Taelessael

It tends to be less the fault of game stability and more that of a poor connection causing things to interact while the client is still working out exactly where the planet's voxel is. My apartment is older than I am with equally dated connection hardware, so if I'm on a planet with lots of hills and mountains it can take a minute for it to stop moving the ground up and down trying to figure out where it needs to actually be, and while it is doing this the terrain does not play nice with any dynamics I load the physics in on. Its kind of like how pre-panacea you could land at market 6 and then have someone else's ship load in around you and your construct. It wouldn't be an issue often in the larger scale of things, but it would still be quite annoying to have it destroy or obstruct something. That would work. just have it detect who is on the platform (and has rdms) when the instance opens to define the group. It wasn't so much that hexes get overlooked (though that is also a good point) as it was my interpreting your reference to one person having better RNG to mean that one person would scan and find only hema while his buddy could scan and find only gold, as by that logic you could get 200 guys to scan one hex to produce 200 "rolls of the dice" until they got something good. If the hex has the same stuff for everyone and the skills are just dictating what they are detecting out of that then the only issue would be the need to regularly re-cycle the hexes the same way asteroids are re-cycled. It would be better loot, but not everyone will be willing or able to wait for things to produce ideal loot. It is a balancing act. I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to find high-tier ore in a hex, just that it can't be like it was where I could bring 19 scanners to throw out on a planet and reliably hit t5 nodes nearly as quick as people hit asteroids.

This seems like an excellent idea for players that enjoyed mining the old way (I am, admittedly, not one of them). It does however have a few potential issues that should probably be addressed. 1) Moving a dynamic construct in and out of an instanced environment is just asking to blow something up when physics tries to load in before the world is finished loading (as it is prone to occasionally do). The solution I would propose for this would be to require the construct moving in and out of the instance be on a static core instead, with the nodes sizes appropriately increased so as to adequately compensate the miner for the cost and time of temporarily claiming the hex. 2) Moving any construct in and out of an instanced environment is asking for someone to find out the hard way how the game handles something parking itself where something will load back in once the instance closes. To solve this I would propose that the construct be cloned in to the instance instead of moved entirely, with the original remaining where it was in a non-useable state (as though it were tokenized). When the instance is closed the original construct's inventory would be updated to match that of the clone that had been in the instance and the original becomes capable of being interacted with again. 3) Some people like to mine cooperatively, as such I would propose that the new scanner element that allows detection of the instanced ore also serve as a method for bringing additional players (with rdms permission) in to the instance when it opens. 4) Allowing different players to obtain different results on a single hex in a way that regularly quickly resets itself is just asking for a 200-man org to roll themselves in T5 ore mined repeatedly from only a few hexes. As such I'd propose that any given hex leads to the same instance of that hex for all players. The higher level skills would still allow for the detection of better ores and larger percentages of the ore that are actually there that lower skilled players may not detect, but the total ore available of all types actually present in the instance would be the same for everyone and set when the hex was regularly reset instead of when scanned. Resets would presumably occur on a weekly basis as with asteroids. 5) When atmospheric pvp is implemented, anything causes the mining-construct to become pvp-flagged outside the instance should also immediately close the instance, ejecting all players within and appropriately placing ore mined in to the cargo of the mining construct's cargo as was previously suggested. After the pvp flag expires the construct should be able to open the instance again allowing the miners to pick up where they left off. 6) The use/operation of elements on the mining-construct that are unrelated to mining within the instance should not be possible while inside the instance in order to limit potential errors that could result (you only need the mining-container platform in the instance, factories, mining units, and things with scripts can stay outside). Likewise, the deployment of new constructs should be prevented within the instance for the same reasons. 7) Asteroids were added to be something people can pvp over, however if the same rewards can be reliably found somewhere safe it tends to kill pvp. Because of this, I'd propose that higher-tier ores have an extremely low spawn-rate on planets where atmospheric pvp isn't enabled (well below what they were previously when old-style mining was a thing) so that the potential safe-availability of said high-tier ores does not remove the reason for pvp players to pvp over the high-tier asteroids. I'm sure I'm missing something else, but I can post it later if I think of it. Any thoughts?

You are asking for the equivalent of the select voxel tool, except that you want it to apply to elements instead of voxels? An interesting concept, though it would probably require all the elements you selected with it snap to a grid the same way voxels do. It would be quite useful for moving element clusters around, though it probably shouldn't replace the regular move element tool in areas requiring more detail work.

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: -Trolling, verb: ...deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. Your post was inflammatory: You asked for a large group of people to be unnessicary penalized for playing in a way you don't like in an area specifically intended for them to play in the way you don't like while knowing that someone who would call you out was watching the thread. Your post was irrelevant: This thread is about tax-free planets and their balancing, your post was entirely about penalizing pvp players with no input on how to balance a tax-free planet. I may be a troll for calling you out for trolling, but that doesn't change the fact that your first post here was to troll this thread. Post a suggestion on how to balance a tax-free planet, or post why you think it can't be balanced. Going in to a thread to pick a verbal fight without intension of contributing productively to that thread's discussion is trolling, and I have no problem calling you out for it. ...You say that after intentionally insulting people with opinions different from yours by calling them equals with Somali Pirates and Putin in other threads... Also, if you actually meant that, then I'd like to hear what you intend to call pirates that find the name pirate offensive or insulting. I think a tax-free planet would be best balanced with pvp, people would only take what they thought they could defend, and they'd be able to lose it later (allowing other players to claim the hexes) if they stopped defending it and went else-ware. This could alternatively be paired up with a thing where an org somehow claims a planet, and then can set whatever hex-taxes they like (including choosing to have no tax at all), and in return is notified of anything getting attacked on that planet without regards as to who it belongs to (thus allowing an org that takes responsibility for the planet's defense to either collect taxes or let everyone they like be there for free). Alternatively one could use some manner of fuel or power-requirement that would require someone to come and re-supply their territory units every so often to keep from losing them, though at its core this would just be another form of tax where one pays in fuel/power-cells/what-have-you instead of quanta. Having to only set foot on a hex to keep it would be far too easy, people would just claim huge swaths of land and auto-run laps around the planet each day while they went to work.

NQ was initially intending for large ships to be multi-crew craft in combat back when people could effect substantially meaningful repairs to a ship mid-fight and ammo containers were as large as regular containers but without any skills that could be applied to them. Conceptually it made sense, ye-olde WW2 battleships with their dozens of guns and no spectacularly fancy automation or electronics needed appropriately large crews, and to a degree that happened in DU. Then we got ccs, prohibition of build mode in combat, highly-space-efficient ammo containers, shields, and cross-sections. With all of that advantage shifted from flying battle-ships with big crews to just flying 1-3 man fighter/bombers with battleship weapons. Athena is likely to change this again, people will probably need to choose between being fast or fitting big guns. Pvp players will adapt either way, multi-crew ships are nothing new to many of them at any size, but haulers are a different story. Haulers are always big (at least enough-so to carry their usual cargo), and once they are safely clear of a planet and pipes the only thing warranting keeping even a single crew-member on board is that an auto-pilot script isn't enough of a crew to keep the ship's physics loaded to keep it moving. Doing that would likely handicap a hauler-pilot's ability to simultaneously fly and use larger weapons against pirate interceptors in the upcoming patch. I know from some of your previous threads that you'd rather make things harder for everyone than attempt to balance the game if whatever penalty is imposed inhibits pvp more than it does pve, but I suspect a great many (myself included) would like the odds of Pirate v Hauler tipped a bit more in the hauler's favor. Athena is likely to push pirates in to flying smaller ships, so as long as the haulers can still both fly and shoot at the same time, the haulers will likely have a weapon-size advantage over the smaller pirate ships.

You suggest I shouldn't call out a troll when they find a thread on tax-free planets and then spend their entire post either complaining about pvp players or suggesting that pvp players be penalized for engaging in pvp? The initial post is about having a planet with no Aphelia stuff at all as a compensation for having no tax on the tiles, and an idea for how to keep someone that just has a lot of TCU and initial cash from claiming all the tiles when there isn't a tax to slow them down. Atmospheric pvp seems the obvious answer to me, as it would require anyone claiming the tiles to also have the military power to hold them, but one could also use some manner of power/fuel requirement (aphelia isn't providing the free energy to keep it going on an aphelia-free planet) whenever NQ gets around to adding a power mechanic in to the game.

Simply put, make gunner-seats capable of operating like the Hover Seat Controller, allowing the person sitting in it to both fly and shoot (with weapons sized for the seat) if it is configured for flight-control. Knowledgeable players are already flying from these seats by pairing them with remote controllers, we may as well make it easier for less experienced pilots to do the same while simultaneously slightly reducing the universe's element count. Such an option would also more easily allow builders that just like the look of the gunnery chairs to use them for flight-control without requiring the pilot go through the extra steps of closing a potentially unused gunnery-window or activating a remote controller.

Was there a point to trolling this thread?

You can ask for donations, or pay people to rent their slots for a month until you get yours up. People giving your org slots don't need to actually be in your org, and slot assignments can only be changed once every 30 days.

I suspect that you are relying on auto-correct a bit too much there, "dismounting" typically (but not always) refers to getting off of something you were riding (like a horse). Is your issue people "disassembling" constructs and either keeping the parts or selling them for less than it costs to manufacture them? You are describing atmospheric pvp there. Unfortunately it is difficult to work out due to the short ranges, high speeds, and the client-side nature of most of the game causing desynchronization issues. I want atmospheric pvp, but it would be a hard thing to work out and they have more pressing things they need to get working properly first.

Figured since the space-map is finally getting some care, now might be a good time to bump this thread and bring up getting the planetary maps fixed again. It would be nice to be able to see where I've scanned already without having to alter all my settings just to provide enough contrast to see it if I strain my eyes.

I'd assume this cap prevents it from either running in to other issues in the client, or causing problems when someone either intentionally or not triggers a bad script, but such a slider in the game-settings somewhere would probably assist with optimization to a degree.

I and several others fly from a gunnery-seat all the time, as do the pirates. -Place and set up a gunnery seat linked to weapons and radar as normal, -Place a "Remote Controller" element in sight of the seat -Run a default auto-configuration on the remote controller for a flying construct, -Sit in the gunnery seat, -Hit insert once to close the gunnery window while maintaining 1st person view, -Without getting out of the seat activate the remote controller. You can now toggle between flying the construct and using the gunnery window for any size weapons with the insert key. CCS and locking players out of build mode in combat made combat-repairs exceptionally limited and just shy of pointless even for a multi-crew ship. As a general rule most people will think you are trying to be offensive when you call them a troll who contributes nothing in response to them providing a genuine counter-point to what they perceive your issue to be. I am all for realism being a thing to a point, such as everyone having the same top speed and finding a more natural way to balance the different core sizes, but I still recognize this is a game, it needs game logic somewhere. Real life pirates don't use grappling lines to slow a cargo-ship down before they attack it because there would be no point even if they had the mass to slow the cargo ship, they are already faster and don't need to worry about the cargo-ship getting away in a short sprint to some arbitrary safe zone. Real life cargo ships likewise don't shoot grapples at pirates to keep them from escaping because they typically don't carry weapons to begin with for legal reasons, so they want the pirates to leave. Both of these scenarios are not the case in DU, because DU is a game. You don't want stasis weapons in the game because you don't want pirates to have anything at all, but they are just as allowed to play their way as you are yours. When paired with the other changes NQ is making, this weapon will give you an advantage over them to make sure they can't just run and save their ship if they start to lose a fight they picked with you.

I suppose I can be on occasion, but that does not make my points broadly invalid. Also, insults and hostility don't make anyone think you are right. Generally it either gets people feeling defensive and so causes them to be less willing to even consider anything you say, or prevents useful discussion by driving people apart, all while simultaneously making your opponents look like the more reasonable party. If someone makes a mistake, point it out and explain why it is a mistake without just trying to be insulting. They may not agree with you, but they will be more likely to at least consider your point and improve. Pvp players need more complexity in their game, it gives them a reason to fly more than just the stylized SNES cartridges and disjointed element-only lines we see them flying now. The addition of a stasis-weapon paired with the speed caps will help give them some of that complexity, while also potentially allowing haulers to have a size-advantage against any pirates they may need to try and fight off.

Given your previous comments on other topics involving things like wanting to be able to warp with aphelia packages, the desire to spontaneously delete your entire ship from the universe (on a thread about using such an option against pirates), or just generally how much you hate pirates, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are posting this less for physics reasons and more for fear of it being used on you by pirates. While I understand such a point of view, I disagree with it. Pirates will likely be faster than you after the speed changes even without this device, but unless NQ changes some stuff they will also be stuck using smaller guns than you. A stasis weapon would allow you to pin them down and ensure that when they start losing that fight, they wont be able to run away and will lose their ship.

People construct "voxel libraries" and sell or give them away, but voxels aren't known for behaving when you try to do things like scaling. I'd say nobody would buy that, but I don't have that much faith in people. I can however say that if NQ starts requiring its players to buy NFT elements/voxel to do their building with, or requires buying an NFT to use the market, then they will very quickly lose most of what's left of their player base and would need to hope that they manage to pick up the NFT crowd before the game goes under.

Have you considered the element "Steel Panel" ? It would be nice to have a few extra shapes, but it may get you started. If you aren't aware, there's a game called Space Engineers that lets you build with an immense number of easily laid-out blocks of many different shapes, behaving much like the armor you suggest. There are several beautify designed ships and stations one can find on the steam workshop for SE, and several times as many ships and stations that look like they were built by small children playing Minecraft. There is for lack of a better term, an art to making art. Some people are really talented, but most of us just have to work at it the long way until we have practiced enough to manage. Even when provided spectacularly easily used tools, a lot of people will still end up just building oddly shaped bricks until they have managed to get in the time and practice. Plastering a build in pre-fabbed armor elements may occasionally work for some things, but most of the time it will just look tacked on if the person doing it didn't already have the time and skill to do without it.

A cash-shop that sells limited-run prints for alternately colored elements or single-use "all of x type of element on target ship use this color pattern" items doesn't seem like it would take too much effort, and if the extra cash was enough to help NQ get the game better faster then it would be very much worth it.

They are called simulation games, they do both at once. I appreciate the need for occasionally tossing physics out the window for game-balance or practicality reasons, but that doesn't mean it wont annoy me when I see it happen so overtly. As poor of a mechanic as it is, it does provide a significant portion of the game's population with the quanta to buy things from industry players, and incentivizes people to slow-boat through pvp space so that pirates have something to do. Pvp is good, it can bring people in. but this isn't a pvp only game. As much as I'd like to just slap some guns on all my stuff and go to town on things, this game's player-base would probably fall apart faster than we'd pick up new people if we were to just start removing features that are boring or in need of work instead of fixing or replacing them. I understand why speed is being played with, it is quicker and easier to fiddle with the maximum speed of different cores than it is to introduce the game mechanics they'd need to produce a more realistic-seeming balance between the core sizes. Its the same thing they've been trying to do since they started pvp with that "smaller cores can't be locked from as far as larger ones" that had a lot of people flying XS cubes armed with L missiles. NQ wants people to fly a variety of different ships, but they keep trying to do this with quick and simple fixes to force it instead of introducing enough design complexity for it to occur in a more natural-seeming way. I appreciate the reasoning, I appreciate the balance (assuming it actually works), but that doesn't mean I wont be annoyed occasionally by the imposition rules that are blatant quick-fixes when the addition of mechanics they've previously promised could do the same thing in a less overt "hand of the devs" kind of way. (Hint: there's a reason a lot of other games use Heat/Capacitor/Energy/Power)

Agreed, it is quite unrealistic, and while I appreciate the balance reasons, it still annoys me.. Unfortunately NQ have shot themselves in the foot there, they want a variety of ship sizes to be used and don't want one core size to just be unambiguously the best like it is now, but if you can afford it there aren't currently really any good mechanical reasons to use core-sizes smaller than L (aside from docking, which generally isn't enough of a reason). They'd probably need to introduce multiple new mechanics at this point if they wanted to get a spread of sizes without something absurd like the speed thing. Personally, I'd suggest both heat (to encourage small builds that would cool quickly enough to avoid overheating) and power (encouraging large builds needing enough space for capacitors/reactors/ect to power larger shields/weapons/ect), but that probably wouldn't do much to keep people from just building small stuff on L cores like they are now, particularly with the absurd weapon-size cap...

They know I'm flying, they know where I'm flying, I have an org-tagged ship and I know they don't like my org (player drama), and they've taken shots at me when I've gotten lazy about avoiding them. In over 100 pvp-space missions I still haven't lost a ship, and I do pay enough attention to radar to know it isn't for lack of them knowing or trying. Stay clear of the pipes, take care to avoid anyone seeing your final path away from the pipe, and be both willing and prepared to just turn back in to the safe-zone to go find a different direction to exit it from if you spot a anyone waiting in pvp space. It isn't hard to avoid them, it just takes time and effort.

If you start the calibration mini-game and just quit immediately you don't get any calibration ore, but it still applies the minimum calibration and resets the timer.

I suppose I should have included the words "competently designed and flown" in front of purpose built interceptor, but you have me there, I should have been more specific. Based on how it was worded, it sounds like larger cores will have a lower speed cap. You may dislike the idea of having to fight/defend yourself, but assuming you fit weapons the same size as your ship's core, you'd now have at minimum (assuming equal skills and using the same weapon types) twice the range and almost twice the DPS per player of anything with a higher top speed than you.

Your like or dislike of pirates is irrelevant, haulers that keep an eye out and strategize properly avoid all the pirates 99% of the time (I am one of those mission-haulers), so they aren't that bad. Not being able to warp mission packages keeps mission runners like me from destroying the economy by pulling 18million quanta-loops every hour or so without penalizing non-mission-runners that want to warp by requiring them to spend the same number of cells costing the same amount of quanta I could afford were I running such warpable mission-loops.

Perhaps if their were a way to allow surrogates to pilot xs-core ships? A lot of folk consider them irrelevant in pvp because they just cant close range effectively against larger ships, but if launched from something that is already trying to run, then they could pressure attackers in to having to choose between pursuing the hauler and letting the fighters close range, or dealing with them and risking the hauler's escape.