I've wanted a successor of some kind for so long but nothing quite hits the mark. Maybe this will come close.
I'll never forget that red alien blob craft (IIRC, it was in the original EV), it slow slow to turn but very powerful, allowing configurations with ridiculous amounts of weapons.
And then the stunningly gorgeous Kestrel (http://blog.eamonnmr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/kestrel_...), damn, this game is one of my all time favorites! Definitely one of the first things which put me on track to fall in love with All Things Space :)
I've always wished for some sort of EV with LAN or Internet play, to make it less lonely. If there were mechanics to make it really work smoothly and still be fun, that'd be dreamy.
I've enjoyed Elite:Dangerous [0], but it's very different gameplay in comparison. E:D is similar in some regards, like ship upgrades, missions, and trading economy but _much more time intensive_ and first-person POV drive, whereas EV was always 3rd person.
I also preferred the ability in EV to to hire subservient autonomous agents who could then be mass-controlled with hotkeys. This really helped scale up combat to take on entire fleets. Then you've got E:D, where it's like "click, click, click, steeeerrrr" to aim and fire every shot.
To sum it up:
EV - Super fun to play, fast gameplay, excellent storylines, easy to start / save / stop / resume, okay-ish economy, fun easter eggs, but lonely.
E:D - Fun, relaxing (or boring, because of all the time to accelerate / decelerate / travel), huge expansive universe (simply massive!), good network play, weak story line, different fighting style, quite excellent trading economy, but high time commitment and overall complexity.
The good news about EV:N is that IIRC you can just disconnect your computer from the internet and roll back the clock to the day after your license was issued. Then it will work without complaining about expiration.
Thanks for the tip! I might need to just see if I can spin up a VM and do that. Would rather not need to do it with my regular computer OS.
You'll also find a minimalist QuickTime no-installer
I dont even mind browser games, since mechanics>graphics for me.
But my guess is just that it's not really a popular enough genre, which is why there's such a dearth in games of similar style and quality.
It's in the same genre as EV, Star Control II, etc. It has been out for over a decade now and still under active development with a stable player base. The economic side is generally more about making bases and colonies and setting up automated trade routes than hauling stuff around manually, though. In general, people set up their economy while going off to do missions and explore in parallel.