Imagine for a moment that sometime in 1993 or so, LucasArts had added to the X-Wing series with Star Wars: Star Destroyer.

Would you buy/play something like that? Taking the role of a starship crewman rather than a fighter pilot? How would you imagine it to play? More like an RTS, controlling the fighters and stuff? Managing ship systems?

Just some food for thought (and an image of a possible UI). Credit for most of the art goes to my friend Phil North.

It would definitely be a very different experience from the starfighter combat games in the series. I don't think playing a single crewman would be very interesting, since most capital ship crew members have very limited and specific functions. But you could be a captain, issuing orders to your crew -- similar to Star Trek: Bridge Commander. You would have various functions such as Helm, Weapons, Communications, Engineering, Flight Deck, Operations, etc. When you wanted to do something, you'd issue an order to the officer in charge of that function. You could recruit and train crewmen and pilots with different skills, which would determine how effectively they perform their orders. In the spirit of the Empire, you'd need to increase your crew's skill and performance with a combination of praise and intimidation. Repeated victories in battle is a great way to raise morale, although the threat of the Emperor coming -- and being most displeased -- would get anyone to double his efforts. It would be a much more "hands off" experience: you're coming up with the plan, making sure you have the necessary resources, and then relying on others to execute it; rather than in X-Wing where you're the top ace carrying out the orders someone else came up with.

I would have loved a Star Wars themed version of Artemis. In fact, I still would. Or something that played a bit more like a submarine simulator could work. Maybe even fleet tactics, Star Wars style.

Yep, I'd play it. Those are niche genres anyways though.