[Blaze]

And now for some purely role-playing questions, I hope you don't mind those, hehe. (I'd add a smiley here, but the forum keeps putting them all at the end of the post, and it's starting to get a bit anoying, but it's not something you need to bother with.)

• How did you envision the relationship between the Operatives and the Tactical Officer? Is the TO their commander? This is basically a question on how the UNION's stellar navy is structured.
  
• Do we have a navy and an army?
• Are the Operatives a part of the navy or the army?
• How heavily armed are the Operatives or how heavily armed can they be?
• If the navy is the one flying space ships, what's the army doing? Are they the infantry on conquests, like in Starship Troppers?
• What about the relationship between the Operatives and the rest of the bridge crew?
• Would some ships have additional marine platoons aboard that can be used to board other entities?
• How much people are there aboard a spaceship? I know it would be different per each ship, but you can probably give a rough estimate. We should have at least 2 officers for each bridge officer. The main and the night shift, so to speak. There's also the medical personnel, the cook, and what-not.
• Are we calling the ships spaceships or starships?
• Just how big are the ships, anyway?
• I'm gonna stop now... For now.

[Mark]

• How did you envision the relationship between the Operatives and the Tactical Officer? Is the TO their commander? This is basically a question on how the UNION's stellar navy is structured.
  Yeah the Tactical Officer is the commander of the Operative teams, as the Chief Engineer is the commander of the Technician teams.
• Do we have a navy and an army?
  The focus of the game is on the navy, but the army will exist in the background.
• Are the Operatives a part of the navy or the army?
  Navy.
• How heavily armed are the Operatives or how heavily armed can they be?
  They are armed like a navy seal team, they are geared for covert action (rescue, sabotage, kidnapping, assassination, etc.).
• If the navy is the one flying space ships, what's the army doing? Are they the infantry on conquests, like in Starship Troopers?
  There are few habitable worlds in the Centauri system, a lot of the population live on stations of one kind or another. For that reason the army plays a support role to the navy. The navy conquers space, and the army moves in to secure help it. During the game you may have to escort army troop transports, but that is the extent of the army involvement in the game at this point.
• What about the relationship between the Operatives and the rest of the bridge crew?
  The Operatives answer directly to the Tactical Ops, though obviously the TO gets his/her orders from the Captain.
• Would some ships have additional marine platoons aboard that can be used to board other entities?
  Warships are like submarines, they are not designed with space for transporting people or cargo. However warships do regularly escort transport ships.
• How much people are there aboard a spaceship? I know it would be different per each ship, but you can probably give a rough estimate. We should have at least 2 officers for each bridge officer. The main and the night shift, so to speak. There's also the medical personnel, the cook, and what-not. Just how big are the ships, anyway?
  Frigates, which are the smallest playable ships in the game at the moment, range from 150 to 250 meters in length.
  Their compliment is usually around 15 officers, and up to 190 enlisted personnel.
  
• Are we calling the ships spaceships or starships?
  I have always gone with spaceship, to me it fits the tone of the game better. However starship is perfectly valid too.
  

Thanks for the questions, I really did enjoy answering them.

[Blaze]

Thanks for the answers!

[Laslon]

• How did you envision the relationship between the Operatives and the Tactical Officer? Is the TO their commander? This is basically a question on how the UNION's stellar navy is structured.
  Yeah the Tactical Officer is the commander of the Operative teams, as the Chief Engineer is the commander of the Technician teams.
• Do we have a navy and an army?
  The focus of the game is on the navy, but the army will exist in the background.
• Are the Operatives a part of the navy or the army?
  Navy.
• How heavily armed are the Operatives or how heavily armed can they be?
  They are armed like a navy seal team, they are geared for covert action (rescue, sabotage, kidnapping, assassination, etc.).
• If the navy is the one flying space ships, what's the army doing? Are they the infantry on conquests, like in Starship Troopers?
  There are few habitable worlds in the Centauri system, a lot of the population live on stations of one kind or another. For that reason the army plays a support role to the navy. The navy conquers space, and the army moves in to secure help it. During the game you may have to escort army troop transports, but that is the extent of the army involvement in the game at this point.
• What about the relationship between the Operatives and the rest of the bridge crew?
  The Operatives answer directly to the Tactical Ops, though obviously the TO gets his/her orders from the Captain.
• Would some ships have additional marine platoons aboard that can be used to board other entities?
  Warships are like submarines, they are not designed with space for transporting people or cargo. However warships do regularly escort transport ships.
• How much people are there aboard a spaceship? I know it would be different per each ship, but you can probably give a rough estimate. We should have at least 2 officers for each bridge officer. The main and the night shift, so to speak. There's also the medical personnel, the cook, and what-not. Just how big are the ships, anyway?
  Frigates, which are the smallest playable ships in the game at the moment, range from 150 to 250 meters in length.
  Their compliment is usually around 15 officers, and up to 190 enlisted personnel.
  
• Are we calling the ships spaceships or starships?
  I have always gone with spaceship, to me it fits the tone of the game better. However starship is perfectly valid too.
  

Thanks for the questions, I really did enjoy answering them.

Please tell me if I'm wrong here are you saying there could be up to 150 rl players on a ship? Probably wrong its been a long week and only got back the morning.

[Mark]

Please tell me if I'm wrong here are you saying there could be up to 150 rl players on a ship? Probably wrong its been a long week and only got back the morning.
No no, these are just crew numbers for role-playing.

In terms of gameplay there will be up to 10 players (5 of whom would have to be observers, this would be particularly useful for training), and between 3 to 18 managed crew (Technicians, Operatives, Researchers)

[Blaze]

Story-wise, there would be 150 individuals on a ship. But players would cover at most 5 of those (with additional 5 as observers, but not part of the crew), and would interact with additional 3 to 18 NPCs. The rest cca 130 individuals would only exist in the role playing terms, and the game wouldn't feature them, afaik.

[Mark]

Thanks Blaze, that is spot on.