Space Rangers 2 is a turn-based/real-time tactical RPG hybrid space adventure trading sim text adventure game. I think I probably left out a couple genres. Oh yeah it has real-time ground combat with robots. Many aspects remind me of a top-down 2D version of Elite.
Basically a typical game plays out like this: you start off with a basic ship. The class of ship is decided by your choice of race and occupation (there are 5 of each). Your race and occupation also decides your starting relations with other "players" and the alien races.
Depending on your choice of race and occupation the ship will be larger or smaller, with cutting-edge equipment or broken down ancient equipment, with nothing at all in the hold or tons of contraband. Your starting amount of money also varies. Some ships come with afterburners, others do not, and so on.
Depending on the rules you choose at the beginning of the game, you can vary the difficulty and reward of various parts of the game, such as the ongoing galactic battle against the evil robotic Dominators. You can also make it so trading is easier or harder, and how "lucky" your character is. Lucky characters are less likely do be caught doing illegal things, and of course they are less likely to be infected with diseases when visiting alien worlds. There are about 10 different rules you can modify like this.
You and your ship start off at a Ranger Station, where you may choose to accept some simple training missions to get you started, or you can skip them. From there, you must decide what to do with the ship you've been entrusted with by the Ranger organization.
The Rangers are a group of highly multitalented individuals who are basically like freelance Jedi, in a way. They choose of their own will how to act in various situations, and they are largely above the law. They are recruited from among the races of the galaxy and entrusted with finding a solution to the Dominator crisis. Doing really nasty things will of course get some battleships on your tail, chasing you out of the system.
Some career paths you can choose include trader, pirate, mercenary, fighter, or a combination of these. Completing various tasks (excluding simple trading and such) awards you with XP which you can spend upgrading your character's fighting, trading, mechanical, and charisma skills.
Many players start off with trading to get some money to buy some basic upgrades. You can do this by using search functions to find low prices to buy various goods at, then finding high prices elsewhere. Some exotic goods are outlawed in some jurisdictions, and merely being a trader will offend the sensibilities of one major species.
Equipment falls into various categories: engine, fuel tank, droid, tractor beam ("gripper"), shield, scanner, radar, and weapon. Generally, the less types of equipment a ship can carry, the cheaper it will be. The engine dictates how far you can make single hyperspace jumps and how fast you move at sublight speeds. The fuel tank capacity is the limit of how far you can make hyperspace jumps before you have to refuel. Droids repair a certain amount of HP every game turn. Better tractor beams allow you to tow in bigger goodies from destroyed ships and such. Better shields deflect greater percentages of overall damage and prevent you from being scanned (a good defense against pirates). More powerful scanners allow you to scan through more powerful shields. Radar allows you to identify ships and items in its range, and also provides you with a minimap display.
Weapons come in many different classifications. Some weapons cause damage in a large area, others have a long range, others have a higher average damage, others have a higher potential damage. There are energy weapons, projectile weapons, and missile weapons, and each can be upgraded in different ways and are better for different tasks.
There are hundred of types of ship for you to choose from, though there's only maybe 20 or 30 different-looking hulls. The difference is in their ability to carry different equipment and their size. Larger ships require more powerful engines in order to move quickly, but also allow you to carry more equipment and larger equipment.
It is often possible to find a ship which can carry 5 weapons but not a shield - so you can invest in an extra-expensive droid or hull upgrades to make up for it.
Of each type of equipment there are countless variations in their size, durability, and tech level. For instance, you can get a highly durable, high tech Disruptor, but it might be 100 units in size - prohibitively large on all but the biggest, most expensive hulls. You can get a very small, high tech, and highly durable Disruptor as well but it will be obscenely expensive to buy - and more importantly, very expensive to repair.
You have to find a balance that suits your budget and play style. What good is it to have a ship that's crazy powerful that you can't afford to fly because of maintenance costs?
Fortunately, this is made easy by the in-game search feature which allows you to find equipment that suits your needs.
Once you've bought equipment, you have the option of upgrading it. Most upgrades can be made to focus on one property of the item - for instance you might upgrade a weapon's range with more priority than its firepower if you're an out-fighter. Or you might make a ship with insane amounts of close-range firepower.
All ship components can also be upgraded with rare "micromodules" which you get as rewards for various tasks, such as completing a mission, liberating a system, or destroying a ship. These micromodules have a wide variety of effects - some simply make the item magically less valuable, allowing you to afford maintenance on a high-level item that would otherwise bankrupt you.
There are also artifacts that increase certain properties of your ship, like one that keeps your engines from overheating, or causes a random tripling of damage from one of your weapons.
I can go on and on like this, and I'm only scratching the surface. There are space bases, unique ships, incredibly fun text-driven adventures*, ground combat missions, health insurance packages (!), pirates (you can become one), stimulants, wormholes, tons of technologies, wingmen, great sound effects and music, colorful graphics, large group system attack missions, probes, a leaderboard, awesome humor... see what I mean? I can just go on and on... this game has _incredible_ depth. And if there's any part of it you don't like, you don't have to do it. Don't like the combat? Just make donations to the military and they'll fight the war for you. Don't like text adventures? There are other ways to make money. Don't like trading? Don't trade. You're never forced to do anything, ever. The game can last as long as you want or be as short as you want.
The best part is probably the price. The game is available on Impulse for just $40 or something and that includes the game's expansion pack. One concern you might have is the DRM - it originally shipped with Starforce, but I don't think the Stardock version of it uses any though. It might be in the EXE or something but it's inactive and doesn't do anything to your computer. The "Reboot" expansion definitely does not use it, I have this much confirmed 100%.
One minor problem the game has is the quality of the translation. It's certainly 100% readable and understandable, but a bit awkward. The developers (who are Russian) have explained this though: It's simply because all the different races speak different languages - any errors are a result of your universal translator's inadequacies.
* Regarding text adventures. If there's one part of this you didn't like reading, this is probably the part. The text adventures though are really, really well done. They're full of humor and are really cleverly executed. These adventures can be anything from managing a ski resort, to rescuing a guy from a band of space-indians who drive bat mobiles, to breaking yourself out of prison when you're caught smuggling weapons and drugs. The text adventures are actually one of the parts of the game that are most enjoyed by pretty much everyone who plays the game.
