Type: multi-genre lobby game, online and off, with massively multiplayer RPG elements (also, account-regulated official servers kept separate from the more moddable unofficial experience).
Setting: pulp science-fiction, war.
Developer(s): I don't think this game can be made with current tech and dev tools, honestly. Art design is pretty important, but almost any existing popular space sci-fi game's universe would work for it... think of it as Star Wars for the sake of discussion, but ideally it would be a new IP by a developer with a huge team and budget... and deadlines that are unrealistically forgiving.
Gameplay:
The game have several ways to play, but the most involved part of it would be an RTS. A couple levels of RTS, actually. Wars would start up and people could join in 'em for their chosen faction... a war would be a persistent universe unto itself until whoever runs the server decides to axe it... or a faction actually takes an entire spawned universe... or the server goes down. People would be able to log into a war in one of many ways, and if they need to leave before a given match is decided, they can choose to turn over the unit(s) they control to an AI or another player.
The first, most zoomed out if you will, way to play would be grand real-time strategy a la Sins of a Solar Empire... only not, because taking planets would require quite a bit more in-depth effort and space battles would be a bit smaller, to a point where a losing a single fighter has a resource cost associated with it (capital ships being much more massively expensive).
That leads me to the next level down: more traditional real-time strategy where one fights for a region of a planet in the name of their faction. This level would more closely resemble Supreme Commander... though without the convenience of SupCom's hyper-advanced nanotech. There would still be living soldiers on the ground shooting and operating equipment. Players on this level would work for the players who control things on the interplanetary scale, capturing regions and securing more of a given planet's resources for their faction.
That brings me to the third level down... an action game. One game for each unit type, really. Players on this level would be mercenaries hired by one of the RTS players. Depending on the unit type they play as, they could be working for an interplanetary commander or a surface commander (or an AI of either, for that matter). There would be a completely different set of interface and controls for each unit type; so you could play this game as a first-person space flight sim in a single fighter or bomber, a third-person space combat sim where you control all aspects of a larger ship (from a repair tug to a battleship), an atmospheric flight sim where you control a fighter, bomber, gunship, transport, medivac et cetera planetside, a tank sim, artillery sim, utility vehicle sim, FPS/TPS which can run the gamut of heavy gunnery, sniper, melee, combat medic, stealth sabotage... again et cetera.
These mercs would be able to gain experience levels customize their own equipment with money they make being hired to fight. Death in battle would result in the loss of some of the equipment they took in (random rolls), but experience would never be penalized (they would need to queue up and be re-hired by the same commander in order to get back into the same battle, of course). Their hiring price would be set and based on their experience level and the quality of the equipment they queue up with. Hiring would be first-come, first-serve within a given faction, and the mercs would simply spawn at the base of the commander who hired them. From there, commands issued to the merc unit would appear as objectives on that player's HUD. They would be able to see a minimap view of everything their commander can see, and obey or disobey orders as they see fit. Their commander can also support or not support the merc with friendly forces as they see fit, of course.
...I think that about covers it...
