In all honesty, if I were going for a true *command* simulator, I'd like to go the other way entirely from a lot of the 'pretty' games mentioned to something like the old game "Red Storm Rising"

You have a contact, but you have to (literally) take your time - is it a surface ship, or another sub - can you sneak around and come in on her baffles or does she have towed array . . . and how sure are you about where she is anyway . . .

Oh hell, she gone active torpedos fore and aft . . .

<G> - Jonnan

    X3 Reunion still trumps Terran Conflict for me because of the mod support. In one sector there was a Super Star Destroyer controlling 80 or so TIE interceptors, fighters, and bombers. In another there was an enemy fleet of migrating Xenon ships composed of Cylon Base Stars, Raiders, and a few of the stock ships. I was cruising around in a Battlerstar Galactica with the Battlestar Pegasus on my wing, both fully loaded with Vipers ready to launch. The 2 NPC fleets of the SSD and the Basestars meet and started hammering each other. After the fight thinned out enough for me to actually get involved with out melting my face and computer from the inside I told the Pegasus to jump in, and start attacking anything between the two jumpgates. After most of the enemy fighters were busy, I launched my own little viper and went to check things out leaving the Galactica safely behind.

   Now, with X3 what happens out of sector... is vastly different from what happens when you're actually there. The SSD is a very large ship. So large that as soon as I popped in, it rammed into and destroyed a Teladi naval yard, then blew itself up (a fitting end). The Teladi were content to just to stay out of it until that happened. The Pegasus opened fire with all its guns and killed a dozen or civilian ships making everyone in that sector hostile to me. Sooo the bloodbath began. I had another mod installed called Race Response Fleets, basically if any ship belonging to a race gets attacked and there is a police group in jump distance they will come to assist. Unfortunately this furball was taking place next to a Xenon home sector. After 10 mins of trying to GTFO dodging missiles, giant waves of plasma balls, exploding flak, all at an amazing 10 FPS I gave up on ever reaching a jumpgate, and instead decided to make a run as far away from everything as possible.

   I sat there 50000km away from the nearest object watching the fight through the my fleets sensors. I opened up my property window, pulled up a list of my ships, told the the Galactica to refuel its crystals for a jump to my location, it ventured off looking for a dock that had what it needed. While I waited I noticed the battle wasn't fairing so well for my guys. The Pegasus was down to 30%, no more missiles, of its 90 vipers only 22 were left and most of those had retreated back into the hanger bay. Wave after wave of Xenon ships were rolling in, the Argon had some how became involved in this, and like most things in the universe, wanted to kill me too. I'm guessing the Peggy obliterated some hapless courier that crossed its line of fire. A few more minutes passed, I check on the Peggy, and she's surrounded, but at the same time I get a mail saying the Galactica has completed its task to refuel, rearm, and resupply its fighters with missiles. I give it a Jump to Position order with me as the target and a few seconds later it pops in right above me. I launch all the vipers, set their missiles to fire freely, and send them off into battle ahead of me while I docked to assume direct control. 20 minutes later, all thats left of my fleet is the Pegasus, who's down to less than 5%, 4 vipers, and the BSG.

   There isn't much else around other than station wreckage, ammo drifting about, ejected pilots of all races and creeds and 4 Xenon controlled capital ships. Screw it. I saved the game, switched all my guns to flak cannons, set them them to engage fighters only. I ordered what was left of ol' Peggy to attack the Xenon group, and followed right behind it. The Pegasus fell quickly, but managed to take out the xenon carrier, I turned the Galactica into another of the capital ships at full speed and launched from my last remaining viper. The Galactica barely survived the collision, but it was alive enough to take out any of the fighters that were quick enough to catch me before I made my escape. I reached my own factory complex, docked, took a look at the situation: Before this massacre I was on good terms with everyone except the Xenon, now I'm KOS to all races in the galaxy. I had lost every ship except a few cargo haulers, and the Viper mk7 I escaped in. My only station was a humble Space Weed production facility. In one bad judgement call I went from respected bad ass with my own fleet to hated drug smuggler.                                        

 Universe wise, X3 is pretty awesome, and with enough of the correct mods it turns into a completely different game than the one you purchased. It requires a good amount of patience due to the poor interface most modifications are restricted to.  

That's exactly the type of game I would love to play.  Too many space games put the combatants within point blank range at the start of the battle...where's the fun in that?  I want to have to use my sensors to find the enemy before I can even think about attacking him.  What separates naval warfare (be it water or space) from land warfare is the importance of long range detection, classification and then maneuver.  Yet, every space game seems to ignore this distinctive characteristic.  

There is a glimmer of hope:  Sword of the Stars 2 is supposedly going to involve long range battles and all that implies.  Not a bridge simulator, but at least it's something different.

Not too many decent starship (or ship) simulators these days. However, I've always been a fan of the Space Rangers series, check out Space Rangers: Reboot on Impulse if you want a really good turn based space RPG game. I wish they'd make a sequel...

I've been playing a ship battle game that is of some interest - Battlestations Pacific and Battlestations Midway. The controls are fairly pleasant, you can switch from capital ship to fighters to subs and even land bases. All the different ships - crusiers, destroyers, battleships - each has their role, and you have real old fashioned torpedo bombers and everything.

Battlestations Pacific in particular is too arkady to be called a simulator though, and the multiplayer battles are FAR too similar to World In Conflict or just a FPS team deathmatch. However, the game works. Something similar in space would be nice.

As for what's out there .. from what i can tell, everything worth mentioning has allready been mentioned.

Perhaps a special mention should go to Star Trek Online - you do have a bridge crew and so on, but it really is not what the OP was looking out for, even if the ship battles are pretty good... the whole 'Use phasers to take down the shields then punch torpedoes in the hole' thing works pretty well.

Jutland does sound interesting... I may have to give that a look.

(As does shatterstar and star vega.).

If I can make one contribution to you all as gamers, it would be to play Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. After patches the game went from buggy hell to a playable game, and while the story is fairly typical with a few twists, the gameplay is truly top-notch and I would kill for the system to be used again. It answers the question of the "I still have to pilot the ship" by forcing you to manage weapon systems, ordering crewmen to regulate power levels, choosing which weapon systems to target on the enemy ship, and many other options that allow you to feel less like the navigator on a ship and more like the arm-chair captain of our own space ships. The game eventually comes down to small fleets, each that can be AI commanded and you giving general directions to direct control of their systems as well. In many ways, it allows you to follow through with many a space captain fantasies. Should you send marines over to sabotage the ships weapon systems, send fighters out to intercept their bombers, or divert power from the shields to use your last ditch super-weapon. While the game seemed to kill the company that developed it, and it is by no means a perfect game, I cannot stress enough how much I loved the game, and for 10 dollars at most places, it is a wonderful game indeed.

Only thing I dont like about the X seires is how captial ships are controled...  If it would give me a nice Captial ship control  where I could Set banks of weapons for Use..      I think captial ships would be controled more like a simulation,  With your ship in the center of the screen, where you could Click + sift to set a point for you ship to head to, and Break weapons in to banks... I would be happy... Just dose not feel right trying to control a captial ship like its a fighter...

And Where is My Freespace 3.........   T,T Thats one series I really miss..   

Yea but that dose not give you Z axis control...  Wich is important in a tactical ingagement...    Kind of liks Starshatter   Lol I like the 2 360 compass wheels... One for X, and one for Z ... Just feels more Captial shipish..

You guys want a starship simulator, you've got it:

Shores of Hazeron

Every other starship simulator pales in comparison.

Looks like we got our first title!

Artemis Bridge Simulator

Here's a vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnZszGvpTrQ&feature=player_embedded

I really like the potential here!  Of course, I won't be happy until there is a single player mode (with PvP over the internet), but it certainly is a step in the right direction!

I would personally not recommend the X series. The concept is interesting but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

The game is tediously slow, AI path-finding is terrible, ships do not have cockpits and lack a lot of character, UI is needlessly convoluted.

I mean, I didn't know.

Look up Starpoint Gemini.  Recently released on GG.

Feels like SFC.  Damn I used to love my D6D.