Dupont

Sure. All I can do is guess at NQ's intent at the moment. I think they were trying to expand the dynamic range of scarcity and capability of items produced by players. I suspect they were surprised how quickly players moved from low tiers to high tiers, so they attempted to widen the gap between low end and high end items to have something to strive for. Well, we all know how well that worked, closing the barn door and all that. So future players, in theory (I'm guessing here), would have the benefit of staying interested in the game longer because it takes longer to get to the high tiers with the added requirement of cooperation from other people. In my opinion it was a sideways attempt at creating more social interaction. If this was done from the start, then it was the right thing to do. The sin was destroying all the hard work and efforts that people already put in for months and months, which did not respect their time.

My apologies, not my intent. Although I am not exactly sure what is meant by that, my point was that the economic structure of the game is missing incentives for people to buy stuff. A person needs two things to be willing to part with their money. 1. Money 2. A desire or need for that item that is greater than having the security of that money At this point of game development both of those factors are facing challenges. Note for devs: As a systems engineer, I work with ways to make dynamic systems stable. Economies and industry are two examples of systems that contain elements which make their own decisions. So, for stability to be possible, the response curves of inputs-to-outputs of opposing forces cannot be of the same polynomial order. For example supply and demand curves cannot be both linear as there is no point of lowest "energy", or stability so it is very susceptible to the tiniest changes. (also known as the butterfly chaos theory) Only when a linear response curve is matched against an exponential curve (or some other non-linear function) can points of stability exist. Otherwise, the system will never be tamed. When I am referring to stability I don't mean small adjustments of the intersection point, I'm talking about falling off one end of the curve or the other due to feedback effects.

Agreed that's the primary problem. I suspect no one making the stuff you need because it is not profitable given the cost of schematics and industrial equipment if it is high tier. So the question becomes why isn't it profitable? Well, possibly because there isn't enough volume - not enough people that are willing to put down cash for it. Even if a high price was offered but by only one person would still not add up to much. Total Profit = Number of Buyers * (Price - cost) Which becomes a demand issue.

Reverse tax is an interesting concept, but I wonder if it will turn into a bait-and-switch scenario by accident. The schematics for many things are very expensive, so unless there is a long term demand, it's just not worth the up-front investment. One of problems with reverse tax is that you never know when it will go away, thus you may never get your investment back. The other problem is that the very success of the industrialist (that spends tens or hundreds of millions on a schematic) will cause the reverse tax to go away as they ramp up production. So in essence, the bold industrialist is competing against himself/herself. It is fundamentally a problem of lack of demand overall. Can't fix it with any kind of supply side mechanic.

I agree, however economically speaking, there is no such thing as "pvp for profit". PvP is a less-than-zero sum game overall. There is always less value in the economy after a PvP fight than before one. The only practical way to have PvP activities inject money into the economy is to have AI enemy bots as targets. In addition to the loot of the kill, the amount of economic injection can be tweaked by using game-provided bounty rewards like the login/universal income/helicopter monies but you actually have to work for it.

One of my close RL friends has stopped playing DU and it kinda sux because we now live in different states and DU was a great place for us to hang out together. However, like others the frustrations overcame the benefits, so I started thinking about why. My conclusion is that the changes in patch 0.23 were an attempt at "behavior manipulation", and it did not work as intended. The vision was to force people to interact using the market as the social glue. However, that can't work due to the following (in addition to being too boring): Industrial Incest Say what?? well...hear me out. The end goal for many people is to have a ship or a fleet of ships. So, either buy them or make them. The path of mining and selling ore to buy stuff is boring and torture to get enough cash. You literally need to find, mine, and transport several meganodes worth of ore to buy a couple of decent ships. That's a tough way to go. So, people prior to patch 0.23 just made their own factories. This at least was fun and was challenging with figuring out how to make a cool factory. However, one thing I noticed is that there is a very high degree of re-use of different materials and parts in the production pipeline. I believe this is the root cause of undermining two of the most important pillars of the game. (bear with me here - it will make sense in a bit) 1. Pillar One: Having different materials on different planets to create zones of differentiation. - this should in theory lead to strategic assets to fight for and defend. 2. Pillar Two: Market specialization. People would "in theory" build specialized factories. In order to specialize in a practical way, a thing needs to be able to be built from a subset of all that is available. As it is, you cannot build a ship with a subset of minerals at a tier, as you really need all of them (in a practical sense) Think of this as a tree - for specialization to work, the production path from the root (ore) to the leaves (elements) must be separate. However, the DU industrial pipelines double back and use parts from the other branches, so it is no longer a tree but more like a vine, that twists and turns, crossing inherited paths as in the incestuous royal blood lines of the middle ages. Since the required parts need prior parts which themselves need a most of the broad spectrum of refined pures, you really can't have specialization because to make most parts of a ship, you really need a full industrial setup. However, now with expensive schematics having a full industrial supply line is almost impossible .... by design (JC's vision). The only alternative is to spend your whole day going shopping for parts - very hard to automate because people are not reliable in a game environment. Mission contracts only work until the doer gets bored of it. You are essentially trying to buy someone else's time with your own. It is a net loss unless you bring in real money through selling DACS (monthly subscription tokens). If this was an attempt to create more interplanetary traffic to give pirates more opportunities for plunder then it failed. ==> It's like putting 80% of the spices in your cupboard into every soup you make - too much variety per soup recipe is a bad thing because all soups will taste same even though you have 25 different spices available. If every soup recipe has to use 20 out of 25 overall, then the cooks have to shop at the same stores and the spice vendors can't specialize. ........ The right way to implement this would have been to make advanced, rare, and exotic mineral be available on only one planet (even on zone in the planet) , but make the industrial pipeline not dependent on having all of them. This is, I believe, a big game design flaw - the interdependence of late stage production elements on using such a large percentage of possible inputs. What's the point of a palette if you need all of it anyways? No element should need to have more than 10% of the possible ores in game required to build it from scratch, and it should be possible to build a complete fighting ship with less than one third of them. Enable parts alternatives, like space fuel variants, but with different characteristics. For example missiles would need lithium and railguns would need nickel, but missiles would not need nickel and railguns would not need lithium at all. This would create different technology trees based on what organization controlled what territory. Now you have battles worth participating in and joining up with friends. Food for thought for the next star system? Social glue needs to be based on adrenaline, not chores. I want to spend my limited time either being creative or fighting for a common goal with my friends, not shopping.

Me too, I got over $400 in it as well. The only thing that's keeping me going is the upcoming open test server. With regular synchronization with the "real" server, I think you will get a large surge in PvP activity on the test server. I am calling it the "mayhem" server because you can try out your expensive ships without any loss of fuel, scrap, parts, or ships. I predict that is where people will go to have fun, and the real server will be used to gather materials and build the ships. It will in effect be an "arena" for some wild battles - why not? nothing to lose ! If it is "synced' to the real server once or twice a week then I predict you may very well see a resurgence of the player population (but on the test server !!)

I've been wondering about that too. Without knowing more about it, I admit I'm speculating. However, if I (as part of the community) can assist with ideas before it is published then it is worth the risk of being wrong. So, it feels like the mission systems glosses over a few things. In particular, it seems that it is aimed at the sponsors of missions being wealthy executives that are running complex operations. 1. I don't think there are that many people that need help with missions right now. Money is more valuable than time thanks to the expensive schematics and lack of strategic goals. 2. Also, I suspect the rollout with the mission system will have lots of people wanting to do missions to make money, but very few people spending money to create missions. 3. The game can't afford the player frustrations of another botched module rollout so soon after 0.23. To be blunt, a missions system does not really address the issues with shrinking player population at the moment. A bit like arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. so - my recommendation is to either hold off on the mission system until there are more activities to do than people to do them or as mentioned in the post above - use bots to create the missions to inject some cash. Given all this, I believe in the dev team. They totally came through when fixing the usage of the markets and making mining tolerable in pre-beta last summer. I know they have the skills and ability - its just a matter of focusing on the things that make restoring the player population a priority. I don't think most players have left permanently just yet. Most are waiting, but as time goes on...

Predictability is the bane of traditional PvE. That is the root cause of the feeling of "grind" and general disdain of lack of challenge. When you know how the enemy is going to behave, then you know the future. If you know the future, you can plan for it in ways that are not natural - it is cheating in a way. Winning by cheating is not satisfying to most people. So, how to avoid predictability? Easy - do mix and match with various stages of the battle. If we split a battle into three stages, and have five different options in each stage, then we have 5*5*5 = 125 different tactical battle plans. - Vary location and ship types - Vary roles [tanks to take damage, short range, long range, healers (repair crews), shield reinforcers (buffs), stealth, recon, supply line attackers] - Vary tactical plans (as below) For example: Initial Contact Stage: A1. Few scouts, followed by larger patrols, followed by larger force A2. Trap: one scout that acts as bait which retreats a much larger force hidden in the asteroids A3. Pincer with two medium size groups from opposite directions A4. Mines to take out navies of lots of small ships A5. Electronic warfare that sends out false signals Main Battle Stage: B1. Long range out front, which retreats behind tanks B2. Short range fighters that blitz the attackers/defenders B3. Calvary attacks that try to split a large group into smaller groups B4. Siege weapons - throw/accelerate asteroids as kinetic weapons at capital ships B5. Interlaced shields supported my many ships as a force wall . Weak if attacked from the side or back. End Stage: C1. Suicide collisions runs C2. Self destruct detonations on static constructs C3. Distractions to lead the attacking force somewhere else C4. Hide inside asteroids in stealth mode to restart the nest C5. Board / Virus attacks to take over ship computers and turn them against their friends ... I'm sure folks can come up with more options in each. There can be hundreds of different combinations of battle plans for the AI bots. The big benefit of this kind of PvE is that it is always available - you don't have to wait for the weekend to organize two groups to stage a battle.

Another thing to consider is exactly what is PvE. (Player vs. Environment) For DU, having a pre-scripted safe environment to grind AI goes against the grain of the spirit of the game. The kind of PvE that I am talking about is simply PvP against AI bots. I mean real AI, not a simpleton version that spawns different flavors of enemies in pre-set locations. No, not a simple grind. A worthwhile implementation of PvE would be to create the seeds of a nest of enemies (perhaps garbage scavenging bots gone wild) in various parts of asteroids that have the best minerals. 1. Once the seed is created in a semi-random location, push out a handful of the enemy into the surrounding area. 2. Continue to pump out new enemies at a slow but steady rate, creating a defense of the nest. 3. When the number gets to be a certain size, part of the swarm goes on offensive patrols to the clear the surrounding areas of humans. 4. If the nest is ignored then it will keep growing into a true menace and start invading other parts of the solar system. 5. Note that the AI should implement tactics. Tactics are important because it will require human people to work together and actually think to defeat them. 6. The AI enemy also does mining, thus creating another vector of strategic attack - disrupt their supply lines. 7. Nests grow slowly, perhaps several weeks to get to a serious size 8. Enemy AI bots should have different types for different roles. Eliminating full-grown nests will take the cooperation of many people and organizations. Once a nest is wiped out, wait a few days before starting a new one somewhere else. (can't be in same spot)

ok, cool thanks. I saw some people talking about it and was not sure if I missed an announcement or podcast.

If this rumor is true, then I'm putting on the brakes for mining and production right now and just collecting login cash until there is some definite direction.

Another important factor related to this is the lack of economic growth. PvP is the icing on the cake, but cannot be the sole core of the economy for the following reason: The difference between a PUSH economy and a PULL economy. In a PUSH economy: When overall wealth comes from the lowest/first activity of the value chain, anything that follows it along the creation chain is a luxury (meaning not a necessity) Thus, demand for complex goods happens only where there is excess capital and can be afforded. In a PULL economy: The last link in the production chain is vital to the survival and profit of the main activities. In this case, there is a much larger demand pool because the entire production chain is needed to create the income and vital to providing the defense of income-creation equipment. This is why making money from PvE rewards is much, much healthier for the economy than mining. When overall demand is low as in the PUSH economy, all prices will eventually drop to the level of barely above the cost of input raw materials. This is due to an overabundance of supply competition. The price premiums injected by the high cost of schematics will eventually fade away as it is only a fixed cost, and once people have recovered their initial investment, then excessive supply competition will force it down. The only long term fix is to increase demand.

To clarify my earlier post: PvP is inherently a zero-sum game or less. It is a net loss due to fuel consumption and repairs, even if you win the battles some of the time. PvE on the other hand can be a net gain because enemy space bots won't get burned out on losing big or rage quitting. PvP is best used to control who gets the best hunting grounds for PvE, and defending lucrative turf. As it stands, there is nothing worth defending in the game as almost everything is available elsewhere. Because mines are single use and don't refresh, even the best meganode has a limited lifespan and the costs of defending it or attacking it could reduce its value quite a bit. I don't think that bragging rights of winning a PvP battle is a sustainable reason to spend the huge gobs of time and money that it takes to win it on a large scale. In EVE online, there was lots of PvP, but there was also PvE to practice on, hone your skills, and walk away with more cash than you came in with. At the moment, there is no point to DU outside of crafting pretty stuff. Even when the PvP gets revamped with new mechanics, it may still be missing the most important ingredient - a purpose. Control of generic territory is not a purpose. Since renewable mining nodes are not available, then control over great (and renewable) hunting spots is something worth engaging group vs. group PvP. Individual PvP for stealing other people's cargo just isn't sustainable. Because mining nodes wear out, everyone is basically nomadic at the moment. Renewables make a specific geographic location valuable and worth defending. Only when humans stopped being nomadic did civilization truly begin. I'm mining and staying active with the hope that someday there will be more adrenalin-inducing content, comradery in battle, and a purpose to this grind.

How often is the test server synched with the real server, once per update / once per couple weeks? / Once per week?

PvP: desert, PvE: Meat and Potatoes "How can you have any pudding if you didn't eat your meat?" - Pink Floyd Seriously though, the game needs cooperative battles on a regular basis - PvE against swarms of NPC invaders is the only thing that will keep people engaged and get the economy back up with this new hardcore industry concept.

I like your thinking but I am not sure that what will happen is what you think. We are thinking too linearly, as pirates versus merchants. There are other ways to make the game more fun and challenging other than making it more dangerous for heavy haulers. If you tilt the equation against miners and bulk haulers too much, you may lose a good percentage of them as players. Real-life time is just too valuable for most people to absorb repeat losses. There is a common underlying assumption that if we beat up the miner-haulers enough, they too will become worthy adversaries and then we will all have a good time. Maybe for some, but most just want to be left alone to do their thing. It is possible to have challenging battle without causing pain and grief in someone else. It's a hybrid of realm PvP and group PvE. People work together against AI and other people trying to control the best hunting grounds. Also, if you really want to go against some haulers the game should have protected AI convoys that are tough to beat.

I get the sense that the rush of beta interest is starting to fade. Many people have gotten a taste for the game but now are starting to re-focus on real life issues. To keep DU sustainable long term, we have to look at what a game can provide to a player. 1. A sense of accomplishment: - this is fulfilled by the building aspect of the game and I think is well covered, no urgent needs here. 2. A sense of comraderie, friendship building, and belonging to a purpose greater than oneself: - while building large and or intricate constructs with a team can do this to some extent, I don't think it can be a primary motivator by itself. - hunting as a lone wolf doesn't satisfy most people long term, sure fun to try but that can fade away. For me, I would like to be part of a combat based team that can overcome high odds to prevail against a tough enemy, without stirring up a lot of negativity. Too much of that going on in the world right now. So, here is the problem: - Right now, PvP is architected around people stealing from other people and the defending against that. I don't think that kind of negative experience is going to help the game in the long run. For the pirate, it is a short term adrenaline rush but ultimately gets boring if it is too easy or repetitious. For the victim, they get tired of mining for a week and having it all disappear instantly along with their ship and they start to question their commitment to DU itself. What I think is needed: - A common enemy that is not only other players. Other players have real-life schedules and getting two large opposing groups to be online at the same time is not going to happen very easily. I don't think there really is any alternative to having swarms of low level AI bots protecting something that is highly desired by most PvP players. What is that thing that everybody wants? Is it treasure, rare ores, or bragging rights? Sure, but even more important is having an memorable experience - that's the real treasure. The swarms of low level AI bots are just the guards at the door, but the group that can prove they can work together to defeat them will get access to some real, story-based battles. Hire some real professional writers that have successfully published some sci-fi books and have them create content that is only available to orgs that can enter that zone. Now, what should naturally happen is that an alliance of orgs will try to protect access to those story-based rich hunting grounds, and other alliances will form to wrest control of that gate from them. Now THAT would be worth staying active in the game for.

Thanks Haunty! - I ended up going to their main website, very interesting stuff! I might use end up using it.

The other thought I had was that messages seem to be dropped under load. I hope the backend isn't using Kafka. Kafka will drop packets under load, as it wasn't designed for transactional type messages, only for fast streaming where dropping random video frames doesn't matter.

As I have been playing this game for the past week, I have been wondering about the internal mechanics of the server engine. Obviously without the code I can't know what is going on , but I can guess. 1. There are numerous microservices in a distributed environment. 2. While load is light, these work just fine, very efficiently. 3. When load is heavy, the queues get very deep and cause deadlocks between different microservices 4. Users start cancelling requests with other actions 5. The old actions are clogging up the queues, more incomplete actions pile up between the microservices as users get frustrated and repeat actions quickly. 6. Everything grinds to a halt until a bunch of people are forced to lose connections or the servers are reset. My suggestions: 1. Have a max queue depth of no longer than 10 millisecond's worth of data. Deeper queues are NOT better. 2. consider using parallel queues, if one gets stuck for too long, just kill the whole thing and proceed with the unstuck one. 3. Use backpressure to notify fillers of the queue to wait. It is easier to cancel actions if portions of it haven't been submitted to other microservices yet. 4. Consider using tags to quickly remove cancelled requests from heavily used queues. Anyways, I hope NQ can solve this as I love the game and want to see it thrive.

Sometimes when I loan my ship to a friend he forgets where he put it or loses it. He can't track or set it as destination because it is not his. Can we have a tracking right that allows the recipient to find specified tags in the policy? Thanks!