oolite VS wesnoth

The main oolite repository is [1] and the repository for the launcher is [2]. Everything, including art assets and configuration files, is under the GNU GPL 2-or-later [3]. You can alternatively use the art assets and config files under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License version 3.0, a proprietary license.

[1] https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite

[2] https://github.com/HiranChaudhuri/OoliteStarter

[3] https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite/blob/master/Doc/LICE...

Might look at Oolite for a free lower spec alternative to Elite, if that's your jam. Plenty of mods to work with as well.

If you liked Elite, you should check out Oolite [1] too. FOSS, lots of mods.

[1] http://www.oolite.org/

I was surprised, when I started recording videos for Oolite, by how many people were desperate for Oolite videos.

Many, many hours playing this one to death. And the C64 version before it, and the BBC versions (tape and disk) at my friends houses. And Oolite on the Mac. And I'm a founder backer of Elite Dangerous. And...and...

In addition to the other great recommendations on here, Oolite might also be worth a try. It's free and has tons of expansions modify your experience.

Hmm, I guess that's one way to look at it. ED is all about the freedom of choice, after all. Though I still think OP's idea is interesting. Before playing ED, I've been playing Oolite for some time, and you can actually jump into the wakes left by the ships. So, to see this (or similar) mechanic in ED would be interesting.

link to game

Strong nostalgia whenever I see the BBC Elite opening screen!

These days we can re-live it easily in the browser: https://bbc.godbolt.org/?autoboot&disc=sth%3AAcornsoft%2FEli... Although I can also recommend "oolite": http://www.oolite.org/ which is an open source modernised elite with game play kept quite faithful to the original (I'm currently hooked on this and wasting more my life trying to get that "Elite" rating all over again)

Official site Steam Itch.io

I don't think there's much in terms of managerial/4x f2p games (afaik)...closest thing that comes to mind would be The Battle for Wesnoth which I wouldn't recommend for "turning off" your brain.

Wesnoth, obviously: https://www.wesnoth.org/

The Battle For Wesnoth? (Keep in mind it's been around since 2005, and had more simplistic graphics at one point - a random example.)

The Battle for Wesnoth

Battle for Wesnoth - free https://www.wesnoth.org/

I read that as Wesnoth at first and was very confused.

I used to love tactical RPGs, but as I've aged I don't have the patience for them. I really wanted to play Battle of Wesnoth (https://www.wesnoth.org/), but it was not to be. Then I found this gem and it scratched my space sim itch, https://endless-sky.github.io/.