Personnel

[Blind Sniper]

Can I fire my scientists, engineers and so on?

[IainMcNeil]

Not yet but you will be able to! Check the details of the Early Access Program for a list of what is in and planned.

http://www.slitherine.com/BA_SPM_EarlyAccess

[wolf14455]

I read that and was curious about it was both fire and retire. Hows that making difference in game terms?

[IainMcNeil]

Retire will happen when they reach a certain age and will be something you cant control. Fire will be when you don't want them any more or need to reduce costs. There may be morale effects on your workforce for firing staff which effects your ability to recruit quality new candidates. That's all TBD.

[wolf14455]

Sounds good. More debt, I like.

[Blind Sniper]

Thanks, I'd like to choice how to spend my budget, sorry taxpayers money. [:D]

[Blind Sniper]

Other question:

all scientist, controllers, etc have five skills (Rockets, Space Probes and so on), but what the icons under the age stand for?

My guess
Dollar: salary per turn
Star: advanced training
Bulb: ability to learn

[IainMcNeil]

Your guesses are good

[histgamer]

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

Retire will happen when they reach a certain age and will be something you cant control. Fire will be when you don't want them any more or need to reduce costs. There may be morale effects on your workforce for firing staff which effects your ability to recruit quality new candidates. That's all TBD.

I hope it's not a fixed age. It would be nice if there was some variance.

[IainMcNeil]

There will probably be a max but the closer to the max you get the more likely they are to retire. It might also feed in to morale so the higher your staff morale the less likely they are to retire.

We'll need to have different age criteria for different jobs. Obviously astronauts will retire younger. Then Flight controllers and probably SET are able to carry on the longest.

[histgamer]

Alright thanks Iain. Also maybe I am missing this but are real astronauts and scientists going to be included in the final release? I know you can get yourself included but it would be cool if since the game has a global agency if there were real American and Russian astronauts to choose from.

It would be really cool if Gagarin and Buzz were on the same mission for example.

[IainMcNeil]

It's not something we had considered - Buzz is in as an adviser. There could be issues with using the name of other astronauts. Id have to check.

[histgamer]

I didn't think of that. If that's the case I understand I just assumed since BARIS did it the names fell into the public domain or something since the Astronaughts worked for the US Government and photos and things produced by the Government were public domain I thought maybe names of astronaughts would fall under the same catagory but then again I am not a lawyer.

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

It's not something we had considered - Buzz is in as an adviser. There could be issues with using the name of other astronauts. Id have to check.

[histgamer]

If a mission fails do you run the risk of casualties to you're crew depending on the type of failure?

[tgb]

Eventually, but not in the current build