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[Tobel]

Huh. Interesting. One question, what is even the intended function of the sphere you inhabit?

From a Q/A they did here

It’s several decades after world war 3 (A war started due to depleting resources), nations have become weak and corporations strong.

As technology advanced space mining has become big business and seemingly the answer to Earths prayers. A mining boom begins from the capture of nearby asteroids, planetoids and planets (including uranus which was mined to depletion). However the low hanging fruit is soon picked and corporations tentatively begin space exploration for easier, more profitable claims.

Alien artefacts are discovered from a long dead civilisations but no contact has been made, the race is presumed extinct.

At great cost the Genesis corporation stations in orbit of a distant promising planet. The planet is filled with alien artefacts to study and the climate is fit for terraforming. Due to the great distance of this frontier planet they equip the station with advanced computer systems capable of largely automating the station and man it with a small skeleton crew.

[KingofstarrySkies]

so you're saying

uranus is out of resources

Eheh.

[Vgray]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

[Cowboy Colt]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

The player is actually a sentient AI, so the sphere is literally just a maintenance droid that you assume control of so you can explore the physical space.

[a1s]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

It's the station AI, [Test Subject Name], it allows the whole station to function. Pulling all of it's circuits out to the sounds of Thus Spake Zarathustra is a really bad idea. In case you were wondering. So don't.

[miauw62]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

The player is actually a sentient AI, so the sphere is literally just a maintenance droid that you assume control of so you can explore the physical space.

You're not technically a sentient AI, or at least not designed to be. Advanced, yes, but the sentient part is more or less an accident.

[Cowboy Colt]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

The player is actually a sentient AI, so the sphere is literally just a maintenance droid that you assume control of so you can explore the physical space.

You're not technically a sentient AI, or at least not designed to be. Advanced, yes, but the sentient part is more or less an accident.

Yes, not intentionally. But you do achieve sentience, creating a narrative opening for the player.

[Cowboy Colt]

http://humanorbit.com/2014/teaser-trailer/

Things are happening! Things are happening! Things are happening!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aifd0wBAbNM

Is it just me or are those two characters chasing someone covered in warpaint?

[CommunityWorkerPrime]

It'd be interesting to see if your station would end up like that if you pushed it in that direction

[Flying Dice]

I missed this the first time around, but the trailer hit good notes for me. Amusingly, my initial impression was also SS13...

so basically a game revolving around AI DOOR

i'll ptw

...except that you can indulge in all of your power fantasies and Sims-esque torture without people crying for ban he.

[Tobel]

The video looked fairly scripted but I believe the UI interface for selecting people and possibly the camera movement may have been in game video. Unsure about that notification area. I think the statues need to be a little more.... enhaced.

[miauw62]

I missed this the first time around, but the trailer hit good notes for me. Amusingly, my initial impression was also SS13...

so basically a game revolving around AI DOOR

i'll ptw

...except that you can indulge in all of your power fantasies and Sims-esque torture without people crying for ban he.

You can do that in 2d spesshmans too, just wait until you roll antag or are subverted.

[Karl_Autelia]

Hey guys

Karl here (Creative lead) from Human Orbit. I thought I would drop in and answer a couple of the questions:

... what's progression through the game going to be like? You've said that you'll start off with a small crew and you'll get more people as you get more important, but how does the station get more important? Getting the crew to do research? Will there be a campaign with some sort of plot, or just a pure sandbox? Win conditions? Any particularly interesting failure conditions (beyond the obvious everyone dies, losing power, etc)?

That's a big question but I'll do my best to keep it short!

Progression is subtle but it's there in a number of ways. In the early game you don't even have access to all of the station and have to 'infiltrate' the systems to gain control of them first.

I can't give you specifics on the mechanics of that as we are trying a few different things out, but we are thinking along the lines of virus-laden e-mails and droids. Of course the security and maintenance crews keep a sharp eye on anomalies so you will have to draw their attention elsewhere whilst this is all going on...

Later progression is built from manning the station with the highest quality people you can. It's also about dealing with the individual dramas that arise on ship. On the macro level you are assessed regularly by the corporation that funds the station as to how well the station is preforming. The corporation may wish the station to be used as a prison ship, a 'space-utopia' (good PR for the corporation) or even the research station it was actually designed to be!

There are a lot of failure conditions. Besides the more obvious failure conditions, you can bring on board space-junk from the planet to research. The junk may turn out to contain alien spores or addictive medicines or a wide range of items/things, with all the failure conditions they suggest...

[Karl_Autelia]

I didn't actually mean the station. I meant the 'sphere the size of a small grapefruit' that is the player.

So on the station there is a brand new experimental computer system, survelliance drones (the spheres) are hooked up to that central computer. You also have a few service droids made by another company you can dock to for when you need a good robo-arm...

[Karl_Autelia]

It'd be interesting to see if your station would end up like that if you pushed it in that direction

With dystopian gangs? Totally possible. People form social groups based on shared ideals and shared personality traits (as well as external forces bringing them together or apart). If things collapse, and a group of friends are particularly aggressive or self-serving ,then you are going to get these sorts of situations arising naturally.

I don't know about the war-paint though, that might be cut.

The video looked fairly scripted but I believe the UI interface for selecting people and possibly the camera movement may have been in game video. Unsure about that notification area. I think the statues need to be a little more.... enhaced.

Tobel is pretty much exactly right. The notification window is an experimental feature in-game but seemed to work well for communicating things in the trailer.

He's also right about it being mainly scripted but we have kept it as true to game-play as possible.

We actually wanted to release a build to the press instead of a trailer. It looked like it wouldn't be together quite in time for Christmas press though so we put out a trailer instead.

Which means you can expect more game-play footage over the next month or so! We actually leave our day jobs and go full-time on this soon, which is nice