Velenka

So I have been wondering about wreckage. It seems clear that battles are going to take place, so it's very probable that wreckage will be left behind. Wreckage that perhaps the previous owner will come to reclaim, but perhaps not.
How will salvaging wreckage work? It should be balanced enough that either the salvage shop or the previous owner will have a fair chance to claim it.

So here is my suggestion. Whoever wishes to salvage the wreckage will have to "claim" it. The wreckage will remain in a "claiming" state for X amount of time. After that, all rights within the wreckage will transfer to the claiming player. Should another player interrupt the claim with a competing claim, the countdown will restart with a new claim in the name of the interrupting player. The amount of time X would depend on the amount of voxels in the construct: bigger constructs take longer to claim.

This shouldn't be limited to wreckage. An abandoned, but functional construct should be a valid target for a claiming system. It's a naval tradition. You found it first, crew's gone or dead, so it's yours.

This would allow for interesting interactions. Either the two opposing players could sit next to the wreckage, claiming it back and forth until one player loses patience and abandons the wreck. One player could initiate combat to either scare away or kill the other player.

But what about abusing this claiming system on an occupied or fully functional construct? The owners/right-holders could put an anti-claim on the construct for Y time that prevents claims from finishing, starting, or continuing.

"But what about griefers abusing this system too?" Well first, it should only work outside the Arkship safety area. Second, claiming should have to be done in very close proximity to the construct. Third, the entire construct should glow or do something to let anyone in the surroundings know that it's being claimed. Fourth, if you don't want to be bothered, weapons are ideal. Constructs that aren't protected are easy targets.

While on the topic of wreckage, wrecks tend to be adrift. So what about some sort of tractor beam device and/or a magnetic harpoon which would allow wreckage to be towed out of dangerous areas. Other things could be towed too, like mostly intact ships with missing thrusters, or a modular piece of construction for a space station. A towing mechanism would go hand in hand with the role of a salvage yard.

There's also the issue of servers and load. A huge wreck after a big battle might leave wrecks and pieces floating everywhere, so after a certain time, the server should delete them. It should be a fairly long timer to allow players to recover/salvage what's left.

But this presents the problem of what is a wreckage and what isn't? It might be easy to say as a human, but not so much for a server. An abandoned or unpowered ship might simply be awaiting repairs in the shipyard. Or a strangely shaped construct might be doing what it was intended to do. Or a base might just be so simple that it has no elements to speak of. A completely functional ship could be treated as garbage if the owner decided to quit playing the game and leave it floating in space.

So what do you guys think?

I don't know if any of you have played Artemis, but if you haven't, you should look into how that plays out.

Sure the different Elements will provide different controls and such. It would be relatively possible for a single person to maneuver a ship. But when you factor in sensors, movement, defenses, offenses, etc etc, there simple isn't enough WAYS a player can operate it singly.

Having specific stations for people with devoted screens with the fine details of that section, so Weapons control, Communications control, engineering, maneuvering, And maybe all the inputs feeding up to a captain who only sees the bigger picture indications and relies on his crew to do their job. This would be the best ship. The Outlaw Star of the galaxy. Multi-manned ships will begin to easily out perform single manned ships, even with advancements in AI control.

This will start the break down of the different classes of ship. There could be large single man frigates, multi-manned destroyers, etc. Dual-piloted fighters that have a pilot and a gunner so that one focuses on dodging and positioning while the other focuses on aiming and countermeasures.

...I sorta like Dual Universe a lot now.

^ this x 1000. I'm all for naturally emergent gameplay here. Especially when we can be more creative.

But also, just because LUA is the coding engine you can write your bot script in, doesn't mean the API it has access to will be as all encompassing, as some have mentioned to a degree.

My thoughts go to modded Minecraft and the ComputerCraft mod. You had a 'Turtle' miner that you could program and there were rudimentary programs for movement and excavation, but this still required user input eventually both in the addition of more fuel as the process went on and in emptying the ever filling drop inventory.

I do appreciate games that reward creativity and design. If you can design cleverly a way to automate mining through the use of the tools you have but it took effort and materials and design, Why not let them have it?

The argument of it will destroy the economy is an interesting one, but inflation and prices will go as they go. Iron will be useful to build. So even though miners flood the market wastefully with iron, there are those that will buy it up at its cheaper price because they are trying to build a spacestation, or a new player trying to build out their first ship. Who hasn't been on WoW and seen someone flood the market with leathers only to buy them all up and resell them at a higher price? The market will adjust and people will do what they will to make money.

If mining iron no longer becomes profitable, how do they pay to keep the lights on? They'll have to modify and adapt their designs to mine other things, survive on other things. Then iron will go lapse again as another space station or capitol ship is build that destroys the market stock.

I'm not arguing for no moderation, but I don't believe we should limit ingenuity because some people could potentially make autonomous mining bots which can also be hunted for scrap since they don't have a human in them and can be easily fought since they are just following a code. I'm arguing that the same API that could provide mindless mining drones could also provide an unknown host of well thought out and never before seen creative robotics that make you just say, "wow.. I had no idea that was possible with this game." And those moments are not cheaply bought.

A recent theory circulating around the scientific community in regards to space travel is the use of light as a propulsion method to reach great speeds (around 30% the speed of light). What if in-game we could create light/laser stations to propel lightweight space crafts within a closed system of planets. This could create a kind of interplanetary highway if you will and be a method of transportation while subsequently becoming the centerpiece of the economy within a planetary system. 

Batch slection should be a thing, but depends how the collision physics work in the game. Just because the frame is made out of aluminum it doesn't mean the ship is faster. Cause, you know, aluminum is not steel. Different properties. But I can see creating a frame out of steel, or titanium, and then making a Mark I model hull made out of wood, then replacing the wood with aluminum, or what have you. So yeah, let's petition for a mechanism similar to "Color to Alpha" method used in GIMP for editing textures. But that would also require pre-planning on your part and not freestyle modeling the ship. You would have to keep track of what you put where.

On top of that, it would be great if we could target certain points on an enemy construct. Something like a clip in ST: Nemesis (1:08:27 or so) you see Data selecting targets on the Scimitar. For example, I see their huge engines at the rear, so I target those to prevent their escape. Or I see that they have a large, windowed section on top of their ship, so I target that, thinking it's the bridge. Or I could take a guess at where their reactor is, so I target that.
 
This would give rise to a "Tactical" station where the crewman at tactical relays coordinates to the turrets rather than having them shoot at the centroid of the enemy construct by default.

i would say use planets like these as a basis for biomes. Implement planets with several of the biomes, as in Minecraft. (using only compatible biomes ofc)

I always find these discussions interesting because the reality always falls short of the idea.  While technically everything posted so far is correct, logically it is also wrong.   And before everybody blows up on me.  Let me explain.  
 
Antimatter is a tricky subject because it tends to be used as a catchall term.  There are many different kinds of antimatter and they all behave differently.  
First off what kind of antimatter are we talking about?  Positrons and antiprotons?  You can trap them with something called a 'Penning trap' and no cooling is needed because sub-atomic particles can't be condensed anyway.  There is no such thing as 'liquid' electricity for instance.  But these very reasons also mean I could never contain a lot of free antimatter sub-atomic particles.
 
Superconductors make the transfer of energy more efficient, not the storage.  Storage is easy.  If sub-atomic particles have little to no place to go they just won't go anywhere.
 
Antihydrogen?  Since they are neutrally charged you need a 'Loffe trap'.  It's basically a magnetic 'bowl' with antihydrogen rolling towards the center.  I could cool this and condense it into liquid.  Largely pointless by that point, it just saves space and in a vacuum, only the total mass and inertia of an object counts towards movement, not its volume. (I reserve judgement for its use in atmosphere.)
 
Neutrinos?  Have no charge (and almost no mass) at all so no anti-particles.  Or theoretically, are both particles AND anti-particles.  Wrap your head around that one.
 
Though the energy output of 1 kilogram of antimatter is equal to roughly 43 MEGATONS of TNT, (just short of the largest nuke ever set off) it is achieved through annihilation meaning that most of the energy given off is photonic in nature and isn't as usable.  Positrons give off mostly gamma rays when annihilated for instance.  Dangerous to be sure but not directly useful for propulsion.  Antiproton annihilation happens unequally producing mesons that further degrade into gamma rays, electrons, positrons, and neutrinos.  Once again dangerous as hell but less useful for direct propulsion.
 
When scientists talk about its applications for space propulsion they are talking about two different methods.  The first, setting off an antimatter reaction in certain isotopes (high-grade uranium for instance) makes a nuclear reaction more efficient and by extension more powerful.  For this application, you don't need a lot of antimatter to do it. So gathering what little antimatter is captured by a planet's magnetic field (called Van Allen radiation belts) now becomes feasible and one no longer has to spend a million billion (not an exaggeration) dollars to produce a single gram of antimatter artificially.  But this is not the type of reaction you use for power or propulsion.  THIS IS A BOMB!
 
The second is the annihilation of protons and antiprotons.  Most of the energy once again is photonic (gamma rays) but some (a relatively small amount) of the particles that come about due to the unequal annihilation will be in the form of mesons.  Some of these particles (another relatively small amount) hold a charge that can be deflected magnetically and can provide propulsion.  However as mentioned above I can never contain any large quantity of antiprotons so this method is slow and inefficient.  It is relatively easy to gather what you need as you fly through space however and therefore, ideal for lightweight long-range space missions where time is less of a factor.
 
 
P.S.  I am so sorry I went into teacher mode.

Where I can apply?
 
But seriously, I think that statement will sum up topic nicely - no slave mechanic, just leave it to willing people interaction

IF we are to add misconceived science in a game, I want EM drives powered by singing good sir. It would work with my proposal of Ship Shanties in the game.

You guys are getting too bogged down in real science here. This is a game. It doesn't have to satisfy real science, otherwise, this game would take place on Earth with current 2016 technologies. The point here is that it's fun and entertaining, not accurate.
 
Zero point energy may in reality be unfeasible, but I would want that in the game anyway. Cold fusion might be unfeasible, but we can have that too. Recall from the short story that we may be using magic maple syrup to power our ships.

^ this
 
Perhaps, but trying to eliminate freeform travel by justifying it with real scientific claims isn't the way to do it. And I don't see very good scientific claims either. No reason an Alcubierre drive has to leave from a certain place, no reason that expanded space behind you would decimate a planet. So much of it is theoretical anyway.
 
Elminating free-form travel would also impinge on the free nature of a sandbox game. Imagine if you couldn't leave a village's gravel path in MC. It's far too limiting.
 
 
^ this and sensor nets maybe patrols too. Borders shouldn't be absolutely impossible to cross, and only as strong as the force that the organization which established them can bring to bear.

Hi.
I have a quick question about the building process. I play a lot of Space Engineers and in the creative mode where you can free build there is symmetry mode where you can create plains on the grid to mimic what you're doing on one side of the grid on the other side. Is there going to be something like that in game or at least in the, what did you call it, Simulation Mode of the game?
 
Thanks

i would say use planets like these as a basis for biomes. Implement planets with several of the biomes, as in Minecraft. (using only compatible biomes ofc)

Will there be a short list of planet types like this?
 

So I have been wondering about wreckage. It seems clear that battles are going to take place, so it's very probable that wreckage will be left behind. Wreckage that perhaps the previous owner will come to reclaim, but perhaps not.
How will salvaging wreckage work? It should be balanced enough that either the salvage shop or the previous owner will have a fair chance to claim it.

So here is my suggestion. Whoever wishes to salvage the wreckage will have to "claim" it. The wreckage will remain in a "claiming" state for X amount of time. After that, all rights within the wreckage will transfer to the claiming player. Should another player interrupt the claim with a competing claim, the countdown will restart with a new claim in the name of the interrupting player. The amount of time X would depend on the amount of voxels in the construct: bigger constructs take longer to claim.

This shouldn't be limited to wreckage. An abandoned, but functional construct should be a valid target for a claiming system. It's a naval tradition. You found it first, crew's gone or dead, so it's yours.

This would allow for interesting interactions. Either the two opposing players could sit next to the wreckage, claiming it back and forth until one player loses patience and abandons the wreck. One player could initiate combat to either scare away or kill the other player.

But what about abusing this claiming system on an occupied or fully functional construct? The owners/right-holders could put an anti-claim on the construct for Y time that prevents claims from finishing, starting, or continuing.

"But what about griefers abusing this system too?" Well first, it should only work outside the Arkship safety area. Second, claiming should have to be done in very close proximity to the construct. Third, the entire construct should glow or do something to let anyone in the surroundings know that it's being claimed. Fourth, if you don't want to be bothered, weapons are ideal. Constructs that aren't protected are easy targets.

While on the topic of wreckage, wrecks tend to be adrift. So what about some sort of tractor beam device and/or a magnetic harpoon which would allow wreckage to be towed out of dangerous areas. Other things could be towed too, like mostly intact ships with missing thrusters, or a modular piece of construction for a space station. A towing mechanism would go hand in hand with the role of a salvage yard.

There's also the issue of servers and load. A huge wreck after a big battle might leave wrecks and pieces floating everywhere, so after a certain time, the server should delete them. It should be a fairly long timer to allow players to recover/salvage what's left.

But this presents the problem of what is a wreckage and what isn't? It might be easy to say as a human, but not so much for a server. An abandoned or unpowered ship might simply be awaiting repairs in the shipyard. Or a strangely shaped construct might be doing what it was intended to do. Or a base might just be so simple that it has no elements to speak of. A completely functional ship could be treated as garbage if the owner decided to quit playing the game and leave it floating in space.

So what do you guys think?

So I have been wondering about wreckage. It seems clear that battles are going to take place, so it's very probable that wreckage will be left behind. Wreckage that perhaps the previous owner will come to reclaim, but perhaps not.
How will salvaging wreckage work? It should be balanced enough that either the salvage shop or the previous owner will have a fair chance to claim it.

So here is my suggestion. Whoever wishes to salvage the wreckage will have to "claim" it. The wreckage will remain in a "claiming" state for X amount of time. After that, all rights within the wreckage will transfer to the claiming player. Should another player interrupt the claim with a competing claim, the countdown will restart with a new claim in the name of the interrupting player. The amount of time X would depend on the amount of voxels in the construct: bigger constructs take longer to claim.

This shouldn't be limited to wreckage. An abandoned, but functional construct should be a valid target for a claiming system. It's a naval tradition. You found it first, crew's gone or dead, so it's yours.

This would allow for interesting interactions. Either the two opposing players could sit next to the wreckage, claiming it back and forth until one player loses patience and abandons the wreck. One player could initiate combat to either scare away or kill the other player.

But what about abusing this claiming system on an occupied or fully functional construct? The owners/right-holders could put an anti-claim on the construct for Y time that prevents claims from finishing, starting, or continuing.

"But what about griefers abusing this system too?" Well first, it should only work outside the Arkship safety area. Second, claiming should have to be done in very close proximity to the construct. Third, the entire construct should glow or do something to let anyone in the surroundings know that it's being claimed. Fourth, if you don't want to be bothered, weapons are ideal. Constructs that aren't protected are easy targets.

While on the topic of wreckage, wrecks tend to be adrift. So what about some sort of tractor beam device and/or a magnetic harpoon which would allow wreckage to be towed out of dangerous areas. Other things could be towed too, like mostly intact ships with missing thrusters, or a modular piece of construction for a space station. A towing mechanism would go hand in hand with the role of a salvage yard.

There's also the issue of servers and load. A huge wreck after a big battle might leave wrecks and pieces floating everywhere, so after a certain time, the server should delete them. It should be a fairly long timer to allow players to recover/salvage what's left.

But this presents the problem of what is a wreckage and what isn't? It might be easy to say as a human, but not so much for a server. An abandoned or unpowered ship might simply be awaiting repairs in the shipyard. Or a strangely shaped construct might be doing what it was intended to do. Or a base might just be so simple that it has no elements to speak of. A completely functional ship could be treated as garbage if the owner decided to quit playing the game and leave it floating in space.

So what do you guys think?

I much prefer this kind of hostage interaction. Natural and simplistic.
No drugs.
No handcuffs.
No permanent debuffs.

I think people are seeing this situation entirely backwards. Stargates wouldn't be used to separate from the emergent gameplay, but rather connect to it. Hopefully there will be multiple settlements scattered relatively close to Alioth in an interstellar sense. Another group of settlement hundreds of LY away would not very easily be able to interact with the first. But with stargates, that limitation is removed.
 
And in the case of the wealthy or powerful organizations hoarding the technology, well then that would be their right, seeing as how they investing the time and resources for such extremely advanced technology. If such an organization wouldn't allow other players to use the stargates, those players would be no worse off than before there were any stargates.

From a sandbox standpoint, many of your points don't fit in the game's ideas.
 
 
Your handcuffs idea sounds terrible for a game. I mean, Battlefield Hardline had this mechanism and it made sense because the game had  a quick game perspective. In an MMO, having confinement is something that will deter people. Plus, you can keep people hostages by having a few kilotons of nukes hanging on their head from orbit. Then you issue a threat like "you can either let your city stand and join us, or we can start removing buildings indiscriminately until you do." Boom, no need for hostages.
 
 
Losing training points should be on any kind of player death. Double the effect on a suicide, but not "assisted suicide", where you dogfight and you misjudge an asteroid and you end up dead by crashing onto it. I mean, player jumps off a cliff on his own kind of suicide, or suicide vest suicide. But permanent debuffs? In WoW, you got Resurrection Sickness for 10 mins and it seemed an eternity, you think a permanent debuff is "fun" ? O_o Plus, there's no chance NovaQuark will dwell near intraveinous drugs in their game. I mean, the drug you are suggesting is practically spaceruffy >_>
 
 
And finally, the cure. There's no chance in heck that any cure in the game, will require you to go to a mountain, finding a shady old man who will tell you to murder the indigenous koala people and bring him their eucalyptus leaves as a trophy for you to cure your addiction.
 
 
 
BUT, you make a good point on a hostage situation, but in the short, more organic way.
 
Player A has a 1000000 Skill points invested into his skills.
 
Player B wants Player A's turf. Playe A and B fight. Player B wins, then trhreatens Player A to relinquish command of his turf or risk being killed and losing precious skill points (the loss should be a percentage to keep the scaling relevant in higher skill levels).
 
 
No handcuffs, no drugs that will make the game 18+ and possibly, banned in half the countries in Europe and Australia. I mean, fallout and GTA has a tough time getting into most countries in Europe and Australia.
My suggestion is all organic. Player interactions, not player actions. Coercing another by threat (or some charisma if you got the McConaugheys to pull it off), not coercing them by "pressing a button".
 
You got to consider that people in an MMO are players, not NPCs, they are subjects like you, not objects. It saddens me to see people having such sadistic thoughts and expressing them in a game.
 
Peace.  

1: It is relevant to what you were saying. You stated that we cannot build in safe zones. The devblogs state that we will be able to build in safe zones - the safe zones are specifically for Builders to be able to build without being interrupted by pvp. Constructs will remain in the safe zones until the Builders move them out of the safe zone... or until the safe zone is deactivated. Builders are unlikely to remain in safe zones forever - they will likely want to travel to other locations for advanced resources, etc. And, whenever they move to a new location, they will have to create a new safe zone. Yes.
 
2: Best is still going to be relative. 10 blocks may be perceived as best to some and not best to others - 2 thrusters and 1 pilot seat do not indicate "best". That just indicates personal preference. You may prefer to pilot alone, I may prefer to co-pilot. But, again, those cosmetic designs won't be what determines "best" for individuals. Personal interests will be what determines "best" in terms of ship design and those will be subjective.
Some people may perceive speed to be "best" while others perceive fuel efficiency to be "best". The Builders who are great at maximizing speed in their designs may not be in the same org as the Builders who excel at maximizing fuel efficiency.
 
3: You may not be comparing fighters with exploration ships; but organizations will be. If the org decides they want some of their fighters to have greater speed than what their Builders are capable of creating, they will have to find some means to obtain those designs. They may have to people outside of their org.
If the Builders who maximize speed demand payment for their designs.
 
4: Well, hopefully, the engineers will need to have some player understanding of how to fit the conduit elements together and advanced character engineering skills. Perhaps a bit of LUA knowledge and perhaps a decent amount of voxelmancy.

I can see why maybe some of the "best stuff" isn't on an open market. But a large organization could have its own internal market where it sells its builders' stuff to its own members. "Jim, you lost your uber-fighter? Another one's going to cost you..."
 
Or perhaps corporate espionage will be a thing. You go to a "black market" and shop for the best stolen designs.
 
And I'm thinking that the best designing will take place in the form of "ideas." Where all I need to hear is the idea, and I can begin building something great. Like Thoger mentioned, the idea of weapons range rather than placement of weapons.

I would love to be able to use my CAD software to do the design work, be able to import the model into the VR, blueprint it, then build it for real on Alioth.

Disappearing constructs is a very unfair mechanic for an organization which goes around capturing derelicts. The arkship will provide a safezone for protecting players and their creations. There is probably also going to be a Virtual Reality where you can design and test in a completely secure environment.
 
Space is a real danger, and there shouldn't be protections everywhere from those who want to play with malicious intent, which is a completely valid strategy. DU is intended to be a game with emergent organizations, and therein lies the true protection. Pirates will be scared away by the police organization. There would presumably be some sort of infrastructure associated with you and your constructs, and that too would give a kind of protection. If not, then you really should worry about where to log off since you have no recourse if your stuff does get destroyed/stolen.
 
Automatic shutdown is a good idea, cloak your ship as much as possible. But it's still not invulnerable or unreachable.