I used to play this game back in the day and I REALLY want to play it again (evem if it's just the demo) but I can't remember the name at all so all I can do is provide the most details for you.

Basic Info:
2D Space Shooter (not in the cockpit but looking down on the game map)
Old game that I used to play it on my Win98 machine and it ran on my Win3.11 machine (I think. It's been too long).

More About The Game:

It was a space game where your objective was to mine planets of resources and sell them to other planets. Now these planets could have defenses around them and they had different colour rings around them for the different types of defence. There was also a way to tell the alignment (Neutral, enemy owned, player owned) of the planet by I think the colour of their name. You could cause planets to have barriers around them and have their own defense also. The more you invested in a planet, the better the defences. You also started with a home planet and a couple of near by planets on your side.

You would also buy weapons and defense for your ship. What I can remember is that it had computer controlled enemies that acted like you and you could decide the name of them and how many you want (1-however many).

You could get weapons like nukes which would take down a planets defences quickly too. Bombard a planet with them and it would go neutral so you could "farm it".

Space was also set in a grid pattern. You also had a map on your screen at all times on the right hand side and it would show different colour dots on it for different alignments of planets when you found them so you could easily find them again.

If anyone can remember ANYTHING about it can you please help me find the name of this game. It has been bugging me for months now and I want to see where I can get it (even if I have to pay).

Wild guess since I know I don't know the game you are looking for, at least with the details you mentioned, but, Spaceward Ho! ?

http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=spaceward+ho

It sort of looked like that but I don't remember the planets with hats on them.

This game actually has a lot of similarities though. The graphics on the planets and space were almost exactly like that.

Another thing I JUST remembered was the fact that ALL planets would appear nutral until you actually tried to mine from them. Then it could change to an enemy planet and start attacking you right there.

Also planets could not move (I don't know why but it looked like that is what they were doing in the screenshots for Spaceward Ho!

But thanks for the quick help so far.

EDIT: It also wasn't turn=based like Spaceward Ho! is.

The name of the game is Warpath and there is a free version in the official web page www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath.htm.
It's a good game, very funny, there are two levels: very easy and impossible (for me, at least)

andyore: You're a genious. Thank you SOOOO much.

I hope this gets added to the main page. I love this game :D

*goes off to waste his life away*

Oh my gosh! I love you too! I just posted about this game just a few seconds ago :P Then I saw this haha :P I've been wanting to play this for ages!!! *goes off to download*