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Vega Strike

Vega Strike is an free and Open Source 3D Action-Space-Sim (works on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX) that lets you trade, fight, and explore in a vast universe .

Vega Strike aims to insert players into a large, dynamic universe with diverse factions of varying disposition to the player and to each other, and an economy model where trade, combat and exploration are all profitable. Financial gains allow the player to buy upgrades and/or better vehicles, thus enabling him/her to advance into more dangerous and profitable missions. The player can have varying levels of relations with factions. Negative relations can form if the player kills some of a given faction’s ships. Positive relations can be formed if the player destroys ships that are part of an enemy to a given faction. Players can either buy and sell cargo, or accept missions from the Mission Computer, as well as talking to people in the local bar at the space station/planet. In the tradition of some precursor games, individuals of significant plot importance are often found in bars.

Vega Strike contains a wide array of spacecraft that are sold by each race, and by various factions within each race. Vessels vary in purpose from multipurpose civilian craft such as the Plowshare medium-size cargo shuttle to high-performance fighter/assault craft such as the Ariston. Cargo haulers, bombers, and even capital ships are at the player’s disposal.

Features include:
  • 15 species - 6 main species and 9 client species
  • 39 different powers, factions, or groups
  • Randomly generated universe which will vary with any new created game
  • More than 5700 different systems connected by an extensive jump network
  • 21 different planet types
  • More than 80 different ships in 230 varieties
  • Each ship gives you a unique individual flight feeling
  • Multiple-ship ownership
  • Three 3D cockpits
  • Around 10 different stations
  • 110 upgrade items
  • 190 weapons and turrets
  • 240 different cargo items
  • Exploration
  • Missions
    o Cargo trading
    o Patrol missions
    o Rescue missions
    o Combat missions
  • Dynamic news keeping you up-to-date with the progress of the universe
  • Dynamic progress of the universe with changing system ownership as the war progresses
  • Plenty of shoot 'em up action
  • Preliminary multi-player death-match (testing server only)

Engine Features:

  • Per pixel specularity, glow, and damage (fades in when the craft gets damaged) maps
  • Detail textures (tiles that fade in when you get close to the ship, to add detail)
  • Planets with 3D atmospheres
  • Basic mesh animation (frame by frame)
  • Engine flares
  • Damage 'sparks'
  • Shields that glow where hit
  • Explosions


Minimum system requirements:

* Processor: Pentium I 200Mhz or Apple G3 400Mhz
* Video card: 3d card with 16Mb of memory (although it will work without a 3d card too)
* Screen color depth: 16bit
* RAM: 512 Mb (Although some users reported it works just fine with 253 MB of RAM).

You should definitely try this if you are a fan of movies such as Star Trek, Star Wars, or anything else involving spaceships of all sizes in space fighting, merchandising, and exploring. The physics is very realistic, and it feels a lot like flying an actual spaceship. Just one slight crash into a mothership causes damage, and just one hit from a space pirate sends sparks flying all over the place.

To install Vega Strike in Ubuntu, simply run the following command in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install vegastrike vegastrike-music


For Windows, Mac OSX and other Linux distributions: download Vega Strike

[via webdevonlinux]