🚀 go-pugleaf

Omnitrend's Universe came out in 1984.  A friend let me borrow it for
a few days, and I liked it a lot, but then I had to give it back.  I
was just a poor kid at the time, so I couldn't afford to buy it for
myself.

Anyway, can anyone tell me if there is a game currently on the shelves
that comes anywhere close to the flavor of Universe?

Now, we're talking 12 years ago, and I only played the game for a 
short time, but the things I can recall about it that I liked so much 
are:  You could design your own ship, decide what went where, and 
damage to your ship was "realistic" -- if the front section of your 
ship was damaged, then things you put in the front would be affected.  
As for the actual gameplay, I believe it was one of those things where
you pretty much got to decide what you wanted your role to be in the 
grand scheme of things -- you could be a pirate, or a trader, or 
whatever.

I guess what I'm looking for is a game that has a lot of depth to it 
-- not one of those "go to a planet and buy some stuff, go to another 
planet and sell some stuff" games.  I want the feeling of exploration,
I want to encounter alien races, I want to solve mysteries, I want to 
amass fortunes, I want to blow things up, and I want control over my
destiny.  I have to admit, the thing I most liked about Universe was
being able to design my own ship.  (There was some other game I played
where you could carry spare parts with you, and you could pop them into
your engine to repair damage, and some of the parts could be used for
different things, so even if you didn't have any spares, you could
always rearrange what you did have so that if engines were more
important to you than your weapons, you could swap a damaged engine
part for a functioning weapons part.  Anyway, I'd like to find a game 
that allows for such creative juryrigging.)

Of course, I'm not only asking if there is any game out there like 
what I'm describing, but I'm also asking if it's any good.  If it 
sucks, forget it.

Thanks.