Is there any simulation type games where one can micromanage resources to ensure survival for, say, a colony on Luna (the Moon)? If anyone's played the spacebuild gamemode in Garry's Mod, something like that would be good, but with more realism.

Video or RPG?

For video games, there was the Sierra game Outpost (?) which was fantastic. Moon Base Alpha is neat, but basically a teaser.

If you like a little humor in your management sims, check out Startopia. It's basically Dungeon Keeper in space. It's not on Good Old Games, Steam, or Impulse, but you might be able to find it in a bargain bin somewhere.

I'll keep an eye out for Outpost, already downloaded Moonbase Alpha, and I've just remembered Alpha Centauri, which I have.

Good luck with Outpost. It was released in the 90s. However, I played it again last year and it was still a lot of fun.

Ohh, Alpha Centauri... it was actually pretty great with lots of options and quite hard depending on wich faction you choose. Diplomacy had lots of options too. I might have to find this again. Though I remember being annoyed when some opponent had invested heavily in water-techs and built cities like crazy in the ocean.

Ohh! Nukes really meant something in AC, large craters in the terrain... very fun in a very wrong way.

But but nuking the U.N. Faction winers was sooo much fun!

My favorite space games of all time:
1.Galactic Civ II
2.MOOII
3.Starcraft
4.Star Control (the original)
5.Starfleet Command
6.Birth of the Federation (Moo like for star trek)
7.Alpha Centauri
8. Yars Revenge
9. X-Wing
10. MOO

X-com the original would be on there, but that really did not involve much use of space (final mission only)

You list X-Wing but not TIE Fighter? For shame...

I thought the missions in X-wing were better done--though admittedly I played TIE fighter significantly less than X-wing.

Gameplay and missions they are both about equal (with TIE fighter edging it out for the ability to target subsystems on ships) but TIE Fighter had, for me, a far superior story. They even give you the great Imperial twist on everything. You're not stomping out freedom fighters to impose rule, you're halting a civil war and helping to restore peace to the system.

You know that is making me want to go back and both of those games again.

I've been waiting for GOG to hopefully put them up some day. I still have my collector's CD for both games but no real desire to sit down and fiddle with them to make them work.

Alpha Centauri is on Good Old Games for $5.99

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri

Portal 2.

How could there be a PC space game thread with no mention of the Space Quest series?! Tsk tsk. For shame.