Player becomes a captain by all means. So he won't be seeing starship from outside of ship, he won't be sitting all the times with consoles. He will be able to walk around, give orders to crew members directly instead of consoles (but use of consoles will be also avalible). The main idea is that its more important to "live with what you got". Crew members cannot be replaced if they die. They also want to go home so morale is important. Ship won't enlarge and wont be exchange to bigger, so room is also very important (you will need to decide f.e. do you want your crew to have more comfort quaters, or to have more store room. If you want to store more food, or rather science equipment to make quicker researches etc. a very very lot of possibilities. Its worth to mention that equipment is not just a numbers here - only thing represented by numbers is fuel. The rest like food, weapons, science/infirmary/workshop equipment, crew beds etc are items/chests that needs to be placed somewhere on the room grid. So by shortcut - youre not deciding about room type -> its defined by equipment that is placed there, so if theres not enough space, than your own quaters can hold not only your desk and bed, but also some food or weapons box'es on their grid. Its important to decide what goes there, because guns dont look well in a place where you want to greet alien guests, and stinky junk will lower morale if stored in cantine. Crew quaters with workshop is also not quite good connection because people want to sleep in SILENCE! Storing explosives at generator room can be a bit deadly, etc etc. a lot of possibilities of management without need of changing ships. Like in real life - do Your best with stuff you have, cause life is hard and wont give you even a pinch more.

It sounds a bit like Dwarf Fortress, but in a spaceship?

I'm actually using a similar concept.

I know one of the initial 'Reasonable Game Project' team members was also working on a similar idea (this team was formed on Gamedev, but never delivered).

I've designed a bit unique way of crew members skill factors. It works in a way, where each crew member is unique and has unique skill predispositions f.e. he is better in science, while some other is better technican/ It cannot be changed (maybe improved a bit in later game stages by researching some technologies). It defines how fast he learns and what level of skill he can achieve.

I came to a roughly similar idea, by using nhl 2012 (ps3/xbox360 game) as a reference (how players have individual stats, and potential for growth in each of these stats).

Same applies with soldiers, and scientists but quite different

Sounds a bit like crew management in Starship Corporation.

Second thing i focused is a research, and its also quite unique. Want to hear if after what you already heard? Does it have this "wow factor" high enough?

Well, assuming it sounds like a lot of things I already know, (including one I'm working on) I'm not terribly 'wow-ed' by the idea, as in, I'm not very surprised about what you've described. What really matters is how the player will interact with your game. Starship Corporation uses a fairly unique perspective, and reveals only the inside of the ship, much like the space roguelike: FTL.

The UI is also extremely important. Basically, how do you envision the User eXperience to feel like? How will you make the input intuitive to suit your gameplay needs? Or will you stick to, say, 1st or 3rd person avatar movement to capture a bit more immersion?

Also, you really need to deliver this in 3 or less sentences. Your ability to explain your game's core concept in few words will put people in confidence that you're working from a basic core idea, which you will refine through mechanics. Its actually important to do this, instead of thinking of very cool features first, and try to put them together.

Some obvious questions: -How often do you want the player to buy (or capture) new ships or to upgrade the current ship? If both occurrences are rare, how can the player "grow"? -Can the player design and have built custom new designs of whole ships, of cargo pods and other kinds of module, of weapons, of smaller components and accessories? What systems and aspects of the ship are unimportant enough to be less customizable than the rest? -What ship parts are rare and/or expensive? Fancy engines, large hulls, complex avionics and computers, weapons, specialized equipment (e.g. a Star Trek holodeck), food and water, fuel, crew, something else? Cheap parts are more likely to be interchangeable, motivating designs like expensive complete ships loaded with cheap cargo containers or simple "tractors" attached to expensive self-contained habitats.

It seems youre writing about some other game than the one im doing In my game concept that you can see above there is only one ship, from beginning to the end. You manage crew, and equipment inside it. Instead of changing ship to larger and larger, Youre rather research miniaturisation and make equipment smaller and smaller and more efficient, less resource consuming. Than produce it and use it. Recycle the old ones etc

The main concept of a game are the events. Im not speaking about few events durning whole game, Im rather talking about that every piece of this game is based on events.

They defines everything - crew morale, researches, missions, relations with aliens, and relations between crew members.

I'd rework and check the grammar on this and add some punch, but yes, that'd be one way to advertise your core idea.

the time required for research will also be randomized and not known to player

It's ok not to reveal the actual duration, but an ETA would make sense. In "real life", despite uncertainty, skilled engineers/scientists/etc all have at least a ballpark plan in mind. Its ok if they achieve results faster/slower, but at least, they're able to answer upper management with ballpark numbers. Aka, 1 month, +/- 1 week.

The most experience an engineer/scientist becomes, the more accurate he tends to be, mostly because he's done stuff that's similar in one way or another over the course of his carreer.

You need to decide if you want still use this weapon with injury chance, or to do more research to make it work better. Events do a lot of stuff same time, f.e. event i wrote about "engine accident" is the same event that lowered technican morale, it also affected the ship etc.

It feels like something you might want to streamline. The way it stands right now, you'd need to keep track of a lot of latent information in various ways. Perhaps its just the way you explain it though.

You will make decisions and manage the ship

From your examples, I see how you'll make decisions. But how will you manage the ship per se?

I can't help but feel you have a lot of counter intuitive concepts in this game idea.

You are the captain of a vessel lost in space trying to find your way home but you suppose to spend all your time walking around chatting with the crew. Shouldn't I be focused on getting home not hanging out in the mess hall drinking coffee or bothering people while they work? Being a good leader isn't about making friends with your crew its about working hard, earning their respect, and making tough choices for the good of the ship.

How do I make meaningful choices in the game events? The way you describe them makes the outcome seem arbitrary. Take the engine explosion example you gave when the event occurs what do I as the player do? What are the choices I can make? How do they effect the outcome? Saving the ship and using the info to improve my laser weapons only to impart a 20% injury rate on their use seems arbitrary especially since you make it sound like I have no idea this will happen or what caused it.

It does feel like a situation where Jean-Luc Picard and Cisco would be in the shoes of Janeway from Voyager. Unfortunately, there is a good reason why Jean-Luc Picard fit best on a Starship on an exploration mission (and not warfare or survival) and that Cisco has been created to fit an environment that deals with warfare.

Janeway, as much as I despise her, fits more the narrative of a suvival space opera than would Picard or Cisco.

Trying to build you game around a persona that fits Picard and Cisco in an environment that clearly calls for a Janeway might be erroneous.

Take the engine explosion example you gave when the event occurs what do I as the player do? What are the choices I can make? How do they effect the outcome? Saving the ship and using the info to improve my laser weapons only to impart a 20% injury rate on their use seems arbitrary especially since you make it sound like I have no idea this will happen or what caused it.

This "engine explosion" was writing word mismatch - i was rather thinking about minor engine accident (i used "engine accident" later) which has no effect on overall situation.

How do I make meaningful choices in the game events?

Those examples was the idea of how engine works, but I was thinking about giving high importance events, and also plot events. They will be dealed same way that minor ones (need to talk to the crew connected to event), but because of the importance the Captain would be called by loudspeakers etc and when event affects ship he would be called to speak with the crew and deal with problem immediatly, and if he dont it can loose some crew members, equipment, damage ship, add new events to the game (alien attacks), or even destroy the ship and loose the game.

I know its arbitrary, that player dont know what will happens, or what effect it will have. Im hoping that i will be able to add a lot of clues in the event dialogs and texts. I think It wont be bad by adding 5grade scale of risk, or ETA to research.

From your examples, I see how you'll make decisions. But how will you manage the ship per se?

Storeroom/equipment management, researches or basic production would be dealed by speaking to adequate persons (leading scientist, or quatermaster) where research/production/store management panels will appear, but still all related stuff (effects, possible researches etc) would be shown in those panels only after speaking with crew that can "have idea of research" or finished mission (loudspeakers calls captain to take mission report from team leader) that put in report all they found, and sometimes will speak more than they wrote. All reports, logs of what captain spoke with with peoples would be avalible from console at his desk, where from he would be also able to call each crew member to come to his desk).

I can't help but feel you have a lot of counter intuitive concepts in this game idea.

Trying to build you game around a persona that fits Picard and Cisco in an environment that clearly calls for a Janeway might be erroneous.

So what do You suggest? Is game concept bad, and it wont work this way, or game concept is ok, but i need to change/ work more on background story?

Just additionaly: The thing is that me, some of my friends and I think a lot of players are bored of all the games with each time bigger worlds, each time better graphics, and each time less of plot, dialoges etc. I remember Planescape Torment or Baldur's Gate and choosing from one of 10-15 dialog choices, while most of new games has max 2-3 of those. I want to make game, where you can really feel like part of the ship, with all of its good and bad sides. Thats the reason why i closed whole world in one ship, and trying to make a lot of choices, both important and minor ones, which only some crew members care of.