You’re part of a mysterious secret research team that’s trying to figure out some new threat coming to earth.
Inspired by Project Hail Mary.
Send probes, use research equipment, scour the library, trying to find answers and ways to progress. Maybe even discover alien life and how it works, or some deeper scientific core.
Would be really cool … but also really hard to pull off.
You’d need to be able to randomly generate a “mystery”. Like, randomly generate an alien life form, or how certain made-up elements interact, or a conspiracy. And in such a way that the player can use the equipement (perhaps after upgrades and trying over and over; hence incremental game) to figure that out.