3D Sid-Meir's-Pirates game with Warhammer fantasy material, and runs better than most (or all?) of the Sea Dogs games.
Kislev, you say...dammit all to Hell, Pratt...*runs to GOG*
^Corsair is currently 2.99 on GOG!! Add another dollar for the DLC.
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 20, 2023, 12:16:42 PMThere's also a surprising amount of crew management in Warhammer: Man-o-War: Corsair! -- which I really like. Isn't sold on Steam anymore, but I discovered it's still sold on GoG! At a hefty discount this past week, too, although I'm not where I can check at the moment.
Still on sale for $2.99.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/man_o_war_corsair
Can't say for how long, though, because GoG is absolutely horrendous at actually telling you when a sale price ends. The product pages indicate nothing, so if you want to know you have to figure out which of the dozen or so current sales it falls under, which go anywhere from 2 to 10 days from now. :rollingpin:
Just installed it and sent Pratt the receipt.
This looks pretty cool but it's only available on EPIC.
You'll start your career near Kislev (if not actually there), Gus: it's at the border coast between Bretonnia and Kislev.
The pet baby gryphon from the DLC is nice as a morale boost to add to your ship(s) if you can get it. Though naturally the adult gryphon does more damage to the enemy! :notworthy:
I also recommend you save the game with a clear name before taking on any obviously 'special' missions: each port has at least one. You can get yourself into a lot of trouble fast if multiple missions trigger on top of each other, especially early in the game.
Don't feel like you need to buy up to a better ship asap: the Corsair class you start with is a killer, especially with all upgrades, and carries a fair amount of cargo.
^This is what Warhammer weekend dreams are made of. If only Cathay were in the game too.
Despite the game's rough edges (and its UI can be a bit finicky at times, too), there's a lot to be felt, for me, in breezing along (or trying to) out in the coastal waters with a corsair or one of those huge watchtower-like ships (I picked one up for free thanks to a zombie mission -- so take that mission if you find its port and have a lot of spare crew), in the weather and wind and sea effects. Handing off control to the 1st mate so I can stretch my legs walking the deck for a minute. The towns, as might be expected, can be a mixture of homey and oppressive (even with their minimal art and lots of reused assets), then off to the sea for another burst of travel.
Gameplay loop is as satisfying as from any Pirates-like game.
As long as we're talking about ship-and-crew games, here's Wolfpack345 demonstrating the current state of the
U-boat release, starting a tour in the Med in 1941:
(Note that he does have quite a few mods installed from the workshop, but those are easy to do.)
Quote from: glen55 on January 17, 2023, 01:07:51 PMStar Trader: Frontiers is a space combat/trading game with a plot that you can follow if and when you care to. I've had a lot of fun with it.
The ship is highly customizable, and you can also save up and buy a bigger ship or a ship of another class.
You have a large crew, 20 or more, that you assign to particular jobs. Each one is an individual with skill ratings in a number of skills and the ratings can improve.
https://startraders.fandom.com/wiki/Ship_Combat_Strategies
https://startraders.fandom.com/wiki/Starting_Crew_Guide
I agree. A very good game. The RPG element is very good too.
By the way, Gus, did you foray with the Corsair yet?
Not yet - I'm still in sci-fi mode playing Terminator but I have Corsair loaded and ready for bear, so to speak. Going to make a shift from sci-fi to fantasy soon.
Does anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Quote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
Quote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Was it psi5 trading company?
I had that on c64 loved it
If it does turn out to be starflight which I think strong possibility, you can actually buy version 1 and 2 from gog and play on the pc if you want to try again, just $6
https://www.gog.com/en/game/starflight_1_2
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:28:07 AMIf it does turn out to be starflight which I think strong possibility, you can actually buy version 1 and 2 from gog and play on the pc if you want to try again, just $6
https://www.gog.com/en/game/starflight_1_2
I absolutely loved Starflight. I remember I had it on 5.25" floppy. Despite how many hours I sunk into that series, I just can't bring myself back that far in gaming technology to revisit it at this point, though.
Quote from: Sigwolf on February 01, 2023, 08:44:29 AMQuote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:28:07 AMIf it does turn out to be starflight which I think strong possibility, you can actually buy version 1 and 2 from gog and play on the pc if you want to try again, just $6
https://www.gog.com/en/game/starflight_1_2
I absolutely loved Starflight. I remember I had it on 5.25" floppy. Despite how many hours I sunk into that series, I just can't bring myself back that far in gaming technology to revisit it at this point, though.
This is the double-edged sword for GOG and old games that are available online. We are left with such wonderful memories, but in most instances, are let down when trying to relive them, simply due to advancements in technology and the industry. It is rare that a classic will still shine as brightly as they did during their heyday. There are certain exceptions, of course. But those are few and far between.
'You can't go home again.' This happens to me all the time with PC games.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:11:52 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
This is probably close but I don't remember these screens. The thing I remember the most are the dots for crewmen, especially during crew v crew combat.
PSI5 Trading Company isn't it but I'm wondering how I missed that during this era. It would've been right up my alley.
Quote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 09:34:47 AMQuote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:11:52 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
This is probably close but I don't remember these screens. The thing I remember the most are the dots for crewmen, especially during crew v crew combat.
PSI5 Trading Company isn't it but I'm wondering how I missed that during this era. It would've been right up my alley.
Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic?
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 01, 2023, 09:40:55 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 09:34:47 AMQuote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:11:52 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
This is probably close but I don't remember these screens. The thing I remember the most are the dots for crewmen, especially during crew v crew combat.
PSI5 Trading Company isn't it but I'm wondering how I missed that during this era. It would've been right up my alley.
Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic?
Ding Ding Ding! Jarhead for the win! I'd been looking for this for a while but never could remember the name. I remember it being pretty immersive. Thanks again!
Quote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 10:05:52 AMQuote from: Jarhead0331 on February 01, 2023, 09:40:55 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 09:34:47 AMQuote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:11:52 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
This is probably close but I don't remember these screens. The thing I remember the most are the dots for crewmen, especially during crew v crew combat.
PSI5 Trading Company isn't it but I'm wondering how I missed that during this era. It would've been right up my alley.
Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic?
Ding Ding Ding! Jarhead for the win! I'd been looking for this for a while but never could remember the name. I remember it being pretty immersive. Thanks again!
LoL. I should play lotto today.
In case anyone is interested: Sentinal Worlds Future Magic (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sentinel-worlds-i-future-magic-ig)
I think I never gave this one the attention it deserved, but reading about it, seems like a precursor to Mass Effect.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on February 01, 2023, 10:14:51 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 10:05:52 AMQuote from: Jarhead0331 on February 01, 2023, 09:40:55 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 09:34:47 AMQuote from: Grim.Reaper on February 01, 2023, 06:11:52 AMQuote from: KyzBP on February 01, 2023, 06:04:13 AMDoes anyone remember the name of this ship and crew game from the 80's? You controlled a spaceship and crew. The crew were represented as dots. I think you could land on planets and space stations(?) to look for clues or complete quests. Your ship could be boarded and I think you could board other ships. I had it for the C64 and I think it required 4 floppy disks. Any clues?
Maybe starflight....
https://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/starflight
This is probably close but I don't remember these screens. The thing I remember the most are the dots for crewmen, especially during crew v crew combat.
PSI5 Trading Company isn't it but I'm wondering how I missed that during this era. It would've been right up my alley.
Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic?
Ding Ding Ding! Jarhead for the win! I'd been looking for this for a while but never could remember the name. I remember it being pretty immersive. Thanks again!
LoL. I should play lotto today.
In case anyone is interested: Sentinal Worlds Future Magic (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sentinel-worlds-i-future-magic-ig)
I think I never gave this one the attention it deserved, but reading about it, seems like a precursor to Mass Effect.
Looking at the game now it seems it was ahead of it's time given all of the things you can do in the game and the feel of a persistent universe. I can see why I lost so much time to this. I'm still shocked I couldn't remember the name. P.S. If you watch a play through find one without the game music. It honestly hurts the ears.