NP-Complete

NP-Complete is desired to be a sci-fi rogue-like featuring some gameplay elements from Unreal World, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and more if we can get them and they make sense.

This article is a storage location for design components that would otherwise be easily lost while the game is in development. For instance:

Backstory
"Abandon ship," the captain's voice echoed in your head as you picked yourself off the floor. "I say again, abandon ship!"

The crash transit had been worse than usual, you remember, and then after it the sudden 'turbulence' that sent you crashing against the bulkhead -- the far bulkhead, at that -- was a clear indication of serious damage. You hadn't thought the engines were in such bad shape, but then you were only a [rating, e.g. engineering tech or atmospherics tech], second class. And then, after the way the chief engineer had looked when you passed him in the corridor after he'd visited Engine One, you knew it was bad, but surely...

But hindsight clearly showed: the damage had been that bad. In fact, you wondered if there was going to be time to reach an escape pod -- and you shuddered as you thought how much further from safety everyone else aboard was: you had been en-route from [some place] to [some other place], a trip that took you right past the escape pods at just the right time. Luck, pure and simple.

You shook your head to clear it (recognizing, as you did, that you'd taken a heck of a hit and probably had the beginnings of a concussion), and ran as quickly as you could down the corridor and into the emergency docking bay. Pausing for the briefest moment to thumbprint your arrival for the computers' bookkeeping, you took a breath... and in the next moment, another bulkhead was flying at you (thankfully, one inside the escape pod), and you lost consciousness.

That's the last thing you remember before waking up. Your watch tells you it's been fifteen minutes since the Hyperion exited hyper in such a catastrophic manner, and the only thing left of her that you can see is a slowly dissipating cloud of gas... and a fair number of escape pods, all but one of them empty. Clearly, the explosion that knocked you into the pod also triggered the automatic ejection features, and a glance at the pod's log confirms it was followed a few seconds later by the total destruction of the ship -- and that none of the other pods have anyone aboard.

The world below you is unknown -- one of the surprisingly many green worlds the survey fleets have been finding all over this section of our galactic arm. Its biochemistry is probably at least partially compatible with yours, and you've got rations for six people for a month -- and they'll last, so your food is assured for the first six months -- so you're not going to die immediately.

The bad news is nobody knows you're here. Hyperion veered far off-course to come here, and even if someone had a basic idea of where to search, space is big. If you're going to survive this, you'll need to mind your resources carefully, and build up the infrastructure to feed and shelter you. But, before anything else, it's time to consider where on this unnamed green ball you're going to land.

After picking a landing spot
Something's wrong with your pod's transmitter -- you tried to order the other pods to come down in the same spot and none of them seem to have noticed. Indeed, as your pod maneuvers on its thrusters, you can see the closest ones just hanging there in space.

They won't stay up here, of course. Their designers considered that their occupants might be unconscious, and with the limited air supply aboard, they won't take more than a few hours to decide to land... but with no central coordination, they're not going to land together in one place, nor are they going to be likely to land anywhere near yours.

This is highly unfortunate. The pods were designed to be landed together, and their loadouts are so specialized that you'd need at least ten of them to have everything necessary to set up shelter for a crew of 300. Of course, there's just one of you, and you'll probably be able to cobble together something satisfactory just using what's in your pod... which reminds you you haven't checked your pod's loadout yet.

What kind of pod is this?

Equipment
As can be inferred from above, your starting equipment is one of ten possible loadouts, each corresponding to an escape pod type. Further, there is a chance to find more equipment if you run into one of the other pods on the planet's surface. For the most part, though, you're going to be limited to what you pick at the start.

First and foremost, each pod is designed for six people, therefore there are always six hazard suit type armors: things that will protect you from, e.g. poison gas or extreme heat or cold. They may also stop wildlife from chomping you (or, at least, make it difficult for it to do so), but they're also quite irreplaceable. On the bright side, if you find another pod, you're guaranteed six more of them, and you know enough about your own technology that you can use parts from one to repair another.

It furthermore sounds reasonable that each pod would come with a generator -- probably a solar panel -- that can be used to recharge powered items (at least, until it breaks down). And we can think of a few useful (and likely) powered items: a flashlight, a tricorder-ish thing, a communicator (ha!), and some kind of ray gun. Distribution of these powered items probably varies by pod type, but we should be able to rely on there being at least one of each in every pod.

Other than that, well... we have ten loadouts to play with. How about an agricultural pod featuring large-ish samples of seeds that have been engineered to survive fairly extreme environments? Or, how about a solar-powered rover that you can ride? A miniature machine shop, able to manufacture replacement components for your electronics? I'm sure there are more ideas.

The key is probably going to be that none of the unique things that are found in a given loadout can be obtained using the things from another loadout -- this should encourage exploring to find the other nine pod types.

One of the unique things I'm thinking of is a fuel converter (of some kind) that would allow a pod to launch all the way back to space and down again (thus making this an excellent first choice of loadout, allowing you to bring all the different pods you find in one place together), but then... let's have a surprise for the player when they do make it back up into space:

Returning to space
Is the receiver on this damn thing broken, too? Or are the other pods just not transmitting their standard emergency beacons?

You'd been hoping to find the other pods easily once you got back into space -- just follow their beacons down, refuel them, and send them all to the same place manually -- but it seems that's not going to be as easy.

You make a mental note to examine this pod more closely when you get back to the surface. You could understand the coincidence of having its transmitter be broken, but the receiver is as nearly foolproof a piece of kit as any you can think of. It really should be working.

Back on the surface, after examining the pod
Well, you were right: the receiver is foolproof, and it's not broken. Which suggests a very frightening possibility: that it wasn't receiving beacons from the other pods because they weren't transmitting.

In fact, close examination of the transmitter reveals its failure mode to be something that couldn't have occurred naturally -- at least, not without also burning a big hole through the transmitter casing -- and that means... sabotage.

But, why would anyone sabotage the Hyperion's escape pod transmitters? What would it gain them?

Unfortunately, you can think of no way for you to find out.