Make me care about the crew.

[shaunchattey]

^Title.
+alpha caveat etc etc

What is going to happen to make me care about the crew, being named after random people ive never met and the stats being really bland?

I assume at this moment we wont have historic astronauts? which would help.
I also assume from previous criticism we wont be able to rename astronauts, but MAY be able to rename the ground crew.

Any information yet on the future?

Also does anyone else have any ideas for the team which would make the astronauts et al actually hugely important to your psycholgical game?
Currently I see numbers/stats, I don't even read the names of astronauts.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

-Medals.
-Mission histories.
-Randomised backgrounds? ie aerospace/marine aviator with appropriate bonuses to skillset.
-Public appearances/popularity? drag the astronauts around to raise their standing and make money, but take a hit if said astronaut gets into trouble in personal life/dies in space.
-individual missions for astronauts in space? as in experiments they brought to do ala modern nasa astronauts.

[Nacho84]

Hello deadmeat,

Welcome back to the forums [:)]

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
+alpha caveat etc etc

What is "+alpha caveat"?

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
What is going to happen to make me care about the crew, being named after random people ive never met and the stats being really bland?

Sorry, what do you mean by "stats really bland", I'm not following you.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
I assume at this moment we wont have historic astronauts? which would help.

We'll see what we can do. For the moment using the historic astronauts is not an option due to legal issues, but we'll see what we can do.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
I also assume from previous criticism we wont be able to rename astronauts, but MAY be able to rename the ground crew.

You can already edit the XML files with the candidates names. This option has been available for months and I know of some players who keep their own edited lists.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
Any information yet on the future?

Sorry, I'm not following you on this one. Which future?

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471

A few ideas off the top of my head:
-Medals.
-Mission histories.
-Randomised backgrounds? ie aerospace/marine aviator with appropriate bonuses to skillset.
-Public appearances/popularity? drag the astronauts around to raise their standing and make money, but take a hit if said astronaut gets into trouble in personal life/dies in space.
-individual missions for astronauts in space? as in experiments they brought to do ala modern nasa astronauts.

Most of these stats will be included in the Museum, which has not been implemented yet.

Cheers,

[shaunchattey]

ORIGINAL: Nacho84

Hello deadmeat,

Welcome back to the forums [:)]

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
+alpha caveat etc etc

What is "+alpha caveat"?

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
What is going to happen to make me care about the crew, being named after random people ive never met and the stats being really bland?

Sorry, what do you mean by "stats really bland", I'm not following you.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
I assume at this moment we wont have historic astronauts? which would help.

We'll see what we can do. For the moment using the historic astronauts is not an option due to legal issues, but we'll see what we can do.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
I also assume from previous criticism we wont be able to rename astronauts, but MAY be able to rename the ground crew.

You can already edit the XML files with the candidates names. This option has been available for months and I know of some players who keep their own edited lists.

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471
Any information yet on the future?

Sorry, I'm not following you on this one. Which future?

ORIGINAL: deadmeat1471

A few ideas off the top of my head:
-Medals.
-Mission histories.
-Randomised backgrounds? ie aerospace/marine aviator with appropriate bonuses to skillset.
-Public appearances/popularity? drag the astronauts around to raise their standing and make money, but take a hit if said astronaut gets into trouble in personal life/dies in space.
-individual missions for astronauts in space? as in experiments they brought to do ala modern nasa astronauts.

Most of these stats will be included in the Museum, which has not been implemented yet.

Cheers,

1) By alpha caveat I mean I'm not being overly critical, I know this game isnt finished and many things are planned. Hence the caveat.

2) mere stats alone are very bland, boring and dont garner my sympathy for the fate of people.

3) I did not know you could edit the xml stuff, I missed this, thanks!

4) The future of the game..... I believe the game is far from finished and there will be many patches in the future. This is the future I am referring to.

5) Glad to hear most of this will be included, but potentially people have ideas that may spark additional ideas for the future development. I was merely asking the question on, to me, the most important aspect of the game; caring for those we send into space!

Great work by the way, I am really impressed by how this game is turning out. As a huge space fan, BARIS fan and a member of the planetary society!

[Nacho84]

Ah, I see what you mean by 'alpha caveat'. I wasn't familiar with that term at all.

I think that once the museum is in place and the placeholder images for the personnel get replaced by proper ones you'll have a stronger attachment to your employees.

Regarding the future: as I'm writing this I'm uploading an interim build for internal testing. If everything goes well, we'll be releasing SPM 0.7.19 tomorrow, which features lots of new content and fixes. After that, the development roadmap is (roughly) as follows:

1) Multiplayer implementation (we've already done lots of preliminary work on this area, but it's not ready for tomorrow's release).
2) UI polishing plus all the missing content (i.e., replacement of placeholder images, missing animations and integration of the soviet audio in the new missions).
3) Single player 'race to the Moon' campaigns.
4) Museum and any missing functionality.
5) Balancing, bug-fixing and extra UI polishing based on player's feedback.
6) Game manual.
7) Final release.

We'll see what happens afterwards [:)]

Cheers,

[jimmyPx]

"We'll see what we can do. For the moment using the historic astronauts is not an option due to legal issues, but we'll see what we can do."

But since he is involved, it would be cool if Buzz Aldrin was one of the astronauts. [:)]

One other thing that would be cool is as your astronauts get older they can "retire" from the astronaut corps and then be recruited to either be Flight Directors, Head of Astronaut Corps, or Scientists (as happened in real life at NASA).

Don't know if that's doable, but it would be neat. I guess what the poster above means is that when I skimp R&D and send up a mission before it is ready and kill Joe Schmo, I don't care. But if I have been training Buzz Aldrin and have him ready to go, I WILL care about killing him. Just adds to the immersion factor.

Loving the game and can't wait to try the new version when it comes out in a few days.

[Nacho84]

Buzz will definitely be there. We haven't added him yet, but he will definitely show up in the recruits list in the final release. The problem is with the other astronauts. We're working on it, but we cannot promise anything at the moment.

Cheers,

[histgamer]

ORIGINAL: Nacho84

Buzz will definitely be there. We haven't added him yet, but he will definitely show up in the recruits list in the final release. The problem is with the other astronauts. We're working on it, but we cannot promise anything at the moment.

Cheers,

I am not a lawyer BUT...

Wouldn't the names be part of the public domain since it was all government created media surrounding the entire program? You can use a president's name, or a Generals name in a game without their permission, just as government produced photos are part of the public domain, how are astronauts who were military officers and government employee's different?

Heck Out of the Park Baseball uses major league baseball players names in their games (though non of their photos or team logos or anything) because of a fantasy sports ruling by a judge which claimed the names of athletes are part of public domain because they are general info part of the public record due to their inclusion in public and often free newspapers.

[wolf14455]

Its also a personal feeling about being in the game. I remember formula 1 GP game where all drivers was included except ‎Jacques Villeneuve didnt like to be in the game as the "retired" feture in the game meant maimed or dead. He father Gilles Villeneuve died in a race. So this driver was called John Newhouse instead. So maybee the austronauts and/or family say no because of this.

[nico7550]

I will add that there is other peoples whose names is Neil Amstrong...