Sigma Tau
Starship Tactics

Sigma Tau is a Spaceship Bridge Simulator. With Sigma Tau we are trying to take Bridge Simulators to new places.

These are the core concepts of the vision for Sigma Tau:

• Continuous Play
  • Slow paced times where bathroom/lunch breaks can be taken.
  • Fast paced action in times like combat.
  • The transition between these mostly player driven so officers can leave their computer and embellish the meta-game.
• Continuous World
  • A world to be known and to come back to.
• Accessible but Expansive World
  • Orbiting planets.
  • Newtonian physics with stations drifting through deep space.
  • Smaller than real life so planets are close enough to interact with and orbiting mechanics can be used in real time.
    • Orbits would happen in a matter of minutes not hours (or even days).
• Concrete core with many varying systems/weapons
  • Systems/weapons are not hard coded in the mechanics of the game, to allow for many different variations.
  • A ship does not merely have X many tubes; there are many types of tubes and weapons which different ships might have.
  • More than just a “warp” or a “jump”; there are different warp drives of different powers and efficiencies with different ways of functioning.
• Complex, Deep, Difficult ship control
  • The control of the ship is not some complex contrived puzzle but a truly large task.
  • Depth to where an officer can continually get better.
  • Potentially bridges up to 12 players; Although this more of a direction to work toward rather than a directly achievable goal.
  • Some officers--like the sciences--operate as a sub group; solving their problems together rather than every officer completely individually.
• Loose officer definition
  • Ship control is separated into systems rather than officers.
  • Officer responsibility can be customized to optimize.
    • Presets would exist for varying numbers of players.
  • Some officers can have smaller responsibilities while others having more.
    • Allows for players with varying ability to still be able to play without being cumbersome to the others.
    • This is great for players with younger siblings.
• Highly Unique Stations
  • Different “stations” are as different as possible--almost as another genre.
• Informative & Practical Ship Appearance
  • Ships are created from their parts (components).
    • The components are combined as a sort of sandbox.
  • Ship appearance is not wholly artist designed.
    • Ship components are artist designed.
  • When Science looks at an image of the ship he should be able to identify some parts of the ship by their look and see where their tubes are, etc.

The beginnings of the concept, for what is now known as Sigma Tau, started several years ago merely as things we would love to see in a bridge simulator. It gradually formed itself into a game concept of its own.

I love to collaborate. And plan to be very open with the Spaceship Bridge Simulator community.

I will get build instructions out in a bit, although currently the only thing you can do is fly around...