Out of Pod Experience

nexus the jupiter incident. Tactical space game where you only control a few ships but you get to fit them out. Also has thing like permanent death to any ship that gets destroyed, cloaking, scanning etc. Pretty good story aswell and really hard.

X3 is pretty much EvE offline. X3 Terran Conflict has multiple smaller plotlines to follow and has been mostly scrubbed from the bugs in the few years it's been out. X3 Albion Prelude hasn't got much of a plot to follow but it has some improved and useful features compared to the TC and a few more systems. There's also the X: Rebirth coming out later this year.

Star Control II could be something of interest. Spaceships, mining, exploration, combat, diplomacy. A modernized version goes with the name of The Ur-Quan Masters. It's a timeless classic every self-respecting sci-fi gamer should try.

While this isn't exactly what you are looking for, you could try Dwarf Fortress too. It's a roguelike-of-sorts about sending your dwarven settlers to surive and carve a fortress in the wilderness. The learning cliff is very much like EvE's though, if not worse. It's not forgiving and there is no tutorial. However it's very much fun after learning what the stuff does and it has unlimited replayability thanks to randomly generated maps and a huge selection of stuff to do. Why I'm mentioning this? Because it's high on people's "If you could play only one game ever again, what would it be" lists, not to mention it's small and free making it a perfect addition for longer trips. And stories like this are just awesome.

Another X3 post-

It is highly moddable. In fact, I can't even play the vanilla game the mods add so much. The developer supports the modding effort fully and even makes a few of the mods available on their site. The amount and scope of the mods are practically limitless, from new ships to new functions that can enhance any part of the game. And it is a sandbox, so the sky is the limit. I have spent hundreds of hours playing X2, X3:Reunion and X3:Terran Conflict. Not so many hours playing Albion prelude yet, but I have only had it for a couple of weeks.

Won't find any here, this is still online.

+1 for Nexus and Ur-Quan Masters.

Try FreeSpace 2 if you want to see what EVE's drones/fighters have to put up with.

Out of curiosity, why...?

HW was a great game. Loved playing that.

Here is a much simpler RTS called Star Command Revolution. Pretty good description in the link.

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/strategy_games/games_so_sy/star_command_revolution.html

The game is free but the download will cost you $5.95 (PayPal or CC). It has been a while since I played this but I will start it up every once in a while. Good for a few hours amusement.

Do you like eve?

Do you like sins of a solar empire?

So i put some Eve into your SOASE

http://www.moddb.com/mods/sins-of-new-eden

Also check out some of the other mods, the Starwars one is rather awesome.