Catavarie

I think staggering is a great idea. The below is not. 

• For players who haven’t set any headquarters, five headquarters have been automatically assigned based on the highest number of static constructs on the territory.
 
There are inactive players owning key tiles preventing the expansion of huge community projects. These types of projects are what we were told is part of why we are here in DU.  Not following why protecting inactive player hexes anywhere outside Sanctuary Moon is a good idea. We have always been told the only fully safe location is Sanctuary Moon.

Please NQ - give us a means to remove or claim inactive player hexes. There are key locations preventing 100's of current players from expanding the building projects they are doing together due to players who left the game weeks into Beta. 

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.
 

Hello Noveans!

Currently, screen unit content is an HTML page. We synchronize screen unit content between players by sending the whole HTML; however, screen unit HTML content can be pretty big and uses a lot of bandwidth and frame time to render when updated every frame by a programming board or control unit. This has a significant impact on client performance for players, especially when a lot of screen units are in the same area. 
Performance improvement is of paramount importance to us and an ongoing request we get from players. Consequently, it is something we will continually work to achieve. 
 
To address this, we are bringing a possible solution to PTS so that players can try it out. This prototype involves using a new API to draw screen units with a dedicated Lua script. This will use simple drawing commands like
drawRectangle(a,b,c,d) drawText(“Hello DU”) Simple actions like setTextContent will not be affected. 

In addition to performance improvements, this new tech also allows for some unprecedented possibilities to create even better screen displays than before. Check out this video to get a taste of what it can do! 
 

We realize that this change will mean that players won’t be able to use SVGs on screens anymore, and that SVGs are easier and more flexible than uploading static images. It’s important to note that the new Lua system will still allow you to draw complex images. You don't really need any Lua knowledge, and it’s easier than the DPU system.

Additionally, we added an option to deactivate HTML screen units for players who experience the worse framerate. We expect this to bring significant performance improvements in markets and parking areas.
Once the change is fine-tuned, thanks to your feedback after trying it on the PTS, we will announce a transition period to allow players time to switch over to the new API before we disable support for HTML-based screen units. We will continue to support both techs during this transition period.

We strongly encourage everyone to check out this change when it’s available on PTS and share your constructive feedback with us on the forum.