Starship Corporation

just list a some ideas like I'm doing.

-animated human silhouettes to represent crew members, not a fan of dots with tags on them.

-hiring alien crew members that are not human. These aliens MAY have special abilities and bonuses like ftl. But less... magical...

-family element in game (being able to hire family members into positions and jobs at your corporation. Family members less likely to steal secrets or sabotage company, back stab you or be double agent to another corporation but more likely to slack off, becomeinefficient leaders and lazy and depending on character, more demanding of pay and privileges . And if you fire family members, they will be more likely to take vengeance on you.)

-Should the game last several lifetimes? As in, should the protagonist grow old and die or be assassinated or put in jail and his heir rise to power and take over the company with different skills and abilities and carry on as CEO? And then he dies and the next in line become in charge?

- Legal department of game: Recalls, lawsuits, breaking safety codes, worker's rights, monopoly, corruption charges, tax evasion, worker strikes, injunctions, boycotts. Should be able to either make own legal department (less efficient, worse lawyers (in general, occasionally you will have a really good lawyer, but they'll probably quit for better paying position elsewhere), but more easily persuaded to help YOU out and not the corporation as whole (keep you out of jail) or outsource to a legal company (better lawyers, costs more and they will do what's best for the company and not you.)

- Government part of game (bribes, blackmail, lobby, legal contract) into locking in contacts, providing tax loopholes, etc... already mentioned this to game creater.

- Special contacts by government officials and generals. (Maybe they have a son or daughter that was promoted to ship commander and they want a special one of a kind ship that would protect their kid. If your ship succeeds in protecting them, lots of recognition, recommendation and contract work and maybe a little bribe money, but if their kid dies on duty and it turns out there was a fault in the ship you built that caused it, lord have mercy on your soul, you may never recover from the media blowback.)(Not to hot about this idea, seems unrealistic. No one does this today outside of luxury mega yachts)

-Should it be roguelike? Cause here's the thing. Corporation games is about risk and playing through/recovering from bad luck or bad decisions. And taking chances and knowing when to turn down a bad hand. Business is more about saying no let's not take this risk than saying yes lets take this risk that we cannot recover from if we lose. If we can just load up a previous saves willynilly, then where's the tension, where's the intelligent decision making the hardships of the journey to becoming the largest spaceship corp in the galaxy? If there I came up to an event where I would make big bucks but little chance it will succeed, I will just save, then keep playing the event over and over until I am satisfied with the results and then continue until I find another difficult decision and then do the same thing. I would even take it a step further. You can't start a new game without finishing an old one. So you can't just quit when things go south and start over. I do that all the time in FTL. It's in line with Ayn Rand's philosophy... sort of.. Think about it.

-Not a big fan on sequels... but i bought portal 2 so...

-background/ambient radio chatter during battles. I'm always unnerved by how little communication is going on during battles. I've never fought in a war, but I watch those combat videos people in Iraq and Afganistan put up on youtube + saving private ryan, blackhawk down. And they are always talking, always yelling. And then you play FTL or Sid Meier's Pirate's or COD or whatever and there is no talking, no communication... eerie weird.

-Diplomacy between corporations? Research pacts information sharing,

-Banking? Like real banking, not this monotone 10% interest all the time, every time. The economy can be going down the shitter and the interest stays at 10%. Can be denied loans, predatory lending, can get screwed by bank. (hope your legal department is good) etc.. Don't know that much about banking.

-Philanthropy? Can you donate money to charity organizations? Ironically to orphanages, who's inhabitants became orphans because of the war you started to raise profits?

Please spacings.

Wow, you're suggesting a lot but things like the law thing and some others are way too advanced for the current game status.
But of course it would be awesome to see those.

Else I agree at every point with you.
Especially the roguelike and the animated human sillhouettes.

_________________
"Sir, we are surrounded!"
"Excellent! Now we can attack in any direction."

- This is a little far out, but just wanted the idea out there.

What about moral choices? Do we do whatever it takes to be the best? Cutting salaries, health benefits and making worker, civilian life hard, just so the corporation can stay competitive in prices to other corporations that are doing the same thing? Or do you try to do what is best for people, even if it puts your corp. in danger of losing to your competitors?

In the manner of having a livetime (like "the guild II") i would appriacate this thought.

But on the other side: Conspiracy and and other things:
This game will be a simulation of space-frames witch will be in confilct to other space-related competitions. That means:
To take over an enemy ship with minor damage as possiple and incorropatce it in your fleet.

So realtime Conspiracy would be next impossible (since both sides must be involved, with a randoum outcame)- and in my view of point - not necceceary to have an interesting program.

I liked alot of the OP's ideas, particularly the level of detail. I'm a fan of the saying 'The devil is in the details'. More detail, more variety, less rock paper scissors.

That said, I think an introduction of a stockmarket would be usefull, where players could buy and sell stock in NPC corps, as well as in other players corps (if they go public).

Since the player is portrayed as a shipyard corporation, I think seeing the ships you designed used by the powers that be would be fun. For example, some government contracts you to design and build a series of cruisers, once you deliver them to that gov't, seeing them patrolling space would be sweet. Which ties into my next point;

Relations between the Player and NPC entities. If you do a lot of business with group A, group B might not like you as much. For example, sell a lot of weapons to Iran and the US will not like you.