Scenario: A "youre the only one" story type

A space engineer arrives in a star system aboard a small spacecraft, say, weighing about 100 metric tons.

The Ship (player can rename his ship) the player starts out in is technicaly a “processing” vessel (equipped with a refinery, an assembler, and other necessary technology), and it also contains equipment that the player cannot initially manufacture. Alternatively, the “starter ship” may be entirely created and equipped with Prototech-style technologies—it was not built by a space engineer, but by an advanced civilization for which the space engineer serves as a tool (and is expendable tool).

The Ship may be damaged (but repairable using commonly available resources).

Essential:

The Ship is capable of landing on a planet with an atmosphere, but it is not capable of taking off from a planet. It has only very limited ability to take off from moons without an atmosphere.

Reason:

Because sending something larger on an interstellar journey at high speed is energetically unfeasible—an interstellar ship must not only accelerate but also decelerate in the destination star system.

The “rocket stages” used to accelerate and decelerate the interstellar ship are gradually jettisoned to conserve energy and fuel, so that in the destination system, aside from the ship itself, at most only the last jettisoned braking stage remains. That one could be found. The other stages drift through interstellar space and are too far away and moving too fast to be found and captured (although—debris stuck in the middle of a crater on some moon is also a possibility...)

For lore:

A stargate exists, but it requires an entry and exit gate.

The jump drive / FTL drive exist, but its maximum possible range is too short for interstellar travel, less than one light-hour ~1 billion km or even less than one light-minute ~18 million km, and it requires a large amount of energy, so it cannot be used for interstellar travel (with some exceptions)

A side effect of this is that, when factoring in the charging time of the jumpdrive/FTL drive, the ship’s average speed on a longer route involving several jumps is less than the speed of light.

The Main Tasks

The main tasks of a space engineer are simple:

• survive,
• repair The Ship to full working order
• find a suitable planet for colonization
• begin terraforming the planet
• build in space an interstellar transmitter
• build a stargate for the arrival of the colonists’ ship

Exploration, searching for and gathering resources — and essentially everything else — is part of achieving the main objective.

The final braking stage—a “ship” measuring approximately 100x100x100 meters, consisting mainly of enormous tanks and large engines, with a small “control module” and a powerful beacon. The beacon is always visible to the player. It moves at “moderate speed” along an “elliptical orbit” around the star; its distance from the player’s starting position ranges from 500,000 to 50 million units (at the start of the game, this ship is practically unreachable).

Interstellar Transmitter

• The player has the construction plan available from the start;
• The transmitter is a space structure with an “antenna” diameter of approximately 100 meters
• The transmitter has specified construction coordinates (tolerance of 100 units) and spatial orientation (antenna alignment).
• The construction site is an empty space free of asteroids (the “void” is specified directly in the scenario settings) with a diameter of approximately 100 km

Stargate

• The player has the construction plans available from the start;
• The Stargate is a circular space structure—more precisely, an octagon or dodecagon—with an opening diameter of more than 300 meters (a colonization ship is no small thing)
• The Stargate has EXACTLY specified construction coordinates and spatial orientation
• Variants:
• Space student: the position (tolerance of 100 units) and direction are specified as coordinates (two coordinates)
• Space Engineer: the position is specified (tolerance of 10 units) and the directions to the “poles” are given as coordinates (i.e., four coordinates)

• The construction site is an empty space without asteroids (the “void” is specified directly in the scenario settings) with a diameter of approximately 100 km

A star system may contain various ruins and space debris—a previous attempt failed, and the space engineer perished, unable to respawn. For example, because the accident destroyed his respawn point—or the respawn point simply lost power.

(This is also one of the permadeath scenarios in single-player game... And reviving a lost space engineer is one way to introduce an "NPC with fullscale AI" into the single-player game.

By the way—this could also function as a "cascade of games". The player starts a new game on the “ruins” of their previous game, but the objects they created no longer belong to them; they belong to “another faction.”)

If there are remnants of the “final braking stages” type from previous expeditions (remnants of “Class C”), there may be ruins of structures on planets and moons and wrecks of spaceships in space. There may be a destroyed or heavily damaged “The Ship” from a failed expedition. The wreckage may contain robots and androids in various states of functionality.

If there are “interstellar transmitter”-type remnants from previous expeditions (remnants of “Class B”), there may be active autonomous ships and mining drones/droids in space attempting to gather resources to complete “their” construction. They have one or more bases. Initially, they are neutral, and how relations develop depends on the player’s actions. They will react aggressively to damage to “their” structures. Robots and androids in various states of functionality may be present at the bases and construction sites.

If there are “Stargate”-type remnants from previous failed expeditions (“Class A” remnants), there may be active autonomous ships, mining and dismantling drones/droids in space that are attempting to obtain raw materials and parts to complete “their” construction. There will likely be armed ships and drones. They have one or more well-defended bases; they also protect their bases and construction sites as restricted areas. Initially, they are neutral, and how relations develop depends on the player’s actions. They will react aggressively to damage to “their” structures. Robots and androids in various states of functionality may be present at the bases and the construction site.

NPC? Okay...

The space engineer can create assistants—robots and androids. Maybe he even has them on his The Ship; they kept the ship running during a long and exhausting interstellar flight lasting decades, maybe even centuries, while the engineer slept in a cryochamber. Or perhaps space engineer didn’t exist at all and was only created after arriving at the destination star system from record. After such a long time, the robots will no longer be in “top condition,” and repairing them could be part of a side quest.

I’ve outlined other possibilities above—droids and robots/androids in the ruins of buildings and the wreckage of ships. They may ignore the player, they may fight, but they may also be willing to cooperate—it depends on the game designers and, subsequently, on the player’s behavior.

The ability to revive a lost space engineer as an NPC should be the ultimate option, involving the overcoming of significant obstacles (finding the body and inventory, locating, finding and reconstructing the memory record, creating a new body...). There shouldn’t be many such NPCs—at most 1–2 in single-player and at most one per player in multiplayer.

The lost space engineer still retains control over “his faction,” objects, spaceships, droids, and robots. If he joins your faction, all other components of his faction are automatically transferred as well, meaning you effectively take control of the joined faction.