JayleBreak

I think the computation overhead caused by user designed oddly shaped ships, and large number of potential objects (and other contributions to server lag -e.g. internet) makes anything involving collision detection in combat a losing proposition. And as mentioned in one of NQ videos, orbital strikes were rejected because it wouldn't be "fair" - meaning people shouldn't be subject to death without any warning that danger is near or was inescapable.

I wouldn't say no way. A distributed datacenter based server based system (doing the physics) with high speed interconnects would work. Google is coming out with Stadia and frankly the only reason I can see for a PC gamer to subscribe would be if it offered big machines (say 1TB main memory) for use by multiplayer games specifically designed to take advantage of them.

This is great for single player games, but in multiplayer games the lost of synchronisation between multiple players observing (and acting on) the same scene brings nasty issues (I saw my enemy get crushed by a falling wall, but he saw the wall and dodged) which in today's games can often be ignored (no falling walls). So synchronisation cost and effectiveness is a much more important issue than more realistic physics to a multiplayer game.

To answer your specific question, you will only be able to play when the server is "up". See https://www.dualthegame.com/en/server-status/ for the current schedule.

I'm a new player, but I've seen some impressive plans others have posted (forums, discord) on constructs they will build (imagine Jabba the Hutt's palace). I can see players visiting/exploring these constructs, but in practice they will be lifeless most of the time (like the districts during the last test). Having NPCs occuping these constructs will present to the visitor a richer feel, and if they are player programmed they will provide another avenue for creativity.

Survivor of EQ Landmark here.