I had forgotten how captivating the amazing work is that the thriving modder community constantly releases. The latest and major upgrade of the Freespace 1 Port - the original campaign ("The Great War") ported to Freespace 2 - is out:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.p...p;topic=76733.0

The ported add-on to Freespace 1, "The Silent Threat" has been upgraded as well again - "The Silent Threat: Reborn". Links to it and several other campaigns that have been upgraded for the new edition of FSport are further down on the page.

The other branch of mediavps is currently at 3612:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.p...p;topic=70736.0

The variety of excellent user campaigns and the terrific, detailed work of the tech/graphics guys in the Source Code Project is well worth seeing. If you don't have the sim, GOG has it for $5 or so.

These are great games. I wonder if we will ever see a spiritual successor to this series.

Good question. The X series are also wonderful in many ways, but more focused than FS/FS2 on the 4X strategy aspects. They have no community modder campaigns vortex like the Freespace community features, along with the accompanying space combat effects that have been so incredibly developed by the FS modders. The two sims are more like cousins than brothers.

Like flight sims, I guess this genre isn't dead but doesn't hold a place in the PC world that it used to.