Artifact Features:

• High end graphics engine (SVGA, gourad shading, perspective textures, z-buffering, 8/16 bit color, transparencies, sprite textures, specular highlights)
• Highly customizable ships. If you know of Steve Jackson's CarWars, you'll have some idea what we're planning. In fact, we're going beyond that. You'll get to literally re-wire your ship anyway you want. All componants of your ship (shield generators, weapons, sensors, energy armor generators, heat exchangers, life support, computers, propultion, power, tractor beams, missle racks, hyperspace drives, automated repair systems, componant armor, targeting systems, turrets, etc...) are upgradable, swappable, and individually dammagable.
• Polygon accurate collisions & real-physics collisons: you nick your wing and you'll go spinning. If you run into something head on doing 200mps, your probably gonna die :). HOWEVER, if you nudge something with a captol ship, you will be able to "push" it around.
• Real physics space flight. No one has ever done this. All space flight games are simply jet fighters in space. Can real space flight be fun? The answer, to the best we can determine, is yes, if you implement one limitation: no 10 light second distance battles (which, to the best we can figure, is how real space combat will be done). This limitation will not be an omission in the game. The "future tech" of the game will be designed to demand space combat be done it realtivly "close quarters".
• Designed to be a dynamic and interesting network game. Descent / Doom / Quake / Duke3D are all fun, for a time, but after a while it becomes a blood fest with little more than motor skills involved.