Pcfreak9

NQ thank you for your clear answer on this topic. We have waited for this since the possible wipe could happen. 
 
The reasons are valid! 
 
Since the start of beta we need to say goodbye to our second home, but we will rebuild!
 
Im eager to see what the future hold

Dear Noveans,
 
This is Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios) again. I’m writing to follow up on our announcement video released earlier today. I’d encourage you to watch it if you haven’t already as it presents our decision to reset Dual Universe when we launch.
 
In this letter, I want to walk you through some of our reasons and give you precise answers on what you will keep after the server reset, as well as how we plan to reward Beta players for their investment in the game.
 
Deciding whether to reset the server of a persistent, single-shard game like Dual Universe is an enormous and challenging decision. It impacts many departments in the company, such as game design, server, live operations, production, community management, and well, pretty much everyone. But most importantly, it impacts our players. Players who have dedicated time, money, and passion to the game during beta.
 
But before we go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room: we started sharing information about the reset before we had solid answers because we wanted to give you clarity on our internal dialogues. Though this gave rise to many fantastic protest constructs, such as Vampskull’s intricate toilet paper ship, it also caused uncertainty for our community. I want to extend to you all a truly heartfelt apology for that and to thank you for your patience.
 
I’ll go through some of the factors we had to weigh below, but what lay at the heart of the decision for us was how we would reward the efforts, support, and contributions of our players during beta while still allowing new players the same opportunity to experience a fresh new solar system to settle at launch. 
 
With that, let’s get into the details.
 

 
WHY RESET?
 
THE ECONOMY
Betas tend to have bugs and exploits, and Dual Universe has had its share of those. We’ve dealt with issues from item duplication and system exploits to our own missteps. We have improved our monitoring systems throughout the beta, but in order to balance our player-run economy for launch, we have to reset it.
 
PERFORMANCE
It’s a technical necessity for us. The game has an extreme quantity of leftover and unused constructs. With changes to maximum construct slots and the Inactive Asset Requisition (IAR) system, the situation has improved, but a full reset will allow us to manage the data load well from the start without the burden of abandoned legacy constructs. With the new systems that we added during beta, data load should not become an issue again.
 
BALANCE
The game’s launch will be a fresh start with every player on the same starting line. We want to give every player, whether a veteran or new, the same opportunity to experience the thrill of colonizing Helios during the first days and weeks after launch. 
 
NEW WORLDS
It’s also an opportunity to improve our planetary bodies in Helios. We want to give planets more identity, to implement what we didn’t have time to do when we launched the beta. We cannot do that while players are building and terraforming the planets. We also want to experiment with new types of planetary bodies, and a reset allows us to achieve these goals. More information on that will follow soon.
 
WHAT WILL WE RESET?
Almost the whole game, with a few exceptions that I’ll cover below. 
 
This means that everything from planets and territories to items and constructs will be reset. The game’s economy and player progression will also be reset, but we will give beta players back some of their talent points and other items through the Pioneer Packs detailed below.
 
 
WHAT WILL PLAYERS KEEP?
 

 
As beta players, you will keep your name and contact list on the new server.
 
You’ll also keep your Core Blueprints after reset. Whether in a container aboard one of your constructs or inside a package, all of your Core Blueprints will be transferred to your nanopack. However, we’d recommend that you organize your Core Blueprints in your nanopack and create Core Blueprints of constructs that you would like to keep ready for the reset at launch.
 
You’ll also keep your organizations. Membership will be reset, but the superlegate will remain as the leader to carry the organization into launch with its name, logo, and manifesto intact. However, organizations belonging to other organizations will be erased.
 
Core Blueprints belonging to organizations, including those housed in containers and packages belonging to the organization will be transferred to the superlegate.
 
Your Two-Factor Authentication rewards will be reallocated to you after the reset. Your Recruit-a-Friend rewards will also be reallocated, with the exception of any game time rewards that you’ve already consumed.
 
PIONEER PACK REWARDS
We’ve also put together three tiers of Pioneer Packs to reward our beta players and give them back some progression, such as a portion of their talent points. They are a thank you from all of us here at Novaquark for the support you’ve shown us during the beta and the time you invested in the game.
 
We’ll deliver these packages during our six-month launch event in a way that preserves balance at launch and allows new players the same opportunity to compete in the game’s economy. At the start, beta veterans will be in almost the same position as new players, but by the end of these six months, beta players and backers will have one of the three packages outlined below.
 

 
 
PIONEER PACK - ADVANCED
This package is available to players who have purchased up to three months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta.
 
Up to 40,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 100,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
Tier 1 Rare Item - 1 Whirlpool collectible statue
1 exclusive decorative item: Deco potted plant white
 
PIONEER PACK - RARE
This package is available to players who have purchased up to twelve months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify.
 
This package is also available to Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Contributor backers from our crowdfunding packages.
 
Up to 46,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 200,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M
Tier 2 Rare Item - 1 Triangulum collectible statue
2 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet
 
PIONEER PACK - EXOTIC
This package is available to players who have purchased at least thirteen months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify for this bracket.
 
This package is also available to our Gold backers and above from our crowdfunding campaigns, as well as Sponsors and Patrons.
 
Up to 52,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 400,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit L
Tier 3 Rare Item - 1 Circinus collectible statue
3 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet | Deco potted plant black
 
To receive your Pioneer Packs, you’ll need an active subscription. Item rewards are also only available in the first month after release, and you’ll need to log into the game during this time to receive them. We’ll share more information soon on the server-wide talent point accelerator event, and the extra talent point awards for beta players and backers will be delivered on the last day of each month.
 
I want to thank all of you again for bearing with us while we resolved the reset question. We hope that the opportunity to relive the thrill of settling Helios is appealing to you. From the new first-time user experience to a whole canvas ready to be recalled to life, Dual Universe is waiting for you.

We ask that you please use this thread for discussion about this reset announcement.
 
We’re also creating a special episode of Ask Aphelia about the reset. If you have questions from our announcement video or this letter, please send them to us here.
 
Stay tuned for more news on the future of Dual Universe, and look for our next major announcement very soon.
 
Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios)

Yeh I wasn’t aware schematics were hated, just the implementation. 
 
If schematics go, then something else needs to replace them. Maybe talent based efficiencies to encourage people
to specialise and use the market??

Are Schematics truely so unpopular? It gates people from building massive factories with no sense of economies. It would make everything sell at Ore value vs  actual value because everyone wants to sell fast and get money now cratering a possible stable economy into the ground. or just make the only viable thing to sell on market is ore because everything else i can just make myself with minimal investment.

The Dual Universe egg hunt has begun Noveans! 
 
From Saturday, April 16th to Monday, April 25th, please join us for An Egg-cellent Adventure!
 
All around Alioth you will randomly find colored eggs on the ground as well as some other in plain sight places. Some of them you may find often (common), some of them might be a rare find or if your egg detecting skills meet the challenge, you may find a special Novaquark staff egg! All eggs contain gifts from the Novaquark team, so do not forget to smash them open to see what’s inside!
 
There have been several players who have already found some eggs, so you’re going to need to be quick, lucky, as well as very observant!  
 
There’s more! This Egg-tastic celebration is also a competition. Each egg is worth a certain amount of point(s), which means the rarer the egg, the more points you will get. Colors include white eggs (most common), green, yellow, blue, red and the very special Novaquark staff egg which is the most valuable of them all!
 
Once you find an egg, there will be a special code inside (read carefully!). Copy the code and enter it into this simple form that is linked inside the egg and register your code to start accumulating points!

 
Helpful Hint: Start your search by looking around the Point of Interests (POIs) around Alioth.  
 
Good luck Noveans, be egg-cellent to each other. 

I would suggest for almost full wipe:
 
Must:
Schematics
The schematics are here to stay or a similar mechanic needs to be in place to keep progress in check. They were crazy expensive and it should be like that. Without them you go from start to end game 1 - 2 weeks time. In that case it has no use to wipe otherwise the wipe will be an annoyance and no use at all. 
 
Bps:
Keep the BPs so people can rebuild their crafts again.
 
Mission randomization:
Mission randomization can be the ultimate solution to keep the it from being abused and keeping it dynamic to see the rest of the galaxy aswell instead of several places. This will also make it less predictable where the missions runners are going and coming from. Only refreshable every 24h
 
Also I would like to see a clear vision on planetary warfare so people can choose where they are going to live and if that would be subjective to a loss in the future.
 
Nice things to have as a beta player:
5 - 10 % talents points tranfser:
A bit of talent points tranfer would be a nice thing for the existing players. With this amount it would be only beneficial at the start and this will diminish to almost nothing in a year time. So the beta player wont be totally empty handed by being a tester.
 
Extra starting money could be a thing, but it should be big enough to provide a bit of extra funds to get it going, but it shouldnt be too big to give a huge advantage. So if that would happen max 50k - 100k of T1 worth of ore should be the bonus. Otherwise leave us peasants struggling to get out of the dirt.
 
I enjoyed the few days of the early game at the start of beta and I would enjoy it more if the systems now in place were there. Giving the game a better pace with the schematics and the ore extraction rates. With this the game / economy will be growing more organic.

I would suggest for almost full wipe:
 
Must:
Schematics
The schematics are here to stay or a similar mechanic needs to be in place to keep progress in check. They were crazy expensive and it should be like that. Without them you go from start to end game 1 - 2 weeks time. In that case it has no use to wipe otherwise the wipe will be an annoyance and no use at all. 
 
Bps:
Keep the BPs so people can rebuild their crafts again.
 
Mission randomization:
Mission randomization can be the ultimate solution to keep the it from being abused and keeping it dynamic to see the rest of the galaxy aswell instead of several places. This will also make it less predictable where the missions runners are going and coming from. Only refreshable every 24h
 
Also I would like to see a clear vision on planetary warfare so people can choose where they are going to live and if that would be subjective to a loss in the future.
 
Nice things to have as a beta player:
5 - 10 % talents points tranfser:
A bit of talent points tranfer would be a nice thing for the existing players. With this amount it would be only beneficial at the start and this will diminish to almost nothing in a year time. So the beta player wont be totally empty handed by being a tester.
 
Extra starting money could be a thing, but it should be big enough to provide a bit of extra funds to get it going, but it shouldnt be too big to give a huge advantage. So if that would happen max 50k - 100k of T1 worth of ore should be the bonus. Otherwise leave us peasants struggling to get out of the dirt.
 
I enjoyed the few days of the early game at the start of beta and I would enjoy it more if the systems now in place were there. Giving the game a better pace with the schematics and the ore extraction rates. With this the game / economy will be growing more organic.

Are you ready for some PTS fun? Then join us on April 1st for our Fool’s Defense event!
 
Think you have what it takes to take down our Novaquark space station? Will you dare to be so bold as to attempt to try and destroy a station that has a Novaquark crew commanding it? We dare you, in fact we triple dare all of you to try your best shots!
 
When: Friday, April 1st 14:00 UTC Where: PTS Server  Who: All Noveans are welcome  
HOW THIS EVENT WORKS
 
Come test the Athena update with the devs! Join us on the PTS server at 14:00 UTC on April 1st. (Not a joke)
Upon logging in to the PTS server, players will need to head to one of these locations:
Alioth’s Institute facility (::pos{0,2,28.9207,95.1440,285.7015}) in order to teleport to 
PvP Platform 1 (::pos{0,0,-2064601.9141,-1118885.7306,-120876.5855}) where you will be able to claim a ship, weapons and ammunition there to prepare for the fight to come!
 
From there, you’ll be able to get equipped and meet up with your team members, or create your own groups to organize your plan of attack and prepare for the battle. Alternatively, you can bring your own ships to recruit a team or bring your friends!
 
Be aware and plan for sabotage or traitors, willing to take on the community in defense of NOVAQUARK! Remember, this will be in PvP space, where everyone is fair game. A Resurrection Node will be publicly available to all, at the PvP Platform.

PRIZES, WHAT ABOUT PRIZES?
 
Winner(s) will then have a chance at spinning the Wheel of Foolish Fortune for their chance at some great (and not so great) prizes. The wheel will randomly decide!
The items rewards will be given on the regular beta server.
 

 
Stay foolish, captains!
 
Give us your thoughts on this event here!

Suggestion:

A way to quickly disassemble a ship into a container with out removing all the fuel etc first (it just appears in the box as another item) would be a good way to reduce all the ships lying around that are not being used. There could even be a special storage box for this function, a bit like a parcel container, but called a 'hangar' or similar.  You link to it and it allows you to dump a ship and whatever cargo/fuel it has into it. It only works on static constructs so you can't move ships around with it. The storage would automatically make a blueprint of the ship in the state it was stored in. Then if you are linked to a 'hangar' storage box you have the option to deploy the construct and it's contents back to the way they were. I would suggest each box only allows one ship and has to be of corresponding size to the core (S/M/L). I would further suggest that the box is a 'black box' you can only put a ship in or take it out, you can't go taking individual parts etc. out of the box, if you want to do then then disassemble it the conventional way. 

The Dual Universe roadmap has been expanded with the Panacea update, which is currently in production and brings with it a plethora of new features, tools, and improvements that will be particularly interesting for builders, scavengers, and Lua aficionados.
 
WHAT’S IN IT
 
A follow-up to the changes introduced in the Selene and Demeter updates, the Vertex Precision Tool will provide a powerful, intuitive way to fine-tune your builds. Particularly for those who are new to voxelmancy, this tool will be invaluable. Watch this video to get a taste of what it can do.
 
The introduction of shipwrecks in space will open a variety of lucrative opportunities for players who seek them out. Sell them as-is, salvage them for parts, create missions for other players to bring you the ship or its parts, or simply fetch a handsome price by selling the location information.
 
Other new features and improvements include: 
Camera Lua API: get access to information about the in-game camera Talents UI improvements: a more efficient way to view Talents RDMS UI polish: a cleaner interface for the management of RDMS  
To reduce clutter and keep Alioth beautiful, we are implementing inactive constructs requisitioning, an automated system for the abandonment of constructs owned by unsubscribed players and organizations to aid in keeping overcrowded public market areas clear.
Organization construct ownership (construct slots): a new way of assigning available construct limits to organizations. Disabling element stacking or overlapping: the final step in preventing the element stacking exploit.  
WHAT’S IN A NAME
 
Choosing the name for this update, Panacea, the goddess of remedy, is a reference to our renewed dedication to taking player feedback into greater consideration.
 
In reflecting on the aftermath of the Demeter release, we recognized that we fell short in this area. We read your feedback but did not make the adjustments we could and should have. We pledge to be better about working hand-in-hand with the community by implementing a plan to increase two-way communication and making some important tweaks and balancing to the game that will address some of the pain points as much as we’re able.
 
As a first step, beginning January 12th, we will postpone the next territory upkeep pay period for two weeks. This will allow the Design team time to revisit the tax rate, which many community members said was too steep. The purpose and functions of the upkeep system go beyond limiting “landgrabbing” and are more complex than they may appear on the surface. Many factors and interdependencies need to be taken into consideration.
 
WHAT’S NEXT
 
A series of devblogs will be published soon to reveal more information about the Panacea update. Additionally, we will be sharing a new roadmap soon. We hope that you’ll like what you see, and we encourage you to share your constructive feedback about our ideas as you read each article. 
Let’s chat! 

We recently announced that an additional update, Ares, was added to our public roadmap. Many of the features and changes for Ares will be available on our public test server (PTS), when it is updated and back online tomorrow, September 15th, at 10.00 UTC. (See the roadmap here.)
 
In that announcement, we promised a devblog that would talk about the big-ticket items we plan to deliver with Ares: the new Core Combat Stress victory condition, more functionality for shields, and PVP-related fixes. (Inside Ares, Part Two will cover warp improvements as well as boarding and docking changes. Watch for it on Thursday.) 
 
Without further ado, let’s dive in! 

CORE COMBAT STRESS 
In a nutshell, core combat stress represents a core's ability to keep functioning under prolonged weapons fire. A core unit that takes too much stress will be destroyed and will be considered a PvP destruction.
 
Core combat stress will be used as a second loss condition on constructs during PvP, working in tandem with generic core unit destruction. It does not matter which one happens first, only that one happens eventually. This will allow us to support larger fights and ensure that everyone's weapons are doing damage, even if it is only against core stress.
 
Stress will be accumulated as the construct takes non-shield weapons hits, taking the form of a gauge that starts at 0% and goes up to 100%. Non-shield hits on a construct will make the gauge go up. The core stress gauge is affected by a weapon's raw damage and is unaffected by the resistances of the element or material the attack hit.
 
Example: A weapon hit does 1,000 thermic damage. It hits an element with 50% thermic resistance doing 500 damage to the element; however, the core stress gauge will count 1,000 damage for that hit.
 
When the core stress gauge hits 100%, the core unit will be destroyed and will be considered a PvP destruction (as if it was destroyed by a weapons hit) and everything that implies.
 
The value of the stress gauge will be defined by the following:
The base of the core stress gauge value will be the health sum of honeycomb materials on your construct. The quality of the material used will provide multipliers to the value. Higher honeycomb tiers will provide better multipliers. The type of material used will provide a different multiplier, with products having a better multiplier than pure materials.   
Finally, the stress gauge will gain health linearly with honeycomb until a cap, at which point additional honeycomb will have diminishing returns.

SHIELDS v2
The fundamentals for shields were unveiled in this devblog and made their initial debut with the Apollo update in August. The time has come to increase their potency and value with some new features. 
 
Shields v2 brings adjustable resistances and venting. 
 
Adjustable resistances Shields have a base resistance value of 10/10/10/10 with an additional resistance pool of 60% that players can assign in 5% increments to any of the four resistances. (Examples: 10/10/10/70 or 25/25/25/25) Once players have locked in their resistance selections, those choices will be active and cannot be changed until the cooldown time of 60 seconds has expired, at which time the resistances will remain as set unless they are recalibrated. Shields UI will display which resistances are taking the most damage on the shield, allowing pilots to make an informed decision regarding the settings. Venting Pilots may vent their shields at any point, the exception being when the venting cooldown is active. Cooldown duration varies per size, with smaller shield variants having lower cooldowns. Venting shields will do two things: Turn off the shields, bearing in mind that they can’t be active during venting.  Begin shield regeneration of a certain percentage per second.  Venting may be deactivated at any time. Deactivation will occur automatically when shields have reached maximum capacity.   
We highly encourage pilots to explore the use of shields and venting while it’s available on PTS. Since there’s a bit of a learning curve involved, the test environment is the perfect place to experiment freely without any real cost to your ship on the Live server. 
 
PVP FIXES
We’re closing the loop on some “unintended” uses of these game mechanics. 
Speed Resume deactivated on construct death: When a core is destroyed, that construct will be incapable of benefitting from speed resume in any way. This will avoid and fix various exploits in regards to “ghost-riding” destroyed ships into safe zones. Offline player deaths on construct death: Offline players on constructs will now be killed on core destruction. This will avoid logging off characters that can then log back in, repair the core unit, and attempt to flee.   
Originally, the plans also included a change that would cause ownership loss on core unit crash destruction. Thanks to our intrepid PTS players who tried it out and promptly let us know the problems such a change could cause, we pulled it from the Ares update. (Read the related post from the Game Design team’s NQ-Entropy.) 
 
This is exactly why we have a test server and why we value those who do reconnaissance there before the updates are released on the Live server. We offer sincere thanks to the players who took the time to give us candid, constructive feedback. 
 
SEE YA THURSDAY
Inside Ares, Part Two will be published on Thursday. While you’re waiting, why not head over to the forum and share your thoughts about Part One? 
 

Update 10-20-21 - REMINDER: These rules are still in effect and are now extended to mission hubs. 

In an effort to improve the experience of visiting some of our most popular markets, we will be implementing a new set of rules for constructs left at markets. Enforcement of these rules will begin on the 3rd of September at 6pm UTC. (That’s one week from the date of this notification.)
 
We want to encourage a free and open game environment for all to enjoy. It’s in the spirit of that goal that these measures are being put into place.
 
Only ships are allowed on the market landing platform. Constructs must be parked outside the green perimeter line surrounding the main market building and the access ramp to the market. One container construct per entity (player or organization) will be allowed for the purpose of storage below the landing pads. Shop constructs, advertisements, and dispensers are not permitted at any markets. These should be placed on your own tiles or at districts instead. We would like to remind you that you now have the ability to place a “Welcome Visitors” marker on your territory.  Under no circumstances may player constructs intersect with the Aphelia constructs. Constructs at the Aphelia markets must be parked either on the landing platform or the ground around the Aphelia markets. Airspace within 2km of the market building must remain clear. XL screens and screen arrays are not permitted within 2km of the market building Constructs that violate these rules may be hidden, removed, or abandoned without warning. Novaquark reserves the right to move, hide, or delete constructs at its discretion, for example if they are designed to circumvent these rules or if they impact marketplace performance or usability.  
To safeguard the performance of everyone visiting these locations, we strongly encourage players to adapt any screens and advertisements to use Lua based Render Script instead of SVG/HTML even if that is in the form of uploading an image of your SVG and then loading that into the Render Script.

Join the conversation here.
 

Following a lot of feedback from our players on the planned organization changes and discussions with our Game Design team, we have decided to postpone them.
 
We would still like to address the issues related to the use of nested organizations, so we believe that changes to organizations will eventually have to happen; however, they may take on an altered form while still maintaining the same goals to provide a better structure for Dual Universe’s future. We are regrouping to decide how to address the issues and plan to present these changes to the community for additional feedback prior to implementing them. Stay tuned for more info.
 
We hope this sets some minds at ease. Thank you for your feedback and support.
 

PART THREE: FINDING THE FUN 
 
In this third and final segment of this series, we’ll take a look at Dual Universe gameplay and how we’re aiming to improve it. There’s a delicate balance to strike between staying as true as we can to the original vision, making smart design and production choices, taking players’ feedback into consideration, and creating more opportunities for community engagement. The game needs to be challenging but, most of all, fun. It can be a tall order sometimes, but not an impossible goal. 
 
This is far from being a comprehensive list of everything we’re working on, but we think it’s a good starting point for sparking conversation with the community. You’ll also notice that we have intentionally stayed away from precise timeframes. We would rather stay flexible and give ourselves the opportunity to revise our plans based on the feedback of players. 
 
Now, let’s get to the good stuff!
 

BREAKING THE MONOTONY 

Even if the main pillars of the game aren’t quite finished yet, the launch of the beta allowed us to see how the various systems work together, how fun they are, and what actually works or sometimes doesn’t.
 
Analyzing data on player behavior and reading the copious amount of feedback we receive (thanks for that!) have pointed to two main objectives we’ll be addressing in the coming months (in addition to continuing to fix bugs and balancing issues). These are: 
 
First, emend gameplay loops that are tedious for some players. We call it “fixing the player routine”, so that playing DU doesn’t feel like “going to work”. Up the stakes, adding meaningful opportunities for conflict so that the in-game economy, social components, and building aspects come together. 
  Some elements of gameplay are more fun than others in Dual Universe. Mining can often be seen as a must-do for many new players, and because it is perceived as mandatory it can rapidly feel tedious. Earning quanta is fundamental. When we launched beta, it seemed like mining was almost the only way to get money, especially for new players who didn’t have much in the way of resources or allies. 
 
To make it more interesting with a real sense of progression over time, here is the high-level plan:
 
Make it easier for newcomers to gather resources from the surface of planets without the need to dig; Then, transition players to deploying mining units once they’ve claimed a territory. Mining units will supply a steady stream of ore, depending on the specifics of the tiles the player has claimed. These mining units come in tiers and should add a sense of progression even to early mining. There will also be a production optimization gameplay if you want to use several mining units. For players who want to specialize in mining, we will introduce asteroid mining. Think of asteroids as epic mining with high reward potential. Asteroids will be spawned in the universe. Players will be able to scan clues in space to discover where they’re located. Some asteroids will contain not just regular ores, but also rare and valuable ones. Once discovered, there will be a delay before their location is broadcast to all players. This is an opportunity for explorers who find these asteroids to reap their resources first or monetize their location. The control of valuable asteroids will also create opportunities for combat, information trading, and collaboration between players. Please also note there will be asteroids in safe zones with lower-value ores.
  THE QUEST FOR QUANTA   
Another way for players to earn quanta is the previously-announced Mission System, coming in version 0.25. It will include two components: a job board to facilitate interactions between players (for example, “I need gold delivered to this location”), as well as a secure framework for player- and NQ-created hauling missions. We hope that this will kindle the game’s economy with increased specialization and proper tools for exchanges between players. The upcoming introduction of in-game challenges will also add fun ways for players to earn cash. 
 
On that note, we plan to revise the way the markets work, considering different ways to improve connections and making it less painful to trade for goods. This should make markets more accessible and fluidify trade.
 
We are looking into how we can rebalance the industry. The reaction to changes introduced in 0.23 told us that there is more work needed here. The role of schematics is definitely one of the areas we’re looking at; whatever we do with schematics, we are particularly sensitive to making a fair move for players who have invested in buying them. 
 
Builders haven’t been forgotten. We just delivered new tools for them in 0.24, and we are already working on new ones that should let builders enhance their artistic arsenal to create more amazing constructs. We’re pretty excited about them, but should forewarn you that it may be some time before they appear as higher priority changes will take precedence. 
 
The first-time player experience will get a full overhaul to facilitate the onboarding of new players. We’re doing away with the long monologues from Aphelia and the length of time it took to get into the action. The tutorials will be more contextual, and the experience of new players should get them into the core gameplay faster. As it is now, new players sometimes need to travel long distances to find a tile free of neighbors and suitable for future expansion. The redesign will allow these new pioneers to start with their friends in a location of their choosing in a more streamlined fashion. They will also be able to select an outpost design and receive startup resources. 

STOKING THE PVP FIRES 
We know a lot of players want to hear about PvP. Once we’ve fixed the main gameplay loops, this will be the next thing we’ll tackle. Our goal is for space warfare to be one of the driving forces of the emergent gameplay, fueling the economy of the game, including for players who don’t want to directly partake in combat but might want to provide ships, ammunition, and services for those who do. 
 
While there are PVPers who are in it for the thrill of the pirate’s life, there are others who aren’t pirates so much as protectors who enjoy defender-type PVP scenarios. In its current state, PVP can be seen as gratuitous, devoid of reasons to fight beyond pillaging a bested ship’s cargo. The current PvP mechanics will be modified with the addition of construct shields and a rebalancing of weapons, among other things, as well as introducing territory control in space and, later, on planets. Controlling space territories will give players benefits such as the ability to acquire highly-lucrative space resources (i.e. rare gas, singularities) and a worthwhile reason for organizations and solo players to fight. Not only that, but you’ll be waging war in style with an array of new, unique cannons and skins. 
 
GLITZIER GRAPHICS
Admittedly, graphics improvements have been on the back burner for a while in favor of building the main gameplay systems. Upgrading the visual immersion has now taken a more prominent position in our priorities, the goal being to give more “life” to Dual Universe. 
 
This ongoing process began in 0.24 when we overhauled many of the assets used in world generation (i.e. trees, rocks, ground textures, etc.) We’ve also undertaken a big push on visual effects, with a slew of new and improved visual effects planned for gradual release in the near future. Continuing our efforts with the recent addition of new voxel textures for builders, we will freshen up many older elements in the game to bring coherence between older and newer assets, as well as between voxels and assets.
 
We are also investigating longer-term visual improvements. For some time, we’ve been working on prototypes for a new planet generation technology to make sure that our planets are interesting to explore. Before we can roll this out, we will be doing an overall pass on the existing planets, like Jago, with improved terrain and more varied environment assets. There is also a project to improve lighting with the inclusion of global illumination.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Again, please remember that all these changes will be tested first on the public test server. The final versions of these features may vary depending on your feedback and our own thought  processes. In terms of timing, most of the “player routine” fixes are planned to be gradually introduced before the end of the summer while the space warfare and PvP revamp should begin rolling out sometime after.
 
As you hopefully see, a lot of these changes are based on your feedback and a more grounded, pragmatic approach to game design. We realize that many of these topics require additional explanations and that they will probably trigger more questions. We will answer them in due time, as we’re able, in future devblogs. Until then, we look forward to hearing your thoughts in this discussion thread. See you there! 
 

PART ONE: REFINING OUR PROCESSES 
As promised last week, we would like to give you a glimpse at the changes, improvements, and additions we have in store for Dual Universe. 
We’ve learned many lessons since our beta began seven months ago.  Going from a backer-focused game in alpha, under NDA, to a public, wide-open beta with many new players gave us a lot of insight in several areas: processes, economics, and gameplay. In this blog, we’ll focus on processes with the latter two being the topics of subsequent blogs. 

THE LONG HARD LOOK
At Novaquark, we’re still a fairly small team. Given the ambition and complexity of this game, it can be quite a challenge to make the right decisions on how to make the most of our resources. To date, we’ve been focused on bug fixing, stabilization, balancing, scaling, and improving our server and database infrastructure - plus firefighting when necessary - to make the game work better. 
 
Not to say that this is all behind us; it never will be (such is the way of MMOs), and we know some bugs and exploits still need to be addressed - this is a beta after all. Still, we paused earlier this year to ponder what the next phase of development of DU should be, to stay the course of the original plan or adapt to how things have evolved since beta began. After taking a  long hard look at everything we’ve learned from the beta, we decided where we need to focus next, based on what we think will be best for Dual Universe and its community. 

“IF IT’S BROKE, FIX IT”
Maintaining a live game while we continue to develop it ended up being quite the leap from our tightly-controlled alpha environment. As much as we prepared for it, actually doing it was a whole different beast. That’s probably one of the areas where the reality check was the most brutal for us. The world of Dual Universe is a persistent one, and every time we introduce something, it impacts the player and the delicate balance of its economy. There’s no safety net, and player feedback often came once bugs or balancing issues had already impacted the game’s common universe. 

Let’s start with how we plan to improve our processes and quality control, because this is an area where doing something wrong can have a major impact on players. We have three goals in this area: 
 
 
Gather feedback from players earlier in the process, so that when new features and changes are introduced in the game, their impact on the persistent universe is properly measured.  Have a more flexible and collaborative development approach that will allow us  to take player feedback into consideration, modifying plans when we’re able.   Overall, improve the quality of our releases, which means fewer bugs and exploits, and less hot-fixing.
  When it comes to gathering feedback from players earlier, we are evaluating some options on how we might get feedback on game design ideas from players at an earlier stage before they have actually entered the production pipeline. We are already seeing significant improvements in this area since the launch of the public test server (PTS), which lets us test prospective new features, improvements and bug fixes in a non-persistent environment where it won’t impact players’ progress on the Live server. If enough players test features on the PTS, we’ll be able to prevent bugs and balancing problems from making their way to the persistent universe. 
 
When we deployed 0.24 on the PTS first, players gave us invaluable feedback, helping us to identify several issues that we were able to address before they reached the production server. Although  our PTS-to-production process isn’t perfect yet, we are still working to improve it and think it’s getting significantly better with each iteration.  In the future, we will expand the use of the PTS to testing prototypes of features, outside of regular releases, so that all players can give their feedback as early in the development process as possible. 
 
Another major improvement to our processes that we are addressing is flexibility. On our way to beta, we had a fairly rigid roadmap that was dictated by the necessity to lay the foundations for all of the gameplay pillars for beta as well as fulfilling our promises to our backers. While the overall plan and long-term goals for DU haven’t changed, we need to be able to adapt to the feedback of players along the way whenever it’s feasible. For example, if we decide to make a major overhaul of our mining mechanics, we need the flexibility to iterate as much as necessary until we find the right formula before we move on to something else. 
 
Although they may not be visible to players, there are many other things happening internally  that have already proven to improve our releases. First and foremost, our internal release process is undergoing a revamp, based on the learnings from our past launches. We’ve allotted more time for QA than we used to, and we will postpone a release if we think it’s not ready (as we did  with the 0.24 update.) These new processes are still being refined, but we’re seeing improvements already.
 
We remain steadfast in our promise to deliver the best game possible. We feel confident that the changes we’re making now to our processes are a big step toward making that an attainable goal. 

Ready to discuss part 1? Click here.
 

Hello Noveans,

Over the past months, we have been working with the Support and Community teams to better identify the wants and needs of our players. These findings have sparked the initiative to implement a Live Support system to address some of the most common issues during peak times as well as address urgent tickets outside of office-hours. In addition, we’re adding some self-help tools that will enable you to resolve some of the most common issues without having to reach out to Support.

The changes described below will be included in the next update.
 
NEW TOOLS
We are making it easier for players to help themselves in times of need. This is in the form of the following three features, one of which many of you will already be familiar with.
 
Global Chats
To better organize and filter the chat within the game, we are implementing the following channels:
General - Joined by default and can not be left. Help - Joined by default and can be left. Trade - Can be joined and left.  You can interact with these channels by using the following commands in the text window:
/join - To join a channel, such as Trade, i.e. “/join Trade”. /help - Lists all available commands. To leave a channel, right-click on the channel tab. We know that global channels have been in high demand from our community, and we’re thankful for that feedback and the opportunity to see them implemented. Please continue to provide feedback about our chat system on our forums.
 
Fetch
If you have a dynamic construct that’s become stuck, you can right mouse button-click on the construct from your map view and click to Fetch. This will teleport the construct towards you, allowing you to reach and interact with it normally.

We had hoped to be able to make this redundant; however we have seen that there is still a need for it. We are now intending to leave this feature available for the entire duration of beta, initially with these parameters:  
Players can only fetch once per 24 hours. Maximum range has been limited to 4,000 meters. Players must be standing on a planet/moon’s surface.  
Unstuck
If you find yourself trapped and unable to resume your current play, you can now use /unstuck in chat to free yourself in a random direction. This feature has the following limitations:
You can use this command once per five minutes. This teleports you up to 100 meters in a random direction. Teleports can not move players into the building zone of any construct.
  Please note that the Fetch and Unstuck features are intended to be used only to free stuck constructs and avatars. Any usage outside of this scope may be considered an exploit and actioned accordingly. The team will be continually monitoring the behaviour and results of these features, tweaking when and where needed to ensure that players are not abusing these systems designed to help players in need.
 
LIVE SUPPORT
It is important to emphasize that the purpose of Live Support is not to cover all game knowledge questions and assistance scenarios, at least not in this first incarnation. We’ve noticed that many of our community members enjoy helping and teaching other players. We strongly encourage everyone to join our forums where players and organizations can offer further guidance and services to each other.

That being said, our Support staff will be monitoring the in-game Help channel for any issues that are eligible for assistance, to offer advice regarding knowledge resources, or to recommend when players should file a Support ticket. 

Here is a sample of the assistance we may offer: 
Assistance with the tutorial. Freeing stuck characters (if /unstuck does not work). Raising constructs from below the surface (if Fetch did not work). Fetching ships stuck in the sky above a planet (if Fetch did not work). Refreshing glitched elements.  
Should you encounter one of these issues, give us a shout out with a description of your issue via @GM in the Help channel. Please allow at least 10 minutes for a response, after which you may choose to file a Support ticket instead. With the implementation of Live Support, we are expecting a significant improvement to response time for urgent inquiries.

We are very interested in hearing your feedback and your thoughts about these changes. Please join the discussion here.

Dear Noveans,
 
We would like to address the recent speculations that have arisen in our community, and openly disclose some changes that are happening at Novaquark.
 
First and foremost, Novaquark continues to be supported by its long term investors to allow it to launch Dual Universe in line with its original vision. It also puts us in a position to attract experienced talent to complement the team that’s already in place so that we can continue to improve the game.
 
Next week, we will share with you what we think our priorities should be for Dual Universe and how we hope to approach the development of the game with improved processes going forward.
 
An important change to note is that Jean-Christophe, the founder of Novaquark, has transitioned from the day-to-day management of the team to better focus on his position as a board member. Over the years since the creation of Novaquark, JC designed and set the standards for the structural and conceptual foundation of the game, and he feels now that a solid base is there for him to move forward as a strategic advisor. The recent changes in the administrative presidency of the company only reflect the transition of JC to his new role. We’re excited to have the team he has built deliver on his vision for the game.
 
Rest assured that Novaquark’s future is in good hands, and there is a strong partnership between our long-term investors and our team. We believe that the future is bright for the game and for the company, and we cannot wait to tell you where we want to take Dual Universe.
 
With our warmest regards,
The Novaquark team

Dear Noveans,
 
When we set out to launch our beta this summer, we also envisioned a series of major changes and improvements outside of the game. A major one was the complete redesign of the game’s website, as well as the migration to a brand new tech stack for the site’s front and back ends. We were also planning to launch several programs, such as a Content Creator program and a Recruit-a-Friend program, which relied on a new, versatile code system. That code system is also being used to grant our backers the beta invitations which are part of their Kickstarter or Alpha packs.
 
Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned, as you’ve been witnessing over the past few days (2020 strikes again...). We had to revert part of our tech migration, and postpone the move to a new authentication platform, among other things in our backend. So for the past few weeks we have been struggling to try and reconcile the new site and the code system with our legacy backend. This task has honestly been way more difficult than we had imagined. 
 
We already missed the boat when it came down to allowing you to invite your friends a week earlier, and we’ve come to announce more delays, sadly. As we approach the launch of the beta, we have to be realistic about what we’ll be able to deliver, as we had to make tough choices:

We will launch the new Dual Universe website tomorrow; it will have the most essential content and features, with some visual and quality of life improvements missing. We’ll add more content after beta.
 
The Content Creator program will be ready, using the above code system (see potential limitation below). You should be able to get the invitations included in your beta packs on day 1, though the system may not be as easy to use as we wanted. Making sure you have these codes ready is one of our top priorities (see potential limitations below). You should be able to go to the website and upload images for publishing in Dual Universe, which will go through an internal review process to ensure that they follow the game’s Code of Conduct.  
The Recruit-a-Friend program didn’t make the cut… and that sucks. We worked hard on it and we were really excited about it. The in-game content is ready, but the entitlement system isn’t. Unfortunately, we couldn’t work on all the entitlements in the limited time that we had these past few weeks.

There is a potential limitation with the code system, for both content creators and beta keys: in the next few days the codes may not be redeemable with existing accounts - only with new ones (like for the load test). We are trying to lift that limitation as soon as possible, as we know it’s not ideal. 
 
So what’s next? All these new systems, the new website, and these new programs will be constantly improved in the days and weeks to come. Our priority will be to lift the code limitation and to launch the Recruit-a-Friend program as soon as possible. We don’t want to give you a date that we may not be able to hold, but know that we are doing everything we can to make it as early as possible. 
 
Finally let’s tackle the question of “Why did we announce the Recruit-a-Friend program if it wasn’t going to be ready?” Well, that’s the point; we really thought it was going to be ready, just as when we announced the ability to invite your friends a week prior to beta. It’s disappointing, for you and for us. But we believe these programs are worth it, so we want to make them right.
 
We hope you’ll bear with us, and that you’ll be able to enjoy the Dual Universe beta in the meantime.
 
Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 
*Note: we unfortunately won’t be able to retrofit any recruitment that you may do between now and the official launch of the program. Recruitment will only count from the day of the launch of the program, when we can track who’s recruiting who properly.

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.
 
 

If you want to add realism just look at the EU banking agency, they press new money daily to keep the economy rolling, add negative interest rates to keep economy rolling, you get free cash when you loan with them to keep economy rolling. 
 
So probably the best way to keep the game rolling is a free monthly cash deposit by the Arc ship to all players, to keep the economy rolling.

Congratulations!