Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator

A friend of mine introduced me to this game, Artemis:

http://www.artemis.eochu.com/

In short: It's a LAN game where every participant is responsible for operating a single station on a starship Bridge. The stations are Captain, Helm, Weapons, Science, Comms and Engineering.

A group of friends and I just had our first session tonight and frankly it was awesome. Yes, the game is new and apparently still has some bugs that need ironing out, but overall it was incredible. If you've ever wanted to experience what it's like to be on The Bridge, this is the first game out there that actually makes it possible.

Has anybody else tried this out? I want to get the word out because I can see this getting really big. The Demo version is free, and the full version is only $40, with a license to copy it to your entire bridge crew.

Anyway, check it out. I'm interested to see other peoples' opinions of it.

It seems very niche, but it's piqued my interest. Might give the demo ago and see about how to run it over the net.

They say that running it over the 'net may be possible, but goes against the spirit of the game. It's more fun to have 6 people in the room operating their stations and The Captain belting orders to everybody.

This seems like a cool niche game for in colleges in stuff. Personally I wouldn't be able to play with many of my friends without voicechat though.

Definitely going to take a look at getting this, I'd love to play it with some friends.

Yes, please give it a try and let's hear your thoughts.

first I need friends who can hang out long enough to try this.

I've been trying to convince some friends of mine to try this out when we neet up at Quakecon. It sure looks like fun.

Nice, this is a pretty cool concept.

Reminds me of the kickstarter game FTL, and a custom Warcraft 3 map where players controlled a crewman unit and operated a spaceship.

Definitely worth checking out.

Just played another simulation with a full bridge earlier this week. I was the Captain in 2 of the three simulations we ran, and the one time I wasn't the ship got blowed up. Because I'm awesome. That and we were flying the Dreadnought, which kills everything everywhere.

HOLY CRAP I MUST TRY THIS

Okay, so I showed this to the missus, who immediately replied that she needs one of those Thinkgeek TOS blueshirts so she can play Science or Comms. I already have an Engineering redshirt from them, although I'm thinking of grabbing one of the yellow ones now. I might have enough LAN buddies to pull this off.

You can also get iron-on patches for each station. I was thinking of getting military surplus shirts and applying the patches and some miscellaneous insignia for when I play with friends. Maybe it's going too far, but I'm also thinking of getting a Cool Hat for The Captain.

Also even if you don't have 6 people, several stations can double-up. WEAP and COMM can go together, since you don't usually use both at once. SCI and ENG can double up. And if you have splitscreen, you can have one computer operating both CAPT and HELM.

edited 8th Jun '12 10:08:58 AM by Lawyerdude

Just did a wiki search, and didn't find a trope page for this. I'm amazed. (thinking it would be mentioned neatly under The Bridge.)

I saw the iron-on patches, which I approve of. Cheaper than grabbing a bunch of TOS shirts, that's for sure. Maybe safety-pin them onto participant's clothing until they become regulars. Of course, there's the metal insignia pins you can grab from Thinkgeek, as well... I can think of at least three other guys that would probably jump for this.

In discussion with the missus about how we would pull this off. I think our living room is large enough, but we don't have a very big monitor. Plenty of space to cram in five folks, though...

Okay, so I managed to sell the idea of this to my fellow geeks, and for our monthly LAN party, we'll be trying this out (along with some UT 3 and Minecraft). I think I'll give Helm a shot, unless someone has ponied up for the full version and then I'll try Engineering instead.

Sweet. With the trial version, you only get Captain, Helm and Weapons. Which is enough to operate the basics, obviously. Have fun!

So, we managed to get on and play the complete version of the game on Friday night. My wife played Science Officer, the guy who bought the game did Captain, and we had a bunch of know-nothings doing every other station. Since I had read up on the wiki on the concepts of each station, I ran around as "Executive Officer" and assisted the CO in running the ship - translating his commands into "okay, here's how you allocate power" or "this is the 'scan' button so you can report the enemey's weakest shield frequency" or "press this to reload your torpedo tubes".

Our CO was one of my friend's co-workers, and he was rather high-strung pretty much all of the time. We ran two complete games on level 1 difficulty with our bases along the right side of the map. Then, we took a break and I got a chance to run the game as CO. I bumped it up to level 2 and made it a central siege map. My wife commented that I was much calmer about going about things. A couple of reasons why that might have been the case. One, I'm prior military service, so I understand the basics of the Chain of Command. Two, I'm currently employed in a job where I have to repeat back orders in the event we have an accident, so I've learned to listen and talk effectively, even when all hell is breaking loose. Three, I had just spent two previous games being the CO's right hand man, so I kind of had an idea how the game was supposed to run.

All in all, we had a lot of fun. My wife especially, who already plans on doing up a Lt. Dax TOS costume, complete with the Trill markings on her head and neck.

I look forward to running this again, be it as a crew member or as a CO. Doesn't rightly matter much to me, as once stuff is happening, it's a total blast to play.

Ran this four times. First three were with two of my friends, and we rotated spots every time we started anew. I was not a successful captain, since none of us knew to turn on the shields or beam weapons. Second and third times were both quite nice, since we had a better idea of what was going on, so we all ended up helping eachother out. My ex-gf started doing a Sulu voice while she manned weapons. XP

Last time was just me and my best friend, using his laptop as both viewscreen and weapons. Was also successful, and I got my Kirk on.

I very much liked how everything ran, but it's definitely the sort of thing that requires planning and preparation to do right. The demo gets boring quickly, since there's so little to do and in such small variations, but it's still a pretty solid experience. I think it also requires a pretty good computer to run as the viewscreen/Captain's station, since it's doing the calculations and such.

I do like how, when it takes damage, all the screens shudder/blink, making it a bit more authentic.

Definitely getting once I have more people who want to play.

edited 17th Jun '12 6:12:32 PM by Enkufka

Great. I've been able to beat regular sieges on levels 1-3 on my own. It's kind of a pain, switching between screens all the time, and it's not really how the game is supposed to be played. But I've found that operating multiple stations is a good way to practice and train myself. In my opinion, a Captain should be intimately familiar with every other station in order to be able to give orders effectively and know what the ship can and can't handle.

Also, have your helmsmen used just keyboard and mouse, or have you used a joystick? I got a cheap Logitech USB joystick for the helm station, and I think it makes it much easier to play.

Keyboard and mouse, both times, since the movement could be controlled by a few bars on the screen, or by clicking the directional/compass.

I do wish the map wasn't a square grid, but instead a radial, since it would speak to the non-absolute nature of space travel, though.

A radial would be good. Perhaps one day they'll make it a fully 3D representation of a section of space. Although as it is, it does remind me of Wrath Of Khan where Space Is an Ocean. I don't really see it as a drawback, just something that could be done in the future.

Oh, I agree. It's pretty awesome as it is.

The Artemis unoffical wiki mentions an "Admiral's" screen, but I haven't seen one in the game itself. I've been reading up on modern naval organization and am interested in how a full squadron of ships could work and coordinate.

Of course, getting at least 37 people to work together on something like that would be both an epic undertaking and utterly awesome.

We did a single full game with only three personnel, and even though it ran smoothly, it was missing the group dynamics that you get with six people.

This is truly a game in which the more folks you have, the more fun it becomes.

The station breakdown was myself running Weapons and Helm, the Captain sitting with the viewscreen to himself, and my wife running everything else (although she stayed mostly in the Science terminal).

I did enjoy getting my Kirk-slouch on when I was in command, though. Nothing denotes a materful command presence like having a half-bored look on your face while issuing commands with a calm voice, and the crew responded in kind. A confident captain (even if he's only pretending to be confident like I was) works wonders.

Admiral's screen:

You'd have to have a Long-range map or something to see the entire region. Then the Admiral (or Squadron Commanding Officer) could send orders to individual ship CO's as they see fit. IF the game linked in all sensor data from friendly ships so that your situational awareness of the battle space was enhanced (I think it is), then this sort of AWACS-style of directer action might work.

For added luls, have the Admiral sitting in on the bridge of the designated flagship of the squadron, and he'd be on a Teamspeak call (or whatever) to every other Captain. The loss of the flagship, and command would then revert to the next-senior Captain, and the Admiral has to go silent. Assign ships based off of crew experience, so that competent ships crews and CO's get better ships.

Introduce LARP elements to the mix, and you've got all the trekkie fun you can shake a stick at.

edited 18th Jun '12 10:53:54 AM by pvtnum11

Hmm... If you ran multiple ships, the "Admiral" would really just need a screen for situational awareness, such as the Captain's Screen, and a direct line to each ship commander. If a group had enough players and screens, I could imagine running a Skype group chat or even some sort of text-based chat among all ship captains. It would probably have to run through the Comms officer.

"Captain, fleet command is ordering us to proceed to Sector D-3 and mine the region."

"Roger that, Comms. Respond that we acknowledge and will proceed to mine Sector D-3."

"Aye, Captain."

edited 18th Jun '12 11:09:24 AM by Lawyerdude