LibriumArcana.Games

"With Artemis, attendees have the opportunity to man one of 5 different stations on a starship or direct the team as ships captain. Will you be the Helmsman, the Weapons officer, the Science officer, the Communications officer, the Engineering officer, or the Captain?" Artemis is a software game for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It’s also an app for iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and is cross-compatible with the PC version.

This weekend is Charcon, our local gaming con. The only video game offering I've found so far is Artemis, and I have to say it's a really amazing setup. Five computers link to one 'main screen' the captain can view. Any of the screens can send their data to the main screen, but mostly it's a 3/4 view of the ship and things in the forward arc. The graffics are second-hand, with things further away pixelated until they come into close range. Ships are rather generic, a mix of BattleStar Galatica and StarTrek. In the scenario I saw, there was several bases the ship was to travel to offer aid. One was under enemy attack, one before it was recovering and you had to help evac the ships around it to the base. I was told that the two Bridges could be linked to the same game and play either as wingman or opponents, and that there were five (5) scenarios currently available at the Con.

However, to run the game, you need six (6) people per Bridge, and all six need to be able to communicate and multitask, especially whomever is Captain. All the stations have their own little keyboard and screen, showing only what they themselves need to know: Engineering has a diagram of the ship and graphs he can move up and down to transfer power about the ship. Comms sees incoming messages, and sends replies. Science has all the sensor info, Helm steers, and whomever takes Weapons should be quick on the draw.

Listening to the gameplay was like watching a StarTrek episode: "Captain, sensors show enemy ships ahead", "Captain, enemy commander's saying leave or die", "Captain, enemy fighters launched!", "Captain, shields dropping!" The Captain was ordering Engineering to divert more power to the Shields, ignoring Comms and Science, and leaning over Helm and Weapons as if he wanted to take their stations himself. He didn't even seem to hear when Engineering called out "Power down to 50%!" Engineering called that out three times, but Captain was hanging over Weapons watching the main screen and all but pulling the trigger himself.

Now, I've not played this myself. I was watching, and I could barely keep up with the chatter. Like the Captain in this game, I'd probably become fixated on combat and get us killed. But has anyone else heard if this game or played it?

I've played it a bit, though not in the "proper" fashion. When last I played, it was still pretty rough, but maybe it's time to dust it off and see where it's gone.

I tried it once. Got stuck as the comms officer, and wound up amusing myself by demanding surrender from everyone on the list and then taunting them until they shut their radios off.

Personally, any former Military should be Weapons, Helm, or Captain if they'd led a squad. (unless they were a Lt)

Communications is simply not an important enough role to dedicate an officer to it, let alone a bridge officer. The should change the Communications to Electronic Warfare, that way they have something else to do beyond being a phone operator. Alternatively, if EW is already handled by Science, then give the bridge an Executive Officer. The XO can manage damage control and oversee Science and Engineering when the Captain's busy with Helm and Weapons.

From what I understand, this is more StarTrek:TOS bridge style, where Comms is a glorified telephone operator.

Yeah, I gathered it was a TOS style bridge, the thing is that by sticking to the series they're leaving one of the players with damn little to do, which is poor game design. Thus my suggested modification.