That sounds amazing.
I'm hesitant to ask, but would these things include infrastructure and useless fluff? Could or would you have to build labs or libraries to help you make better stuff, or factories or workshops to make stuff faster, or cow farms to make stuff out of leather, or would it purely be immediately useful things like equipment?
Similarly, could someone make a swimming pool or ball pit if they ran out of useful things to create or felt like being silly?
Yes. You should be able to theoretically
design anything and it would have some small effect in the game, no matter how useless it sounds. Ideally, I would be providing the necessary materials to craft it, and you might not have them or worse might not have the
types. Think Homestuck Grist and how your nuclear submachine gun couldn't be built without Radioactive Resource Points, but you could get by with a normal Machine Gun on only Iron Resource Points.
EDIT: I don't think I would lock research behind a wall like a lab or library when I already have some of the "you lack the required Steelite Ore" type stuff. There should be other, more fun obstacles for on base characters, and other incentives for building large thinks like labs.
What do you think of a character system where, instead of giving characters stats like intelligence and dexterity, character just get a basic MP/HP system, along with "powers" that are thematically appropriate for a character, and can be either active or passive? It seems like that would be a pretty simple system to implement, and it would allow plenty of flexibility in character types, although there might be balance problems with something like that. Leveling up would presumably boost HP and MP, along with the chance to snag a new power, and MP would power Active abilities. It would also be interesting to see a system where the character's power is solely based on what items they have with them, with people starting with appropiate items based on their backstory/class/race.
Nonononononononono.
That's one of those few things I'm going to have to veto on the basis of having done it before. Powers and Resources is fun for a simpler game, but I want this to be focused on the things I'm good at doing in forum games, and one of those things is giving players plenty of options for players to advance into distinct "roles." What you're describing is fun for a simple game (look how well it works in lawastooshort's games), but this isn't a silly RTD, it's a game based entirely around exploration and advancement
Still, this gives me ideas, so thank you for your input.
1) This game wants seriously awesome crafting shenanigans On-Ship. Full crafting trees, rare reagents/ingredients, the works.
2) Collectible everything while on a mission. Loads of different ways to manipulate the environment to reveal the aforementioned crafting reagents. Environment manipulation could be item based (craft picks to break stone walls, whips to swing across canyons, whatever) and/or class based (Rock Punchers punch rocks to find stuff inside the rocks they punched.) Actually I like the latter better, since it encourages diverse player types to work together for sweet lewtz (bonus points if new ways of getting past obstacles require simultaneous application of different skills e.g giant steampowered gate can only be bypassed by combined efforts of Water and Fire mages)
Hmm. Well, I'm liking the class based resource gathering system, but I don't think it should be AS big a deal as the rest of the game. Like, you should have the option to be a resource gathering class (Manic Miner and the like), but it shouldn't lock you into one role or anything. I have a few ideas on how to handle manual resource gathering by the players, using the game concepts I have in mind to demonstrate:
Concept: Freeformschooler hates grinding. Rock Punchers shouldn't feel the need to Punch Rocks in every area and hope for a good roll. That's boring and I hate it. Instead, I would like to encourage an almost text interpreter type feel in which every area is described and/or illustrated with subtle clues on where Cool Stuff could be found.
Concept: How distinct should a role be? I'm not sure whether I would be seperating individual gathering skills into, you know, skills (where Rock Puncher is able to get Mining XIII while the team's Private Investigator is still stuck on Mining II), but it's definitely something to keep in mind. Gotta love those stat-skill-class-loot systems. On the other hand, if I made it so that Rock Puncher was the ONLY one who could punch rocks, it might be a lot easier and simpler than a player going "argh I wish we brought Wilfred on this mission, the Plotium Crystal requires Mining X and I only have VII!"