What do you want to see in a Sci-Fi RPGMVXA Game?

What would be some cool features or things you guys would like to see in a Sci-Fi game made with Ace? What do you think could improve on the genre? I am currently working on such a game myself and was hoping to gather some inspiration from here :)

I am working on such a game myself as well, Sci fi Adventure with ACE.  The first thing I would love to see from any Ace made sci fi genre game is a cast of diverse characters.  Not all humans.  If the majority of the cast is human like Mass Effect, I start to loose interest.  Don't get lazy.  Life takes many forms, and space travel or exploration should reflect that.

The second thing I'd like to see is confronting the unknown.  I don't want a game where the characters always know what's going on or their technology gives them the advantage.  Humans should be on par or behind other alien races who have been active in space longer.

The most crucial thing I love in any sci fi game is a progenitor race, that has vanished.  This theme worked well in MoO and The Urquan Masters.  It adds a lot of mystery and intrigue.  Sci fi works best when it takes the unknown and lets the player discover along with the characters.  

I guess the short answer will be is I'd love to play other sci-fi RM games that are a lot like my own (Incitement series and Central Impulse).

For more details, I love:

 - Robots, especially when their condition of being a machine is questioned with the plot and perhaps they want to know what it's like to be human/alive

 - Aliens. I love to entertain the idea of other civilizations with their own laws and culture.

 - Chase sequences, whether it's a car chase, spaceship chase, bike chase, or some other cool chase segment

 - A variety of cool sci-fi themed locations with appropriate tiles used. I don't like seeing sci-fi games that use too much of the original RTP, because original RTP is geared towards the fantasy genre, and using fantasy-themed and medieval-looking tiles in a supposedly sci-fi game just ruins it.

 - The usual stuff that makes a game good - interesting characters, engrossing story, fun battles, good music, etc.

Giant mecha, aliens both friendly and not, multiple planets, lasers and beamsabers and such.

On the mechanics side, I would like to see some kind of skill/ability equip system in a sci-fi RPG. The standard "learn skills when you level up" works better in a medieval setting in my opinion, while skill equipping can be spun in the game world as biological augments and upgrades and such.

Just throwing a curveball in there, since matching game mechanics to the RPG sub-genre is often not considered as much as the environment and story and all that. :)

Lore and science! Lots of science. 

The one thing that annoys me with sci-fi is when they do not back up there science with solid explanations. The science does not have to be based on our own sense of how things work, but it needs to make sense none the less. 

I would agree with TheTourist on this one but carry it further.  I think any good RPG has its mechanics, whether they are magic, technology or both, be internally consistent.     Otherwise, I think it really can break the suspension of disbelief that any game relies on.  It doesn't mean every detail must be explained, just anything shown is consistent with any rules already laid down.

Of course, for a counterpoint, J.R. Tolkien point blank disagreed with this philosophy --- his belief was that, in a fairy tale (such as our classic fantasy RPGs), the magic should NOT make sense since that takes away its mystery.

Sense of wonder: nothing more, nothing less...

Oh, and if you think you can put into it a bit of social science-fiction too, that'd be awesome!

The most important thing in a sci-fi game is always the world itself.
Someone up there brought up mass effect which is a great example.
Yes the characters are the most important in every story but in a sci-fi game
the world itself is what makes the game a sci-fi game.
 

Suspenseful music and well developed characters.


A chance for my imagination to scare me more than the story does.

I would rather see a more realistic, closer to life and our time representation of a space game.

The loneliness and vastness of space, the passage of time and the threat of mechanical malfunction. I guess I'm looking more for an 'adventure' game than a classic RPG.

@setia

You reminded me of an excellent sci-fi story that is right up your alley.  I think it's called Mayflower II, and is about a generational starship which escapes a doomed planet.  The story is told very well over a 20,000 year timespan, and shows a lot of profound changes that happen onboard the ship.

Something like that could translate fairly well to an RPG.  The game would play out in "Chapters" which could jump hundreds or thousands of years at once...

A trend I see in a lot of sci-fi games lots of fancy names and terms thrown at the player at once, and even when the player doesn't understand anything yet, the character rushes to do things because they're already trained to, but this just brings about more confusion at the game goes on. It's not easy to get immersed amongst all the ????s

You might want to lay on things slow. A professionally trained main character may make sense to fight in a sci-fi world, but try to keep what the player doesn't know on the same level as the main character. You don't want to have to explain the whole thing through a Datalog. A regular civilian brought into the conflict may not be that bad either (like Star Ocean 3).

I would like to see government corruption in a technocratic environment.