As you all know, I have been hard at work on getting Cosmoteer ready for the upcoming Steam launch. (No, I don't have a release date yet.) Much of this work has been on the coding for an entirely new single-player "Adventure Mode", and I've finished enough of this coding that now the next big step is to design a whole bunch of ships/stations for the player to fight against, trade with, and go on missions for. I could design all those ships myself, but I already have a lot of other work I need to do, and honestly I'm not the greatest ship designer anyway--you all are so much better than I am! So what I want to do instead is hire a handful of the top ship designers from the community (maybe including you!) to create them, because I know that you all will do a much better job than I can, and I'll have more time to work on coding new features.
Before you get all excited about applying, I want to make it clear that this is a serious part-time contract job. You should only apply if you are of legal working age where you live and can commit to designing at least a couple dozen ships within the next few months. (I'm hoping to have about 200 ships for launch.)
If selected, the following is what will be expected of you:
- You will be expected to design ships and space stations of various costs/sizes and factions. While you will have a lot of creative leeway in how the ships are designed, there will still be criteria that must be met, such as fitting within certain cost ranges, following the building style/philosophy for a faction, matching a desired difficulty, and encouraging specific player strategies. (It is possible that I will pick a single "lead" designer for each faction who will establish a style for that faction.)
- You will be expected to act professionally and maturely, and to (continue to be) an upstanding role model in the community.
- You will be expected to NOT leak any confidential information or private builds of the game before I have made those public.
- You will be REQUIRED to sign a standard "work for hire" contract. (This basically guarantees that I own the ship designs you make and can resell them, and guarantees that you get paid for those designs. It does not actually legally obligate you to do any amount of work and you can quit whenever you want.)
If selected, you will also receive the following benefits:
- Most importantly, you will be paid for your work. The amount paid will be per-ship and mostly depend on the size/cost of the ship, but will be approximately $1 USD per 100,000 game credits in total ship value.
- You will receive early access to the in-progress Steam build. (You will need this to design the ships because there are a number of changes to the ship building rules compared to the free version.)
- You will receive a free copy (Steam key most likely) of Cosmoteer upon release.
- Your name will appear in the credits. (Unless you don't want it to.)
(I may impose some minimum number of value of ships that need to be designed to receive the above, just to prevent people from making a single tiny 50K ship just to get a free copy.)
Interested? Click here to apply!
Please let me know if you have any questions!
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
How will I get paid?
Mostly likely via Paypal but I may be able to do other payment services as well. Basically how it will work is that every couple of weeks you will send me an "Invoice", which is really just a fancy word for an email that lists what ships you've designed (and I have approved) since the last invoice and totals up how much I owe you. I double-check to make sure everything adds up correctly and, assuming it does, I pay you.
Is there any kind of approval process for ships?
Yes, the process will work something like this:
- You will pick an available ship from my spreadsheet (one that hasn't been designed yet and no one else is working on) and give a quick "pitch" for it, which is just a sentence or two describing it and/or a quick sketch if you feel so inclined. Assuming I am happy with your pitch, I will approve it and confirm the final payment amount, and then...
- You design the ship except for its paint.
- I approve the design or request changes. Once approved, then...
- You do the paint. (You can also do the paint as part of step 2, but then you might have to redo it if I request significant design changes in step 3.)
- I approve the paint or request changes. Once approved, then...
- I mark the ship as done on my spreadsheet and add it to the game. You will get paid for it next time I pay you.
Doesn't the classic version already have over a hundred ships? Why not use those?
Due to building rules changes, most of the existing ships are now "illegal" and would require significant modifications to be compatible with the new rules. Additionally, most of these ships weren't designed with any specific criteria such as faction or difficulty in mind. The new Adventure Mode has stricter ship design needs than Bounty Hunter.
I made one or more of the existing built-in ships, can I upgrade it for the Steam version?
If you designed any of the existing built-in ships, then I'm hoping to give you a chance to upgrade it for the Steam version if you want, but I won't be able to pay you for it, and that opportunity will come later. (I may be able to make exceptions for certain ships that are already a good fit for one of the factions.)
What if multiple people collaborate on a single design?
That's fine, but it will be up to you to decide how to split the payment.
