I'm looking for a game where you can create your own ships and move around throughout space killing and taking over other planets. I do not care about what it looks like as much as how much you can change/personalize. I can't remember the name of game I use to have, which I liked. Drox operative was one of the last quick looks of the type of game I'm looking for.

In Evochron Mercenary you can buy better parts in your ship. It's also a 4x game (expand explore exploit uhh exposition? exhaust? oh right, exterminate I think). I always forget that last one.

X2 and X3 are similar to that too though you'd be buying different ships and even fleets I think.

There's also S.P.A.Z. (space pirates and zombies and mercenaries).

I was just about to ask this same question. After all this talk about EVE Online, I've been very tempted to get in on that. I don't really have the time or money for that at the moment though (unless someone convinces me that I could get into the thick of things relatively quickly), so I've been browsing around for something kinda like that.

Basically, bump.

X3 is good just really hard. Not really any directions. Truest sense of the idea of an open world.

I started playing X3: Terran Conflict a few months back and loved it. Verrrry slow start though. Watched quite a few tutorial videos some kind folks posted on YouTube to get the hang of things. This guy in particular had a pretty good series going through most of the basics through mining and even on to managing a small mining business with multiple ships.

thanks for the suggestions, I was looking for something more of the sit back and watch as my space army strolls across the galaxy killing everyone.

However I think I'm going to try X3, is conflict the one to start with? or prelude or reunion?

I can't tell if you want a game where you can fly a spaceship and murder things, or command spaceships and murder things. So here are my suggestions for both:

Freelancer: Fly ships. Buy ships. Do stuff. Meet people who don't own the space station you're on, but have an understanding with the people who do.

Darkstar One: Never actually played this one, but from what I understand it's closer to Independence War than X3. You have one ship, and you can explore space, but you can attach a lot of things to that one ship.

Galaxy on Fire 2: I played the iOS version, but there's a PC version. Basically Freelancer on the go.

Galactic Civilizations II: 4X game. Conquer space. Actually create your own ship prototypes. You don't get to fly ships on your own, but you can make some ridiculously strange races to play as.

Sins of a Solar Empire: A little more straightforward than the one above. Conquer planets. Build stupidly large fleets. Zoom out when your computer strains rendering a hundred ships firing upon a hundred other ships.

I'll also mention Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control II) here. If you're looking for an RPG in space, a lot of games can trace their lineage back to this.

@bofooq: Get Terran Conflict. Albion Prelude is an expansion to TC so you'd need that anyway. Reunion is the previous game and TC has a bunch of improvements. X is just one of those series that definitely takes some time to get into it but if it hooks you... I'm sure I could have done something productive with those 200+ hours but I have no regrets!