I just saw Freddie Wong's video of them playing Artemis (http://www.artemis.eochu.com/) at a LAN party... and it's probably the nerdiest game I have ever witnessed:
LAN Party - Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoV_ZnBTsrA#ws)
To actually get a good game going, you need like.. 6 computers *per ship*, preferably one hooked up to a projector or HDTV to be your 'main viewscreen' - and yes, apparently the full version supports multiplayer as well, so you could have a bunch of ships.
I haven't actually tried it properly yet, and I hear that it's like the old SNES Star Trek TNG game where everything is on a flat 2D plane (no vertical flight), but it still looks like loads of fun.
Each person basically gets to sit at a specific console - Engineering, Science, Weapons, Comms, Helm + the Captain and main viewscreen, and you have to work together as a team. The captain can call for Engineering to boost power to weapons, and ask his Weapons tech to target while the Helm flies the ship, Comms calls for backup, or whatever, and each console can push some of their view up to the main screen, for example, if the Captain asks for a damage report, Engineering can push that to the main monitor.
This is the kind of thing that might be epic fun at a LAN party or the gaming room of a con - what do you guys think? :)
Having it with computers and well defined roles really ties it all together, especially having to coordinate in real time to bring you home at the end of the mission. As if multiplayer evolved.
Video of action after 3:50 got me excited. :-3
Holy crap, I am so on for this.
It would be awesome to have this at a con, or something, where people can come in and play it :3