Vestin: - why on earth are we supposed to buy things from our own base ? It's in everyone's best interest to make the best use of all the gear available, IMO. I know it might make sense from the gameplay perspective but I'd rather there was some other limiting mechanic.

Adzeth: Do any women wear clothes with sleeves in your gameworld? Can I expect to see some men hunking (you know, posing and looking pretty) as well?

Vestin: This is somethings I've wanted to harp on as well - is makeup an abundant commodity in the post-apocalyptic world ? Would it be too much to expect our rag-tag bunch of misfits to be unkempt, generally disheveled and scruffy ?
Is our base going to have endless running water for showers and general primping ? How about jacuzzi, puffy chairs and a slushie machine ;P ?
Beyond a certain point, we have to ask ourselves - WHY, exactly, are they so intent on flying away into space ? If they can keep an extensive enough base running (preferably - indefinitely), it's merely a matter of setting up an impenetrable defense system and systematically culling the local mutant population. The problem with base-building is that every bit of it anchors the survivors further into place... unless the base itself is WITHIN this precious ship we are in the process of constructing - which, BTW, would make the most sense...

Vestin: A few thoughts, loosely thrown together:
- your 2D artist is AMAZING.
- the idea is great though ambitious and I'd hate to see it botched...
- if you REALLY want us to become attached to the characters and not merely treat them as human-shaped utilities, you're going to need writing. LOTS of it. Backstories, plenty of dialog, interactions BETWEEN different characters mapped out... Moreover - if given choices of dialog impact gameplay significantly enough, people will just gravitate towards them to optimize.
- if some characters only hate each other or are only destined to befriend each other through the single path of interactions available to them, there's little point in caring about such things during a second playthrough, since one already knows everythings that can happen. Of course - branching possibilities can lead to a combinatorial explosion that can be hard to manage... but your saving grace appears to be the post-apocalyptic setting, which naturally limits the number of people involved.
What I'm trying to say is - I'd rather you had fewer characters with more depth to them than a myriad of shallow cardboard cut-outs with a few lines of dialog to their name. This also means that you will need a full-time writer in order to accomplish anything of value.
- once it occured to me, I was tempted to get rid of almost everything above: what exactly ARE your plans regarding character interactions ? Will they be voiced, will they have (different) things to say during missions or are they only talkative when in the base ? Will our character be the only means of finding out what's on their minds or will there be some overarching interface to keep track of how they are doing ? Will the interactions between them even be relavant at any point ? Can they make friends, grow attached, moarn, chit-chat, etc ?
- why on earth are we supposed to buy things from our own base ? It's in everyone's best interest to make the best use of all the gear available, IMO. I know it might make sense from the gameplay perspective but I'd rather there was some other limiting mechanic.

photonarena: Now I think we might do something similar to the SIMs, that they are controlled by needs and traits. So instead of leaning towards story and dialogue based NPC, our characters may have more dynamic reactions.

Vestin: I know I'm asking the tough questions here but - how will that affect the dialog options ? The thing that makes unscripted games like the Sims work is LACK of them (there's a reason for Simlish). You can either go with that and some thought synopsis, Dwarf-Fortress style ("(...)Udil Fikodarkim has been ecstatic lately. She made a friend recently. She had a fine drink lately. She has complained of the lack of chairs lately.(...)")... or you can write dialog anyway, though this would beg for SOME correlation between the two (and, therefore, plenty of lines for each sort of occasion... and a few degrees of it)...

oasis789: Impressive, ambitious project.

You should introduce yourself and your team. Who is Photon Productions? What experience and skills do you have that give us confidence that the game will be designed and made well?

Next, you should explain your budget. Why 100 grand? This is a very complex game you have described, with 3D and real time and AI and all kinds of mechanics. Is the budget realistic to deliver all of these things? What's the cost breakdown?

amok: For exposure, try Steam Greenlight. You may not initially intent to get on Steam (though it can not hurt....) but for $100, you will have exposure to a large gaming community. When you make the description in the greenlight page, just remember to make links to your kickstarter and homepage. The $100 goes to charity, and you can consider it marketing expense.

(but I guess you have already considered this... as part of a hidden Black Friday sales greenlight was / is free for a short time also, might have ended now)
amok: ha - Dead Island "OMG - zombies are everywhere, you are the only one who can fight them and save us, without you we are lost!!! You can have these spare bullets for $20. Thank you for saving my daughter, by the way"

Adzeth: Do any women wear clothes with sleeves in your gameworld? Can I expect to see some men hunking (you know, posing and looking pretty) as well?

photonarena: You are right. We are able to achieve the Sims' character system, but the generation of dialogue is a headache. I think Dwarf-Fortress is good, but I think dialog will make the character more "human".

However, branching dialog is not realistic, based on the budget and work force we have now.

Vestin: These are precisely the conclusions I have drawn... Which begs the question - what ARE you going to do ? Stick with some fixed lines for each character, regardless of how a given playthrough goes and merely update it based on some rigidly-defined milestones ? I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad solution - hell, it's the classical model adventure games have used for decades - I'm simply not sure how this would mesh with everything else you're planning.
This is not my field of expertise but... it seems that you are trying to find some middle ground between scripted and "emergent" storytelling.
My emphasis here is, of course, largely due to personal reasons - I enjoy both heavily-scripted games with a nice plot and more sandboxy ones where I can actively alter the course of events in spectacular ways... Your game may turn out just fine even if it's nothing special in that regard, it's simply what has drawn me to it in the first place. There are plenty of games where I can find copious amounts of shooting, strategy and management of everything but the kitchen sink... but soldiers possibly becoming "depressed", the emphasis on keeping your men sane, happy and motivated - that piqued my interest.

GreenFire700: Wow, this is a really cool looking game. I'd definitely buy it when it came out! Unfortunately I am unable to donate to the Kickstarter right now.