I'm a little confused. It sounds like there are two games here: one is to win by algorithmic trading, and the other is to win by hacking the virtual devices/protocols/systems involved in the algorithmic trading. Is that the case?
Starfighter is divided into N tech trees, where as of the Chapter 1 release N = 2. Each has a distinct player-facing UI and, generally, some specialized backend systems, but they're all a part of the same product, behind the same login, running off the same message bus. Each tech tree has a series of levels: start at level 1, beat it and unlock level 2, etc. The levels do not necessarily progress linearly and trees can interact with each other in terms of level requirements, although I don't know if any levels requiring, etc, "passed $FOO in algorithmic trading and either $BAR or $BAZ from low-level programming" will ship in Chapter 1.
Each level has its own goals/victory conditions/etc. There may be interplay between levels, such that your past/simultaneous performance on one allows you to do X, Y, or Z advantageous thing in the other. Those interactions might happen across tech trees. I am saying "might" here because I haven't coded any level which actually does that but it came up at design meetings and our systems support it -- not sure if it will happen in Chapter 1 but I'd rate it as "highly likely" it happens in Chapter 2.
Chapters: we intend on doing a new content release (which adds to, rather than replaces, existing content) every 6~8 weeks, with a new tech tree introduced roughly every 2~3 chapters.
Would love anyone's thoughts on "How do I explain this succinctly such that I don't turn-off anyone who is less interested in a particular tech tree?"
I think I get what you mean by "tech tree", it's a phrase borrowed from real-time strategy games, yeah? Some of your other descriptions sound a little bit like what someone might find on a Steam game. If I hadn't played Sins of a Solar Empire (very occasionally, I don't have much time for it anymore), I think I'd be pretty lost.
Your current terminology is probably fine, it just needs some graphics to go along with it -- a basic chart or something. I bet you've already got such a thing in progress and it'll all make sense on launch.
> How do I explain this succinctly such that I don't turn-off anyone who is less interested in a particular tech tree?
Any chance you can partition your newsletter subscribers into "low level programmers" and "wannabe market hackers"? I think the misunderstanding is that you only talked about stock market concepts to an audience that included people that are only interested in low level programming.
Not a fan of "worlds" as proposed below. I have a feeling we're all just projecting our own favorite genre conventions here, but your different approaches remind me of different characters more than anything else. Ever play a game where you had a choice of approaches with different characters? Or had to switch between them and coordinate action or share information?
I'm sure there's plenty of people who possess the union of these skill sets (and of course, there will be plenty of actual human players that will), but you could describe your trees more as character growth/background/capabilities/backstory.
You would then have interesting story possibilities here—I would love the idea but I suspect you guys might consider story elements as potentially distracting.
Starfighter is a game with lots of worlds. In each world there's a whole bunch of levels. Finish one level, move to the next. There's no "last level" or "final boss" because every few weeks new levels appear. Sometimes whole new worlds are created too. Each world is totally different and getting good at one might not help you in another (think of it like a video game, where in some worlds you walk on land but in some you have to swim, and in some you have to walk upside down). If you finish all the worlds you might get offered a job so you can do more levels in real life.
Or lots of other games. The tech tree metaphor seems a lot better game-jargon metaphor than the worlds-and-levels alternative you propose.