I like the idea of the players giving general instructions (ie: "We'd like a heavily armoured ship with fast engines, a year or so of fuel and fast-firing laser turrets", or "We'd like to put asteroid miners somewhere in Sol where there's Mercassium within three years"), as if they were high-level strategic planners.  However, I think they should then receive specific feedback (ship plans, mine numbers, etc) so they can suggest refinements the next time around.  It makes the AARs more interesting for us numbers-obsessed types.

The trick is that even with specific ship plans the high-level planners can only make general recommendations "I think our next generation of ships should be a bit faster and less armoured" and those will be followed somewhat accurately by the GM-controlled ship designers.  Underlings and minions never do exactly what you want them to, after all. Especially in politics.

Yeah the general idea here is to be more of a roleplay style of game. Hell, I'm not even sure I will tell them I'm using Aurora as the main "engine". In essence I'll be asking them for the general plans for their nations and give them quick updates upon discovery of ruins, etc. for some amount of time-not sure what the increment will be. In the end i'll give them a quick summary of whatever I feel the necessary information is. "Your new mining operation on mars is going quite well, however the chinese have also set up a few automated facilities..."

Ask them for general philosophies concerning ship design, and I'd try my best to whip something up.

No NPRs, however I would probably be playing some high-tech alien race that is interested in earth for some reason (as per usual). See if they would unite against it.

And telegraph, it'll probably be taking place after I finish up my exams around x-mas... Also got to get my research application handed in so I'm busy until then. I wouldn't mind some general game pointers though and could throw you in as a faction if you'd like.

It seem pretty hard to archive as you will run into so many interruption at progress will grind to a halt, and more player, more quickly it will become so slow. I never try it with many player but even me playing 3 frac, it come to part where it so slow i just quit quite quickly.

Awesome! I'm planning to have a few of my buddies play as leaders of various major nations. I'm going to turn NPRs off. I imagine (since they are all pretty competitive) they'll go at each other quickly enough.

It'll be more of a story for them, I'll play their advisors and ask them where they want to take their country in the space age. Keep them updated, etc.

Just need to spend some time this winter learning some of the finer details of the game first. I swear I've tried to learn this thing 5 times now, maybe this time it will click.

Many of Steve's games have multiple factions on Earth, and GM'ing a game is certainly possible.

Here's an example.