now a good 1+ years old, this latest trade/fight/explore 1st person POV/cockpit (yes, with mods, though i admit to preferring the default presentation, where the nose of the ship is visible onscreen but there are no cockpit bars obscuring the view or the onscreen hud) space sim is probably the best of the genre now, in terms of polish, depth, graphics, and current generation production values.

relevant links:
egosoft.com
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=4407d60211703d0e429cf62c26658cd6
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=94&sid=4407d60211703d0e429cf62c26658cd6 (script and mod forum, to see what greatness is out there from the community)

i am running the 2.5 version of the game, with both DDTC mod (adds new ships, stations, missions, sector backgrounds), Cmod3 (a combat mod that overhauls the combat in the game, though i can't tell you how at this point), and a few cheat scripts.

the game is stable, runs well, and looks fantastic. and for those who have been put off by the ponderous, trade-centric aspect of the prior x games, this one allows the player to quite easily play as a fighter, earning credits through combat, so there's no need to slog through the game as a lowly freighter pilot. the combat is pretty great, imo.

x3:tc is likely the best cockpit-based space sim we're going to see for a while (until infinity, whenever that comes out, and jumpgate, which doesn't even allow for a cockpit-based pov yet, as far as i know, and which is online only), so give it a look.

ps- yeah, piper, i'm talkin' to you :-)

Get the MARS turret script, one of the coolest mods out there for X3TC, works great with CMod3 as well.

cool- automates turrets, right?
right now i am just flying a fighter, not a cap ship
would MARS be applicable to that?

It automates missle defense on fighters. On capital ships it not only automates the turrets it will select from the weapons in your cargo for the most appropriate armament for the current target.

ahh, ok. so basically, my fighter turret will launch a mosquito missile at any incoming missile, without me having to target the missile and manually launch my mosquito? correct? and it will select the mosquito, even if i have another missile selected?

that would be sweet.

Yep, you don't even need a turret for it to work.

Nice, thanks for the info PG.

I'm looking for a decent game for my laptop, I have picked this on up a few times at the store and looked at it. I am not a Sci-Fi fan at heart, but this looks like it may be fun to mess around with once and a while. Does it run on Windows 7 ? Is a mouse a must or will a touch pad be satisfactory ?

mouse is a must have

Mouse is a must have on a laptop regardless, that is the first thing I do with any laptop, a wireless laptop mouse is as essential as a power cord as far as I am concerned

my .02

Speaking of games for the laptop, I might have to pick this one up...