In your opinion, what are some "Must Haves" on a futuristic setting?

This frankly, there are no "must-haves" that are entirely independent of setting. If you want to get a meaningful answer, you need to be a bit more specific.
For instance:
>Must-haves in a space-based moderately hard sci-fi setting

Vast, powerful artificial intelligences.
Powerful religious organizations.
FTL travel.

What are the must haves for a Star Wars style science fantasy?

> Zealous fundamentalists that have adapted to the times, and are waging a highly successful crusade against what they view as modern degeneracy. Bonus points if the crusade is led by a seemingly infallible, morally righteous elderly blind prophet.

> An ancient, powerful empire beginning to crumble to civil unrest, foreign invaders, excessive bureacracy and governmental corruption that is still the most powerful faction. Bonus points if the Emperor is benevolent, but somehow incompetent or incapacitated, and a cabal of corrupt advisors rules in his place.

> Technological anachroisms, I'm a real fan of Space Feudalism, and mish-mashed technology. Cowboys with laser rifles riding horses, hyper-advanced battle droids wearing modern Kevlar and jury rigged scrap armor, !NotMongols with hoverbikes and kinetically enhanced bows, etc.

> A faction of hyper-efficient Clones who have taken Communism to its logical extreme, and thanks to heavy genetic engineering, have managed to actually pull it off.

> Extremely powerful and greedy hyper-capitalist Trade Houses that rule most of the government in all but name and have their own mercenary armies and powerful navies, and either have a total monopoly on an essential good, or deal in extremely unsavory products.

> There are no sapient aliens, all of the Species are the result of divergent Human evolution and/or extensive genetic engineering.

> Alternatively, the only alien species was an ancient civilization of Precursors that ascended to a higher plane of existence after seeding the galaxy's habitable planets with bacteria that would eventually evolve into intelligent bipedal humanoids somewhat like themselves to leave behind a legacy.

> An infectious species of extremely dangerous and organized parasites that threatens to drive all sapient lifeforms to extinction. The Flood are a good example, but I've also done pretty neat things with Malevolent Fungus and Nanomachinery that's gone out of control.

>Space Feudalism
>Civil unrest
>Alien invaders that threaten all life
>Humans are only sapient creatures, not including Precursor races

My fellow melanin enriched person
You would like Star Traders. It has a very deep lore with a lot of the things you mentioned. It's an older game tho, so the graphics and SFX are pretty dated, but they still hold up. The sequel is going to be in playtesting soon, and looks like it is gonna be great.

An ancient precursor race that has left behind incomprehensible artifacts of great power. Literally every Sci-Fi story that leaves earth has one of these.

Planetes being the technical exception.

Swords and blasters appearing on the same battlefield and being equally viable.

Also space magic and space mysticism.

>Threatening Objectively Evil antagonistic power
>Mystical traditions that may or may not be well-understood by the masses
>Some sort of provision to make melee combat viable

The party has to have a spaceship. Every time.
I don't care if the entire campaign takes place on 1 planet and the spaceship sits in a hangar under a tarp.
If it's a sci-fi game and space is even a remote option, then the party must have a spaceship.
The shittier the better.

> FUCK YES! ANOTHER STAR TRADERS FAN, IN THE DIGITAL FLESH!

I've been playing Star Traders for years and as we speak, I've got an Insane difficulty Independent Pirate game going! I've been monitoring the Treese Brother's Dev-log for months! And to think, all this time, I thought I was the only one!

Exo-frames

Exo-frames for every nuance and need in life

Fuckin' everywhere
Exo-frames

>mfw I find another fan in the murky depths of 4chins
>mfw I'm a playtester for ST2

VAE VICTUS TEMPLAR

> HAIL CADAR! MAY IT LIVE LONG, PROSPER AND BRING THE QUADRANT TO ITS HEEL!
> OR ALTERNATIVELY, THE STEEL SONG CLAN, I'M A FAN OF BOTH!
> WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FACTION?

Holy shit, you're a playtester for Star Traders 2!?! I envy you, friend, truly, I do! Pray tell, what are some of the more interesting features we'll be seeing in the sequel?

>Cadar
>Steel Song

Pick one friendo. Pick the one that has better torps.

Playtesting will start soon, so I don't have a full list of everything, but the Bros being who they are, they have shared a lot of info about it.

Highlights include a lot more depth on the career system, fully customizable ships, NPCs will all have their own combination of traits, desires, goals, etc, a fuckton of procedural generation for interconnected Quadrants, Officers that you can either hire on or promote from your existing crew, and an economy that makes the ST1 economy look like chump change.

Also small fighter craft and orbital stations. Stretch goals are fun.

All of the good stuff that isn't on Patreon is in the Kickstarter updates.

GIANT ROBOTS
I
A
N
T

R
O
B
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T
S

>Did somebody say Templars?

Yeah!

Normally, I just go Independent Pirate and screw everyone over, but Cadar is definitely my favorite Syndicate, and the Steel Song Clan is definitely my favorite Great House. Now, as for the highlighted features....

> Ah yes... I-I could Fap to this, I really could...

I'm looking forward to release. Goodnight friend. May the ancestors smile down on your efforts.

VAE VICTUS TEMPLAR!

Macross had more than giant robots

Over-engineered codpieces.

Star- or aerospace fighters. Among other things.

May Shalun guide you through the Void, and guard you from the Xeno, my friend.

Sapient AI
Cyborgs, but gritty
Artificial Humans (Both organic and Synthetic)
A lack of/very difficult to use FTL
Sapient but wholly alien aliens (Non humanoid)

I like hard sci-fi.

CRT Monitors

The ability to relate to the world. One of the reasons I prefer Star Wars to Trek is because they always act like they live in some kind of utopia in Star Trek and then the bad shit happens. In Star Wars the world feels real, there's bad shit all around. Make seedy bars and dark alleyways, and I definitely try to go for a space western kind of theme.

>Science Fantasy such as...

Stop using this fucking term.

Would you prefer Space Opera?

Science not-fact?

Seriously, Science Fantasy is the best way to describe utterly fantastic things like jedi or chaos. If you have better term, i'd like to hear it.

big empires
big ships
big battles
Big stories
Human crews (AI can help, but not drone battleships)
Mystery/awe

I can never seem to be able to get into stories with too much transhumanism or realism. Winchell Chung and Atomic Rockets it just too autistic for me sometimes with the level of detail.
I guess that Homeworld is the best way to describe it: epic, sweeping story, where although the science and technology is highly advanced, there's still a great deal of mystery
out in the universe left to find and explore.
Less "woah man the future is freaky deaky" like in Orion's Arm, and more "there's more out there" in the Hyperion Cantos.

Most important (results in instant interest)
-Multi-Biomed exoplanets.
-Predominately non humanoid extraterrestrial civilization/s.

Must have
-Morality struggles dealing with one or more facets of the new "normal", regardless of how long its been previously accepted.
-Integrated Warfare that includes aspect of mundane-made awesome (i.e. void-based boarding parties, grappler ships, artillery cannons with machine gun firing rates, etc).
-A reformed post-scarcity economy.
-Unusual genetic conditions, diseases, recreational drugs, poisons and foods brought about by living in space or on other planetary bodies.
-Some kind of unifying FTL transportation and communications system.

i mean if it uses science to accomplish something otherwise found in a fantasy setting...

>Science not-fact?

Yeah, as in science FICTION.

Supernatural elements are not divorced from Science Fiction, far from it. Stop being autistic.

Militarism. I identify with militaristic factions with a cool aesthetic involving helmets in just about every sci Fi setting.

It cannot be hard science. I like battle droids, broken spaceship reactors leading too cockroach men in the cargo hold, and I don't mind the force or other reality warping powers.

Science Fiction should play up the fiction elements.

OH and everyone who says no aliens, what's wrong with you? Why would you take out the best part of science fiction?

>Naw dude aliens should look like sponge slugs with no eyes or distinguishing features xd
Fuck that.

Well, fiction isn't a particularly accurate descriptor. And science fiction implies a lot more.... Science? i guess that's the generic term. The reason i used Not-Fact as a desriptor was because again, fiction implies different things, not-fact implies that you took me way too seriously when i suggested it.

You could say the same for metal music. Math Metal sounds different than stoner metal, but both are metal. So i'm not being autistic, i'm merely being precise. You're the one being autistic for having such a dislike for a term.

Offer a better one than Science Fantasy and i'll use it, till you can; shove it up your ass.

It's science fiction. It's still science fiction, because it has always been science fiction.

You are correct, as it's always been that, but it lack a certain....

well it lack any sort of descriptor that is usually present in genre.

I mean, really, it could mean anything from light swords and magic push molecules to fucking space orks to goddamn SCIENCE in SPACE

so why shouldn't i make the distinction? It's fantastic Sci-Fi, it has no chance to exists in reality, and has little basis in reality. However it still has the themes surrounding Sci-Fi. Because it's a hybrid it needs a new name for clarity sake.

So, lets ask, why can't it be Science Fantasy? Or even Science Fantastic? you've yet to give a good reason beyond autism (yours).

This.
Ignore the autists.
I want my futuristic setting to be actual fantasy with guns and spaceships and other cool vehicles.
Magic and weird but humanoid aliens exists.
Melee is just as good or more than ranged and magical options.

>tfw you can't worldbuild for shit so you just write OSR sci-fi dungeons and are a without a group forever GM

A frontier. There has to be some undiscovered and/or lawless territory to keep it from just being the modern world in space.

Pity for you but online and roll20 exist, user.

Lense flare.

Calm down there, JJ

Ships crewed by clones. If your character dies, no big deal, he'll regenerate in about a month as long as the ship is intact.

This. Every time I read a sci fi where they have god-tier technology but are still walking around in the same unoptimized piece of meat that we have today, it throws me for a loop.

Why in the hell would anyone make a deadly spaceship capable of bombarding cities and going a reasonable fraction of the speed of light and then trust it to the unaltered reflexes of a species that has proven that we can't even handle cars safely?

Weird religious or moral hangups? I can totally see the space government banning certain forms of cybernetics because someone's lobbyist won.

And then said government will eventually lose to a military that doesn't have hangups like that. Even if it's banned for civilian use, there is far too much benefit to using augmentation for military purposes. Basic humans simply cannot compete with soldiers that have enhanced reflexes and strength, and can activate backup organs if they get shot. Once it's there, you use it or you get left behind.

Just look at the Jovians from Eclipse Phase. They hate most forms of augmentation, and believe that uploading your mind means that you're now a soulless simulation that still has the delusion that it's human. And yet their military routinely uses augmentations, even those illegal to the public, and their special forces and covert ops willingly embrace uploads and similar technology, believing that they're sacrificing their lives and humanity to protect their republic.

You don't need to have society go full transhuman to incorporate this sort of thing. Preventing a disease is better than curing it, right? So genefix your population so that they don't get genetic diseases. Even if you're morally or religiously against augmentation, that doesn't mean it's wrong to fix the genetic abnormalities that worsen the human condition.

And you can get a lot of good stories about legal and moral issues of augmentation. Deus Ex does this really well without taking sides one way or another. Hell, even if you're a strict bioconservative, why not have the bad guys show up augmented?

But it's really jarring when a society has incredible technology and yet you never even hear a peep about that technology being used to make people better or even fix basic issues. The only way you would really get a situation like that is Star Trek-level societal brainwashing.

stop being autistic and pendantic. Everyone knows what he means.