I think I would answer that by pointing out that games with action occurring on a grand scale tend invoke a global perspective.
For me it is much more satisfying to explore this theme from the absolute ground level. So you are not ordering units around from the air, you are one of the characters, with a human perspective. You are not a magical sentient starship flying through space, you are its human captain commanding it from the bridge or watching the repairs going on in the engine room; in fact, we are even tempted to exclude the exterior perspective entirely, for immersion's sake, but we will see how that plays out later in development. Human players behave as the directing agents in the game. Everyone is born into the game alone. Over time, the player encounters NPC's, and they are given the opportunity to either employ them at routine tasks, or enlist their help at a certain moment, all in exchange for living space and food.
A few examples:
-The player may ask an NPC to harvest and replant crops in a certain area
-An NPC may be asked to convert one item into another, provided they have the proper materials, facilities, and space
-An NPC may be asked to take items that appear in one inventory, and carry them to another inventory (and of course, they may be attacked along the way if unguarded)
-A group of NPC's could be assigned to follow the player, and assist them in mining at the level the player chooses
-A group of NPC's could be given a spatial template of an existing structure or fragment, and be tasked with replicating it in chosen locations
As time goes on, some robotic characters may be manufactured that perform certain functions better than an NPC-human is able.
I apologize if the term "race" doesn't fully convey this concept. While this content has not been implemented yet, we expect the number of NPC helpers to be around 5-50, based on play style, and the constraints of having so many AI's functioning at once. Also consider that a lot of these functions are sophisticated to code, so the NPC's will likely make their debut toward the end of module 1.
For me it is much more satisfying to explore this theme from the absolute ground level. So you are not ordering units around from the air, you are one of the characters, with a human perspective. You are not a magical sentient starship flying through space, you are its human captain commanding it from the bridge or watching the repairs going on in the engine room; in fact, we are even tempted to exclude the exterior perspective entirely, for immersion's sake, but we will see how that plays out later in development. Human players behave as the directing agents in the game. Everyone is born into the game alone. Over time, the player encounters NPC's, and they are given the opportunity to either employ them at routine tasks, or enlist their help at a certain moment, all in exchange for living space and food.
A few examples:
-The player may ask an NPC to harvest and replant crops in a certain area
-An NPC may be asked to convert one item into another, provided they have the proper materials, facilities, and space
-An NPC may be asked to take items that appear in one inventory, and carry them to another inventory (and of course, they may be attacked along the way if unguarded)
-A group of NPC's could be assigned to follow the player, and assist them in mining at the level the player chooses
-A group of NPC's could be given a spatial template of an existing structure or fragment, and be tasked with replicating it in chosen locations
As time goes on, some robotic characters may be manufactured that perform certain functions better than an NPC-human is able.
I apologize if the term "race" doesn't fully convey this concept. While this content has not been implemented yet, we expect the number of NPC helpers to be around 5-50, based on play style, and the constraints of having so many AI's functioning at once. Also consider that a lot of these functions are sophisticated to code, so the NPC's will likely make their debut toward the end of module 1.
