[Blaze]

I've written the post once, and accidentaly hit Ctrl-R to refresh the page, instead of Ctrl-T to open a new tab, so now I have to do it all over again...

Let me first say that I know UoN doesn't have a dedicated Communications Officer, as does Artemis, but instead combines Science and Communications into one role. However, for the purpose of this post, I'll refer to the Communications as a distinct role, since it makes it easier to discuss it.

I've had this idea while reading a one of the books from the Vorkosigan saga, a sci-fi story. Let's face it, the Communications Officer of a vessel in space is a very important role. One usually doesn't wish to be lost in space without the ability to contact anyone. Being lost at sea is terrifying enough; being lost in space is unimaginable.

Communication Officer's job in Artemis is, in my opinion, boring, even though I know people who specialize in it. So I've been thinking what would make it more interesting, when I realized what task such an Officer performs:

• sending encrypted messages,
• decrypting received messages,
• intercepting messages in the ether,
• collecting and filtering messages chatter,
• acting as the first level of diplomacy.

None of those tasks is trivial to the survival of the crew on a spaceship, and I don't think it should be trivial in the game. So, my answer to all those tasks are puzzles.

Yes, puzzles.

Disclaimer: I've no idea if other games have already handled this issue in a better way, or if Mark has even better ideas;
 I'm just stating what I think could be an interesting approach.

Let's think of this through a gameplay scenario:
Captain: Alright, John, what's the status of the unknown vessel?
Communications: They are sending us a message, sir. I'm decrypting it right now.
John, as the Communications Officer, sees that his scanners have picked up a message. He clicks the appropriate icon and opens a jumbled puzzle. John is an experienced Communications Officer, and has solved dozens of puzzles, but this type is new even to him. It takes him a whole minute to complete it. Once he does, the message decrypts and he reads it out to the bridge crew.
Communications: The message says: "We come in piece."
Tactics: Sir, they've just fired a torpedo on us. I've raised the shields and have locked on the torpedo and them.
Captain: Peace, John? Are you sure about that?
Communications: Uhh...
John takes another look at the puzzle, realizes that a certain part of it can be rotated to fit another way and loudly exclaims
Communications: It's not "We come in piece", it's "We come in pieces"!
Captain: Pieces? Are you sure about...
Captain's sentence trails off, as more unknown ships start to appear on the ships long distance scanners.
Captain: All hands, battle stations!

The puzzles could range from anything like the good old puzzles with pictures most us have arranged as children, over connecting lines akin to the old game where you guide the water through pipes or the Android game Infinity Loop, to something new and innovative. Similar approach would have to be taken when encrypting the message, perhaps solving a different kind of puzzle that would make it hard for enemies to decrypt.

Adding special codes to the messages that encrypt or decrpyt it is a possibility as well, but doing something like that requires diplomatic agreements the crew may not have access to because of the new alien encounter or other reasons. However, it would be the Communications Officer's task to know which codes to use for which destination.

Another thing the Communications Officer could do is intercepting messages between other (enemy or not) ships/stations/planets. Since most things travel as a wave (such as light and sound), some messages can be picked up by even those it's not intended for. Now the question is how far from source the message is picked up, and if it can be decrypted.

Some messages travel without encryption, but can still hold interesting information. It would also be the Communications Officer's job to read through the messages and filter out any that are interesting to the Captain. This can include enemy chatter that was not encrypted by mistake, but also civilian talks about the upcoming trade or political elections.

Finally, the Communications Officer is the first line of diplomacy, so it would be his job to review the info they have on each ship, faction and their crew. Diplomacy can include threats, bribing, mutual interest and other. Some diplomatic tasks would need to be raised to the Captain's level, but again, that would be the Communications Officer's job to know when to disturb the Captain in such regard.

I hope this was clear enough, and that you've found it interesting. I also hope I didn't just write something stupid or something that everyone already knows.

[Mark]

Thank you for the interesting and well constructed suggestions.

I want to do it justice, so I will reply in full tomorrow morning when I will have more time.

I will tell you about how I view Comms (I do agree that it is very important), what my plans are, and how your suggestions might fit into that.

When it comes down to new ideas, the implementation (how it will work) is more important than the concept.

Chat to you then.

[Mark]

What is Science/Comms? (Part 1)

Before I can answer that question, I need to explain some key concepts in the game.

Core to Universe or Nothing is the concept of information warfare, the idea that the side with the best information will win.

How that is expressed in the game is in your crew's view of the world, which we can break down into three parts: passive, active, and historic/relayed.

The "passive" view is the only real-time view of the world, but it is also the least detailed. Passive is what you can see (what is in visual range) and what your passive sensors pick up (energy and gravitational readings). In this passive view of the world you can get an idea of where a contact is, and maybe what type of thing it is, but you won't know specifics like what equipment it has or what systems it is running. Weapon locks using passive data are also quiet poor, you will be able to hit the target but not with any accuracy (you won't be able to consistently hit the same part of the target, unless it isn't moving).

The "active" view is a ping based view of the world, where you actively scan by sending out pings (like sonar in a submarine). It is close to real-time, with more frequent pings making it more like real-time. This gives you a much more detailed view of the world, depending on scanning strength and variables like the energy signatures of contacts compared to background energy levels. However every ping you send out gives other contacts (including the enemy) more information on your own position, making it risky to do too often.

The "historic/relayed" view is from past data, from earlier active scans/pings (where the contact is no longer visible to you) or from data relayed to you from allied ships or stations (from their own passive/active views). This historic view is generally used for hunting or avoiding enemy ships, by looking at their trajectory in the historic data and go to or away from where you estimate them to be now.


That's part 1, I will reply again later with an explanation of how Science fits into above. Part 3 (the final part) will discuss Comms.


Thanks for reading!