It's funny...I've been part of a project to produce an "official" sequel to
Starflight for quite some time now (project's stalled out...again...largely due to lack of coders, artists, leadership, or basically anything else you need to make a video game. Though I did get the design doc finished for it last year, finally). Anybody has any questions about
Starflight, ask away. I've done a lot of research on these games (like hacking the hex code-type research. That much.)
Let's see...what have people posted. Are they RPGs?
Kind of. They certainly have a lot of RPG-style elements in them, in that you have your ship, you can pick the species of your crewmembers, name them whatever the hell you want and put them in the post you want. They each have five disciplines, each corresponding to one of the ship's main functions. Your ship itself can be customized with up to five Classes of different pieces of equipment and up to sixteen pods (limited to cargo pods in SF1, SF2 expands it to include jump pods and blastopods). You can have encounters in space, and you go around exploring other worlds, collecting minerals and lifeforms. Interacting with aliens gives you the clues you need to finish the game, though you have to be careful about how you talk with them; pick the wrong stance and they'll as likely start shooting at you.
Basically, you spend the early parts of the game decking out your ship and then the rest of it fulfilling the mission requirements. SF1 has a time limit; SF2 does not. SF1 is open-ended in the sense that you can still go exploring after you win. SF2 is open-ended in the sense that there's no time limit and so you can explore as much as you want before you win the game (though once you win, that's it).
I guess Star Control falls into the genre.
Star Control II (and to a lesser extent, the abomination called
Star Control III) do. In fact, a lot of the same people worked on both games. I could toss in a spoiler here, but I won't for the sake of those who might want to try
Starflight out.
Star Control I, for those who've never played it, is a lot like
Armada, actually. It's a good game, though I wish there was some way to keep the map from spinning around...
I played the crap out of the Sega Genesis version back in the day (highly recommended due to updated graphics). It's a fantastic game. It let me live out my Star Trek captain fantasies. I never played it on PC and I might look into this. It's about time I bought something on GOG that wasn't Wing Commander.
The PC version is substantially different from the Sega Version, fair warning. In fact, the Sega Version was the oddball out of all the versions of the game...more arcade-game-like than the other versions. For example, the PC version automatically lands your ship (as opposed to firing your thrusters to slow your descent). Orbiting planets is also done automatically. Planetary and star system configurations are also different. I still recommend trying it out, but in my experience fans of the Sega Version find the other versions bland.