_Ieael_

You go there. I didn't start playing this game for PVP. 

to add to this is the desync issues where you think your mining a node but it isn't really there and you have to relog to see that your just in a big empty hole!

I haven't posted a lot here but I feel the need to vent!
 It is nearly impossible to get valuable ores off of safe zone asteroids now due to the 20 or more players on each roid competing for the resources.
Only way to get them is to wait for one to NEWLY pop up in RUMOURED and be quick about getting there. NQ turned this into a waiting game followed by a race to the rock! Popping out one roid every hour is NOT a good way to limit ore. Please reconsider this change. It would be much better if 5 to 10 were released at a time so that it would thin the heard!
This is not fun and I have lost the will to even play. 
 

Three years and half after pre alpha launch, the best period ever for DU, everything got overcomplicated, heavy and excruciatingly laggy, especially at the introduction of industry 2.O which has changed till now fps, lag and loading times for everyone, but since the developers aren't testing nor playing their own game, very little have been done concerning the content and game mechanics.

Since the beginning JC pretends that he wants to control the visual aspect of the game, but look at the thousands of player made atrocities and piles of elements scattered everywhere
 
For those who never heard about, but there is a french simplistic and satiric cartoon called "Shadoks", where a group of engineers and workers, work hard together to make simple things more complicated, from where we are getting the expression: "why do simple when you can do complicated?"
And this is exactly what is happening here
 
But in real life, and i quote, professionals, engineers, designers, and architects will all agree: "Less is more"
 
So here are my thoughts, after 3 years of hope and life time, on the bad and good decisions taken, and what could be improved at the moment:
 
 
 Building mechanics: Vertices editor should have been a priority long ago, long before that not so useful update on the line tool
The actual given building tools are half of the reason why we see so much trash everywhere, and why most players are giving up, because voxelmancy is a considerable waste of time since ship selling will never be a major part of the market (everyone want to build his own), PVP will destroy it in a matter of seconds, and detailed or undetailed static or dynamic constructs' spaces are dead as hell.
 
Vertices Editor: self explanatory
  Line tool: add triangular and circular shapes, and make one of the corners of the selection the center of rotation (not the center of selection, this doesn't make any sense)
  Paint tool: (omg seriously this one is the biggest joke and laziest decision taken) need to absolutely remove from the game this ridiculous number of different honeycombs, performance wise, and gameplay wise. Every material should have one and only one raw honeycomb, on which we could, using build mode, apply a color we want, a shininess type and or a pattern
That would optimize the game code, our inventories/containers, and our factories (and will fix that uggly .24 update changes)
  Remove the deploy and selection sizes limitations
  Be more consistent in the deploy shapes size increment (1 by 1, not 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 12 16 24 32)  
* by the way change "galvanized" honeycomb name and check the definition of galvanized on wiki: which is a zinc coating process to protect different metals from rusting
 
 Elements: Here is the second half of the reason why we are surrounded by trashes
First, element design is very badly fusing with the voxel building system, specially all the dynamic constructs elements, elements are detailed meshes that don't match with a voxel hull and the voxel default sizes
Even after the best achievable voxelmancy, engines, brakes, hovers, wings, look like stains on our creations, element colors dont match available honeycomb colors, some elements are offsets, some are badly symmetrical
I m not saying that its bad to have detailed mesh elements, but half of them, must be redesigned to be used and integrated "into" a basic voxel shapes, not to be put like a flower pot "on" the voxels, and this concerning all the elements used for designing ships
 
Dynamic elements (engines, brakes, airfoils): those elements can be a single detailed face element, the face that will pop out from our voxels, and other faces must be designed with an easier global shape to work with the voxel grid (tubular, square, rectangle, just as Empyrion or Space engineers do...)
  Decorative elements: make sure they are scaled for the voxel grid and size (the reinforced sliding door is the perfect example of bad design and bad consideration)
  Ability to change elements main color
  Engines: no no no and no to all this different types of engines (safe/maneuver/military/etc...) with different recipes. again its a mess in inventories and markets, same problem as honeycombs, why doing simple when can do complicated?. while the quality (normal/advanced/rare etc...) should remain, all engines should be crafted as a standard factory type, and have an option by right clicking on them to change their mode type, and why not beeing able to change it using lua  
 
Flight mechanics: Overall the flight mechanics are very good, stable and well developed
But, the main issue is bringing back to the dynamic elements issue and the overall aesthetic of the game and players creations
 
Elements power/thrust should be multiplied by a minimum of 5!!!! this would greatly reduce the number of elements needed on each ship, reducing the lag and loading time, but most importantly we would not compromise anymore on the design in order to have "acceptable" flight performances (which will increase the visual quality of players creations)
  Vertical and horizontal cross sections must produce anti drift and high altitude lift, which will reduce the number of wings and stabilizers elements needed, and again will increase everyone performances due to less elements, and allow better ship design
  Fuel consumption to divide by 2 or more, we are tired to mine 2 hours, refine for an other hour, for 20min of flight (nowadays long distances planes can fly at cruise speed 900kmph for about 12 to 14 hours)  
 
LUA Lua is one of the greatest part of the game, allows the best customization possible, but is still way too limited, for no reasons
 
Unlock to unlimited  number of links/slots to a pb/remote/ECU/command chair etc... will reduce the number of scripts running at same time, so will increase performances (what is better? to have 10 scripts, on 10 PB, each one linked to 10 elements? or 1 script on 1 PB linked to 100 elements? do the math!)
  Increase again the recently nerfed CPU usage for custom scripts (they were not producing any client side performances issues, so why decreasing it again?)
  Increase the conf file allowed size, 150k isnt enough
  Make possible to install conf files on programming boards
  Increase Databank sizes
  Fix the rocket engine please for custom scripts, they are broken and deadly, they activate themselves when construct controls are taken
  Add function for camera relative rotation and position
  Ability to save scripts in our nanopack and exchange/sell scripts with DRM protection or not  
 
PVP I think pvp is a very delicate topic, but globally so few people have any interest in pvp at all due it its extrem unbalance
In my opinion there is no goal and no reward in pvp, which makes it boring
So much time and effort put in mining/producing/building a pvp-able ship that it pushes everyone away
 
there should be no safe zone, nowhere!
- heard and read too many stories of players ravaging orgs from the inside, secretly stealing work of dozens, and then venting themselves on streams. there should be no safe                        place in the universe for those people to hide their shameful loot
- cargo ships should be accompanied and escorted by armed fleets, even while mining
  quantas could be physical/stockable/stealable
  claimed territories shouldnt be visible on the map, unless personally discovered surface ore stones, should be mine-able by anyone anytime anywhere (claimed or not. we should be able to get some fast scrap and fuel if we emergency land in middle of a huge claimed territory)
  static and dynamic construct need energy shields element
  containers content should not be destroyed unless the container lost all its lives (otherwise there will be no loot in pvp), they should just be inaccessible
  there should be a way to restore all lives on salvaged elements (repair unit maybe?)  
 
 
 
 
There is so much more to add, but please NQ consider and fix a big part of this first before adding new buggy "content"
At some point there should be a planetary wipe, to leave space for the new planets design (allowing what ever is standing in space to be excluded from the wipe, for players beeing able to save enough to restart quickly)

Some final thoughts. This tool does not do "voxelmancy" for you - even in the
limited domain of 2D voxels. In my view, Voxelmancy is much like solving
Sudoku puzzles: making the right choices early on in the plan is important.
Unlike Sudoku however, not all voxel "problems" (designs) have solutions.
To gain "voxelmancy" expertise start out small. Perhaps the most frequent use
I make of this tool is to fashion single 2D voxels that previously required
use of an extensive "shape" voxel library or a 3D voxel wedge (which I
find to be somewhat more time consuming and error prone).
Also, I want to explain why I started the plan at layer 2. For those
interested enough to reproduce the truncated cone as I described, test your
understanding by replacing layer 2 and adding a layer 1 design so that pasting
the layers together produces a traditional cone ending in a point.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the encouragement from members of Objective
Driveyards (ODY - where you can find free blueprints for the planner),
the tutorials of Tordan, the free voxel wedge blueprint from
Infinity Corp (also ODY), and Stan of NSD for zero point voxels.

Hi guys, 
 
The game is now in Beta 1 r0.21.2. Here's the latest patch note: 

Improvements
Added a limit to the fetch construct debug feature to a 4 km range and added a 24h timer cooldown [GUI] Removed in-game language selector in the option menu. The language selection is now only possible via the launcher on the upper right corner  [GUI] Saved email on login screen is now hidden properly after at least a first connection
Bug Fixes
[GUI] Quantity in a container is now displayed while doing instant sell order [GUI] Fixed chat channel old messages being unexpectedly erased when someone speaking in another channel Restored missing Natron harvestable rock [LOC] Fixed some missing texts and typos in French and German languages Fixed Small space engine S variations that all had the same name Fixed an issue where a moon could appear pixelated   
Known Issues
Image upload feature is not accessible via the website and will come back soon
Cheers, 
Nomad

Hey mate,
 
When in build mode, to pick an element and put it back into your inventory or linked container you need to:
- Empty the container of all contents;
- Select the "deploy element tool" (1 by default), aim at the element (the container in this case);
- Hold alt and click on it.
 
The container will go to your current active inventory, be it your Nanopack or a linked container (not the one you are trying to pick up, oc). You need to have enough free space in whichever.
 
ps holding alt and clicking reverts the behavior of most of the tools
pss I suggest you join the discord channels to get just in time help from other players/orgs.

Hey mate,
 
If you are moving to a spot close by, using the maneuver tool (7 by default) is probably a better option than disassembling everything.
 
If you want to move to a spot far away, you can blueprint it (in build mode right click any part of the ship and hit "P" of click on "Create Blueprint") and deploy it at the new location (select tool 8, equip the blue print, which has to be in the same inventory as the materials you will need to deploy it, a blue box will appear, that is you construct volume. aim at the floor and click. the construct will pop up).
 
When in build mode, to disassemble you construct (pick an element and put it back into your inventory or linked container) you need to:
- Select the "deploy element tool" (1 by default), aim at the element;
- Hold alt and click on it.
 
For voxels:
- Select the "Select voxel tool", 7 by default.
- Select everything and hit delete.
- Alternatively, select the "deploy voxel tool", hold alt, select an area and click.
 
The elements/voxels will go to your current active inventory, be it your Nanopack or a linked container. You need to have enough free space in whichever.
 
ps holding alt and clicking reverts the behavior of most of the tools
pss I suggest you join the discord channels to get just in time help from other players/orgs.

Hey guys,
 
Check out this awesome post by @Destrin, it will definitely help.
 
 
Enjoy!

Weekly Update - August 10th, 2020
 
Six rescues were made this test, that’s 79 for Alpha 3 and 135 overall.
 
----------
 
A pound of feathers vs a pound of rocks. Transporting your desktop in the back seat or the trunk. Moving cargo in your inventory or in a container. @Fynn_Reiher found this out the hard way that it doesn’t matter where you store your goods, what matters is that your speeder can carry them. One early test transport down, probably many more to go.
 
Stranded on a planet, how about outer space, on an asteroid, maybe a moon? @Rub3n213 was out of fuel on one of Lacobus’ moons. Luckily @remdawg12 was around and was willing to fly out 11KL of kergon to get one of DU’s more… spicy players back in flight again.
 
----------
 
Only some light building work was done on the outpost this weekend. Intermittent web connectivity issues on my end were stifling things a fair bit so playing wasn’t much of an option when the internet kept cutting out every five or ten minutes. It’s something with the receptacle that the barrel plug goes into that’s causing it to be very sensitive, even rotating the plug in the socket will trigger a power cycle. Then again I’ve had this router-modem combo since connectivity was first installed in this residence almost a decade ago. I’ve had a standalone router now so I really only need a new modem and with DOCSIS 3.1 now pretty much standard, the 3.0s are fairly cheap. Current setup still works, its just another thing on the list I got to manage now.
 
This also played somewhat of a role in pushing back an intended meeting that I hoped to have over the weekend. Then there was a PVP event also going on. Lots of discussion and drama in that sector in other servers. I’m hoping to get this all done and taken care of during the final A3 test this Friday, more details on that hopefully by this time next week.
 
The rest of my attention went to the whole advertising gig I have running. Two organizations are now advertising, two others are searching for something to put up, while the other dozen or so that are interested got sent an update the other day to drive some more activity and I’m waiting to hear back. Still not ready to go public but there shouldn’t be much more of a wait.
 
I and the person coding this are kicking around some ideas on how to improve things once it’s public. It will still be pretty barebones first coming out, but it will improve over time.
 
----------
 
That's all for now, until next time, fly safe everyone!
 
- DarkHorizon
 

The Novean Almanac is a fan magazine about Dual Universe and the Dual Universe community.
There have been three issues in 2018 (as the Novean Dreamers Almanac) and then a long hiatus.
 
But finally...
 
Novean Almanac 4
Editorial: Making history in Dual Universe Dual Universe Development Timeline Community Media Overview Organization Updates Community Projects Overview and a shorty story by Kurock  
PDF, 168 pages, 4.4MB
 

 
Old stuff from 2018:
 
Hello there.
 
This is a magazine about the Dual Universe community.
You should read it, like all the cool kids.
 

(pdf, 2 mb)
 
Contents of issue 1: Cities, the Press and intergovernmental organizations
 

(pdf, 2 mb)
 
Contents of issue 2: War on the Battlefield & War in the Arena, Non-English-speaking communities
 

(pdf, 2 mb)
 
Contents of issue 3: Espionage and Counter-Intelligence, the Service Industry, and a stupid map
 
Website: Spaceship Drama
Discord (Agilolfing#8694)
Twitter

Hi everyone!
 
The new character model is an artistic re-imagining of the original design, and is one of many steps we’re taking to update the look and feel of the game. The goal of this redesign was not only to create something functional and realistic for interstellar travel, but also come up with something memorable, appealing, and instantly recognizable.
 
 
The Novaquark team.

Hello Noveans,

It’s been quite a busy month for us over here at Novaquark, with lots of important announcements and information. Did you catch everything we released recently surrounding the Beta, NDA lift, business model, our latest PvP demo, and the month-long super test? We felt that it would be a good idea to host another Twitch Q&A to get everyone on the same page, as well as give our members a chance to ask their questions once more to JC and the team.

The livestream will air on July 23rd at 11am on our Twitch channel, or you can tune in live on YouTube or Facebook. This will be our third livestream, and will be hosted by me, NQ_Naerais (aka Space Mom). I will be joined once again by NQ-Entropy and JC as they answer questions in chat. The topics of discussion will include: the Beta pricing model, PvP discussion, Lua scripting, and more!

Also keep in mind that we’ve uploaded our two previous Q&A livestreams to our YouTube channel. Click here to check out our Live Developer Q&A playlist now! We’d like to also take this opportunity to thank the community once more for their support. Let’s DU it!
 
The Novaquark team

Fantastic ideas. Hopefully we will see some of them in place soon enough.
 
And, since we are asking and asking is free, it would be amazing if we could get a Voxel Slicer Tool, like the orange planes in this image.
 
PS not sure if its doable from a technical perspective in a Voxel/Vertex environment though.
 

All right, this topic is going to be locked.
 
Surprisingly all these "TheSlaxx" defenders are fresh new accounts.
Apparently some think it's okay to create accounts just to try to strongharm Novaquark's decision, even if this was already discussed and explained in private many times.
Making it public will NOT change Novaquark's decision. If someone opens another topic on TheSlaxx to try to change Novaquark's mind, expect your account to be banned permanently from the forum without further notice. We don't have time to waste on this topic anymore. This practice of coming back again and again on a decision made by Novaquark will only make the situation worse.
 
TheSlaxx hasn't been banned for the shady practices regarding the Organizations.
He has been banned for what he did after.
"He has changed now" will never be a valid argument to rehabilitate him.
If we make an exception for him, we will have to make exceptions for everyone else that has a toxic behavior. 
That's not gonna happen.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

Disclaimer: All ideas are based on the publicly available info, not under NDA.

Hello, so one of my biggest concerns with the voxel building tools so far, is the lack of support for curved shapes. I really think it would be sad to see an amazing game like this, filled with only Minecraft Box spaceships. Because curved shapes are so impossible to make. So here are a few basic additions I think could really improve on the current voxel building system. I know, more advanced voxel editing are planned like being able to edit control points, and a Voxel Element Library for more complex shapes. But, there are other, more simple things I think that can be done to get curved shapes into the game sooner rather then later. So, the basic idea is to make curved voxel shapes easily available so players would be encouraged to build none box shaped ships and constructs. I did some artwork to help illustrate my ideas. Please feel free to discuss and give feedback on this thread in the comments. Ok, So lets dive right into it.
 
 
These pictures are examples of designs that can be made with these shapes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Starting Primitives
So, there are several shapes to begin with when using the voxel deploy tool. Here are some important primitives I suggest should be added as voxel brush shapes. Those shapes are Oblate Sphere, Prolate Sphere, Cone, Torus, Elbow Joint.

Why these shapes?
The reason I chose these shapes is because they are nearly impossible to make with with the current tools. An even with advanced editing options, they would still be difficult to get right. So it seems like a no-brainer to have these shapes as starting primitives for the voxel brush. It would make it much easier to start creating curved shaped constructs, and encourage more creative designs.
 
This picture is of the voxel shapes I think should be added to the voxel brush tool.

 
 
Voxel Shape Options
So the next thing is an a expansion on the voxel shapes, by adding parameters before/after the shapes is deployed. For example, having an option like size, and diameter of the TORUS shape before/after you deploy it, or option to set how extreme the elongation is on the SPHERE or CONE before/after you deploy it, and even maybe set the angle of the Elbow joint. So, the way I imagine it would work is, when you select a starting primitive shape, shortcuts like arrow keys, numbers keys are used to set the value of the shape options, then you can deploy it as normal. Also, having an option box that would stay on screen as long as you're using that shape could work too, so that you can continue to change options and deploy new shapes.

This pictures give an example of what changing the options would look like on each shape.
          
 
 
Bevel, Fillet, sharpen edge tool
So, we currently have a tool that allows builder to smooth edges, but to expand on that idea, I think we should also have the option to Bevel, Fillet, or sharpen edges as needs. The issue is that most times the smooth tool does not give the desired result, or maybe you only want to bevel an edge but not smooth it, or maybe you want some edges with a fillet and some edges sharpen. I imagine it working exactly like the current smooth edge tool, except you would be able to Bevel an edge, Fillet an edge, or Sharpen an edge.
 
 
This pictures below illustrates how the tool would effect the edge. This is the current smooth tool.
           
 
 
Additional Ideas
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Scale Axes
I think this is a simple, but vary important option that needs to be available. Basically we have the option to scale the size of voxel primitives, but we should also have the option to scale voxel primitives on a specific axis (X, Y, Z). This I think would definitely add greater control to create the desired shapes, as well as enhance the freedom of creativity.
 
Hollow Primitives
So, this thought came to me last minute, but I think its something that shouldn't be overlooked. The ability to start with hollow voxel primitives. Either a voxel brush option to deploy hollow voxels, or solid, and set the wall thickness, or have hollow voxel shapes as a standard starting shape to choose from. I know that there is an option to cut out voxels using primitives shapes, but the main issue is that cutting out voxels gives a very ugly looking result, most times the edges don't look right at all, or you need a hard edge but the cut out has a rounded edge with a messy texture. Also, hollow primitive shapes would improve the speed, and ease of use when building constructs. Especially when working with curved shapes. Trying to hollow out a curved shape would be a nightmare, so starting with a hollow shape would be great.
 
Voxel Elements
So my last suggestion is in regard to Voxel Elements. Novaquark mention in this DevBlog that will have a Library of detail, or complex voxel shapes that players could use in their constructs. They mentioned a spiral staircase as an example. Well, here are a few shapes that I think should be included in that database of Voxel Elements.

Pictures of suggested Voxel Elements to add to the Voxel Library.

 

I know that a voxel point cloud editing system is in development, list on trello Here. That will really open up lots of possibilities for builders. But, in addition to that, having a variety of voxel brush shapes to start with is still needed to give builders alternative options, because sometimes doing things one way just may not work out how you need it to, so having other ways to create shapes is a big help.
 
I think that covers the general ideas I had. My overall goal is to see more spaceships and constructs that aren't just limited to boxed shapes, and enable creative builders to really unleash their imagination. An I feel adding additional shapes to the Voxel Brush tool would be a good way to accomplish that goal. Please feel free to give feedback in the comments.

Thanks for reading, see you in the next thread.