[PvK]

Has there yet been a space combat computer game with 3D movement and an emphasis on maneuver tactics, which had a good usable interface which allows one to easily understand the positions and movements of the ships?

The best that I can think of is the Independence War series, which is very good at what it does, but still can get bewildering to try to see and understand what is going on if there are several ships in different directions.

Unless someone does know of a very good example of a 3D tactical interface, it seems to me that 2D space games remain a very reasonable design decision, if you want to be able to have several ships involved in a combat, and still be able to easily see what maneuvers are occurring.

Even with the 2D movement, I think it's actually somewhat difficult to tell what's going on around one's ship in Star Fury, because of the sideways views, the speed of play, and the lack of automated alerts warning of attacks and other approaching objects. Zoomed-out top-down view is best for situational awareness, except then you can't see distant objects.

With 3D movement... it'd probably be a much different sort of game, which Independence War already does rather well. An RTS-like interface with elevation lines might be a way to get a more tactical interface, although either would be challenging to present in a way that had the same ease of play as a 2D system.

Although people have widely different tastes, the first post on this thread surprises me somewhat, unless it's a troll post. Why would an SE4 fan want or expect a 3D game with eye candy comparable to something it took Microsoft Games what, four years (?) and literally millions of dollars, to polish (and which has extremely lame tactical gameplay, from all intelligent accounts I've read)?

Certainly SF is a lot prettier than SE4, and it has far more potential for tactical interestingness, especially with modding, than Freelancer.

However I'm not entirely surprised - everyone has different tastes, and a lot of game enjoyment comes from the imagination, and pretty 3D graphics do engage the imagination, at least until a player figures out the game (or lack thereof) behind the graphics.

PvK