Maneouzi

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. 
 

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.
 
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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.

Our new system map overhaul gives powerful new tools to players in visualizing the Helios system. You can read about this new Athena update feature below!

OVERVIEW
 
Players can now see and navigate around the entire system map laid out to scale in three dimensions.  

 
Setting a Warp Point will no longer replace your current destination. Players may now set a destination waypoint separately to a warp-specific waypoint.  
Space resources such as the Alien Core Units are accessible through the map.   
We’ve added a better organized menu that opens quicker and has a more useful filter system in the top-left menu, allowing players to filter items on the map by name, owner, or construct type.  

 
Players can see coordinates displayed in real time as they move the target around the map, allowing for precise copying of coordinates, position input and bookmark creation.  
THE CONTROLS
 
You can freely move around the map, rotate it by holding left click, pan around horizontally by holding left + right click and pan vertically by holding right click. You can zoom by scrolling your mouse wheel. You can also reset your view back to default with a button in the top menu.  
You can toggle display settings using the associated button in the top panel, such as the target plane or the safe zones. This will let you choose the amount of elements visible on the map at all times.  

 
You can select any item with left click, select and move to any item with double-left click, and select, move to and reorient the camera with middle click.  
You will also see an exact distance indicator between your avatar and any location (or your current selection and any location, if there is one), by mousing over them. Distances can also be quickly gauged using the grid size indicator at the top.  
Players may set destinations, warp points, open planet maps and more from the menu on the top-right of the map when selected. These actions are also served through contextual menus displayed on bodies in the map.  
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As always, we’d like to hear from you. How do you like the new map? Will it have an impact on your game? Please let us know here.
 

The Dual Universe egg hunt has begun Noveans! 
 
From Saturday, April 16th to Monday, April 25th, please join us for An Egg-cellent Adventure!
 
All around Alioth you will randomly find colored eggs on the ground as well as some other in plain sight places. Some of them you may find often (common), some of them might be a rare find or if your egg detecting skills meet the challenge, you may find a special Novaquark staff egg! All eggs contain gifts from the Novaquark team, so do not forget to smash them open to see what’s inside!
 
There have been several players who have already found some eggs, so you’re going to need to be quick, lucky, as well as very observant!  
 
There’s more! This Egg-tastic celebration is also a competition. Each egg is worth a certain amount of point(s), which means the rarer the egg, the more points you will get. Colors include white eggs (most common), green, yellow, blue, red and the very special Novaquark staff egg which is the most valuable of them all!
 
Once you find an egg, there will be a special code inside (read carefully!). Copy the code and enter it into this simple form that is linked inside the egg and register your code to start accumulating points!

 
Helpful Hint: Start your search by looking around the Point of Interests (POIs) around Alioth.  
 
Good luck Noveans, be egg-cellent to each other. 

Following our policy of being as transparent as possible and to keep everyone informed, we want to give you some insight about the internal discussions the Novaquark team has on the delicate topic on whether we’re going to have a wipe or not, and under which form. The discussions are numerous, as there is no easy answer and we have to take into account all of the pros and cons for each possible solution. We also have been taking into account the players discussions which have happened - and for some, are still happening - on Discord and our official forum. On one hand we have you, our early backers and players, who supported us for quite some time now, and we want to renew our thanks for being so patient and passionate about Dual Universe. On the other hand, we have the constraints of making the game appealing to new players.
 
Please note: By “new players”, we mean players who’ve just heard about Dual Universe, but we also have many backers that have chosen not to participate during Alpha and Beta, so they can begin playing once the game has reached a polished enough state with game mechanics.
 
SO, WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS WE HAVE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT?
 
We know that players have repeatedly asked for an answer to this question. It has been on the table for many months, if not since the Beta opened. The team has been discussing many options on the topic and we’ve gone back to the drawing board many times. Here is an overview of the factors that we are taking under consideration:
 
A reset would be an opportunity to remove things that have been deemed very unpopular by the already existing community, such as the schematics. The only way to remove them in a clean way without causing too many disturbances in the economy is clearly when the in-game economy has been just reset.
 
Many tests/adjustments during Beta have impacted the in-game economy, leading to have some players getting extremely rich way faster than intended, due to an intensive use of some features in their early stage, such as the mission system (and that's understandable, as the situation is part of a normal process in the development of a game). However, it's also common practice in the game development process to usually have some kind of reset when critical milestones are reached, and resetting the economy to have a healthy start once the game has been stabilized and the game features have become more balanced makes sense.
 
As you, our current experienced players, will have quite an advantage compared to the new players on many levels (game knowledge, talent points, wealth, constructs already owned), there's a need to make things a bit more balanced to give a fighting chance to the wave of new players that will join the Community later.
 
We also want to give all the players (new players as much as a big part of the early backers who have waited for the game to be in a fairly polished state) to have the opportunity of the right start.
 
In case of a wipe, finding a way for our veteran players to allow them to keep (or rebuild quickly) their favorite constructs, without creating any loophole for players to bypass the reset (and defeat the purpose of why it’s done).
 
Some planets currently do not have the quality and polished state the Novaquark team wants to give them. We also have seen that a part of the Community has the same opinion on the topic, and this is why the dev team has been planning a revamp for the planets which haven’t received one already.
 
WE CONSIDERED SEVERAL ALTERNATIVES SO FAR TO REACH THESE GOALS:
 
- Doing no wipe at all.
 
Pros:
Satisfying for some of our long-time builders and traders Cons:
Unsatisfying for players wanting to discover the game and start with a more polished version of the game. Does not allow to remove Schematics properly. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Does not allow the rebalancing of the economy properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs.  
 
- Making a partial wipe where the economy would be wiped, but not the Constructs, which would keep all player-made creations intact, with also in mind to prevent some players from storing resources on said Constructs to circumvent the reset of the economy.
 
Pros:
Relatively satisfying for some of our long-time builders. Cons:
Extremely complex to put in place properly without the known loopholes interfering (such as piling up Resources and Elements on existing Constructs before a wipe and removing them after to sell them). Unknown loopholes could break the wanted healthy economic reset. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs.  
 
- Having a “legacy” live server and a new live server, where only the blueprints made before the new server opening would be transferred to the new live server.
 
Pros:
Could prevent any wipe with this solution while managing issues the dev team is trying to solve. Cons:
Opens a number of new issues server-side. Would split the Community.  
 
- Having a full wipe (except blueprints) with solutions to make old time players able to rebuild their favorite Constructs quickly through various means.
 
(Here are a few examples of discussed ideas to reach this goal: for our veteran backers, starting pool of talents points and/or quanta, resource multiplier event right after the reset, etc.).
 
Pros:
Prevents loopholes for an economic reset compared to a partial wipe. Most efficient, proper way to remove schematics. Most efficient, proper way to handle a planet revamp. Cons:
Some possibilities discussed could be seen as an unfair advantage.
Keep in mind, if the above solution is decided on, that an improved version of the Blueprint / Construct deployment tool available to all players will be implemented in-game at the time (or maybe even before) such a solution would be applied to the game.
Such improved version will enable players to have:
A preview of the Construct before deploying the said Construct from a blueprint (this feature should be available with Athena release). An ability to auto-align the preview of the Construct on an already deployed Construct (this feature should be available a bit later after Athena release).
   
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Though this may seem to be a long explanation, it’s a (very) short description of everything the Novaquark team has discussed so far on this topic. So stay tuned, and we thank you again for your patience and support. As mentioned before, our decision will not be made on a whim, but will be made considering and pondering all of the factors mentioned above.
 
Let us know your thoughts on all this here!

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!
 

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. 
 

The points will be applied after a brief downtime starting at 9 am UTC | 4 am EST on December 17th.  
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Hello Noveans,
 
December is halfway over, meaning the arrival of the new year is tantalizingly close! 2021 is sure to usher in some big changes, and we couldn’t be more excited to experience those with you. ?
 
While we were rolling out 0.23.1, we noticed that players who had talents in training lost what was accumulated during our downtime. So, in the spirit of bringing out the old and ringing in the new we would like to offer everyone 1 million talent points (~1 week’s worth) to not only replace lost points, but also as a bit of a holiday gift! Build, explore and be merry!
 
Thank you for your continued support. We sincerely hope that you and yours enjoy a restful holiday season!

Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 

Good day, Noveans!
 
Much of the allure of Dual Universe is the ability to be the captain of your own destiny as you pilot the ship of your dreams. Piloting your ship requires skill and a strategic use of the tools available.
 
The Maneuver Tool is an important part of that toolbox. In its current state, however, it wasn’t working quite the way we planned. As we approach the launch of the 0.23 update, we wanted to talk about changes we’ll be making to the Maneuver Tool as well as changes to issues around what happens when you’re disconnected from the game (intentionally or not) when actively flying your ship.
 
The Maneuver Tool is for maneuvers

The Maneuver Tool was originally introduced to offer a simple way to get your ship out of a small hole or to flip it over when it landed upside down. It also provided a handy way to lift your ship off the ground a bit so you could work on it from below.
 
But as is often the case when designing video games, the cunning imaginations of players found unexpected ways to use the tools that were not intended by the designers, some of which are detrimental to gameplay and could cause issues in the not-so-distant future. Let’s take a closer look at some of the issues caused by the “creative” use of the Maneuver Tool and the upcoming changes we’ll be implementing in the imminent 0.23 update to correct them.
 
Cooperative play is all about collaboration and players helping other players. That’s great, and we don’t want to discourage players from doing that, but how it’s done is important. The Maneuver Tool was not intended as a way to move a ship “by hand” over kilometers or to create a ladder of two ships used as intermediary steps to reach space. These uses went clearly beyond the original intent of the tool.
 
To address this, we’re introducing some limitations in line with the purpose of the tool: 
 
A ship will not be able to move more than 50m in total between accumulated uses of the tool. The distance between the start and end points is added at each run of the tool. The moved distance is reset after three minutes to ensure that players aren’t stuck forever. It is, of course, a per-construct limitation.  Unless the player was in contact with a planet ground or a static/space construct, a ship will no longer freeze in the air during the use of the Maneuver Tool. This will make it possible to lift it up to work under it, but no higher than that.
No more instant stopping of ships upon disconnection

Everyone has “the need for speed”, the desire to get from Point A to Point B in the shortest time possible. So you pull that throttle back, amp up the power and blast off. The danger is that if you don’t carefully monitor your speed, you’ll smash full-force into a planet, your ship will blow up, and you’ll find yourself either returned to your bind point or resurrection node. Ouch!
 
A common workaround for this has been to disconnect from the game just before impact. Upon reconnection, your speed would be reset to zero, and thus you could approach with a safe speed. Although it’s convenient, that’s not how it’s supposed to work.

With the upcoming change, upon reconnecting, as soon as you get in range of the construct, the speed and rotation will be restored to whatever they were when travel was interrupted. The benefits to this change are twofold. First, it will close the aforementioned loophole. Second, it will prevent you from expending twice the amount of fuel to reaccelerate a ship at maximum speed if you had been disconnected for whatever reason.
 
Further, if you disconnect while another player is in range, the server already assigns the task of handling the physical properties of your ship to that nearby player. This means that your ship will continue to move in this situation. On a large ship with many people on board, disconnecting will no longer have the effect of freezing your ship because there will always be other players nearby to continue the simulation of your ship’s movement.
 
We will also add the option to have the Emergency Control Unit (ECU) activated in that case, so that an emergency “braking” can take place if the ship capacity allows it.
 
Keep Doing What You’re Doing
 
We tip our hats to the ingenuity of our Beta testing community. The way you use the tools and mechanics we toss into the sandbox gives us lots of food for thought, showing us the changes we need to make to make the game we all want to play. We encourage you to maneuver your way to the discussion thread to tell us what you think about the adjustments we’re bringing to DU! ❤️