A large part of my game is exploring virgin worlds. Kind of startrek minus the military aspect. As such, the majority of the players crew will be scientists. I was trying to think of all the different disciplines one would need to explore the stars. Here's what I've come up with so far: Geologist - To determine the mineral composition of an area. If an area is especially likely to have deposits of iron or uranium or oil, a mining colony might be established. Xenolinguist - In order to communicate with alien sentients, you need a translator. These men and women would allow you to communicate with species more effectively. Perhaps the more you have the faster you're able to crack a new sentient's language(s). Xenopsychologist - Once you can communicate, you'll need to understand how the sentients think in order to communicate effectively. Xenopsychologists would analyze the sentient's characteristics. Without them, you might commit a faux pas and offend the aliens, or some body language or attitude might be misinterpreted. Also, xenopsychologists might ease tensions between crew members on long voyages, making fights less prone and increasing overall morale. Astronomers - Once you enter a new section of space, your first order of business is finding any planets the system may have. By monitering wobbles of astronomical bodies, and analyzing telescope pictures, they can find all the planets in the system and, more importantly, their current location in their orbit. Secondly, if you're in a new section of space (many light years into uncharted space), new stars might become visible, either since a nebulae isn't obstructing them from this angle or the star was too distant or too dim to be seen from charted space. The astronomers would allow easy cataloguing of new stars. Lastly, in space battles, a distant enemy, coloured entirely black, might only be visible as an absense of stars. (Or if it's very far away, star). Astronomers would allow you to detect missing stars based on known star charts, thus detecting enemy craft. Xenoengineers - While exploring space, you're bound to find alien technologies and artifacts, either by trade or discovery. Xenoengineers allow you to modify artifacts for use in domestic technology. (example: crafting an alien power source into an earth ship's power grid. It certainly won't be as easy as putting some batteries in your TV remote control.) Also, if you reverse engineer advanced artifacts, there is always inherant risk. The more engineers you have working on the problem, the more likely you are to successfully reverse engineer an artifact. Xenobiologists - Just as many important new species are discovered in the rain forests, one would expect to occassionaly find useful alien species. These Xenobiologists excel in finding and examining alien life forms for useful genetic adaptations, chemical byproducts, etc. "Cultural Embassadors" - I'm not sure exactly what these would be called, so the title is still tentative. In order to encourage good relations with an alien species, these men would form small colonies on alien worlds to share cultural information. Things like art, literature, etc. allow two alien civs to understand one another more closely. This would increase relations between the species, making political alliences more likely in the future. I have no idea what these next type would be called. Once contact with a new species is established, trade will likely be formed. However, not all trade items will be of interest to both species, so these specialists would sort through all the available commodities for commodities that will be of interest to one another. I'm sorry if that doesn't make much sense, it's kind of difficult to describe. There are of course military and civilian personell I haven't considered. Those are more straightforward, though, so they don't affect the gameplay of my game as much. The flavor of the game is mostly derived from the scientific disciplines represented. If anyone can think of a discipline I haven't thought of, by all means tell me. They can have military applications (like the astronomers), but their affect should primarily be exploratory or relationary (if that's a word).

I think that realistically you'd need some military element as well. If some alien race started hovering their mothership over Earth I'm pretty sure that the nuclear powers of Earth would take a shoot first and search the rubble approach.
I'm pretty sure that at least some alien races would take the same approach if some alien ship (ours) landed on their doorstep.
The military would have to defuse the situation (NOT by killing the attackers, but defensive only), and the linguists and ambassadors would have to tell them we're friendly.

Also see Mars Attakcs. :)

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I think that realistically you'd need some military element as well. If some alien race started hovering their mothership over Earth I'm pretty sure that the nuclear powers of Earth would take a shoot first and search the rubble approach. I'm pretty sure that at least some alien races would take the same approach if some alien ship (ours) landed on their doorstep.

Don't get me wrong, there will certainly be military personell. However, adding a new military unit affects gameplay less than adding a new scientist.

After all, military units attack things. That's their (overly generalized) purpose. So adding a new military unit doesn't create a new interaction with the world, just a new way to perform a pre-existing interaction. (Battle)

Adding a new scientist type creates a new interaction the player can have with the world. The difference between having geologists and not is the ability to determine mineral content of a planetary region. So adding geologists creates a new way for the player to examine the game universe.

Adding a new military type doesn't do this, so at this stage in the development process, I'm concentrating more on various scientific personell, since IMO this is where interactios with the game universe will evolve from. But the finished product _will_ have a military element. (I was thinking you could even come back and conquer Earth yourself if you wanted too ;)

Surveyors? Where exactly is that new plant, colony or landing pad going to go?

Terraformers?

Miners?

Agronomists? Who's running the arboretums and green houses?

Remote Mech Operators?

Rank and file technicians? Depending on how large the ship is.

Computer programmers? Repairing systems and whatnot

Nanotechnologists? Repair and item creation?

Psychologists to make sure your own crew is cool, to deal with long term mental illnesses?

Business managers / entreprenuers who know how to scheme and plan for what items to take back, how to make deals, how to open new markets; help control the eggheads if its a corporate venture

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Original post by Numsgil Adding a new scientist type creates a new interaction the player can have with the world. The difference between having geologists and not is the ability to determine mineral content of a planetary region. So adding geologists creates a new way for the player to examine the game universe. Adding a new military type doesn't do this

I understand your purpose, but I think the security forces do a similar thing if the world is occupied. You could have light scouts, assassins, commandos, police forces, big game hunters, psi cops, mech pilots, etc. These would all be new ways of interacting with an inhabited world.

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Original post by Numsgil A large part of my game is exploring virgin worlds. Kind of startrek minus the military aspect. As such, the majority of the players crew will be scientists.

Ever since playing Super Metroid on the SNES, that sentence makes me jump with joy [smile]

Surveyors - Definately. Any building needs to be sure to be built away from sinkholes, swamps, volcanoes, unlevel terrain, etc.

Terraformers - Yes, I'll include these too, although I was reading up on terraforming the other day, and although basic terraforming (bringing a planet from red to yellow in MOO3) seems viable, it seems much harder to create free oxygen in the atmosphere within a realistic time span of a game. So I think terraformers would have the added ability of monitoring atmospheric conditions inside domes on inhospitable planets and on board ships. Perhaps they can solve buildups of carbon monoxide, etc.

Miners - In my mind miners fall under civilian personell, since they mostly just, well, mine. But certainly miners will be added if the geologists mineralogical survey of a region is to be of any use.

Agronomists - Perhaps combine this with the terraformers? Their jobs are certainly very similar, and terraformers had better be Agronmists in the very least for any terraforming project to be successful.

Remote Mech Operators - Haha, yes. I'm afraid I've been brainwashed by Startrek. I forgot about remote and autonomously controled robots for exploration. I don't imagine autonomous robots would have the expertise of their human counterparts, but they could reach conditions that a regular human would find quite intolerable. Remote operation provides the best of both worlds. A human specialist could examine ares normally quite inhospitable with his specialist knowledge.

Rank and file technicians - I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting here. Perhaps if you could elaborate?

Computer programmers - Yes, I forgot about the programmers. Perhaps in addition to repairing computer systems and running simulations, they could program the autonomous robot explorers mentioned earlier. Also, they could help crack any alien artifacts which are running computerized components (as most advanced artifacts would).

Nanotechnologists - I'm not sure the degree of item creation I want the player to have. To a certain extent I want the game to be about cramming incompatible componants together within a thin hull and praying you don't fall apart mid ride, and this would be gone if you could alter artifacts on the nano level to fit together, or just craft new objects mid ride from new technology you find. But if it becomes feasible as I look at it more, I'll definately add these.

Psychologists - I'm not sure wether or not to combine these with their Xeno brethren. If a psychologists only purpose is to ease on board tensions and deal with your own personell, I might just add this ability to the Xenopsychologists, instead of differentiating them. But if there is something a psychologist can do that one wouldn't expect a Xenopsychologist to be able to perform, I probably should create two categories.

Business managers / entreprenuers - This is what I was thinking when I described the unnamed specialists. They would be quite useful in establishing and maintaining trade with aliens, however I don't imagine they would be of much use in long voyages.

I think some specialists are useful in flight, first contact, or colony creation, while others are useful all around. It'll be interesting to see what the most versatile specialist will be.

Others I thought of:
(Xeno)archaelogists - I'm not sure if they are worthy of a Xeno prefix or not. These would be a mixture of their real world variety and Indiana Jones. They could explore ruins for artifacts and tech, or could create colony dig sites to excavate for artifacts.

Politicians - If you create a large colony that is meant to exist into perpituity, and isn't just a strip mining operation, you'll need some kind of organizers of government. These would excel in leading people and organizing the efforts of a new colony. They say Jamestown almost failed because everyone was too eager to search for gold instead of farming and building houses.

As I develop the game further, I'm sure some more will pop up.

If anyone can think of a new use for a preexisting specialist, that would be good too. The more versatile a specialist is, teh more valuable they are to the player.

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I understand your purpose, but I think the security forces do a similar thing if the world is occupied. You could have light scouts, assassins, commandos, police forces, big game hunters, psi cops, mech pilots, etc. These would all be new ways of interacting with an inhabited world.

I suppose you're right. I ammend my initial statement. Any new personell which create a new interaction with the game universe, military, scientific or otherwise, are appreciated. I'll think over the list you provided and think of it some on my own and post back.