[Blaze]

To read the story, head here: A Game of Chance (fiction).
A very nice story. Would love to read more of it. It would be quite cool (to us who have read the story) if you implemented all the characters from the story into the game, whether as high ranking Officers or as "just another UNION ship".

Got a few questions, though, since before the story the text says "Everything in the story below is based on the gameplay mechanics of UNION".

• First time I've heard of a "polywell drive". Googled it. Will you use that in the game?
• In Artemis it's a bit hard for two officers to communicate without everyone else hearing them, and there are things that noone else needs to hear, such as the frequency of enemy shields that Science Officer tell Weapons Officer. Will there be a way to circumvent this in UNION? For example, through consoles themselves? In the story, Tactical Officer Bedford used knowledge gained from Science Officer Kalt, without Captain knowing there was a communication. If you didn't already solve this issue, I think it would a great idea to implement prescripted communication between stations. In the story, that would be an option on Tactical Officer's console to ask the Science Officer for the weakest part of the enemy ship. Also, it would be nice if the Science Officer could send such information, without being asked for it. I would like to have this without a chat function (not everyone is a fast typer), but rather via a menu of sorts.
• Are "klaxons" anything in-game specific or is it just flavour text of the story? What will happen when the ship is hit? Will it be different it the ship is hit on shields (the crew and the ship probably shouldn't even feel that hit) and on the hull (the ship can now shake and the crew should feel it)?
• Will we be able to see what the enemy's hitting us with, frequency wise, as it is in the story?
• The Helm Officer Marriat said she bypassed safety limits on the maneuvering thrusters. Will something like this be possible in-game? Can you clarify? This could have massive repercusions across the bridge.

[Mark]

Story, narrative and world-building is Pádraig's area, but I'll answer the game design questions.

We should definitely have A Game of Chance in UNION, I'll ask Pádraig to comment.

2. Communication between officers is something we have put a lot of effort into. We have a series of context sensitive alerts which officers can raise. For example Science can suggest a ship to target, and also recommend a system on that ship to target. An alert pops up against that ship for Tactical, and the ship is highlighted on the radar and contacts list with the Science symbol. Tactical can also request that Science scan a ship, to get more information on it or improve the lock. When Science scans a ship that ship is highlighted for the Tactical officer automatically. These are just some examples, we will be adding these kind of interactions everywhere we can.
3. Klaxons are the alarms which sound when the ship's hull is hit. These can be disabled in your options, if you find them annoying. There will be screen effects and sound when the ship is hit, but we haven't gotten into that yet.
4. Yes Science will be able to see the freq of incoming weapons, so that he/she can adjust the ship's shield freq if necessary.
5. This has been changed somewhat. We have a kind of "afterburner" system instead which gives you increased speed and manoeuvrability for a limited time.

[Blaze]

2. Communication between officers is an extensive topic. We have 9 channels of 1on1 communication between officers, exluding the Captain. There may even be potential for a three-way communication, but I would recommend against it, since it can all probably be solved in a few 1on1 communications. And a three-way communication among 6 crew members is already half the crew, so that can already be solved using voice.
Now, the question is does every officer need to have a special communication channel with every other officer. Perhaps not. I do believe that most of it can be solved with voice, and it wouldn't be clutter. This is important since if an officer only needs to talk to 2 or 3 other officers via the special 1on1 communication, there could be special buttons that would serve as a type of "quick chat". One example of a button would be on the Tactical's screen: "Request enemy's shield frequency", which would raise a notification on the Science's screen, with a quick way of reply. Just throwing that out there.

4. That's great! More depth!
5. What does the Engineer Officer think about that?

[Mark]

Perhaps when the engine safeties are on the afterburner functionality is disabled.

[Blaze]

That would work.

[Mark]

2. Communication between officers is an extensive topic. We have 9 channels of 1on1 communication between officers, exluding the Captain. There may even be potential for a three-way communication, but I would recommend against it, since it can all probably be solved in a few 1on1 communications. And a three-way communication among 6 crew members is already half the crew, so that can already be solved using voice.
Now, the question is does every officer need to have a special communication channel with every other officer. Perhaps not. I do believe that most of it can be solved with voice, and it wouldn't be clutter. This is important since if an officer only needs to talk to 2 or 3 other officers via the special 1on1 communication, there could be special buttons that would serve as a type of "quick chat". One example of a button would be on the Tactical's screen: "Request enemy's shield frequency", which would raise a notification on the Science's screen, with a quick way of reply. Just throwing that out there.

I don't seem to have been clear when I responded before, the example you give of a "quick chat" feature is exactly what we have. It is built into the UI design, to make communication as effective as possible. So it isn't a menu that you bring up, when you click on something in the UI it might have options for "alerts/quickchats" for the other Officers, it's all context sensitive. Does that make sense?

In terms of other communication, I would like to build VoIP into the game, allowing players to chat with the bridge or just specific officers. I can do that if we get enough funding.

Thanks again for this, your questions and suggestions really help in the design process.

[Blaze]

Does that make sense?

Yes it does. Sorry to make you repeat yourself.

In terms of other communication, I would like to build VoIP into the game, allowing players to chat with the bridge or just specific officers. I can do that if we get enough funding.

I don't think you should focus on this. There are enough applications out there capable of great voice communication, like Mumble, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo and the new Discord. If you could make it, it might prove to be a great feature, but I don't think it's something that's necessary for the game in it's first edition.
It also depends on what type of market are you targeting and what size of market share you want to hit. Rocket League (soccer with rocket-powered cars) is an indie game from 2015 that has voice communication ingame, and they got quite a lot more popular than they expected (expected 10k concurrent users, got 180k on launch), but not many people use that voice communication since you cannot talk only to your teammates.

Thanks again for this, your questions and suggestions really help in the design process.

Glad to help! I work as a DBA, so I know that a fresh set of eyes can give you a better view on the overall situation.

[Mark]

We're not going to sacrifice the type of  game we want to create to reach a larger market, which in reality could be a problem. Our hope is that there will be a large niche of people who really want to play this game as much as we do.

[Blaze]

I hope there is, too. Mone money for you guys, means a better game for all of us.

[Mark]

Our huge issue at the moment is a lack of "reach". Nobody knows about us.

We're working on it, but it's very difficult. Not that giving up is an option.