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Luckso

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  1. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in Update 1.1 arrives on 29/11   
    Hello, Noveans!
     
    Update 1.1 has a release date!
     
    If you’ve not seen this post yet, this update will bring Grid Snapping, Element Recycling, new talents, Steam achievements, and more to the game, as well as adding crowdfunding rewards such as pets, titles, skins, and emotes!
     

     
    Our hotfixes have addressed many of the issues encountered since launch. We continue to improve the gameplay experience and are excited to build on Dual Universe with new features and systems, as NQ Kyrios had outlined before launch.
  2. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in RESET: HOW TO PREPARE   
    Hello, Noveans!
     
    With the launch of Dual Universe a month away, we want to talk about how to prepare for the upcoming server reset.
     
    We’ve outlined the parts of your gameplay that you’ll keep post-reset in our announcement video and in the letter from our Creative Director. Today, we want to expand on that and discuss how best to prepare for the reset and how to get the most out of it.
     
    PREPARE YOUR CORE BLUEPRINTS

    Make a Core Blueprint of every construct you want to keep and make sure that you store it in your nanopack or in a container on a construct that you own, though we advise that you keep them in your nanopack as it’s the safest place to store them.
     
    If you have Core Blueprints in the care of others or in other locations around Helios, don’t forget to gather them, should you want to keep them. Being the original owner of a Core Blueprint has no impact on Core Blueprints outside of your possession. You will keep only those Core Blueprints in your nanopack and owned containers.
     
    The same applies to organization-owned Core Blueprints. If you’re a superlegate of an organization, make sure that you store your Core Blueprints in your nanopack or that they’re stored in a container on a construct owned by your organization, though again, we advise that you keep them in your nanopack.
     
    PREPARE YOUR ORGANIZATIONS

    Make sure that each organization you want to keep has a player as its superlegate. Any organization without a player as its superlegate will be lost at the reset.
     
    Make a list of members you would like to reinvite after the reset. Though any organization with a player as its superlegate will remain after the reset with its Core Blueprints, Name, Logo, and Manifesto intact, membership will be reset.
     
    You can use the in-game contacts system (which will remain after the reset) to keep track of your members or simply make a list outside of the game. 
     
    DON’T WASTE TIME PREPARING YOUR MINING UNITS

    We will reset the ore distribution on each body in Helios. To find good spots for your mining units, you’ll need to re-build your Territory Scanners and hunt the tiles down. None of your pre-reset knowledge of hotspots will be valid post-reset.
     
    PIONEER PACKS AND THE TALENT ACCELERATOR 

    The Pioneer Packs' items will be delivered in the first month after launch. If you’d like your collectibles, you’ll need an active subscription, and you’ll need to log into the game during its first month after release to receive them.
     
    The talent point and quanta awards will be given on the final day of each month for the first six months of release. Again, you’ll need an active subscription to receive them.
     
    Finally, if you've subscribed to the game, ensure that you have at least six months of talent training queued up. The talent point accelerator event, which is open to all players, will boost your talent point acquisition in the first six months of launch by:
    100% for the first month 50% for months two, three, and four 25% for months five and six   
    The launch of Dual Universe will likely be the last time in the game's life where the economy will be an even playing field. Though beta players and backers will gain some advantage by the end of the six-month launch period, the start of the launch will see every player on the same starting line. There’s never been a better time to join! 
     
    We’re excited to see you in Helios on the 27th of September. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to share your feedback on reset preparation here.
  3. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in UPDATE: MERCURY (0.30)   
    Summer approaches and with it comes Mercury, our next update to Dual Universe.

    As Cyrille Fontaine, our Creative Director, mentioned in his letter, our focus is currently on polish, and Mercury is no exception. This update also brings new features such as The Alioth Exchange, better lighting to improve visuals, Summer DACs, and more.

    Read on for an overview.
     
    THE ALIOTH EXCHANGE

    We’re about to deploy a new installation in the heart of Alioth where players can apply to build a display to advertise and sell their creations. Applications will be open to all players who want to advertise their ship shops, markets, Lua Scripts, organizations, voxel libraries, or anything else that they create.
    More details about, ‘The Alioth Exchange,’ will be available in an upcoming dedicated post.
     

     Note: constructs featured are samples only.

    CONTINUED GRAPHICAL UPGRADES
     
    We’re tackling illumination, vegetation, and explosion visual effects with the Mercury Update. You’ll find that the game world will be more radiant and realistic with our new global illumination, vegetation asset fixes will improve the look of foliage in the game, and whether you’re fighting or simply crashing a ship, you can enjoy more vibrant explosions.
     

     
    SUMMER DACs
     
    We’re implementing a separate, test version of DACs, allowing every active player to invite a friend to try Dual Universe free for one month. 
    These Summer DACs are separate from real DACs, and will not impact your accrued pool of DACs from crowdfunding packages when gifted. 
    One Summer DAC will be given to every active player and can only be redeemed by new accounts not yet subscribed to the game. They will expire by the end of the summer if not used. Summer DACs should allow us to test our web-based DAC system before the game’s release while offering your friends a chance to try the game for free!

    NOVEAN OVERVIEW

    We're adding an in-game interface which provides an overview of your general account information and unlocked possessions. We’ll expand this feature moving forward, but in Mercury, you’ll be able to see your unlocked cosmetic skins in a dedicated tab.
     

     
    LUA API
     
    Our vision for Lua has evolved over the years and with the new directions we’ve taken, it’s become necessary to entirely revamp our Lua API. These changes will future-proof the API and make it better serve the game by improving and tidying the system. We’re starting this process in Mercury. 
     
    Naturally, such a major change will come with an enormous changelog, but to give you a brief overview of what’s coming ahead, we’re going to:
     
    Restructure the entire Lua API Prepare an object-oriented approach to be ready for future evolutions. Reduce the use of JSON in the API to favor the use of real Lua tables. Rely more on event-driven code to reduce player loops and server requests. Reduce the complexity and size of scripts Add some of the, ‘nice to have,’ features Add further points of interest to some elements such as the telemeter.  
    To summarize, our goal with this update is to reset the API and prepare it for future evolutions. Rest assured that your codes will still work in Mercury and that we’ll give you ample time to adapt your creations.
     
    TALENT POINT RESET

    Every character will have their talent points refunded back to their pool with the Mercury Update. While we must perform this reset for technical reasons related to upgrading our systems, this is also an opportunity for players to refocus talents into different areas and try new ‘builds’, or to simply correct training away from unwanted talents.
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As always, we’ll publish a series of articles delving deeper into Mercury’s features, but for now, thank you for reading, Noveans! We’re excited to move forward with Mercury and are eager to hear your thoughts in this forum thread.
     
     
  4. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in KICKSTARTER REWARDS STATUS   
    Hello Noveans,
     
    Many thanks to all of you who have been with us from our Kickstarter campaign. We appreciate your support and your patience and would like to update you on the status of the rewards you have been waiting for.

    THE PHYSICAL KICKSTARTER REWARDS
     
    Production on the Dual Universe figurines and the Collector Box is complete. However, there are two challenges in shipping them:
     
    First, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the price of shipping has risen significantly. It has reached a point where sending the rewards would cost as much as producing them. We had hoped that these price rises would only be temporary, but we now know that they won’t decrease in the short to medium future. We’ve therefore taken the decision to absorb the increased cost and to move forward with shipping the physical rewards. The second challenge has come from our partner responsible for handling the shipping of the physical rewards. They’ve recently informed us that they won’t be able to complete the task. We are therefore searching for a new partner to take receipt of the physical rewards and to start shipping them to you as quickly as possible.     THE VIRTUAL KICKSTARTER REWARDS
     
    Both the Kickstarter Founder Packs and the Supporter Packs will be released throughout the milestones of 2022 in Dual Universe. We’ll give you more concrete details on exactly when you can expect each part of those rewards packages to be released in the months ahead.

    Your support and patience mean a lot to all of us at Novaquark, and the delivery of your Kickstarter rewards is one of our priorities. We thank you again for your support and will update you with more information as quickly as we can. 
     
  5. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in ADDED ACCOUNT SECURITY: ENABLE TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION   
    Novaquark is releasing Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for added account security for our Dual Universe players. 2FA is simple yet effective: it adds an extra layer of protection to your account. As Dual Universe moves forward, we want to reward those players who choose to opt in. On top of the benefits of added account security, players will also receive the following rewards in-game:


     
    Talents: One million free skill points* added to your available pool. Money: Five hundred thousands quanta* of it, to be exact. Fashion: An exclusive skin for your programming boards to show off your commitment to security:
     
    *These figures may be revised in the future
     
    HOW IT WORKS

    You can enable or disable 2FA in the ‘security,’ section of your account at www.dualuniverse.game/account/security at any time. Once you have enabled 2FA, your in-game rewards will be delivered to your account the next time you login.  
    When 2FA is enabled, in addition to your password, you will be required to enter a one-time code that is generated by an authenticator app on your phone when attempting to log in.
    We hope you’ll enjoy flying through Helios with added peace of mind. Share your thoughts on the implementation of 2FA here!
     
  6. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in DEVBLOG: VFX UPGRADES IN ATHENA   
    Hello, Noveans! We’ve teased graphical upgrades coming to Dual Universe in Athena across our social media over the past couple of weeks, but we also want to present them to you now together to give a clear picture of what’s changing ahead:
     
     
    NEW SKYBOX
    A stunning skybox is essential for enjoyable space flight in games, and Dual Universe is no exception. Whether you’re hauling outside the pipes, hunting within them, or trying to claim an Alien Space Core Unit, you’ll fly in the new skybox coming with Athena.
     
     
    BLUEPRINT PRE-VISUALISATION
     
    The ability to see your blueprints visualized in the game before placing them, and to finely control their placement using keyboard keys will improve our player’s quality of life when deploying constructs.
     
    IMPROVED WATER VISUALS
    Living under water in Dual Universe can be more meaningful with the upgrade to our water VFX. Whether you want a sub-aquatic factory, to loop your racetrack below the water line, or simply have an internal pool, we hope you’ll like the way water looks now in Dual Universe.
     
    NEW WARP VFX
    White streaks are part and parcel of space games, they mean we’re moving fast! But, with the graphical overhaul to our warp travel, we hope you’ll enjoy the feel of spending a warp-cell or two roaming Helios.
     
    -----------------------------------------
     
    We’re always carefully reading your feedback. Do you like the new warp vfx, or the new skybox? Please share your thoughts in this forum thread.
  7. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in DEVBLOG: A MARKET IN SPACE   
    The upcoming 0.29 Athena update is about more than just PvP and improved visuals. Among the many features this update brings is the Aegis Market.
    Read on to learn more about this new commercial hub in space.
     

     
      SPACE ECONOMY  
    With the introduction of The Aegis Market, players may now directly access a bot-free market housed in the void of space. Located in a zero-gravity environment, the Market station provides a new dynamic in the transport of cargo, in that merchandise can be bought and sold without the need to make planetfall.
     
    Players can now transport resources, including from the new Alien Core Units, and sell them at a market using craft designed purely to function in space. This, along with the updates to our Space Warfare feature can provide new design routes to the next generation of player designed spaceships in Dual Universe.
     
    NEW PATHS AND AVENUES TO EXPLORE

     
    The Aegis Market is a vast place and it’s surrounded by landing pads for ships to dock. These pads have teleporters which can then take the players straight to the core of the market. The landing pads are all named after the planet nearest to them, and are only about 1KM away from the Aegis. 
     
    A landing pad where ships can dock.

     
    Teleporters leading players to the market.
     
    The market is located at the very center point of the safe zone, at roughly equal distance from Alioth, Madis and Thades. There is also a public warp beacon to the Aegis Market available.
     
    Please note that the Aegis Market has an interdiction zone surrounding it. You can't deploy a space core within 50KM of its location. You can however, deploy a dynamic core in this surrounding zone - just like in Aphelia territories on the planets.
     
    SPACE MARKETS – SYSTEM EXPANSION
     
    While we study the impact and player reactions to the addition of the Aegis Market, we will only be implementing this single new space market. If we can determine that the implementation of this feature is a positive addition to our game, we will explore the option of adding more of them in the future.
     
    We’d like to invite you to share your thoughts with us on this feature. Would you like to see more space markets in Dual Universe? What is your initial reaction to their implementation? Please Let us know your feedback here!
     
  8. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in DEVBLOG: NEW FTUE IN ATHENA   
    Greetings Noveans, there is an important part of our Athena update that we have not discussed yet: our new First Time User Experience (FTUE) tutorial. Let’s remedy this without further ado!
     
    Dual Universe’s FTUE has been drastically improved upon to provide players with an easier to understand, more concise and overall better introduction to the game.
     
    Here are the details about what the new FTUE includes:
     
    SAFE MOONS

    As many of you know, we provide every player with a Safe Moon territory. Safe Moons are planets placed in a Safe Zone of space, where no PvP actions are allowed. In addition to being PvP-safe, the territories on these Safe Moons are permanent, which means once you have claimed such a territory, you have a persistent residence in the solar system. The Safe Moons are also excluded from Upkeep Costs.which we believe are a crucial aspect for a player’s peace of mind, should they need to take a break from Dual Universe at any time.
     
    As the game continues to expand and more Noveans join the adventure, we added a brand new planet: Haven. It is one of the Safe Moons of Alioth, the other one being the well known Sanctuary. With this update, new players will now land directly on the moon called Haven, which is designed specifically to be friendly for new players: it has three main rings of land, each of which present with different environments, as well as no bodies of water. Haven has a total of six biomes, and 20 new markets - including 10 districts that connect Haven to both Alioth and Sanctuary thanks to a shuttle system that players can take freely. No matter where players find themselves, they can now easily visit their fellow Noveans!
     
    Haven
     
    Shuttle Station
     
    STARTING THE FTUE
    A big change in the new FTUE is that players will begin their journey by landing on Haven. Once they complete their character customization, they will then be required to select their starting territory. The new players will then find themselves in a lander directly over their selected territory. It will automatically be claimed by the player and Aphelia will guide them through the rest of the FTUE.
     
    Players will also choose an Outpost to deploy on the planet as part of the introduction to the game. Outposts are small bases that allow players to try their hand in Dual Universe’s basic features. They are equipped with a Resurrection Node, a VR Station and a Basic Mining Unit S (small) to provide them with a smoother start. Aphelia will direct players to the location of these elements in each Outpost, and explain their purpose.
     
    There are ten different outposts to choose from. Which one players choose is purely a reflection of their design preferences. For example, they may wish to go for a new settlement aesthetic and choose the Station Outpost. On the other hand, the Pilot Outpost provides players with a runway for an aviation environment. Don’t forget the Tri Outpost with how it brings a sci-fi feel as it elevates just off the ground!
     
     
    Station Outpost
     
    Tri Outpost
     
    After the quick introduction is over and players have explored their Outpost, they are then free to do what they like. Players can find suggestions of next steps using the Outpost’s ‘Objectives screen’, use the VR Station for advanced tutorials, expand their Outpost constructs or venture out into the universe with an organization or as a lone wolf.
     
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    With the fundamentals learned and the introduction complete, players will now have what they need to begin their Dual Universe journey. What will they create? Which organization will they join? The tools are in your inventory Noveans, what will you choose?
     
    Your feedback on the new and improved FTUE is invaluable so that we can welcome many new players to our game and improve Dual Universe. Please help us make this the best experience possible for everyone by providing your feedback here!
     
  9. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in A Fool's Defense Wrap Up   
    We hope everyone who attended our Fools Defense event held on our PTS on April 1st had fun.
    We especially did, and thanks to our fellow Noveans, we had a ‘blast’!
     

     
    As some of you might remember in our previous announcement for the Fool’s Defense event, there were some prizes to be had. We are pleased to announce that the winners have been chosen and the Wheel of Foolish Fortune is ready to start spinning! Which prizes will our foolish actions provide those that dare take a spin? Find out on the PTS on Saturday April 9th, 14:00 UTC for all the wheel spinning action.
     
    After combing through our logs with a fine tooth comb, we have chosen six participants whose bravery, dedication and foolishness left the server room sizzling. We are now inviting them to prove their luck and talent once again by taking the Wheel for a spin!
     
    Walter - For landing the final blow causing the destruction of the defenders station, many developers were harmed in the process. (Yes, we checked the logs thoroughly.) Copperlein - For being so good to us on the PTS, yet destroying Nautilus A’s Core, and breaking our heart. Dronko - For destroying Nautilus B’s Core, and again breaking our heart. (Et tu, Brute?) Wolfram  - For being devs’ best friend by reporting bugs on our forum. Mastuga - For being such a Trooper with the amount of ammo (pew, pew, pew) they used during the event.  Honvik - For forcing so many players to return to the resurrection pod. Skyreaper - For coming back to life so many times we thought they were a cat!   
    Winners please present yourself on the PTS on Saturday, April 9th at 14:00 UTC for your chance to spin the Wheel! If you are unable to attend, a Novaquark representative will spin the Wheel in your place. Prizes will be given out shortly after the spinning of the Wheel has concluded. 
     
    Please note: All players will need to go through the new FTUE on the PTS in order to participate in this event, please allow yourself enough time to go through it. 
     
    Players who wish to join in the fun on the PTS are welcome, teleport over to PVP Platform 2 (::pos{0,0,2729026.2814,-98851321.2156,-1455512.2758}) where you can witness first hand the spoils of war!
     
  10. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in A FOOL'S DEFENSE: PTS EVENT - discussion thread   
    Hello, Noveans!
     
    Let us know your thoughts on the upcoming PTS event!
  11. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Nyzaltar in [CM Team] NQ-Nyota joins the team!   
    Hi everyone!
     
    You probably heard that NQ-Pann has left Novaquark a few weeks ago.
    Today, we are happy to announce that a new Community Manager is joining the team: NQ-Nyota ! ?
    Please give her a warm welcome! 
     
    P.S: on a side note, NQ-Naerais is still unavailable but should be back in a couple of months.
     
    Best Regards,
    Nyzaltar.
  12. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in ROADMAP UPDATE: PREPARE FOR WAR WITH THE COMING OF 0.29 "ATHENA"   
    Can you hear that low rumble tumbling across the sky? It’s the goddess of war and wisdom, and she’s bringing the heat.
     
    Slated for the end of Spring, the Dual Universe Athena update heralds a new tidal wave of conflict that will set Helios ablaze.
     
    For peace-loving Noveans uninterested in warfare, Athena also includes a completely overhauled First Time User Experience (FTUE), a Space Market, and a variety of visual upgrades to the game.
     

     
     
    WHAT’S IN IT
     
    Space warfare hits a new stratosphere with the introduction of alien core units that will spawn in PvP zones. Think of them as resource-generating facilities, like space mining points. Players and organizations can claim these points to accumulate resources. But nothing comes free or easy in space. Alien core units must be defended. Do you have the mettle to get this metal?
     
    These alien core units also serve additional purposes. The first is to provide fresh new PvP challenges for fighter types, and the second is to reduce the pressure on players who wish to avoid PvP side of DU but still find themselves ambushed by pirates when they step out of the safe zone.
     
    To better balance PvP, we are adding stasis weapons and altering the behavior around a constructs’ maximum speed. With these sweet guns, big armored ships with powerful space engines will no longer have an advantage that allowed them to escape more agile smaller designs.
     
    Last but not least on the topic of PvP, our voxel team has improved the performances near combat-related explosions, especially the destruction of voxels. We aren’t losing focus on keeping improving our players’ experience in Helios!
     
    Shifting gears away from the pew pew pew features in Athena, we have also revamped the FTUE to provide a better, more easily comprehensible starting experience for new players. We want to give new players all the information they need to settle into DU with a solid foundation.
     
    Among other features, you can look forward to the following:
    New space map New skybox and stars rendering improvements Improved water visuals Improved flashlight visuals  Mining Units Lua API Space market Element stacking exploit fix  
    The best news of all is that we plan to release a smaller update between now and Athena release to introduce some quality of life improvements.
     
    WHAT’S NEXT
     
    As usual, we’ll publish a series of devblogs to provide deeper insight into the new Athena features. We hope that you’ll like what you see!
     
    Thanks to your constructive feedback, we have fine-tuned and balanced the content of Panacea with overall good results. We hope to see more of the same, so we encourage you to continue engaging with us as you read the upcoming articles. Your ideas and feedback are what will make Dual Universe better.
     
    Head over to this thread and let’s chat!
     
  13. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in DEVBLOG: CONSTRUCTION SLOTS AND STACKED ELEMENTS   
    It’s the tale of two stackings that were never meant to be, nested organizations and overlapping elements on ships. Both have been problematic, and we’d like to give you an update on the steps we’re taking to correct them.
     
     
    ORGANIZATION CONSTRUCT SLOTS
     
    Several months ago, we suggested a way to address the issue of cascading organizations being created as a way to circumvent the soft limitations of construct and territory numbers. Players raised some valid concerns about the proposal, citing that it would adversely affect how they managed their organizations’ holdings. In consideration of that feedback, we temporarily tabled the proposed changes and went back to the drawing board.
     
    The problem remains and needs to be resolved sooner rather than later to avoid a myriad of issues in the future. DU simply can’t support an infinite number of constructs per player. It’s why we have construct allowances in the first place. We needed a solution that would support community projects for organizations of any size without penalizing those that are prolific. After all, one of the core features of DU is to build lots of cool stuff.
     
     
    THE NEW WAY
     
    The solution we’ve designed will detach construct capacity rights from organizations and put them directly into players’ hands. 
     
    Organizations will now have a base construct capacity of zero.
    The reasoning behind this is to no longer make it a viable option to create countless organizations simply to increase the capacity of constructs available. This will now depend on the next item on the list…
    Each Novean will have 15 assignable organization construct slots, with an additional 10 available from talents.
    This change allows us to scale the maximum number of constructs to the number of players. This can be beneficial to smaller organizations because… 
    Players can assign these slots to any organization of their choosing, whether or not they are a member of the organization.
    We hope to see players use their available organization construct slots to support their organizations and to help support community projects they like. For those who want to support a different organization…
    Noveans can reassign their slots from one organization to another, though this will cause the former organization to lose construct capacity.
    This means that...
    An organization that loses capacity will either need to acquire new slots from players in order to support its infrastructure or reduce its number of constructs.
    If the organization has more constructs than its allotted slots for two weeks, the organization will receive a warning. 
    If the organization does not either reduce its construct count to below its new allocated slots or increase its slot count two weeks after the warning, random constructs from that organization will become abandoned and lose ownership. At that point, any player or organization who has the necessary allotment of construct slots may claim it. 
    This system allows us to maintain a balance in terms of expected constructs present.
     
    Further, to prevent players from trying to circumnavigate the system by reassigning construct slots back and forth every two weeks, there will be a minimum of 30 days before you can reassign the slots away from an organization.
     
     
    USING YOUR TALENTS
     
    Many of you likely used talents to increase an organization's construct capacity. Talents will still play a role as they provide an upper ceiling for a single organization’s capacity; however, these talents have been increased in their capacity, which now allows a single organization to have a far higher construct slot maximum.
     
    Where the old maximum was 275 constructs, the new upper limit will be 1625.
     
    As these changes significantly increase the scale of which these talents previously applied, these talents will be reset at the 0.28 Panacea release.
    Organization Construct Management
    Organization Construct Management Specialization
    Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization
    We try to limit the resetting of talents as much as we can; however, due to the considerable changes in the way these talents now behave and scale, we feel that refunding these talents is required.
     
     
    FRESH, NEW UI
     
    All the changes revealed above will come with some UI improvements such as:
    A new interface on the organization home page, allowing each Novean to assign construct slots to organizations of their choosing and to see how many slots they have assigned to which organizations.

    A new interface called ‘Constructs’ on each organization page, allowing each organization to have insight on how many slots they have available, who they received them from, when the next construct check is due, a log of slot gains and losses, and what their slot maximum capacity and talent maximum capacity are.
     

     
    Another minor feature we will begin to introduce into some select UI elements is the ability to export lists in JSON format, the first of which can be found in the new organization ‘Constructs’ UI above. It will include a small copy-to-clipboard button, which will copy a JSON formatted string containing a list of all the data available in the column. In the above example, these can be found for:
    Construct Slots: This will return a JSON string of player names, how many slots they have shared, and if they are a member of your organization.
    Construct Check: This will return a JSON string of constructs that have been abandoned due to lack of construct slots, their coordinates at the time of abandonment, and a total count of constructs that have been abandoned.
    Log: This will return a JSON string containing the date it was copied as a unit timestamp, the number of allocation changes, followed by a list of players, how many they have lent to the organization and how many the organization has as that point, along with a Unix timestamp of the transaction.
     
    Following feedback on these export functions, we will consider implementing them for other UI elements such as, for example, the Talents UI.
     
    When the Panacea update launches, it will kick off a 30-day grace period at the end of which the abandonment of constructs will go into effect. Please note that if your organization exceeds its slot capacity, a warning message will be received; however, no abandoning will happen for the first 30 days after Panacea’s release.
     
     
    DISABLING OVERLAPPING ELEMENTS
     
    The stacking of elements on ships is unintended gameplay - aka an exploit - that we have been aware of for a regrettably long time. Though we’ve explored a few different options, including the detection solution we released previously, community feedback prompted us to postpone the disabling of elements until after Panacea’s initial release. 
     
    The revised approach will likely include trials on the Live server without disabling elements in order to measure the impact of the algorithms. We would like to thank everyone who reached out to us with constructive feedback and bug reports of elements that caused problems in specific placements.
     
     
    FEEDBACK WANTED
     
    The forums are the absolute best place to share your feedback with us. Although members of the DU dev team may pop into Discord from time to time, the loose and fluid nature of those chat channels can make it difficult to have an earnest discussion. The forums, on the other hand, are static and much more conversation-friendly. 
     
    All of that said, we hope you’ll join the conversation about this devblog here. 
  14. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in DEVBLOG: PRECISION IN BUILDING   
    In the upcoming 0.28 Panacea update, we will introduce the Vertex Precision Tool (VPT), which adds a whole new way of bringing detail to your creative designs.
     
    This all may sound quite complex initially, but once you get used to the tool it’s quite intuitive. If you’ve been holding back because voxelmancy seemed too complicated, now’s the time to give it a try. By allowing you to simply equip the VPT and move the vertex around on a changeable grid, the process of designing with voxels is greatly simplified and far more user-friendly.
     
    Here’s a brief demonstration of what the VPT looks like and how it’s used:
     
     
    Heads up! The information in this blog leans heavily into the extremely technical side of things. Those who are into voxelmancy will probably dive in with unfettered joy. If building isn’t your jam, you may wish to stop here and get the TL;DR from one of your builder buddies later.
     
    VOXELS DEFINED
     
    Much of what you see in Dual Universe was built by players using voxels. The term “voxel” is very generic, a shortened form of “volume element”. Voxelmancy is an advanced form of building that can be quite complex, and there has always been a gap between building with standard geometric shapes and fine-tuned designs. The VPT aims to bring a game-changing  bridge for the gap between these building styles.
     
    How exactly the voxels are implemented depends a lot on the software that’s being used. In DU, a voxel contains two things: material information and a vertex position information.
     
    The material information is pretty straightforward; it is exactly the same as in a pixelated image where there is a material (think of it as a synonym of “color“) for each little square. We use what we call a uniform grid, meaning that voxels are put next to each other in a 3D grid and all have the same size. For example, on a planet voxels are 1 meter long (1m x 1m x 1m) whereas they can be 25 centimeters long (0.25m x 0.25m x 0.25m) on a user construct. It’s exactly how pixels work in 2D images, and you may already be familiar with these kinds of voxels because they are present in games like Minecraft.
     
    VERTICES POSITIONS
     
    Let’s drill down even deeper into the well of technical stuff.
     
    As stated above, voxels contain material information and a vertex position information. The Vertex Precision Tool doesn’t touch materials, so let’s talk about vertices.
     
    3D geometry is composed of vertices, and those vertices are linked together to form faces that will be rendered on your screen. For instance, take a simple single voxel cube. It is composed of one material, but has eight vertices on the eight corners. Since our voxels in DU store both a material and a vertex position, our “single voxel” here is composed of eight voxels because it takes eight vertices to form a cube!
     
    This is where it starts getting complicated. We can consider that there are two voxel grids, one is the material grid and the other is the vertex position grid, and the two grids are shifted, dual to each other. There are eight vertices around a material, and there are eight materials (we can consider the void as a special kind of material) around a vertex.
     
    So what are we talking about when we talk about a voxel? A little bit of both, depending on the context. Confusing right? We’ll try to be specific and talk about vertices, but remember there is only one vertex per voxel, although one voxel cube is composed of eight vertices (and thus is in reality eight voxels: one with matter and seven without matter.)
     
    Take a look at this picture. It is in 2D because it’s easier to understand (and to draw), but this is the same thing in 3D. This image represents a voxel sphere (more like a circle since we are in 2D).
     

      The dotted lines are the uniform grid that represent the voxels. At the intersection of those dotted lines, you can have a blue dot, representing a material. So, we have our material grid: either emptiness or a blue material. Inside of all of those cells, there may be a vertex. There is a vertex if and only if all four corners are not the same. If one of the corners is blue and another one empty, it means we have some material change here and thus something to see. So we need a vertex to know where we see the surface. On each of those cells, we have a vertex represented. The vertices are then linked together to form the surface.
     
    POSITIONS VALUES
     
    Before the Panacea update, you could only get such a sphere with the sphere tool, but with the VTP you’ll now have the opportunity to change the vertex position manually. This raises the question: what coordinate system do we use?
     
    In theory, we could use an infinite range of values. For example, we could say that the vertex should be at one third (on a given axis) in between the two materials as shown in the grid, so its value (on this axis) could be 0.333333333. It could also be 0.1415926535, or whatever we want.
     
    However, we need to store those vertex positions, and we want to be efficient so that we don’t take too much disk usage so we encode the vertex position (on a given axis) on a single byte. This means we only have 256 different possibilities for a vertex position, but we don’t really need more. A vertex position is a coordinate with three numbers (for the three axes) where all of these numbers are integers (with a maximum 256 different possible integers).
     
    So what are those possible values? Before answering that, we need to consider where a vertex can lie. On the sphere representation drawing, you can see that vertices are inside the zone defined by the four surrounding material points. This is indeed where a vertex should be most of the time, although we may sometimes want to overflow a bit, reach a little further than the vertex is supposed to. This will encroach on the zone of the neighbor voxel, but it does not have to be a problem. We decided that a vertex could lie on its one zone, but also the zone of its direct neighbors. On the 2D schematics above, it means that a vertex can be placed anywhere on the nine squares around it.
     
    A vertex encoding actually encodes three vertice’s positions. We want to have an encoding for all the important positions, the middle of each of the three voxels and their borders. This means that we need a multiple of six. We’ll use 252 as it is very close to 256. Now let’s see this coordinate system in a picture. The picture below represents four simple cubes in voxels (yellow, red, blue and cyan).
     
    We will be talking about the vertex shared by the red and blue cubes. There are actually two of those vertices in 2D, one top and one bottom; let’s talk about the top one. We state that the position it is in in the picture will be 0 (it’s a convention, the one chosen in the Vertex Precision Tool), and above the cubes we showed all the position values this vertex could have
     
     
    So 0 is the position of a vertex in a simple voxel cube. If we move the vertex into position 42 (both the top and bottom vertex of this red-blue junction), then the red rectangle will now be 1.5 times bigger, and the blue rectangle will be half its current size. If we move the vertices to -42, it would be the other way around. Note that all the values between -42 and 42 are the values where the vertex is supposed to be without overflow. This is the zone we described earlier.
     
    If we were to move the vertices to value 84, then we would enter the territory of the vertex shared by the blue and cyan cubes. This becomes a little dangerous and could result in strange results. In this example, it would lead to the blue surface to completely disappear and be replaced by the red one. The blue voxel would still exist, it would just have a null volume.
     
    And, in the example of these four cubes, if we were to go to a value above 84, it would result in an ill-formed shape because the blue shape would have a negative volume. This would probably create visual artifacts, and we may prevent this situation in the future.
     
    ENCODING CHANGE
     
    One last note for those who are familiar with voxelmancy. In Panacea, we use an encoding of 253 positions (from -126 to 126), which is different than it has been. We used an encoding of 255 positions (it was from -128 to 128 but previous -128 = actual -126). Since there is no exact mapping between the old encoding to the new one, this means that vertices in your constructs may be shifted up to 1mm (vertices at position 0 will not move, but those at extreme values will move the most). This will probably be unnoticeable, but we wanted to err on the side of caution and share this information.
     
    You may wonder, why 253? It is for the reasons explained before, to have those nice -126, -84, -42, 0, 42, 84 and 126 values. The 255 system did not allow for that. We could have chosen 193, so that you could split a voxel in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64, but that would have meant a huge loss in precision and significantly deformed most constructs. So 253 it is, and you can now split a voxel in 42!
     
    USING THE VPT
     
    There are exactly 253 positions on a single axis including zero that a vertex can be in due to it being divisible over three voxels. Negative 126, 0, and positive 126. As such, the width of one voxel is exactly 84 positions. And each vertex can be moved exactly 1.5 voxel away from the center position.
     
    Thus, the grid on which a vertex is moved is adjustable to a size that covers 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 21 or 42 positions, 42 being the size of half a voxel. This allows the accurate placement to the finest detail or to quickly scale up and move a vertex by a half, a quarter, a sixth, or a twelfth of a voxel.
     
    See the image below to get an idea of the different size grids available to the VPT.
     
     
    Once selected, the vertex cursor can then be moved with:
    The up, down, left arrow and right Arrow keys for the x- and y-axis.
    The Page Up and Page Down for the z-axis.
    The Home key to send the cursor to the current position of the vertex.
    The End key to send your cursor to the last confirmed coordinates.
    (This also happens by default when you change vertices.)
    The Alt+Home key combination to send the cursor to the centered 0,0,0 coordinates.
    Holding Control+Scroll will adjust the grid size between the available sizes.
    Left-click confirms the placement and moves the selected vertex to the cursor.
     
    The VPT will give you the finest precision possible, no more complex voxelmancy of copy-pasting things around to get a specific shape. You may not use this tool all the time, but when you do you’ll find it exceptionally helpful for fine-tuning.
     
    WHEW, THAT’S A LOTTA INFO!
     
    Still with us? We know there’s a lot of information to process, but we felt it was worthwhile to share the details with our voxelating community members that would appreciate seeing how the sausage is made (so to speak).
     
    We can’t wait to see the cool new stuff Noveans build with the Vertex Precision Tool. As always, we encourage everyone to join the conversation on the forum in this thread. If you have questions about the VPT or want to share your thoughts and tips about voxelmancy in general, that’s the place to go.
     
     
  15. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Nyzaltar in DEVBLOG: PANACEA 'REMEDIES' ON THE WAY   
    Dual Universe’s Panacea update is right around the corner, bringing with it a sizable variety of changes based on feedback from our community. 
    Ahead of the update, however, we are immediately introducing revisions to territory upkeep and mining units. 
     
    Read on for the full scoop! 
     
    GOING INTO EFFECT ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 25th
     
    Taxes will be effective again starting Wednesday, January 26th.
    The day before, we are going to deploy three adjustments to address the issues mentioned in the Community Feedback regarding Territory Upkeep.
     
    Territory Upkeep Reduction: 1 MM --> 500k.

    Territory Upkeep was first introduced in the November 2021 Demeter update. After reviewing community feedback, we announced that territory upkeep payments would be postponed for two weeks to allow the Design team time to dig deep into the metrics and fine-tune the system accordingly. 

    The upkeep rate per territory will be reduced by 50%, from 1MM to 500k quanta. Player feedback indicated that people felt they were having to sell ore too frequently to generate the funds needed to pay upkeep. In halving the upkeep costs, we will relieve the pressure to make frequent trips to the market as well as the need to sell large quantities of ore.
      Calibrations Charges:
    Base calibration charge slots increase : 5 --> 25.
    Talent calibration charge slots increase : 1/level --> 5/level.

    Also introduced in the Demeter update, mining units were designed as an alternative to digging endless tunnels underground for ore. To keep them producing at their peak capacity requires occasional calibration; however, initial feedback from the community told us that further tweaks were needed for the calibration process. To this end, we’ve made the two changes mentioned above.

    This will change the total amount of stored charges from 10 (5 base + 5 max talents) to 50 (25 base + 25 max talents).

    The intention behind the charge cap was not to force a behavior in which you felt like you needed to spend charges in order not to “lose out” on charges by hitting the cap and wasting your recharge. 

    In view of that, both the base and the talent bonus are drastically going up. This will not only allow you to store more charges in general, but specifically allow you to store a much longer period of time in charge recharge time, giving you much more breathing room to store charges and not waste charge recharge time.
      Calibration grace period: 48h --> 72h
      The calibration grace period is the amount of time during which a mining unit does not lose calibration. Similarly to charge slots, the intention was not to aggressively require you to calibrate mining units every 2-3 days. In our initial calculations our goal was more to hit the 5 to 6 day mark depending on what efficiency curve the player selected, and how many mining units the player was trying to maintain.
     
    We are changing the calibration grace period from 48-hours to 72-hours. 
     
    This change should bring us closer to the initial values we were looking for and give players more breathing room to calibrate when their mining units seem to be producing less than usual, indicating that calibration is needed.
     
    CHANGES COMING WITH PANACEA UPATE (0.28) LAUNCH
     
    Using industry units on offline tiles

    The intention of requiring online territories for industry units was not to negatively impact industry units on planets. We initially saw it as further incentive to pay for taxes, but it was not a core requirement. This is also why industry units on Ssanctuary and space cores were left untouched.

    We understand from player feedback that requiring you to operate mining units on a territory in order to not run industry units at a loss on that territory was an annoyance and many players did not want to run their industry units on the same territories as their mining units.

    In view of the preferences expressed, we have decided to allow the operation of industry units on all offline territories. In combination with HQ territories, this will allow you to effectively run industry units on offline territories for extended periods of time.
      Faster extraction animations
      We are also addressing the feedback we’ve received regarding the time it takes to complete a calibration minigame, specifically the frustration from the long loading animations when calibrating a number of mining units.
     
    An option has been added in the mining unit UI (tick box) that will let you significantly reduce the time these animations take, drastically reducing the period of time the animations run.
     
    Additionally, a number of mining unit mini-game animations have been slightly reduced in duration, thus allowing a faster minigame completion.
     
    New talents for surface harvesting
      In order to further incentivize harvesting surface rocks, and to be able to specialize in it, we are adding four talents linked to surface harvesting that will touch on harvesting speed and output.
     
    The main goal is to create some surface harvesting specialization for those players who enjoy it, giving them the capability to harvest better and faster, and for longer periods of time.
     
    CHANGES COMING POST-PANACEA
     
    New surface harvesting controls
      To further address surface harvesting issues, we are working on quality of life-type improvements that will allow a degree of auto-harvesting similar to normal mining as well as other changes to reduce control and UX-based frustrations during surface harvesting. 
    Watch for additional details as we refine our plans!
     
     New mining unit surface harvesting, rocks spawning behavior
     
    Lastly, we are looking for a solution to simplify the process of gathering rocks. This is in direct response to player requests to eliminate the hassle of having to comb their territories after calibrating a number of mining units. 
     
    While this is still in relatively early stages, the solution we are looking at is to spawn the rocks right under the mining unit beam, where the beam hits the ground. Players would then be able to rapidly harvest surface rocks. 
     
    BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE
     
    Don’t forget that there’s a lot more to Panacea than the changes and tweaks discussed above. It’s also got some cool new stuff, like the Vertex Precision Tool which we’ll be talking about in the next devblog! 
     
    Meanwhile, please join the conversation on the forum here to tell us what you think about revisions we’ve presented in this Devblog.
    We’d love to hear from you! 
     
    ---

    The Novaquark team
  16. Like
    Luckso reacted to blazemonger in PANACEA UPDATE ADDED TO ROADMAP - discussion thread   
    A lot of vague, much of the same, some interesting but mostly a lot of vague.

    Good to read NQ, again, realizes they are not listening to their community which they once more find were not wrong on many counts after the fact. The repeat of the "we heard you" message in this post as well as yet another promise of doing better is all well and good, but it's really time now to actually show NQ can and will do so. That would be a great change of attitude and IMO a big leap ahead. So, here's hoping it's not just words this time.
     
     
    Something I'd really like to have a better clarification on is this:
     
     
    How is this more complex than it appears and give us a clue of what plays into this. I'm serious here, this is actually interesting and good insight in what goes on and into making these choices and would help the community to better understand.
     
    What role do ATC or MC teams play at this point? hwo active are they in providing feedback before you go public. Or is NQ there no sounding board with a chance to adjust before going public which will only lead to a level of feedback NQ may well drown in it again and fall back to their previous ways.
     
    NQ, you need help in getting these things out, there’s plenty here who are able and willing to do so.. Maybe you should actually start using your community as a resource before putting in the time and effort to then find a lot of it simply is not working.
     
     
     
    There have been some signals of NQ getting better, I can only hope though that this "we heard you" edition finally and actually brings changes and is not just a paragraph of words without weight or meaning.
     
  17. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Wanderer in PANACEA UPDATE ADDED TO ROADMAP   
    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! 
  18. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in DEVBLOG: MINING UNITS 101   
    Mining units are one of the key features that will be introduced in the upcoming Demeter update. What are they? How do they work? How will they impact the gameplay of Dual Universe? Read on for the answers to those questions and learn more about these handy-dandy little ore vacuums. 
     
    HOW DO MINING UNITS WORK?
    Let’s start with the basics. 
     
    Mining units are new elements that you can deploy on your static constructs on the surface of planets. They need to be linked to an output container and, once started, they will autonomously dispense ore at regular intervals into this container without the need for you to be connected to the game. 
     
    There is one mining unit for each tier and they are large elements. Each tier of mining unit is able to mine ores of the same tier. In addition to these five large mining units, there is also a small one for tier 1 only. This special small mining unit is intended for beginners.
     
    Let’s have a look at these beautiful beasts in action.
     

    A minimalist mining building with an active mining unit and its best friend, the container
     
    These mining units work only if the mining ray you see in the screenshot above is not obstructed and can reach the ground. The mining ray has a maximum range of 50m.
     
    Once the mining unit is deployed, linked to an output container, and in range of the ground, you can select what ore it will mine and start the machine. Once calibrated (more on that below), It will then mine regularly and deliver a batch of ore in the output container every hour. To further automate the process, the output container can be designated as the entry point of an industry line. (Note: If the container is full; the mining unit will no longer collect ore, so you’ll need to empty the output containers from time to time or have them feed directly into an industry line.)
     
    There are two primary considerations when deploying mining units. First, you need to make sure the territory where they are deployed actually holds enough ore underground and the units will need to be calibrated before they will begin collecting ore.

    TERRITORY POOLS
    Various types and tiers of ore are dispersed with limited availability across Dual Universe. You won’t find them all grouped together in a particular place. 
     
    To represent that, each territory in the game can provide up to a certain volume of ore each hour. That’s what we call the ‘ore pool’. A territory scan can show the kinds of ore present on a territory tile and their yield rates in liters per hour.
     

    This territory is capable of providing a variety of tier 1 ore
     
    The image above illustrates the territory-based maximum rate for each ore on this territory. Since there’s a maximum yield per hour, adding more and more mining units becomes useless past a certain point. Each active mining unit “consumes” a part of these available resources. These territory pools represent mining rates, not a total volume of available ore. For example, if a territory has a pool of 100 l/h of a given ore and each mining unit is capable of extracting 50 l/h, then you need two mining units to maximize your extraction capacity, and any additional mining unit beyond two won't give you more yield.
     
    Unlike the previous ‘manual mining’ system, the new ore pools are infinite. You will always be able to mine these ores at this rate for as long as you have a calibrated mining unit running here.
     
    These territory ore pools are varied and different. On a planetary basis, this new repartition should match more or less the previous allotment for manual underground mining. There are a few changes, but basically a planet that used to contain some tier 3 ore will still contain some tile-wise though, the issuance is very different between low and high tier ores, even from territory tile to territory tile. Typically, you should find tier 1 ore in abundance on nearly every territory tile in the system, but tier 5 ores are only on a few small spots on the most distant planets.

    ACTIVE TERRITORIES
    For mining units to work, the territory must be active. That simply means that the territory tax for it must be paid. That’s right, if you want the shiny rocks, you gotta pay your taxes. You can learn more about territory upkeep in an upcoming devlog. 

    MINING RIGHTS
    If you share your territory tile with your friends or organization, you might want to keep the precious underground ores for yourself or, conversely, allow only specific people the ability to operate mining units on your territories. For this purpose, we’re adding the Mining Unit Right. Without this, mining units belonging to other players are unable to access the ore pool and cannot mine on your territories. 

    ADJACENCY BONUS
    Mining units are social. They like to be around friends. That’s why if you own several active territories near each other, the mining units working on them get an ‘adjacency bonus’ to yield a greater amount of ore beyond the ore pool in each batch. Note that the territories must be owned by the same entity. If you find a great tile with precious ore under it, it might be worth it to own and maintain a few adjacent territories.

    EXTRACTING AND CALIBRATION
    As explained above, mining units are fully autonomous, doing their appointed duties regardless of where you are and what you’re doing, including when you’re offline having real-world adventures (which you should be enjoying from time to time). The reality is just a bit more complex as mining units need to be calibrated to work efficiently.
     
    Each mining unit has a ‘calibration score’ and slowly loses calibration over time if kept unchecked. When the calibration score is below 100%, the mining unit will produce less ore; at 0%, it won’t produce anything at all. To remedy that, it must be calibrated.
     
    To calibrate, you will need to enter a specific interface where you will manually probe the territory in search of underground ore. This is ‘extracting’.
     

    Manually extracting ore and calibrating the mining unit
     
    In this extracting session, you will use several tools to probe the territory tile, but you will need to keep a look at the probe battery at the same time. The goal is to find the optimal point with the best ore density that you’ll select at the end of the process. Depending on the quality of the location, this will have two effects:
    It will increase the calibration score so that the mining unit can continue to do its job. It will also extract a few ore rocks in the process and those will pop to the surface of the tile at the selected location. These may be harvested manually at your convenience; they don’t expire.   
    Calibration is not unlimited. Each player generates calibration charges at the rate of one charge every few hours. You can use your charges on the mining units owned by other players or organizations as long as you have the rights needed to access them.
     
    Finally, a single mining unit cannot be extracted twice in a row. There’s a 24-hour cooldown period before calibrating it again. The upside is that mining units will not lose calibration for two days after being calibrated.

    MINING UNIT TALENTS
    Since mining units are a big new thing for Dual Universe, they come with a variety of new talents to complement their use.
     
    You will have talents that improve the:
    mining unit efficiency, on element deploy base mining rate, on element deploy speed at which your character will regenerate calibration charges  maximum mining charges your character can hold amount of ore extracted when calibrating  
    GETTING TO THE CORE OF TERRAFORMING
    One change we do want to make you all aware of comes as part of the terraforming changes where previously a number of players had dug down to the center of certain planets or moons. Each planet or moon will now have an impenetrable core at the center that forms about 80% of the planet's radius with a minimum digable depth of 5 km below its “sea” level.
     

     
    As such, some constructs may be located below this line after the incoming terrain changes. In these cases, we will raise those constructs up to the relevant planet’s surface. (See this article about preparing for the geometry reset for directions on how to request assistance.) 

    A CHANGE OF HEART, THE REMOVAL OF SCAN RESULTS
    We received a considerable amount of feedback from players who were opposed to keeping old scan results relevant. And following some internal discussions on the topic, we feel that it is indeed in the best interest of the game to provide a clean slate when it comes to mining data to prevent the hottest of hotspots from being immediately taken. As such, we will be clearing all scan results from the game when Demeter goes live. 
     
    We realise that this will inconvenience some of the players who have large amounts of scan data; however, we do believe it is the right thing to do.

    DO YOU ‘DIG’ THE MINING CHANGES?
    Mining units are a significant departure in how mining is done in Dual Universe. The old underground mining system is gone, replaced by mining units and asteroid mining. We hope that you will appreciate the new feature, from territory management and optimization to the extracting sessions. We really think that the new state of mining in DU is more sustainable and hope you’ll agree. Share your feedback here. 
     
  19. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Pann in MINING TALENTS RESET WITH DEMETER UPDATE   
    When the Demeter update goes live soon, some talents will be reset to fit the mining overhaul and the introduction of mining units. 
     
    The following list of talents will be reset and their points recredited to your available talent pool:
    Mining and Inventory Miner Mining Range Advanced Mining Mining Optimizations Scanner Upgrades Detector Upgrades Dredger Mining Efficiency Scanning Efficiency Scanner Advanced Upgrades Detector Efficiency Detector Optimization  
    Any of these actively training when the update is released will be taken out of the queue, and the points already invested during training will be seamlessly recredited to your available talent pool.
     
    Note that this will not be the case for the PTS, as you can simply refund your talent points there by typing /respec in chat and then reconnecting to the PTS.

    Join the conversation here. 
     
  20. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in DUAL UNIVERSE ARES (0.26.12) UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE   
    Dual Universe: Ares (0.26.12) has launched! 
     
    Earlier this month, we announced that the Ares update had been added to the Dual Universe public roadmap. Less than a month later, we’re pleased to announce that players can now enjoy all that Ares has to offer, from brand-new features to a long list of improvements. 
     
    In many ways, Ares is a complementary companion to the Apollo (0.26) update. Released in August, Apollo introduced the first wave of PVP-centric assets, balancing, and features, such as Shields v1. 
     
    Watch this video for a short (yet visually stunning!) overview of key features from both Apollo and Ares. 
     
     
    Turning our attention back to Ares, here’s a topline view of the key facets of Ares, our fifth major update so far this year.  
     
    New PvP-focused features
     
     
    Core combat stress - In conjunction with core unit destruction, core combat stress gives weapons another way for all that delicious firepower to bring down the opposing construct. Depending on which side of the battle you’re on, this can be viewed as an additional victory or loss condition. (Hopefully victory. We believe in you!) Shields v2 - Shields were introduced in the Apollo update to amp up PvP gameplay. In Ares, shields acquired adjustable resistance and venting, giving them more depth, taking them from a purely passive accessory to a prized load-out that can have a big impact on the outcome of dust-ups.   
    For a closer look at core combat stress and Shields v2, along with important information about ways we’ve closed the gate on some problem-causing PvP-related exploits, read Inside Ares, Part 1. 

    Improvements to existing features 
     
    Warp drive improvements -  Taking player feedback into account, we’ve made some adjustments to warp drives that will encourage pilots to employ a higher level of strategy. We’ve reduced warp speed, increased the cool-down time, added spooling, and several other tweaks and recalibrations, all of which should factor in for more excitement. Docking and boarding revamp - It’s yours and you should have control over who has access to it. The docking and boarding revamp makes nonconsensual boarding a thing of the past.   
    Details about these changes can be found in our latest devblog, Inside Ares, Part 2. 
     
    Full patch notes can be viewed here. 
     
    Production is underway for our next update, Demeter, which will focus primarily on mining with the introduction of automated mining units and a revamp for territory management. As always, we’ll pave the way with devblogs and other Demeter-related content. 
     
    In the meantime, we invite you to pose questions about the Apollo and Ares updates in this thread on our forum. We’ll answer what we can in an upcoming, postmortem-ish Q&A. 
     
  21. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Pann in Market Clean-Up (Updated Oct 20, 2021)   
    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.
     
  22. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in PTS DATABASE UPDATED AND NEW FEATURES ADDED   
    The Dual Universe public test server (PTS) is reopening today with a preview of some of the improvements and additions that will make their way to the live server in a few weeks. Before we dive into these changes, we’ve got good news for you!

    A long-standing request from our community, this week’s PTS update includes a database refresh that mirrors the state of the live server from August 9. Players who created characters on or before that date will find them, and all their beautiful possessions, readily accessible. This should make your time on PTS more enjoyable. 
     
    Players heading to the PTS today will be able to test the following main changes:
    The docking and boarding revamp revealed in this devblog. Several changes to the way warp drives operate. Optimized planet operations. … and many more bug fixes and tweaks which can be found here.
     
    We would greatly appreciate constructive feedback on the docking and warp drive features in particular. How well do the tools work? Is the interface user-friendly? How can we make them better? Your input now will help us get them in tip-top shape before they are integrated into the Live server. 
     
    ABOUT THE TEST SERVER 

    Please note that PTS is solely for testing purposes and may go offline at any time without prior notice. We’d like to manage expectations that PTS updates may include feature prototypes and gameplay changes that might not ever come to the Live server. 
     
    On PTS, you’ll have some perks to help you speed up your progress and have an easier time getting the things you need: 
    Dispensers that provide most items for free at the Alioth institute district (11) by the Arkship. A daily allowance of one billion quanta. Teleporters at the Market 1 of each major planet, allowing for free teleportation around the universe. For Alioth, the teleporter is located by the dispensers in the Institute District (11) by the Arkship. Three additional teleportation platforms are deployed in space on the edge of the PvP zones. Players can respec Talent points at-will. (By typing /respec in chat) Use of the Fetch feature with no limit of range or cooldown.  
    Feedback and bug reports related to PTS should be posted in this designated forum, which we monitor closely as part of our commitment to improve the quality of the game and its performance. 
     
  23. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Nomad in Beta 1 Release Notes. Last updated on September 8th   
    Hi Noveans, 
     
    Today, we're releasing the 0.26.2 version of Dual Universe. This update is named "Apollo". You'll find its massive changelog below: 
     
    NEW FEATURES
     
    Asteroids
    Asteroids filled with precious ore will now spawn in the game world.  A new element, the deep space asteroid tracker (DSAT), will be available. The DSAT will be used to find and track down asteroids.  In the DSAT there will also be a global asteroid tracker (GAT), an interface which tracks all asteroids in the game world. Asteroids will be available in tiers from one to five, representing their rarity. Safe space will only have asteroids of tier one and two. Asteroids will cycle weekly, as they come in and out of the system.  At the beginning of each cycle, asteroids will spawn over the course of 24 hours and will be available for a week at which point a new cycle will start. The fractured space potato chunks that surround Thades are not asteroids.  
    PvP Shields
    Added shield generators that protect constructs in PvP. Shield generators will serve as a first layer of protection for dynamic constructs during combat.  Shields will absorb damage until depleted at which point they will stay depleted until the end of combat defined per the combat timer.  Shields will only be available on dynamic constructs. Shields placed during a combat timer will start from 0. Added Shield Lua API : activate(): Activate the shield. deactivate(): Deactivate the shield. toggle(): Toggle the state of the shield. getState(): Returns the activation state of the shield. Returns 1 when the shield is active, 0 otherwise. getShieldHitPoints(): Returns the current hit points of the shield. getMaxShieldHitPoints(): Returns the maximal hit points of the shield. absorbed(hitpoints) event : Emitted when the shield absorbed incoming damage (accessible with hitpoints argument). down() event : Emitted when the shield hit points reached 0 or deactivation. restored() event : Emitted when the shield hit points are fully restored.  
    Combat Timer
    The combat timer is a construct-based timer which indicates if a construct has recently participated in PvP activity.  Both firing and receiving weapons fire will trigger or restart the combat timer on a construct.  Currently the combat timer will affect two things: Shield generator regeneration Warp drive activation The combat timer is currently set at 10 minutes. Added in Core Unit Lua API: getPvPTimer() : Returns the remaining time of the PvP Timer (in seconds), or 0.0 if elapsed. pvpTimer(active) event : Emitted when the PvP Timer started or elapsed  
    Lua Screen Units
    The current API is not added to the codex yet. Full documentation can be found on the PTS forum here: Introduced a new screen content editor UI to allow switching between HTML & Lua content type for screen content: Syntax highlighting and character count display. Error display for render script content (Lua). Shortcut "Ctrl + L" to open the content editor on a screen unit. “setCenteredText” and “setImage” will set the screen content with render script; "Set Quick SVG" will not be available. Fixed an issue where the render cost of borders was only half of the correct value. Fixed an issue where non-ASCII characters caused immediate render cost overflow. Fixed an issue where floating-point font sizes resulted in tiny fonts instead of correctly rounding. Fixed an issue where the render cost of a Lua screen unit started at ~500k instead of 0. Optimized the render cost of lines to be invariant under rotation. Layers now have a fixed render cost of 50000 instead of a hard limit of 8.  
    Render Script API
    Added: addBoxRounded(layer, x, y, width, height, radius) : add a rounded box. Added: getCursorDown() -> boolean : return true if the mouse cursor is currently pressed down on the screen, false otherwise. Added: getCursorPressed() -> boolean : return true if the mouse button changed from being released to being pressed at any point since the last update. Added: getCursorReleased() -> boolean : return true if the mouse button changed from being pressed to being released at any point since the last update. Added: getInput() -> string : return a string of input data (or an empty string, if no input has been set) that can be set via the screen programming board API using screen.setScriptInput(string). Added: getFontMetrics(font) -> float, float : return the ascender and descender height of the font. Added: getTextBounds(font, text) -> float, float : return the computed bounding box (width x height)” of the given text in the given font. Added: setBackgroundColor(r, g, b) : set the background color of the screen unit. Added: setNextShadow(layer, radius, r, g, b, a) : set the radius and color of the outer shadow for the next element. Added: setDefaultXXX(layer, shapeType, propertyValue) : a set of functions for setting default values of properties ( FillColor, Rotation, Shadow, StrokeColor, StrokeWidth), segregated by shape type: Shape_Box Shape_BoxRounded Shape_Circle Shape_Image Shape_Line Shape_Polygon Shape_Text Added: setNextTextAlign(layer, alignX, alignY) : set the alignment of the next text string, relative to the bounding box of the entire string using the horizontal alignment enum: AlignH_Left AlignH_Center AlignH_Right And vertical alignment enum: AlignV_Ascender:  AlignV_Top AlignV_Middle AlignV_Baseline AlignV_Bottom AlignV_Descender Added: setOutput(string) : set the screen's script output to string, for use with control units screen.getScriptOutput(). Added: isImageLoaded(imageId) -> bool : return true if the given image is loaded. Added: logMessage(message) : write in the Lua chat if the output checkbox is checked. Added several monospaced fonts. Added Lua built in setmetatable to whitelisted functions.  
    Screen Unit API
    Added: clearScriptOutput() : clear the render script output string, such that the next call to getScriptOutput will return the empty string, until the next time a render script is executed and calls setOutput. Added: getScriptOutput() -> string : return the last output string of the screen's render script, or an empty string. Added: setScriptInput(string) : set a string of input data that can be retrieved from the screen's render script by calling getInput.  
    IMPROVEMENTS
    New PvP rebalancing Deployed weapons properties were changed and applied talents were reset. New talents Honeycomb refining for the following honeycombs: Concrete Marble Carbon Fiber Wood Brick Honeycomb Productivity for the following honeycombs: Concrete Marble Carbon Fiber Wood Brick Mission system Players can now sell Aphelia mission package content to bots on the market. The price is lower than the lowest colateral of Aphelia missions using those packages. Bot orders Removal of tier 2 ore buy orders from bots. Only tier 1 ores can now be sold to bots. New Elements: shield generators Extra-Small Shield Generator Level: 3 Mass: 670 Volume: 210 Hitpoints: 1400 Shield Hp: 300000 Shield resistances: Antimatter: 15% Thermic: 15% Kinetic: 15% Electromagnetic: 15% Element resistances: Antimatter: 10% Thermic: 10% Kinetic: 10% Electromagnetic: 10% Small Shield Generator Level: 3 Mass: 3300 Volume: 950 Hitpoints: 4500 Shield Hp: 1750000 Shield resistances: Antimatter: 15% Thermic: 15% Kinetic: 15% Electromagnetic: 15% Element resistances: Antimatter: 10% Thermic: 10% Kinetic: 10% Electromagnetic: 10% Medium Shield Generator Level: 3 Mass: 17000 Volume: 4500 Hitpoints: 6750 Shield Hp: 8000000 Shield resistances: Antimatter: 15% Thermic: 15% Kinetic: 15% Electromagnetic: 15% Element resistances: Antimatter: 10% Thermic: 10% Kinetic: 10% Electromagnetic: 10% Large Shield Generator Level: 3 Mass: 92000 Volume: 22700 Hitpoints: 31500 Shield Hp: 25000000 Shield resistances: Antimatter: 15% Thermic: 15% Kinetic: 15% Electromagnetic: 15% Element resistances: Antimatter: 10% Thermic: 10% Kinetic: 10% Electromagnetic: 10%  
    WEAPON BALANCE CHANGES
     
    Weapon tier scaling changes The scaling multiplier for variants has been reduced for both positive and negative aspects of the weapon. Advanced: 1.15x > 1.1x Rare: 1.32x > 1.21x Exotic: 1.52x > 1.33x Weapon stat changes Stat changes are listed as old > new. Defense, precision, agile, and heavy variants are not listed; however, they still follow the same weapon variant pattern with the tier scaling reduction. Cannons Cannon XS Base damage: 2000 > 6000 Optimal tracking: 20 > 10 Falloff tracking: 20 >10 Aiming cone: 10 > 30 Falloff aiming cone: 20 > 60 Weapon capacity: 30 > 25 Reload time: 5 > 10 Cannon S Base damage: 4000 > 11100 Optimal tracking: 10 > 5 Falloff tracking: 10 > 5 Aiming cone: 10 >30 Falloff aiming cone: 20 > 60 Weapon capacity: 150  >125 Rate of fire: 2 > 2.7 Reload time: 5 > 10 Cannon M Base damage: 8000 > 20535 Optimal tracking: 5 > 2.5 Falloff tracking: 5 > 2.5 Aiming cone: 10 >30 Falloff aiming cone: 20 > 60 Weapon capacity: 750 > 625 Rate of fire: 2  > 3.645 Reload time: 5 > 10 Cannon L Base damage: 16000 > 37990 Optimal tracking: 2.5 > 1.25 Falloff tracking: 2.5 > 1.25 Aiming cone: 10 >30 Falloff aiming cone: 20 > 60 Weapon capacity: 3750 > 3125 Rate of fire: 2 > 4.92 Reload time: 5 > 10  
    Lasers Laser XS Base damage: 2500 > 7000 Optimal tracking: 10 > 5 Falloff tracking: 10 > 5 Aiming cone: 15 > 60 Falloff aiming cone: 5 >15 Weapon capacity: 40 > 80 Reload time: 10 > 15 Laser S Base damage: 5000 > 12950 Optimal tracking: 5 > 2.5 Falloff tracking: 5 > 2.5  Aiming cone: 15 > 60 Falloff aiming cone: 5 >15 Weapon capacity: 200 > 400 Rate of fire: 3 > 4.05 Reload time: 10 > 15 Laser M Base damage: 10000 > 23957 Optimal tracking: 2.5 > 1.25 Falloff tracking: 2.5 > 1.25 Aiming cone: 15 > 60 Falloff aiming cone: 5 >15 Weapon capacity: 1000 > 2000 Rate of fire: 3 > 5.47 Reload time: 10 > 15 Laser L Base damage: 20000 > 44321 Optimal tracking: 1.25 > 0.625 Falloff tracking: 1.25 > 0.625 Aiming cone: 15 > 60 Falloff aiming cone: 5 >15 Weapon capacity: 5000 > 10000 Rate of fire: 3 > 7.38 Reload time: 10 > 15  
    Missiles Missile XS Base damage: 7500 > 14000 Optimal tracking: 15 > 7.5 Falloff tracking: 15 > 7.5 Weapon capacity: 25 > 24 Rate of fire: 5 > 4 Reload time: 30 > 45 Missile S Base damage: 15000 > 25900 Optimal tracking: 7.5 > 3.75 Falloff tracking: 7.5 > 3.75 Weapon capacity: 125 > 120 Rate of fire: 5 > 5.4 Reload time: 30 > 45 Missile M Base damage: 30000 > 47915 Optimal tracking: 3.75 > 1.875 Falloff tracking: 3.75 > 1.875 Weapon capacity: 625 >  600 Rate of fire: 5 > 7.29 Reload time: 30 > 45 Missile L Base damage: 60000 > 88642.75 Optimal tracking: 1.875 > 0.9375 Falloff tracking: 1.875 > 0.9375 Weapon capacity: 3125 > 3000 Rate of fire: 5 > 9.8 Reload time: 30 > 45  
    Railguns Railgun XS Base damage: 5000 > 11000 Optimal tracking: 5 > 2.5 Optimal falloff: 5 > 2.5 Aiming cone: 5 > 15 Falloff aiming cone: 5 > 15 Weapon capacity: 100 > 150 Rate of fire: 8 > 7 Reload time: 15 > 25 Railgun S Base damage: 10000 > 20350 Optimal tracking: 2.5 > 1.25 Optimal falloff: 2.5 > 1.25 Aiming cone: 5 > 15 Falloff aiming cone: 5 > 15 Weapon capacity: 500 > 750 Rate of fire: 8 > 9.45 Reload time: 15 > 25 Railgun M Base damage: 20000 > 37647 Optimal tracking: 1.25 > 0.625 Falloff tracking: 1.25 > 0.625 Aiming cone: 5 > 15 Falloff aiming cone: 5 > 15 Weapon capacity: 2500 > 3750 Rate of fire: 8 > 12.7575 Reload time: 15 > 25 Railgun L Base damage: 40000 >  69648 Optimal tracking: 0.625 > 0.3125 Falloff tracking: 0.625 > 0.3125 Aiming cone: 5 > 15 Falloff aiming cone: 5 > 15 Weapon capacity: 12500 > 18750 Rate of fire: 8 > 17.222625 Reload time: 15 > 25  
    Ammo volume size changes The amount of inventory space in litres that missiles take up has been reduced. Listed as old > new. XS: 5 > 3 S: 25 > 15 M: 125 > 75 L: 625 > 375  
    Honeycomb health changes
    Honeycomb health per m³ changes are listed as old > new. Carbon: 1452 > 1560 Silicon: 1491 > 1586 Aluminium: 1728 > 1730 Iron: 5024 > 2763 Sodium: 620 > 846 Calcium: 992 > 1211 Chromium: 4601 > 2686 Copper: 5734 > 2873 Lithium: 339 > 500 Sulfur: 1164 > 1352 Nickel: 5702 > 2869 Silver: 6713 > 2997 Gold: 12352 > 3198 Cobalt: 5696 > 2868 Scandium: 1910 > 1831 Fluorine: 1085 > 1289 Titanium: 2886 > 2245 Manganese: 4614 > 2689 Niobium: 5484 > 2837 Vanadium: 3840 > 2521 Plastic: 896 > 1125 Silumin: 1920 > 1836 Steel: 5152 > 2784 Duralumin: 1792 > 1767 Stainless Steel: 4960 > 2752 AlLi: 1600 > 1654 Inconel: 5438 > 2830 ScAl: 1824 > 1784 Maraging Steel: 5267 > 2803 Grade 5 Titanium Alloy: 2835 > 2227 Mangalloy: 5013 > 2761 Concrete: 1230 > 1403 Brick: 384 > 560 Wood: 960 > 1183 Carbon Fiber: 1728 > 1730 Marble: 1728 > 1730 Luminescent White Glass: 1664 > 1693  
    New assets for PvP and other
    Added new chair surface element that allows the placement of seat positions everywhere, the gold part indicates the front of the seat. It has three modes cycled via the R key:  On the ground At seated height Sunk into surface Added new cannon models. Added new laser models. Added new missile launcher models. Added new railgun models. Added new unique Gunner Seat S/M/L models. New Ammo Containers XS/S/M/L models. Added Space Radar variation skins. Added Weapons variation skins. Changed textures of home set elements (Chairs, Sofa, Tables, Club, Dresser, Wardrobe) Changed textures of Hover Engines. Changed Planet Hologram icon. New FX update for the bonsai, green to blue. New FX update for the resurrection node: blue and smaller in height. New FX for the teleportation node. New FX for the DSAT deploy, run, and screen.  
    Improvements
    [Map] Added Territories section. Similar to the construct list, you will be able to see your territories and territories of organizations of which you are a legate. [Map] Added ability to declare a territory you own as "Welcoming visitors” via the map screen (for trade, showrooms, ship shops, museums, events ...etc).This adds an icon on the map visible to all (this icon is visible from a certain zoom level). You can revoke it at any time. [Map] Added ability to rename a territory you own via the map screen. [Map] Revamped tile filters in planet map now allows you to navigate between tiles without searching on map. It also now uses your active container rather than the inventory when filtering for territory scans. [Map] Updated points of interest list. [Map] Improved planet loading in map interface Regrouped different dispenser settings into a unified dispenser configuration panel. You can now use "Right-click -> inspect element" for a placed element on a construct to open an item inspector window for that element. This item inspector will display the applied "onDeploy" modifiers currently applied on that element. New dispenser configuration that allows you to redirect the money transfer to a recipient different from the owner of the dispenser. (Should help set up stores for people that rent core units.) Added shift-click multiple selection in inventory. Achievement panel revamp, including some minor additional information on achievements. Operation taxes are now applied also to order updates. Polish the scanner tool UI. Schematics now display their produced products and required industry units in the item inspector. Added contact request notification icon in bottom right of the HUD. The layout of the Item inspector was changed. Classic interactions on widget buttons (click/hover) have been added. HUD notification icons and chat improvements. [Performance] When a modification happens in an inventory, we no longer perform a search directly if the view of that container is not visible (inventory closed). This avoids costly search operations in lots of situations (when mining, for example). [Performance] Improved PopcornFX performance. Optimized operations on planets. Temporarily removed a small animation when hovering item slots to avoid frame drop in inventory. [Art] FX update for industries about their level of detail (LOD) to improve performance. Minor polish of error notifications messages.  
    Gameplay Balancing/Changes
    [Avatar] Resetting character customization doesn't reset character type anymore. Updated the roadmap on the login screen. Emitter unit Lua method “send(channel, message)” has been deprecated. The channel can no longer be set dynamically. The message will be sent with the static channel set on the emitter element itself. Use the new method “broadcast(message)” instead. Receiver unit Lua event “receive(channel, message)” is now deprecated. To be future-proof, use the new event “receive(message)”. For privacy reasons, those two methods will only listen to the receiver static channel defined on the receiver element itself. [Art] Icon update for the Metalwork industry element. [Art] FX update for decorative plants, holograms, and  elevators  level of detail (LOD) to improve performance. [Art] FX update for the surrogate pod station with a smaller FX height. [Art] New FX for the teleportation node to follow the new VFX direction. [Art] New size for the railgun L, smaller and  closer to the rest of the large weapons family. [Art] UI VFX now shows the current tracking step.  
    Crash Fix
    Fixed crash with incorrect data in Lua “setWaypoint()”.
    Bug Fixes
    Radar capacity handling talents text corrected to five percent per level instead of 10 (text fix only). Radar targeting handling talent (identification speed on put down) now working. Fixed weird trajectory and constructs sometimes getting destroyed when warping through a planet. Fixed a bug where surrogate pods became public on core destruction. [GUI] Fixed a bug where the bigger the name of an item was, the less its info was visible on the bottom part of the inventory. [GUI] Fixed ammo container display name. [Visual] Fixed overly-bright light reflections on smooth surfaces. Fixed a bug that allowed everyone to access the wallet of any org. Fixed a bug that removed element property when adding an element from the inventory. Fixed drag-and-drop between container and inventory when the item is too large for your container that displays only the modal without the gauge. Fixed the crash of the market operation direct buy/sell modal while opening it. Fixed a bug where VR challenge next reward time was reset when tested. [Industries] Fixed metalworks status lights. Fixed a bug where elements could be placed with the deploy element tool while players were inside the element. [Loc] Various localization fixes. Fixed the landing gear element appearing to be extended every time it was loaded regardless of its actual state. [Settings] Fixed a bug with the graphic option "Environmental Shadows" to "None" that broke the flashlight. (User could still see the "angle" HUD but no light source.) [Talents] Fixed a bug where player talents would not apply to industry unit run when the player is in VR or in a tutorial. [Missions] Fixed a bug that prevents job details from showing up if a respondent is offline. [Friends] Fixed a bug that prevented players from removing a friend from the friend list in some rare cases. [GUI] Applied a max length to bookmark names and their description. Fixed overflow of the description that prevented it from  scrolling horizontally. [GUI] Fixed missing search arrow on member column in organization search. [GUI] Fixed double quanta symbol in some wallet log entries. [GUI] Fixed tooltip on crafting tab not updating. Fixed incorrect display in some cases of surrogate loading screens. [GUI] Fixed dropdown for camera lens settings (no longer goes outside of the screen) and searched entity dropdown in tile filter block. [GUI] Fixed build helper window that was not interactable in some cases.  [Chat] After a resize of the game window (includes alt-tab when in fullscreen), we now force the chat to scroll to the bottom. [GUI] Fixed some already existing default inventory sub filters. Added "combat & defense" and "airfoil" sub filters. [Org] Fixed super legate who could no longer be targeted for "change super legate", "exclude" or "demote" vote at vote creation. [Tutorial] Fixed a bug where the mining tutorial could not be finished because the scanner range change was not detected. [Art] Fixed a bug on the cannon S rig where parts of the mesh were not following the rotation. [Art] New gunner seats meshes (element/collision) update (position), contact surface & anchor character realigned following that. [Art] Cannons variations colors big update and minor fixes (mesh and mats). [Art] Fixed a bug where the interior of the railgun S and L  were visible in some situations. Fixed a rare bug that prevented warp without Aphelia mission package present in some conditions. [GUI] Fixed a typo in number input that was causing an issue in dispenser configuration panel. [GUI] Fixed input capture for tag entry in dispenser panel. Pressing "o" will no longer open the wallet if focused in the input field. [GUI] Fixed market registering the input too soon and not checking if input was captured, causing the "j" key to open the market when the dispenser panel was opened. Fixed a bug where space core unit XS could be displayed with the wrong mesh. Fixed radar capacity handling talent description.  
    Known Issues
    [PvP] Firing multiple weapons leads to very high rates of missing due to internal timeouts. We are actively investigating the issue. [Shields] Shields sometimes do not correctly fully encapsulate the construct they belong to. This does not affect the functionality of the shield and is a visual issue only. [Screen Units] Non-standard aspect screens like signs currently do not render correctly and stretch. Numerous French and German localization issues have already been spotted. A random rendering crash may occur under some conditions due to low GPU/driver resources. Setting shadows to ‘Low’ and disabling Volumetric Clouds in Graphic settings may help. Voxel crashes may occur due to low disk/memory. [Industries] Talents that impact ingredients of schematic products are not displayed client-side, but the schematic updates with the server schematic when starting. [Industries] Some inconsistencies in schematics and tiered elements. [Screens] Transparent screens display as solid white when loading in close proximity. [Screens] High-frequency text updates on screens in HTML mode cause text to not display or flash. [Elements] In certain situations, elements unload at high speeds. Various lighting, shadow, and reflection issues might be seen due to ongoing rendering rework. In some cases, DU stops responding when the game is minimized for too long. We’re investigating this issue right now. Animated elements can be visually duplicated when broken during an animation. Wrong highlight mesh for shield generators (XS, M, L)
       
    As always, we thank you for your support and we can't wait to hear your thoughts about the Apollo update! 
     
    Cheers, 
    Nomad
  24. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in DEVBLOG: PVP COMMUNIQUÉ   
    Okay, PvPers, this one’s for you! 
     
    As foretold in The Future of Dual Universe Part 3: Finding the Fun and the recently-published 2021 roadmap, we’re adding some new toys to your arsenal and making some of the existing toys even better. 
     
    These changes will come over time and in waves. Here’s what you can expect in the first pass as part of the Apollo (0.26) update, now available on our public test server. 

    New PvP element: Shield generators
    Shield generators serve as the first layer of protection for dynamic constructs during combat. Shields will absorb damage until depleted, at which point they will stay depleted until the end of combat as defined by the combat timer. Future plans will bring shields into play for space core units, but for now, they will only be available on dynamic constructs. 
     
    These elements come in sizes XS through L with different shield strengths respective to their size and are not restricted to core sizes.
     
    This is the V1 technical phase of introducing shields, making sure that the foundation is solid before more bells and whistles are added.

    Honeycomb Health Points
    Adjustments to honeycomb HP--rebalanced and significantly reduced--have been done in the context of the implementation of shields and the weapons rebalance. With these changes, we should see a general reduction in fight duration with a faster time to construct destruction (TTCD).
     
    Specifically, gold has been brought back in line. While still technically the highest HP honeycomb, it will now come at a serious mass cost compared to other options. This should open new options in honeycomb selection when building ships and reduce the feeling of “gold or nothing” players may currently sometimes feel.

    Weapons adjustments
    We found that the disparity between the smallest and largest weapons DPS was too great. This made it difficult to justify using anything other than L weapons. While L weapons previously did roughly eight times more damage than XS weapons, they will now only do just under three times more damage than their smallest cousins. 
     
    Revised damage per second:
    XS weapons: On average, extra small weaponry will do 2.5 to 3 times more DPS. S weapons: On average, small weaponry will do 1.75 to 2 times more DPS. M weapons: On average, medium weaponry will do 1.5 times more DPS. L weapons: On average, large weaponry will do about the same DPS.  
    In regards to DPS, larger weapons of the same type will take more time to cycle, allowing larger weapons to keep hitting hard per round, at the cost of rate of fire.
     
    Lastly, adjustments have been made on various other parameters, such as reload times and weapon capacity, to help balance overall damage output, and how it feels to use.
     
    We hope this brings more diversity to the offensive options you have when building ships and allowing more space for smaller ships and weapons.
     
    Cones
    Weapon cones’ optimal and falloff values have been augmented by about three times (with the exception of missiles). This change was based on feedback from the community who said that weapon cones felt too limiting and restricted flexibility when designing ships. 
     
    We hope this allows more options when placing different weapon types, having more weapons that approach similar levels of flexibility to missiles with weapons like lasers and cannons having a much wider range of operation. Railguns will remain relatively limited as a heavy sniping platform but will still enjoy more cone than before.
     
    Tracking
    Tracking on weapons is the ability to reliably track and hit targets. Weapons with improved tracking will generally have better chances of hitting targets, especially smaller and faster ones.
     
    There was always an intention that smaller ships should be able to evade damage from larger guns. In practice, this was not the case as L-based ships easily dispatched smaller constructs at various ranges. 
     
    To help correct this, tracking has been significantly decreased across the board by about half on every weapon. These initial adjustments will help, but likely not suffice in helping smaller ships survive combat engagements. We will continue to look at other options for further iteration in future updates and already have plans on the subject.
     
    As a parting comment on weapon balance, please note that this is more of a global rebalance to address macro issues we had across the board to set a healthier base. Expect more specific adjustments to come later for specific weapon changing and balancing as more PVP-focused releases are done in the future. 
     
    Opinions Wanted
    As noted above, and in nearly all of our communications, player feedback is always welcomed and encouraged. Particularly as these changes are on PTS where you can experience them first-hand, your opinions go a long way in helping us make needed adjustments before Apollo (0.26) debuts on the live server. Please take a moment to share your thoughts in this thread.
     
  25. Like
    Luckso reacted to NQ-Deckard in Look back at 0.25, look ahead at 0.26   
    The three-part devblog series we published in April, “The Future of Dual Universe”, addressed the cost of doing business and our plans for the ramp-up to launch. We took the first steps in delivering on those changes in May with the incremental 0.25 updates, adding more gameplay content and improving both performance and visuals.
     
    Our 0.25 updates brought players:  
    Voxel compression  Constructs LOD  Hauling Missions The Job Forum The first of a series of Challenges The integration of PopcornFX for visual effects And, of course, many bug fixes and additional improvements  
    If you haven’t had time yet to check out these changes, we released some videos showcasing them. Watch this video for a closer look and missions and challenges and this first look at the new visual effects. 
     
    About the latter, It was fun to watch the real-time reactions from our Twitch streamer community as they saw the changes for the first time. 
     
    Now that 0.25 is wrapped up, development is underway for our next big milestone. Codenamed Apollo, the update centers around the first phase of a major mining revamp. The addition of asteroids will provide rare and precious ore, which in turn will create opportunities for conflict as the hunters become the hunted. To that end, PVP will receive a first wave of balancing changes and the introduction of shields. Keep an eye out for devblogs on these topics! 
     
    In the meanwhile, we’d like to invite you to post your follow-up questions about the changes we introduced in 0.25 in this thread. In turn, we’ll take the best questions for an upcoming Q&A. Your insights and constructive feedback go a long way not only in helping us identify any lingering issues that should be addressed but are also helpful in how we can make things better in future updates. 
     
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