Design Diary 02: Spaceships, Story and Roles

In TG, You are pretty much free to do whatever you want.
It is not about you saving the universe it is about you having fun in a place that has rules, story and meaning.
A good game needs a good story, we are aware of that. But games recently tends to mimic movies more and more. I miss the games that had meaning AND freedom of experience. I dont like to be told what to do at each and every step of my adventure.
In TG there will be no constrained story telling with characters telling you what to do. Yes there will be key characters, but making them allies or foes will be up to you and the goals you set to yourself.Capturing a famous pirate could become the key to access a higher standard in a solar system, or he could become a new recruit and a great asset to your crew.
The whole universe is yours to explore.
The world of TG is about the search for the derelicts of the Tannhauser gates.The reason people are looking for them are multiple.You get to choose a starting race and the backstory that comes with it. .This will set things in motion: some races will be your ally, others will become your enemy. With your choice will come also a new starting location, new advantages and disadvantages. This gives you also the possibility to explore the game from different angles.

For now on we aim at three playable starting races and see where we go from here.

Spaceships play a center role in the game.
They come in different classes and roles.

The missions made available to you  will be depending on the spaceship you fly.
If you are looking for action, the light fighters will give you access to fast pacing missions, from intercepting pirates, protecting  borders or recon.
 Heavy fighter will allow you to do escort missions, but will also allow you to go on bounty hunter roles.
 The frigate class opens to even more roles from small cargo to support or rescue missions, and its very versatile fitting allows players to adapt it to whatever need.
There are further more specific ship classes like the Explorer, Cargo and Harvester for even more specific missions.

But there's more! with bigger ships comes... bigger crew.
Heavy Fighters needs a 2 men crew ,  Frigates 3 men an Cruisers 5.
You can recruit new crew members or leave them in any starbase you board in.

They all come with stats so you better watch out who you put where as there are many key roles available that will greatly change the stats of your ship.
The crew roles are: Captain/Scientist/Mechanic/Gunner and Pilot.
Umans have average skills, and can do pretty much everything while other races have more specific knowledge in one of the crew roles.
Knowing where to find  them and get the level of reputation needed to hire the bests will be part of the game experience.
aaannnnd... that would be it for today's Diary!