Watanka

First reaction. That's it? This is what we get for the final game?
Second reaction. Not sure what to say when to me, a new improved F4 map is one of the most exiting features for the "final update"..
 

I'm sorry, but using the word "wipe" and then not giving us any information at all has literally left me not even wanting to play this game because I don't even know if I should even bother building anything.
 
You can't just use that term and not give us any information.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

I don't post often on forums (almost never) but this time I'd like to give my PoV on this whole core debate.

Personnal context :
- I'm the super legate of a micro-org, "Blue Star". We are basically 2 in it (+ few not active members). We are successful because of my builds and libraries that most of you have, at least, heard about.
- My only goal in this game is building. I'd like to PvP but for me it is too boring currently.
- I'm quite casual for now, I want to see if the game effectively release and survive before investing more time in it.
- We currently have an HQ + 3 mining outpost made. For a total of around 110 cores. Many of them are used to show the constructs/libraries we are selling. Aside from this, we have almost NOTHING. No big outpost, only few ships.

About this new patch :
I fully understand that a limit MUST be put in place. But be carefull. In a blog post you said that you based your number on the CURRENT medium amount of core owned by player. BUT keep in mind that this medium will rise over time.
In your latest blog post, you said :
So basically you are saying :
"On average people have a home of 65m². So we decided that from now on, no one would have the right to exceed 80m²."
That is plain stupid. I hope that this is not the main reason behind your decision.

If in this beta stage (erhm, alpha), if you are already limiting too much the amount of construct, that means we will not be able to build more in the NEAR future. So basically it's a "game over".
Yes, we can ask for help from everyone to get some of those sweet "org core". But be honest, most people will keep them for themselves or their own org.

Everyone doesn't want to be member of a very large org. People who have many core are usually those who drives the game's community forward with big projects, social media presence, etc.
By limiting them, you will limit the capacity of your game to go viral and also reduce the fun of it. A "civilisation building" game ? Without big cities or space station ? How boring is that ? 

For my personnal case :
- 50 personnal cores + 50 org core (with the 2 players we are) > we stop the game NOW. We are already above this limit. So we can't do anything new in the future. No reason to play.
- 100 personnal cores + 100 org core > it's better, but we are still close to the limit. We will reach it quite soon. It is not motivating and we will probably also stop playing. With this limit Cities and big station projects are still in danger.
- 300 cores is starting to be okay for the long run.

To be honest, this limitation would be probably better received if there was many other gameplay loop aside from building. But currently, building is the only well-made enough gameplay loop available in this game. Limiting it now will be a disaster.

You are out of money and have no choice ? 
As a game developper myself, I will say : Ok, stops the studio NOW or find new investors.
It is useless to push update that will kill your player base more. You can only lose more money over time.

Sorry for the long post in my broken english. I hope it is useful for someone.

Hey there, Noveans!

As we ramp up for the next Dual Universe update, we wanted to begin sharing information about some of the interesting new features you can look forward to with the arrival of 0.24.
 
One of the key highlights of 0.24 is the Mission system, affording the movers and shakers an opportunity to, well, move and shake their way to a wealthier DU lifestyle. And who doesn’t love the delicious sound of quanta cascading in their coffers? ?
 
OUR MISSION

In listening to player feedback, we know that players have been looking for more ways to make money. The Mission system will provide those opportunities in a number of ways that suits a wide swath of playstyles and experience.
 
The intent of Mission system is to:
 
Offer new ways for players, especially new players, to make money. Allow merchants to focus on creating goods rather than spending time traveling to markets to sell their wares. Give those who enjoy traveling more than making things a lucrative reason to take to those beautiful, wide-open skies. Create more traffic in space, hence more opportunities for pirates. Help organizations to coordinate internal work.
  The long-term goal is to enrich the Mission system with more mission types, starting with “taxi” missions, SoS, and later adding PvP and various other “formalizable” activities. For now, we’re introducing the Mission system with transport-type hauling missions.

It all starts with the Mission Panel, a dedicated dashboard tab for job and hauling missions. It is equivalent to other dashboard tabs such as the organization dashboard tab. Within the Mission Panel, you’ll find the "Job Forum" section and the "Hauling" section. Each of these contains a similar page: a home page, a search page, a creation modal, etc.

THE JOB FORUM

The Job Forum allows players to create jobs with various specifications. (Please note that the UI for the Mission system is still in progress. The images below are samples of what it will look like.)


 
The upper part of the interface lists “Aphelia” jobs, which are created by Novaquark to provide information about game events, like discovering new wreck ships, etc.
Players can inspect job details in a dedicated window and engage in a conversation with the job issuer in a mini-chat integrated to the mission.


 
You will also find Aphelia (NPC) missions that will provide new ways of making money. And, lastly, issuers can limit their missions to fellow org members only as a way to keep transactions and missions in-house.

HAULING MISSIONS

These come with formal guarantees on the rewards, collaterals, time, etc. It is tightly-coupled with the possibility to create sell orders so that you can express your intention to sell a good on a distant market and simultaneously create a transport mission to arrange transport of the goods to the said market.
The definition of a hauling mission includes:
 
Start/end point + indication if this is in PvP zone or not. Collateral (lost by the mission responder if the mission is not completed). Time limit. Reward.
The game enforces these, picking the rewards and putting collateral in escrow when the mission is created. The content of the mission is to be retrieved either from a “mission container” (a new type of container dedicated to hauling missions, think of it as a mailbox) or from a market container. It is then stored as a package with the content hidden for the mission responder. (Opening the package voids the mission and the collateral is paid.) The package can be retrieved or delivered by interacting directly with the associated container (via context-menu entries) or within a 2km range by using the controls on the interface.

Failing a mission can occur if:
 
The responder does not deliver within the given time frame (including if the package is destroyed). The package is opened by either the responder or someone else (i.e. pirates). The destruction of the destination container does not fail the mission. Instead, the mission responder can keep the package and open it without penalty; however, this means the mission cannot be completed anymore.
  CAVEAT EMPTOR

What is important to remember is that negotiations about rewards, or even the job description and purpose, are entirely declarative and non-binding. It is there as a statement, made clear with various warnings and “Are you sure?” windows.
 
There’s often an element of danger involved when doing business. For some, the lure of pulling one over on an unsuspecting stranger has an even larger allure than the money to be made. Sure, you can scam sweet, trusting little lambs for a time, but eventually you’ll be the one to pay the price. Both the Job Forum and the Mission system have the possibility to rate the interaction for the issuer and the responder. Scores between 0 and 5 are attached to players as responders or issuers of missions (both formal and jobs), which will help to identify and potentially weed out scammers.
 
YOUR FIRST MISSION STARTS HERE

Your mission now, should you choose to accept it, is to head over to this section of the forums to share your thoughts about this devblog. Which do you anticipate doing the most: creating missions, doing missions, or pirating missions?

Naunet running by with a quick edit for clarity: Element Destruction will be applied to all damages sustained, both in and outside of PvP battles.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Draw your weapons and get ready to shoot first! In today’s Dual Universe Dev Blog we will discuss an upcoming PvP feature: Element Destruction.
 
In its current iteration, the feature works rather simply. Once destroyed, an Element can be restored indefinitely. There is currently no way for a crafted Element to disappear from the game unless it’s done intentionally. This poses a problem in the dynamics of the economy. In the real world, most purchased goods will inevitably need to be replaced. This helps to fuel the economy by creating a steady demand of goods. And, as in the real world, Dual Universe relies on a strong supply and demand chain for its economy to thrive. 
 
To facilitate this, we’re making some changes to Elements that will not only give them value as a commodity on the Market but also add some exciting layers of strategy in how they are manufactured and used by discerning pilots who won’t settle for anything less than the best on their prized ships. 
 
Let’s take a closer look at the incoming changes.  
 
ELEMENTS DESTRUCTION
 
When an Element on your ship is damaged in combat, can go next to it and repair it using scrap. If destroyed, you can also restore it completely. The change we’re making will limit the number of times an Elements can be restored, i.e. three times for an Engine and five times for a Container. Once an Element has hit its maximum amount of restores, it is Destroyed and can’t be repaired anymore.
 
This will be less brutal than an immediate destruction, allowing you to manage a critical situation during combat, yet give you the opportunity to plan for a long-term replacement strategy as your restore counter is approaching the limit. Getting low on the restore counter for an engine? Swap it for a brand-new one at the next station. 
 
An Element which has been restored once or more will be allowed to be brought back into a player’s inventory, but  please keep the following points in mind:
This Element will be marked as a Modified Element. As such, it cannot be sold on Markets or used in Blueprints This Element can be bartered. Unlike certain other modified elements, the restoration count cannot be reset. The number of times an Element can be repaired depends solely on the nature of the Element.  
Note that this is a first step. We may introduce other forms of degradation in the future, possibly impacting Element performance. Another important thing to note is that when an Element of type “Container” is fully destroyed, everything it contains is destroyed as well. This includes all types of fuel and ammo. 
 
Tier 2+ Elements and Industry Units
To push this logic even further, we introduced the idea of a new class of elements with better stats, by extending some existing elements with variants into higher tiers. This will impact Engines, Weapons and Radars to start with, and we will also make a push for Containers and Control Units a bit later. 
 
In any real world industry, you have room for producers specializing in high-end products with better returns, or low-end products with higher volumes. This is what the addition of Tier 2+ Elements will bring to the table. We envision a future where Tier 2-5 engines will become the norm for performance-savvy players because of their better stats while Tier 1 will remain a commodity that is basically good enough for most players who don’t care about the stat boost. This adds variation to the gameplay and will certainly be a factor in PvP and efficiency-oriented logistic operations. 
 
Note that only Tier 2 Industry Units will be able to produce Tier 2 Elements, the same for Tier 3 and so forth. Industry Units of higher tiers will be considerably more expensive to produce and/or buy.
 
Element perma-destruction
A deployed Element that has been destroyed cannot be brought into the inventory. This Element is totally non-functional and can only be deleted or Replaced. 
 
When Replacing an element, all custom properties and settings are maintained. This action will consume an Element of the same type in the player’s active inventory, as it would do with an Element that was deployed standard. Of course, we will introduce a proper tool to replace your Elements to prevent the need for reconfiguration when you’re swapping in a fresh new one. This should help to create a healthy level of demand as PVP increasingly heats up across the Universe.  

Weapon limitation by core size, and better hit formula
Speaking of PVP, we want to address some imbalances in general around PvP. 
 
Several things are on the way to address this, some of which might affect your ship designs:
Limitation of weapon sizes based on the core size, no more L weapons strapped onto an XS core unit. Previously, the probability to hit another ship was based on the size of its core. From now on, that probability will use the surface of the ship that's visible from the view of the shooter as defined by the cross-section of the ship from that same point of view. In other words, the surface of the ship exposed to your weapons will matter and generate more damage. That way, building a borg cube will simply not be efficient and will expose you to greater damage risk.  Radar lock range unification: Instead of having each radar lock different core unit sizes at different ranges, every radar will now have a global lock range at which it locks all targets. Smaller radars will now lock at lower ranges, but retain their faster lock times while larger radars will lock slower but at greater distances. Unlike weapons, there will not be any further core-based restrictions on radar placement.  
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts about these changes. We appreciate your support and look to your constructive feedback to help us make Dual Universe the absolute best it can be. 
 


**Edit note: Clarified RESTORE vs REPAIR verbiage

Man guys, be real. They didnt expose a bug. They broke down a market including its link to the market system which was never intended to be deleted. They never reported, they only intended to break and remove. 

Hilarious would've been leave it intact but add something funny to it like a meme.

Hello Noveans!
 
We would like to thank you for your patience during the past few weeks as we have been incredibly focused on getting you all into the game. While we know there are still a few edge cases out there, we hope you’ve been enjoying your time in Dual Universe!
 
A burning topic is known bugs surrounding duping, and their exploitation. We’d like to offer some clarifications on this. 
 
We are aware of some bugs that were allowing players to dupe items and resources, and we are actively investigating  these. The process is however slow and labor intensive. Given how much time is involved, and how severe the outcome is, we want to make it clear that we are taking all exploits very seriously and they will carry heavy sanctions for abuse cases up to and including removal of player accounts and permanent bans.  
 
We have a zero tolerance policy towards cheating and exploiting, as is clearly laid out in our Code of Conduct.
 
For those who have encountered these bugs and already reported them, we thank you. There will be no sanctions on those accounts. We may balance gains if deemed necessary.  For those who have been knowingly abusing bugs, you have 48 hours to report your activities via a ticket here: support.dualthegame.com - your duped proceeds will be removed, but no further action will be taken. Please select Gameplay in the first form drop-down, select the “Rules & Policies” > “Exploits” category and use the subject “Self Report” For those who continue to exploit, and do not report it, your account will be banned without notice upon completion of our investigations.    
While every person has their own sense of fun, it is important to remember that this is an MMO and that rules must be enforced to keep play fair and even. 
We thank you for being a part of the Dual Universe  beta and for helping us keep the game fair and entertaining. 
 
Sincerely, 
The Novaquark Team

Before starting to read the Lore Bible, here are three things to keep in mind:
 
- Some names and acronyms (put between brackets) in the texts below are still temporary names/placeholders. The final names will be decided in the following days. The update will be announced on the forum and on the social media. We don't want to keep these names, for different reasons varying for each case. Once in its final version, it will be published on the Community Wiki hosted by Gamepedia in a more structured way.
 
- It was a difficult decision but we have to consider that some parts of the short story written by Alain Damasio will be modified or removed. We all agree in the team that Alain Damasio has made a short story of the highest quality, but this short story was written more than a year ago (July 2015) and at that time, too many points regarding the game universe were unclear or undecided. With all the recent additions to the Lore Bible (those released today publicly and those which remain hidden as "secrets" for the time being), it generated some inconsistencies difficult to solve. We tried to find solutions or workarounds, without success. Some points were also not possible to represent in-game, gameplay wise. While the short story will be updated in the near future to fit with the current Lore Bible, in the meantime here are the specific points from the short story you should not take into account when writing a Fan Fiction for Dual Universe (if you want it to be eligible for being integrated to the official backstory of the game, of course. If not, you are not bind to such limitation).
Unfortunately, Sohan Decker is not a member of the Alpha Team, as he woke up just a few weeks before the Arkship landing on Alioth and do not participate in the neural simulation that will take place more than a year and a half before the landing. Aphelia memory must have had a glitch when talking to Sohan for the first time. When approaching some Kyrium, the matter doesn't reflect human faces aging or growing younger. Sohan Decker has probably some hallucinations, a possible side-effect of the long cryogenic sleep. While probably convinced of it, Sohan Decker didn't communicate with an invisible entity by using elements and he didn't get some schematics of a high-performance reactor in Kyrium as a reward. The proof? When asked to show it, he's not able to find it anywhere! Poor Sohan. Probably another hallucination. Cryogenic sleep seems to have a lasting side effect on him.  
- The Novaquark might slightly change the Lore Bible over time, but we will try to keep those changes to a minimum, to ensure that it doesn't contradict fanfictions that have been already integrated to the official lore. These changes will occur mainly when an inconstancy is discovered in the official lore. And in this regard, we count on your feedback to track down every little detail that might seem inconsistent (some details may be awkward on purpose though ). As always, we remain open to your feedback on the Official Lore. Let us know what you think about it!
 
That being said... Happy reading!
 
 
  Dual Universe Lore     Dual Universe takes place about 10.000 years after the Grand Exodus when humanity left the Earth to establish itself in new star systems. The information below is meant to help answer the most common questions about the game environment and try to set the general framework where fan fiction can be written.     Main historical dates     2027: Discovery of the doomsday Neutron Star that is heading towards the Earth. Collision will happen in 498 years. There are margins of error, so we don’t yet know if it means annihilation or simply major disruption in the solar system’s planets, but the end result is the same: the Earth will not be able to host humanity anymore. The event is nicknamed the [“Star Kiss of Death”], or [SKiD]. It’s basically the Armageddon.   2049: Creation of the United Earth Federation (UEF), a transnational institution in charge of coordinating humanity’s efforts and response to the SKiD. After concluding there was no hope to save Earth, the “Rebirth Program” is launched to analyze possible responses and escape strategies. New measures are voted to encourage natality in the population, to fight against a nihilist movement that advocates a “no future” philosophy and maintain a sufficient level of humans in the long run to fuel the Rebirth Project’s considerable needs.   2084: Better measurements have narrowed the margin of error. We are now certain that the neutron star will hit our solar system, and will actually collide with the Sun, turning into a black hole that will ultimately swallow or eject into deep space all the planets, Earth included. There is no hope anymore. Major funding is directed towards the Rebirth Program. All nation states must contribute at least 20% of their resources   2100: Mankind is entering a new era where robotics and AI have profoundly transformed society. Work as we know it has long disappeared, and social influence has replaced money as the currency of value. People do not “work” anymore, they have “activities” that can get them socially recognized. Money is still used, via a Universal Revenue, mainly as a way to control the scarcity in production, and balance the availability of goods against their rarity.   2130: AI have reached a threshold of global sentience. It is active in political, economic and social debates, and, while its benefits are recognized because it allowed the transition to the post-work era, more and more concern is raised about the sentient aspect and the potentially uncontrollable dimension of the AI agenda. Irrational fear rises. The AIs try to reassure the population that they have no rational reason to threaten humanity, but it only increases the level of suspicion within society.   2145: Massive rebellions all around the world signals the end of sentient AI, introducing a permanent universal ban on this technology, enforced by the very powerful UEF. Against all expectations, sentient AIs accept this and willingly shut down without any form of violent action.   2150: Society is reorganizing itself, as many “jobs” that needed sentient-level AI (surprisingly many, including low skill manual work), are once again left to humans to perform. Robots, in general, are banned also, as most of them required sentient-level AI to function properly. Early attempts at designing automated non-sentient robots all failed in the late 21st century, as it was discovered that sentience was a necessary byproduct of any sufficiently sophisticated AI for it to be able to interact with a complex world.   2200: A major summit of the UEF signals the alarming lack of progress on project Rebirth at the dawn of the 23rd century. Debates continue for years afterward about priorities, what technology to use to build Arkships that could help evacuate Earth, who would be eligible if we cannot host the 3 billion people still in the current population.   2200-2400: Major political events keep slowing down humanity and the UEF in its attempts to advance the technologies needed to build functional Arkships. Many wars, economic crisis, and nihilist terrorism are plaguing the progress.     2400: A period of calm and peace opens up. Major progress is suddenly made in the technologies needed to build the Arkships. Some are scheduled to be built within the next decade.   2440: Several key technologies are unlocked: cryosleep modules, nanoforming technology, nanopack condensers, resurrection nodes (it is unfortunately too late to use this to save humanity, as we would need to install billions of them out of the solar system, on a hospitable planet. There is not enough time for this).   2450: The Arkship technology is now mastered. Mass production begins. The race is on to produce as many as possible.   2500: Terrifying high-resolution images of the neutron star are provided by our most powerful telescopes. Riots break out all around the world over the selection process that dictates who gets to board the Arkships. The process was created by a scientific committee from the UEF, aimed at gathering the maximal amount of genetic diversity, plus a lottery to offset the fact that not everybody could go. Massive euthanasia programs were organized for those who had to stay, in order to provide them with a painless death at the time of their choosing.   2510-2536: The first Arkships leave Earth. Each Arkship is heading towards a particular part of the galaxy. One of them, the Novark, is heading towards the Scutum-Centaurus arm.   2538: The neutron star annihilates the solar system. Arkships are on their way, heading towards different regions of the galaxy.   12477: The Novark arrives on Alioth with a mighty thud as it deploys itself into the planet surface. From afar the planet shows many similarities to that of Earth, a blue and green marble sitting in the goldilocks zone of its star. Large continents surrounded by equally large oceans define the planet's appearance. Mountain ranges suggest continental drift, and large forests have taken hold over most of the planet. Primitive lifeforms are abundant. There are no obvious signs of advanced lifeforms.   Year 0 after arrival (0 AA): It will be your turn to write History in-game.     The world in 2500     In the century that preceded the Grand Exodus, the Earth’s population had dropped considerably, down to something less than 1 billion people. The “no future” movement had gained a considerable momentum. people were simply trying to tend to their immediate needs; losing any vision for the future or any concern for the consequences of their actions. Natality had dropped to an all-time low, crime had been continuously rising, and nation-states, as we know them, had long disappeared.    The UEF was the last large-scale social structure still holding, among a myriad of medium to small sized city-states. UEF representatives and offices, research centers, production units, etc, were scattered all around the world within the largest city-states. The UEF’s role now extended far beyond its initial goals, including a feared and powerful armed force to maintain order and ensure that the proper funding was collected from all city-states, in order to fuel the Rebirth Program.   A global language shared by all people on the planet started to emerge at the end of the 21st century. By the end of the 22nd century, almost everyone was speaking at least two languages: the global language (the “common”) and their local native language, each city-state having somehow evolved a variant from their original country’s language.     Economy     During the first half of the 21st century, the Internet quickly decentralized the economy, removing intermediaries and frictions. Anyone was able to open their own marketplace online, with powerful central aggregators to help integrate available offers. This was both true of goods and services. This highly distributed model of economy stood the test of time, both during the sentient AI era, and even after, up until the last century.   One of the main challenges of the last century, after the city-states model had become the norm, was logistics. Transporting goods over long distances carried the risk of being attacked by pirate hordes living outside of the city-states. The UEF and other independent security groups were in charge of ensuring protection, but still, the risk made inter-city trade dangerous, and local markets were the preferred method for basic commerce.   A global currency, the [U2] [(Universal Unit)], is installed by the UEF at the beginning of the 22nd century. It has acquired a growing support over the years and is still used as a reference currency on Alioth to help organize the exchanges of goods and services between colonists.     Culture & Society     At the moment of the Grand Exodus, humanity, and more precisely the UEF, was divided into four main political movements, essentially different from each other in the way they decided to answer one simple fundamental question: what is the main driving force in the development of humanity? Behind this question lies the promise of a political agenda on how to best rebuild civilization after the Grand Exodus and where to put priorities.   The [Luminous] are the first group. They consider the main driving force to be knowledge and wisdom. They value science, industry, and technology as the main sources of progress, and were heavily involved in the Rebirth Program, which led to the construction of the Arkships. They are, of course, very much respected for this even if some may criticize them for their all too rational take on things.   The Alphas are the second group. For them, the main driving force is, well, … force. They believe that people will respond mostly to strength and balance of power. They favor military action as a way to control and orient the evolution of the world in an attempt to avoid chaos and prevent instability. Their intentions are good, but they often fall to scandals involved with their expeditious way of handling subtle situations.   The [Ethereans] constitute the third group. They believe in the power of culture and arts. For them, humanity needs to be driven by dreams, beauty, and ideals before anything else. This is what gives us meaning. They are not against more practical endeavors but like to see these activities as a way to expand and support their vision. They have many supporters but are also often criticized for their lack of pragmatic action.   The [Emporium] is the final group. They believe in the power of money and commerce. They think that this has been the life and blood of human societies for millennia and, even if they will gladly regret it in private, they think this is nevertheless what gets the job done and can really set people in motion. Some point to them as a cause of an ever greater inequality, but they know how to silence critics and make people happy.   None of these movements are inherently good or bad, they all value human life and sincerely want to help drive humanity to success again.     Science & Technology     After the early 2400 years, science and technology suddenly advanced very rapidly. Incredible innovation occurred, becoming the foundation of the industrial, societal and economical program of Project Rebirth. Here are some of the most prominent breakthrough:   Nano fields: an expected advance in theoretical physics led to the discovery of a new force in nature, called the nano force due to its scale, that allows the fine control of the molecular dynamics of matter with incredible precision using high-frequency nano fields. Nano fields can be focused and modulated in a very precise way to destructure, collect or deploy and assemble matter in a short range radius. This is the core technology that gave birth to the nanoformer that every colonist is now equipped with.   Calabi-Yau Compactification: the science behind CYC has been inexplicably lost in the Arkship archives. It is the technology that powers nanopacks, which are extra small containers (that colonists wear on their suit), capable of amazing volume and weight reductions of almost anything contained in them. All we know is that it seems to work based on the possibility of storing matter within the extra dimensions of space-time allowed by String Theory, inside what is called the Calabi-Yau space. The exact science and understanding behind them have been lost and attempts at reverse engineering have all failed. Due to the limited number of Nanopacks available and their considerable value, further attempts to reverse engineer them are discouraged.   Nano fields displacement: this is a direct application of nano fields, used to collect, store and maintain matter within containers. The matter constituting objects is analyzed and de-structured first then stored using stable nano fields and can then be retrieved later via a reverse process that reconstructs the original object. Unlike with CYC, only limited volume gain can be obtained, and no weight reduction is possible.   Nano 3D printing: based again on the versatile nano fields, advanced 3D printers became possible. They are capable to assemble matter from reservoir sources to build small sized technological parts; from electronic to industrial units. Coupled to the automated assembly, this quickly became the basis of the industrial chain.   Quantum branching: Quantum Branching is at the heart of the Resurrection Node technology and is based on the “Many Worlds Interpretation” of quantum mechanics. At any moment, in particular, when you die violently, several versions of the universe coexist in parallel. Scientists working on EPR pair experiments unexpectedly found a way to instantly switch one universe with another, and in particular to switch the universe where you die with another one where everything would be exactly the same, except that your body position would be inside a Resurrection Node. The amount of matter to switch increases the energy cost of the operation, so RN teleport only the minimal set of mass to get the desired effect, which is... your naked body. A Resurrection Node is paired with your body and cannot be used by somebody else. It will make you virtually immortal, even if natural aging will probably get you out of the loop at some point.   Propulsion Engines: the conquest and exploration of the arrival star system, as well as nearby other stars, is a clear objective of the UEF for each arkship colony. Several engine technologies have been perfected as part of the Rebirth Program to allow for various flight modes, either within the atmosphere or in space. Warp drive technology was near completion and should become available a few years after the arrival, and even stargate instant transport has been sketched as a not too distant possibility but was unfortunately still not available at the time of the Grand Exodus. Warp drive speed is believed to be in the range of 100 times the speed of light, while super warp probes, that could be used to seed stargates, could reach up to 10.000 times the speed of light Making it possible to cross the entire galaxy in just 10 years.      Environment & Alioth     Alioth is a rocky planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star, very similar to the Sun. It has been selected due to its very similar Earth-like environment, including oceans, forests, mountains, and lakes. It has a moderate fauna and flora. The temperature during the day is similar to what can be found on Earth, but nights can be extremely cold.   The planet underground contains all the usual materials needed for basic industry, but more rare resources may have to be later harvested from one of Alioth’s three moons, or even from more distant planets in the system.   The planet day/night cycle is only 5 hours, and its weather pattern is relatively stable. Overall, Alioth is a very life-friendly planet, carefully chosen to facilitate the starting years of colonists.     The Arkship     The Arkships are a marvel of technology. They can host millions of people in cryosleep for extended periods of time. Made out of Kyrium, they can sustain incredible amounts of deceleration or acceleration, and absorb the corresponding crushing forces for whatever stand inside them. The origin of Kyrium is not well documented, and it seems that the material cannot be produced from a known industrial process, but has probably been found during some mining operations within the solar system.   Designed to travel close to the speed of light for extended periods, the Arkship engines are also not part of the colonist UEF documentation and no assembly schema could be found within the archives. There is much debate over why the UEF would intentionally withdraw such potentially useful information.    Each Arkship is controlled by a proto-sentient AI that was allowed to be built against the very strong UEF AI ban because it was argued that it would have been to hazardous to let the fate of humanity rest with dumb automatic machinery that would possibly not be able to react to unexpected situations. While being an exception to the AI ban rule, the onboard AI is still however not allowed to take control of any machinery or robot beside the Arkship itself. The Novark AI is called “Aphelia”.   Once on approach to the destination planet, the Arkship is designed to literally “plant” itself into the planet, to allow the deployment of deep geothermal energy collectors that should sustain the ship functions for potentially unlimited amounts of time. One of the key functions of the ship once arrived, is to deploy a 20km radius safe zone area where colonist would be free from any form of aggression from the outside, or… from themselves. It was indeed decided that the potentially violent nature of mankind under stressful situations should be mitigated with appropriate supervision. Within the safe zone, Aphelia is in charge of maintaining order and providing support and information to colonists.   Regrettably, one known consequence of prolonged cryosleep periods is that the subject will suffer from a loss of episodic memory, as well as most high-level cognitive memory like expertise, skills or know-how. To mitigate this side-effect, the Arkship archive contains large data banks that are transferable to colonists via a wireless data transfer process involving brain implants capable of stimulating neural activity. The process is slow and can take days for the most advanced skills, but is an effective way to re-enable lost knowledge for long time space travelers.   The Arkship extreme energy efficiency, designed to allow the ship to travel for millennia, forced trade-offs on what could be embarked in order to minimize the total mass, and of course, human bodies were preferred over any other “mass”. For this reason, and because nano 3D printing would make it possible to easily rebuild them, no ship or industrial machine was included inside the Arkships’ cargo. Humanity would have to rebuild civilization from scratch. A large set of Resurrection Nodes tuned to each registered colonist where however installed inside the Arkship to avoid any loss of precious life once arrived on the destination planet. For these reasons, the inside of the Arkship, besides the propulsion machinery, is mostly occupied by cryosleep pods, as well as Resurrection Nodes.     Alpha Team     While most of the Arkship passengers will wake up after the Arkship landing, a few thousand among them become half awakened between a few years and a few weeks before the arrival: the Alpha Team. While their bodies are still asleep, their brains are awakened and connected to an advanced neural/computer network that immerses them collectively within a virtual reality that is meant to simulate their first steps on the destination planet, for education and testing purposes.   During this simulation, of course, nobody can die (this represents the Alpha phase in-game). They are given easier access to certain resources in order to help them experience various stages of the tasks they will have to face in real life when arrived. The Alpha Team will then be in charge of guiding newcomers and helping to bootstrap the first months of civilization rebuilding on the destination planet.     Mysteries     The cryosleep memory loss side effect and the apparently incomplete archive has given birth to several mysteries for which colonists have developed many “theories”:   Kyrium is an absolute mystery. Nothing is available in the Arkship archives about its nature, how it was found, how to create it or even manipulate it. No colonist have the slightest memory about the Kyrium. If Aphelia is asked for information on Kyrium, the Novark’s AI will just give an elusive answer, explaining its lack of information as memory loss. Obviously, this is not a satisfying answer.
  Aphelia is in charge of the Novark and the well-being of all the passengers. She seems as caring as invasive in the private life of the colonists. While she doesn’t seem brutal, hostile or coercive by default, her behavior is perceived as if she monitors every action of each human that has been aboard the Novark. She also seems to avoid disclosing information on some specific topics - at least that’s the feeling of some passengers - despite the fact she always says if she doesn’t give a satisfying answer, it’s because the answer is beyond its capabilities. For these two reasons, many colonists think the AI is not trustworthy. Aphelia seems to have incredible defenses against hacking, far higher than anything the most experienced colonists in hacking have ever seen, reinforcing the feeling that the AI might hide a lot of things. The Arkship light speed engine is completely undocumented. No schema is available to rebuild one using 3D nano-printing, or by any other means.
  There seems to be no trace of the records pointing to the destination of the other Arkships within the galaxy.  
 
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team

Territory Control And Warfare

A vision of how Territory warfare could exist in Dual Universe

Preface
    Territory in Dual Universe can be claimed, but to simply claim territory that can be quickly mined out is not sufficient with how large planets are in Dual Universe and how expensive Territory Control Units could be. In this post I will outline a system that would encourage players to build and maintain territory units in a fair manner without requiring millions of people to be playing the game while being able to scale to millions of people playing the game.
 
Expanding Territory Units
    The first concept I would like to introduce is the idea of territory units being able to expand to adjacent hexes. The Planets are very big and having 100s if not 1000s of TCUs to defend is bad gameplay for such a small territory. In this concept, a territory unit when placed would cover one hex, then if the territory unit was fueled it would over an amount of time expand to nearby hexes to either some limit, or no limit (more on that later). This makes TCUs more valuable to protect as the loss of one TCU could result in the loss of multiple hexes of territory, also making them a better target for the sake of territory warfare. 
 
What if expanding territory unit had no limit on radius?
    Lets say for instance you allowed any TCU with enough time and fuel to expand across the entire world. This is obviously in of itself not a viable solution and we need a new concept to balance it out. A concept called Claim Strength. The idea of claim strength is that a claim is strongest in close proximity to the claim and decreases as you get further away from the tcu. Starting at 1.0, then to 0.9, and eventually down to 0.001 at the extreme ranges. Then we restrict functions of the RDMS system to claim strength. For instance, in order to prevent PvP in your territory say you need that particular Hex to have a claim strength of 0.5 or greater, outside of that you still own the territory, but are not able to restrict pvp. Then we say that anyone can place a new TCU anywhere that has less than 0.1 claim strength. This would mean while you could, undisturbed take an entire planet with one TCU, it would be a very bad idea. Not only is there a single point of failure that would cost you the entire planet, but anyone can place new tcus down that challenge your control.
    Furthermore the more territory they control the more fuel they will take up, reducing in efficiency, thus each TCU has an optimal range. This also opens up the possibility of different TCU's with greats claim strengths that can push out further.

Planetary Ownership
    Finally there is the concept of Planetary ownership which could yield its own benefits to whoever controls the most Hexs on a planet. The majority controller of the planet get's their organization's name on it on the map. and perhaps other low level RDMS benefits or resource benefits.

The overall idea is that the more land that we can claim the faster territory warfare can be in the game, and thanks to Claim strength in the beginning anyone who can build a TCU can join in claiming territory. This adds to the value of attacking Tcu's that are taking up too much territory without completely forcing everyone under someone else's rules in rdms.

Dear Community Members,
 
We have some very exciting news to share. Many of you who have been here for a long time probably already know Yamamushi. As one of the co-founders of the official community Discord and an early Kickstarter backer, Yamamushi has been around as a very active and well known community member for almost 4 years now. 
 
We are excited to have him joining the team. With him coming on board, a few important things are going to change and we wanted to be transparent about this with you all.  We have always valued neutrality for our employees and we try to avoid any conflict of interests. Like all other employees he is bound to some important communication restrictions. Yamamushi must discontinue being a community figure while he is employed with Novaquark. This means stepping down as a moderator on Discord and our public forums, while retaining some limited administrative rights (precisely to maintain the DU Bot). He is also bound by an internal NDA contract and won’t be able to share everything as a Novaquark employee. For those who are friends with him, we ask you to avoid attempting to get behind-the-scene information from him, regarding the game or the company. 
 
He won’t be able to communicate or play anymore as Yamamushi, but his love for the community is strong and he will continue to follow the community from the Dev side. He will also not be permitted to be a part of a player-run organization. We know this can be hard to face for such an integral part of our community and this has been a hard decision that may feel frustrating (at least it is for us and for him) but a necessary step to avoid any suspicion of favorizing any group of players in the community.
 
We would also like to take this opportunity to explain what are our internal rules when a member of our community becomes a Novaquark employee:
 
His/her personal accounts are suspended for the time he/she is a Novaquark employee.
  He/she is given an anonymous player account so he/she could still continue to play the game, however, some specific rules apply to such an account:
  a. The Novaquark employee behind should not reveal his/her real identity and/or he’s part of the company. 
  b. He/she shouldn’t join a player-run organization with this account either, for neutrality reasons.
  He/she is given a NQ account, mostly to test things, and occasionally to communicate with the community in-game (if such opportunity arises). Nothing done on this account (coming usually with more powers/rights than a player account) will be transferred on any personal account.
  Thank you for taking the time to read this, please join us in welcoming Yamamushi to the team here!
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

Hello !
Landmark builder here. I've pledged DU a year ago but I'm only starting now to play/test it seriously.
I played Landmark at the beginning and stopped when it was obvious that the game was going to be abandonned (just before water implementation).
Maybe there is some people of my former guild "La Forge", around there

My most "famous" build was this one :

Full album : https://imgur.com/a/C1DHr

Hello !
Landmark builder here. I've pledged DU a year ago but I'm only starting now to play/test it seriously.
I played Landmark at the beginning and stopped when it was obvious that the game was going to be abandonned (just before water implementation).
Maybe there is some people of my former guild "La Forge", around there

My most "famous" build was this one :

Full album : https://imgur.com/a/C1DHr

Hello !
Landmark builder here. I've pledged DU a year ago but I'm only starting now to play/test it seriously.
I played Landmark at the beginning and stopped when it was obvious that the game was going to be abandonned (just before water implementation).
Maybe there is some people of my former guild "La Forge", around there

My most "famous" build was this one :

Full album : https://imgur.com/a/C1DHr