SpiceRub

Sup DUveans,

Just stopping by here to say my final farewell to everyone here, in discord, and in game that I had the privilege to be acquainted with or some, to even call friends. 

I had a blast being along side everyone of you these past 7 years, watching this community grow from literally 0 members to a whopping 50,000+ of you. I had many fond memories building premature alliances, making in game hostile moves, watching orgs rise and fall, overall, nerding-out over every aspect of Dual Universe.

However, all good things must come to an end. I'm sad to say but due to recent announcements and the overall direction of community aspect of Dual Universe is partaking, per say, I must state my farewell from the community and Dual Universe completely (as a player and as Moderator, in Discord and other platforms). At this point, I'm not enjoying being part of a community that's not being nourished at its fullest or been ignored for so long. (That's just the tip of the iceberg) Regardless, I leave on good terms, hope you all have fun, wishing the best to everyone and Novaquark (Here's hoping for a fast recovery, community-wise) 


As always,
Catch everyone on the flip, but most importantly; Have Fun!

Remember: Comfort: is the enemy of progress
 
o7

Territory warfare is territory warfare, if you're a solo player with 1 hex on some random planet that's your own fault. The point of Du being a civilisation builder was that people build up together and create their own safezones as countries, form alliances etc. But none of that happens or is needed with DU being half the game it is + the almost infinite safezones.

There are a number of reasons I believe having unique damage shapes for different weapons would be useful. For one, it would be another tool to ensure the meta for combat is not so restricted, allowing for an increased variation in viable tactics, and this is the initial thought process which spawned the idea. The attached picture is by no means even my preferred end goal of having shaped voxel damage, merely to introduce the concept of what is possible. Better then the simple graphic example, we would even have adjusted shapes based on ammo type, though generally aligned with a general shape. As per usual I will likely have to come back and explain further so I will be lazy and not attempt to pre-explain some wild tangents some responses will go down.

Pizza delivery reporting for duty! I had to collateralize 100$ for the privilege of delivering you this pizza. I am an thrilled to be undertaking such dangerous and exotic missions.

Territory warfare is territory warfare, if you're a solo player with 1 hex on some random planet that's your own fault. The point of Du being a civilisation builder was that people build up together and create their own safezones as countries, form alliances etc. But none of that happens or is needed with DU being half the game it is + the almost infinite safezones.

I second this motion xo

you shouldn't be asking NQ to be punishing the greedy. YOU should be the one punishing the greedy, this is an open world MMO that's supposed to be emergent and interconnected, you want justice, just wait till you can get it. (Because there currently are no systems in place to support emergent civilisation building)

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

Combat needs a different roots approach into how it works. Currently how combat technically performs, is just like peeling an onion. You just gotta keep shooting and shooting until you strip away the layers you need to get to the core. The difficulty between creating a ship that will get destroyed in either 100 hits, or 10,000 hits, is NOT hard at all.
 
THERE IS NO CUBE META.
Cube meta isn’t anything special in itself, it simply makes most effective use of how combat works. There is no cube meta, just shallow and undefined DU combat.
 
Regardless of their differences, and other very strange differences, weapons themselves all do pretty much the same thing, just at a different scale.

I don’t know what the NQ team imagines will ‘fix’ their problems, but you guys really need to be careful not to tip the scales. Any drastic changes need to consider both ends of the spectrum, being, weak cheap ships, to heavily armoured ships. As things are now, weak ships take about an hour to kill, and heavily armoured ships are immortal ammo eaters.
There is a MASSIVE disparity between ships on either end of the spectrum. Coupled with the fact that people can farm as they please and build what they want very safely, ships will always be at the top of their game, and the top of their strength. Ship designs won’t be out of necessity or purpose, but solely out of attrition.
 
WHAT IS MORE DIVERSE COMBAT?
Anything that isn’t DU combat as it currently is.
Do away with unrealistic arcadey damage types. No one really cares about resistances or ammo types.
Weapons need a purpose. Ammo, needs a purpose. The fact that things are separated by damage type and resistances, is pretty shallow and meaningless.
Weapons need a REAL purpose, a REAL function. Not a DPS count.

Ships in DU do not have set HP values like in other games where constructs cannot be handmade.
A dynamic system needs dynamic mechanics!

SUGGESTIONS PROPOSED TO MAKE COMBAT QUICKER, EFFECTIVE, FUN, AND CHALLENGING.
Halve the total HP of every voxel.Ship death on core destruction? I think not. Make Cores Impervious to weapon damage. (Explained further down)

Change what weapons actually do. Introduce penetration damage models!
Laser blasts and missiles may do the same thing, creating devastating explosions on impact, but the best way through armour, is through it. Cannons need to pepper ships, railguns need to be actual railguns, and create big holes from entry point to exit point, though lacking obvious things like tracking, rate of fire, huge ammo space. Armour itself doesn’t have to be useless, it needs purpose. Enough armour can still stop certain penetrations like cannons, but to a point where the armour needs be quite impractically thick where designers may opt for only certain parts of heavy protective armour. Though this doesn’t negate the need for armour entirely in which a ship would be incredibly vulnerable to blast attacks from lasers or missiles.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT.
 
I believe we all have a pretty good idea of what NQ may do for energy management.
Give ships an energy cap, and each element will take up a certain amount of energy until there may be no more that the system can energize.
I am suggestion a slightly different alternative. Lore around the fact that dynamic cores are a technologically advanced whatever, with unique power systems that can power ships or whatever.
The technical details of proposed core energy management:
Cores produce a certain amount of energy on their own. Enough to comfortably power a battleship if need be.
Cores are impervious to weapon damage.
Cores cannot function if they are generating too much energy. (If you have too much unused energy)
Cores will become disabled by prolonged use with too much energy unused.
In other words, to safely operate a core unit, you need to be using the energy it provides, else it can become unstable and explode.

HOW DO WE USE THE ENERGY?
As with the simple system, each element will provide its own energy cost. HOWEVER, a core unit will provide an energy cap that will easily supplement the biggest ships.
IF you are building a smaller ship, on a core that requires a high energy usage, you can use a new element, ENERGY  DAMPENERS. These elements will have different energy cost depending on size, and will do nothing other than REDUCE YOUR UNUSED ENERGY TO AVOID CORE DESTRUCTION.
So the whole deal behind this is that a ship can be destroyed if it has too much unused energy. How does this work in combat? Simple. Elements that are destroyed will stop using energy. Freeing up a cores energy capacity, and causing it to become more and more unstable, to the point there is too much unused energy, and the core explodes.
Energy dampeners don’t have to be expensive, giant, or cumbersome for builders, they just need to BE there. This way a ship will be destroyed from being disabled. Not after a 10 hour missile excavation expedition to the core.

This however presents another problem, adding or subtracting elements during combat. I believe NQ can work their way around that.

NQ could indeed also switch ammo types for every from what they are now to just, explosive, or armour piercing. others may be imagined up but these are the basics of what weapons actually do, and it makes SENSE.
 
Ontop of this, considering fleet battles. A typical strategy is for an entire fleet to target 1 ship at a time, and the fleet battle becomes a race against the other fleet, in which DPS is particularly dominant.
Getting destroyed within seconds because you're being targeted by an entire fleet is not fun. Without the ability for this to happen, a fleet battle flows more like an actual battle, rather than eve alpha DPS strategy.
My opinion of this comes from the latest battle feature many large core ships. We were unable to target individual ships correctly as a group due to ship names being all the same. This appeared as something that needed to be fixed by NQ at first, but after thinking about it, I actually had fun. Definitely more so than targeting one ship at a time with the entire fleet.

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

you've exited the dev budget zone in the first few sentances

you've exited the dev budget zone in the first few sentances

Me again  ...?
 
After I pumped out that gem of a post and have received raving feedback from the DU community I decided to give NQ a break from me for 1 day. But that doesn't mean I wasn't mentally prepping to write the next beast. So brace yourself because I'm far from done with ripping apart this game's current and future gutts and sharing it here.
 
Reference to previous post:
https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/22000-energy-consumption-and-how-it-can-be-properly-executed/
 
Disclaimer:
If NQ were to actually implement anything from any of my posts I'd assume no ownership of any intellectual property written within anything here. In fact, I encourage them to use as much of it as possible because again, I REALLY want this damn game to blow up... and yes I already know the disclaimer of the game and forums. I'm just reitterating it here, because at least one person has already approached me about this topic.  
Keep in mind, I'm only doing this because I received confirmation that NQ does in fact read these forums more so than any other platform. If I get confirmation in the next patch (maybe even the one after) that NONE of what's being said from myself and others wasn't even considered, then I'll consider the exit door to Starbase and StarCitizen, with high chance of never returning... and yes I will take others with me... Count on it.  
The earlier bullet is not a threat nor meant to be taken in any negative light. It's a statement meant to be taken seriously. Because I and many others still around from Alpha 1 deeply care about this game, spent some decent money on it as an investment and really want it to succeed. I also understand that families and friends working at NQ are being fed by this game's development and lives are made easier because it's in operation. So looking at it from a more human perspective, food being put on the table, now and in the future is determined by how successful this game becomes. This may not be true for everyone employed at NQ but there's at least 1 person struggling to ensure they can make it to the next paycheck or dinner plate and they're just not making it public from embarrassment or other personal reasons. Maybe even due to COVID-19 effects on people's finances, who knows... so do consider that JC, if you hadn't already.  
To all those PVP hating carebears out there, if you don't want to see more posts about stuff related to PVP or PVE or anything with a P in it then just close the tab out. I don't plan on stopping until I see in the next patch(es) that all this was in vain and NQ only hears the community when they realize there's barely a community left. Unless you're going to offer up actual critics on how to help this game get better from a player's EXPERIENCED perspective then I give ZERO F&^*s about what you have to say lmao  
One final bullet here for ALL OF NQ. I'm well that no one likes hearing that they're fucking up. From the worker bees on up to management and even the great JC himself. It is somewhat natural for everyone to not enjoy rejection or anything negative for that matter. However, it's the intelligent individuals that are able to disect these posts and take the good and silver linings out of them and apply them to be better today than their yesterday's best. I believe that's practically all of NQ employees, intellectuals striving for better. So yes, I'm harsh, I'm a bit unprofessional when not at my actual job (because I'm not getting paid to write this) and my feedback is REALLY raw and real. I'm not a "yes man" and I'm going to tell it to your face that you dun fucked up and how. So please don't take any of this personal, but more as a the community wants better of/from/for you all and while we're VERY disappointed we expect nothing but greatness from each and every one of you (even when you're burnt out) because you're making something that we've been wanting for decades.  
Now after having laid that heavy load onto people's thoughts I'm going to get into the post itself.
 
(Note: I plan on writing up a full fledged path of execution... sort-of touching on project management level on how each piece of this new feature could be planned, developed, tested, implemented to beta with deadlines and all... I'm not seeking a job, but I will do the whole damn thing if that's what it takes for this game to make it. Because yes, I want this game to succeed lol. I'm not sure if I'll use JIRA or Github or Monday or Trello w/e other system is out there ... Yes we use these at G.E Aviation)
 
Don't worry marketing team, I have something in the works for you too... you aren't getting out of this unscathed lol
 
For this post I'm going to jump into the elements from the previous post and how they would theoretically work if NQ was to actually implement something like this. Again, I'm going to structure this similar to the previous so you get a full understanding of how each element would correspond to the mechanics already in DU.
 
================================Table of Contents===============================
Power Management The importance How it could work in DU Power usage types New types of Power Coal Hydro Magnetic Nuclear Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up) Fusion Fission Cold Fusion Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game) Thoramine (Finally a use for it??) Tachyon Zero Point Energy The New Elements Generators Backup Generators Coolant Pumps Rods Air System Batteries Outlets How they work for Ships (hopefully I don't get tired this time) XS Small Medium Large X-Large (I'm going to actually try it this time) How they work for Static/Space Structures XS Small Medium Large X-Large Tiles - Newest Addition Limitations of each power generation & Coolant element Generators Backup Generators Coolant Pumps Rods Air System Batteries Outlets Limitations on Weapons ... yes, PVP for all you carebears out there >=) Cannons Missiles Lasers Rail-guns ==================================The Deep Dive======================================================
 
(Buckle up)
 
Power Management The importance When it comes to a building or ship properly managing power is extremely critical. In order for a vessel or structure to maintain operation or even life there is typically 3 sources (or faucets) for power: Primary - Something that provides the bulk of the power needed for the vessel, vehicle or structure. Example: The two jet engines on a UH60 - Black-hawk Example: The Nuclear Power Plant on an aircraft Carrier, or Nuclear Submarine Example: The Power Plant(s) that provide(s) power to a whole city Auxiliary - Something that provides power for smaller utilities of the vessel or vehicle or structure. Backup - Something that kicks in when both primary and Auxiliary fail and provides enough power to maintain critical functions of both main and utility functions for vessels, vehicles or structures. How it could work in DU Generation As mentioned in the previous post, the main source of power would come from the core at a set level which would change based on the various sizes of the core. THERE WOULD BE NO TALENTS THAT WOULD BE ABLE TO ModiFY THE MAX POWER CAP OF THE CORE NO MATTER WHAT. The only way to increase the core's maximum power cap would be to use generators and/or batteries. Talents can be applied to only batteries, outlets and generators in order to affect the following characteristics of the constructs power: Power capacity (permenant and temporary) Power regeneration speed (in MegaWatts/s or GigaWatts/second) Red-zone level Overclock (or Overdrive or Booster numbers... naming convention is debatable) The reason for only being able to place talents on the new elements over the core is because you can pick up and replace those elements on the ship, where as the core cannot be so easily picked up and put down unless you want to start all over at dropping the core from the start... which no one will do for ships already made. Maybe you can add a talent for core placement that will increase it's max power and power regen and lower the red-zone... idk but this is definitely a way to go for talents. Regeneration This would be gauged in MegaWatts/second and if need be you can convert up to Gigawatts/second. Regeneration is only done by The core and the various generators. Batteries would only be used as a source of temporary power and must require recharging when depleted. Batteries would would be interchangeable on ships and there are more than just 1 type of battery (Tier 1 through Tier 5) The Red Zone This is a condensed area of your energy bar Power usage types Instantaneous Instantaneous power usage type is mainly for weapons and a few other elements. All weapons would use some modicome of power. Some very noticable and others barely would make a dent.  Power usage of this type would only occur when: a weapon is fired a door is opened or closed Passive Passive power usage applies to numerous other elements and requires far more attention when building/designing the construct and when in flight or combat Passive power usage applies to: While a laser is active (because lasers are suppose to be continuous fire... not instantaneous) While a force field is activated While lights are on (don't worry, these would be drawing power on the KiloWatt/s level and should have near ZERO affect on the ship's power generation While a ship's engines are spooling up and barely a lot while the engines are running. It should take more energy to spool the engines vs. maintaining them at various levels. While the ship is being piloted While a gun is in use... more like when the player attempts to target an enemy ship. WITH WEAPONS ATTACHED to the gunner chair (Not the chair itself) The reason for this is because we have news reporters sitting in gunner chairs using radar to review the action on the battle field and are using just a gunner chair and radar to see what's going on. Having them drain power on the ship would discourage having reporters on the field and streaming entirely. None .... if you don't get what kind of power usage type this is then you shouldn't be working at NQ. New types of Power Description: With the new system should come a variety of different types of power generation. Each with their own unique benefits and drawbacks. This provides a new environment for the player/designer to maintain a new sense of "attention to detail" on how he/she designs their ship. For medium and large core ships and on (we hope) this creates a new role on the ship I like to call "The Scottie" whose sole job is to maintain the power on board larger ships:
"I'M GIVEN HER ALL SHE'S GOT CAPTAIN!!!" Coal Coal is well... the most basic form of power generation in the game. As such it's only seen as a T-1 tech. This would be primarily for static constructs as Coal would not possibly be able to produce anything for ships. So you could make up something for ships to use as a power source especially for newbies... it's a game. Not everything has to be 100% real... lol Hydro Another rather basic power gen type that is primarily seen in Static constructs but also can be seen in XS and Small core ships. Using the highly volatile oxygen atoms of water (Oxygen and Hydrogen to make water to stabilize the Oxygen and then using the water as fuel for the T-1 Hydro generator... because it just makes total sense lmao) The drawback is that it produces hydrogen by-product so all hydro generators would require an output container. This would be a T1 and T2 power type... this is progression for power generation tech. Magnetic This generator type would take advantage of the Magnetic field to create electricity... similar to how a stater works in a generator. Copper coils wrapped around a physical cyclindar and around a rod that will spin internally to generate/induce electricity into the rod to be used by the vessel or building... yes that's roughly how it works in real life.  There can be more advanced version where you would only use magnets so this has 2 different types, one being more advanced than the other. This type would not require an output container This is seen as only T2 and the Advanced version would also be a T2 & T3 Nuclear (basic) T3 Only This is the basic Nuclear tech. Yes, we're making up a Basic version of Nuclear before going into Fusion and Fission. It's a game, deal with it. This would require an input container and output container. This would also require an Outlet/Inlet hookup... these elements are discussed further down the post The input container would house Water, or Oxygen and Hydrogen The output container would collect waste/radioactive water The player can use "purifier" units to recycle  the contaminated water through and back to pure water again for reuse. The purifier is a new element discussed below Advanced Magnetic (slightly made up) Already spoken about but again, you'd use magnets instead of some basic means to generate electricity This would mainly be used for Smaller sized ships that are aiming to have their own power generation and can't take all the extra weight and space that a medium and Large core can for Nuclear applications Fusion (advanced) A T3 generation type and more advanced than pure Nuclear and slightly less wasteful than the basic Nuclear Because it's a slightly more advanced version than the basic Nuclear it would require more elements to be properly applied Would require: Inlet - for the cooling rods Cooling rods Input container Output container Water or Oxygen and Hydrogen Purifier - to recycle, purify and transfer waste water back into the input container Fission (more advanced) A T4 Generation Type Would require: Inlet - for the cooling rods Cooling rods Input container Output container Water or Oxygen and Hydrogen Purifier - to recycle, purify and transfer waste water back into the input container Cold Fusion A T4 Generation Type and more Advanced than Fusion and Fission Would require: Inlet - for the cooling rods Absolute Zero Cooling rods Input container Output container Water or Oxygen and Hydrogen Purifier - to recycle, purify and transfer waste water back into the input container This would be the most efficient out of the Nuclear series of generators. It produces the least waste water and have the highest power output and regeneration. The problem with this type of power is that it will randomly fluctuate the red-zone lol thus forcing the "scottie" to really pay attention otherwise it would cause a meltdown if the ship suddenly slips into the red-zone and stays there for too long. Gravatron (this is made up ... it's a game) A T4 and T5 Generation Type Would require: Inlet - for Gravatron rods Gravatron rods No input container No output container No need for water or Oxygen/Hydrogen No need for a purifier This type of power generation would have an extremely high power cap and a really low regeneration rate. Thus forcing the crew to put more reliance on the core's ability to regenerate power. The red-zone would mainly come from the core itself. The Generator would produce the most regeneration energy when in orbit around a celestial body. The amount of energy regeneration it would gain per second would increase the higher the gravitational pull the construct has. So this type of generation would be ideal for Static construct but can be used on ships that are planning for an extremely long voyage. The fun and immersion would kick in when a person has to use an L-core and manage a stable orbit around a moon or planet or star to regen the energy of the gravatron generator. The T4 version would be the more basic version of the two tiers. The T5 version would regen more energy at a greater/safer orbital distance. Thoramine (Finally a use for it??) A T5 only Would require: Input Container No output container This type would use like 5-100L of thoramine/hr on passive use. Regardless, the weight of this and thoramine would be the offsetting factor to using this type however, the amount of power output would really make someone considering using it since it would be roughly 1/8th more power than Gravatron. Tachyon A T5 only Would require: Inlet - for something I haven't thought of Container for quantum Magnets This type would be one of the best energy types available in the game. It would use some random BS approach to producing tachyon energy for the base or ship and features the highest energy cap but one of the lowest red-zones. The regen would be insanely fast but the "Scottie" has to use Quantum magnets to ensure the energy doesn't regen too fast or the generator will blow it's own top. In this case, it forces the Scottie to have to play a balancing game of his own during combat. To ensure the Generator doesn't kill itself. Zero Point Energy A T5 only Would require: Container - For Quantum Magnets This generator type would have the highest energy cap of every one of them in the game. It's mainly seen on Bases and few Large ships. This would have zero red-zone This would have Zero energy regeneration This type of generator would be hailed for it's ability to literally pull energy out of nothing.  It would feature an ability to do an Energy Pull which would regen a large portion of it's max energy. Each pull damages the element by maybe 5%-10% depending on how much energy is pulled. This would force the Scottie to keep an eye on the unit's health and repair it so it doesn't destroy itself It would have a cap or recharge abilities that would regenerate over time if the unit is left alone for a minute or two.
  The New Elements Generators Generators are the secondary source of energy and allow for the person or crew of a ship to not rely entirely on the core for a power source. As the ship sizes scale up the reliance for power generation scales linearly with it. Number of outlet/inlet slots scales up with size, tier, tech and type.  A Nuclear (Basic, Fusion, Fission, Cold Fusion) generator will have more inlets for rods than it would outlets to recharge batteries. Backup Generators As previously mentioned, these generators are 2ndary generators that will kick on only when the main generators go out from either catastrophic damage, overload, meltdown, or a mismanagement of power allowing the ship to operate too long in the red-zone. They will provide just enough energy for the adjusters to turn the ship, the engines to run at about 10-30%, the core to have a chance to regen the power. The power from the core will not kick back on until the power has been fully restored. Weapons will not be able to fire Doors will not be able to open Elevators will not be accessible/usable Space brakes will only function at about 30-40% Lights will flicker Coolant Coolant is a feature used mainly on Nuclear and other more advanced Generators to help maintain power and keep the generator from ripping itself apart. Purifiers (old name used to be pumps) Purifiers act as transfer units for ships. They only transfer waste water They're only used for Nuclear type Generators Rods Inserted into Inlets Only 1 Rod per Inlet Is used to make Nuclear generators generate power Takes a ridiculously long time to deplete Takes a ridiculously long time to re-enrich Can be re-enriched via Outlets Air System Very basic type of cooling Usually found on bases Batteries Batteries are similar to rods Provides Temporary addition to max power cap on constructs Is the first thing power is drawn from on a ship unless the Scottie sets the generator/core to pull from it's own stores Can be used to Overclock/Overdrive/Boost the constructs power regen. This will damage the battery and force it to be recycled Damaged batteries are a simple True/False status no health points required Can be inserted into an outlet to be recharged Features a set number of recharges before needing to be recycled T1 - 10 T2 - 20 T3 - 30 T4 - 40 T5 - 55 Talent points can boost the number of recharges by 25% when placed into a recharge outlet (5% per tier) One battery can be recharged per 1 outlet Must be placed into an inlet to provide the boosts for the construct's main power system Types of Batteries: Duracell ... lmfao just kidding Basic Capacitor Magnetic Capacitors (made up) Di-lithium Crystals T-3 T4 and T5 Because Scottie needs to say it "The Di-lithium Crystals are breakin' up! She's GONNA BLOW!" Outlets/Inlets Outlets... similar to sockets in the wall of a house are elements used for: Recharging batteries Will draw passive power from the generator when in use Will stop when the battery is fully recharged Inlets are meant to serve as an interacting element for rods and batteries. Allows charged batteries to boost the generators max capacity Allows for charged batteries to overclock the regeneration of the generator's regen ability Allows for the Generator to blow through the batteries when switched into overdrive mode This will blow out the batteries but allows generators to push engines past their max thrust outputs so you can go faster than 30km/hr in space
  How they work for Ships (hopefully I don't get tired this time) XS .... I'm already tired... So for XS they'd mostly go with Hydro type generators and basic batteries or capacitors for addition power boosts. This direction would take up the least amount of room on the ship and allow the ship to take on long distance space/atmo scouting/hauling runs. Due to the Core having a set number of slots the Generator(s) would follow a similar pattern as well. However, in this case, the number of slots for inlets and outlets would be the 2 variables that would change based on generator size. For XS generators: 2 inlet slots 1 outlet slots (to recharge batteries or energize crystals) 10 containers Small This type of ship would stem into the T2 and lower ends of the T3 power gen. Tech. Since there's slightly more room for the components it can comfortably house the needed elements For Small generators: 4 inlet slots 2 outlet slots (to recharge batteries or energize crystals) 10 containers Medium here's where T3 - T4 and T5 start to shine For Medium sized generators: 8 inlet slots 4 outlet slots (to recharge batteries or energize crystals) 10 containers Large Mostly T4 and T5 would be sought after here For Large size generators: 16 inlet slots 8 outlet slots (to recharge batteries or energize crystals) 10 containers X-Large (I'm going to actually try it this time) Only for T5 since it's the only kind of energy gens. that could support such demand
  How they work for Static/Space Structures As Static and Space constructs are not moving the generators can afford to have far more slots available... unless NQ decides to keep it universal and just use the same slot numbers for both static and dynamic constructs... it might just be easier that way and allow for people to add in more generators per their ship's designed power demands. Either way, you would see more frequent use of nuclear type generators on static constructs vs the dynamics XS - erergae Small erergae Medium erergae Large erergae X-Large   Tiles on planets, moons and asteroids (if Asteroids have tiles that is) Tiles on a planet or moon or asteroid would affect the three basic characteristics of the static cores placed. Max Energy (This would only be an addition) Larger Increase for barren planets Larger increase for Asteroids or moons Smaller increase for Cold planets Smaller Increase for Hotter Planets Energy Regeneration (This could be a +/- to the energy regeneration) Larger regeneration for Hotter planets (This gives hot planets like Sicarri, Sinnon or Madis an increase in land value) Smaller Regeneration for Colder planets Red-zone Larger red-zones for hotter planets Smaller red-zones for colder planets (this gives ice planets an increase in interest value)
  Limitations of each power generation & Coolant element Generators Naturally, generators would come with their own natural limitations: Max power cap The power cap can be modified by placement talent points Regen rate This can be modified by talent points and assisted with Overclocking/Over-driving with batteries Red-zone Level This is a condensed area of the energy of the generators This area can cause damage to the generators if the energy level stays in this zone for too long This can be increased if the generator keeps diving into the red-zone constantly and for extended periods of time Backup Generators These are Generators that are switched over using logic gates Once the power of the primary generators has been knocked out the backups will kick on Backups will only supply enough power for the elements to perform at a substandard level Engines would be 20-30% max output Adjusters at 30-40% brakes at 40-50% Coolant Coolant is used for mainly Nuclear type generator techs and adds a new element for the "Scottie" to pay attention to on board larger ships and large facilities. Purifiers Purifiers can only pump, purify and output a certain amount of water over time. Purifiers can be buffed with placement talents Purifiers can only work on waste water Rods Rods only work with Inlets Take a long time to deplete Take a long time to re-enriched/recharged Become hazardous if not dealt with Primary source of producing waste water Air System Weakest form of cooling... haven't fully figured out a use yet... but I know it's somewhere in my head Batteries/Capacitors Has a set number of recharges Is destroyed or damaged when used for overdrive/overclocking Has to be recycled after recharges are exhausted Has to be recycled if used in an overdrive/overclocking situation Is not a permanent source of power Can be used for weapons Outlets Is a one-to-one element... one outlet for one battery or capacitor. Inlets Is a one-to-one element... one battery/capacitor/rod per inlet. only hooks into generators and weapons as an auxiliary power source Limitations on Weapons and other Elements ... yes, PVP for all you carebears out there >=) Lights Lights will pull a small amount of energy passively on the power source. Small enough to where it's barely noticeable Lights will flicker and dim when the energy level hits the red-zone Cannons Instantaneous power draw when fired Uses the least amount of energy when fired since cannons are more mechanical than they are electrical Missiles Uses instantaneous power when fired Uses a little more power when fired since it requires some electricity to signal and activate the missiles. Lasers Uses passive energy when fired Much more noticeable pull of regeneration energy while firing So when this weapon is active, the regeneration of energy is slowed This will cause the Scottie to kick into action and use batteries to mitigate the draw of power from the ship's main power source Rail-guns Uses instantaneous power when fired Has the highest power pull of all 4 weapon types Noticeable when fired forcing the crew to modulate how often they fire Batteries would probably be used the most on Rail-guns to help mitigate how much power they would pull per shot. This weapon would probably deplete the most batteries forcing the Scottie to run back and forth swapping and recharging batteries constantly while managing the ship's power.  
Conclusion:
 
Currently the roles on a ship are:
Pilot/FC - calls the targets Gunners - Open fire on the target Red-shirts - guys who repair the ship  
With this approach to power management you'll create the new role of "The Scotties" who will have to handle the tasks of:
Power management for the weapons Swapping batteries charging batteries making sure the generators don't blow checking the coolant systems Keeping the ship's power out of the redzone  
With this approach, noted in #7 the game takes on a more natural stance for power consumption and generation. Instead of setting hard numbers to limit players on how many weapons they can put on their ship or even what sizes they can place on their ships this will force players to make more informed decisions on how many to place based on how much energy the ship has and can maintain. This would lead to the ultimate end of Borg cubes as some players would try to make min/maxed cubes not realizing that spooling up their own engines while trying to fire massive rail guns or lasers at a distance pushes the core into the redzone too much thus shutting down the ship and making it inoperable for combat.
 
With this in mind, you can remove the core sized limitation of weapons for all sized weapons and cores. Because now an XS core can no longer support Large or too many medium weapons from an energy front!
 
Needless to say the Scottie would have a critical and equally important job on the ship.
 
 

You don't want to restart from zero, you want everyone else to start from zero. Everyone else says no. Stick to your backyard sandbox

Combat needs a different roots approach into how it works. Currently how combat technically performs, is just like peeling an onion. You just gotta keep shooting and shooting until you strip away the layers you need to get to the core. The difficulty between creating a ship that will get destroyed in either 100 hits, or 10,000 hits, is NOT hard at all.
 
THERE IS NO CUBE META.
Cube meta isn’t anything special in itself, it simply makes most effective use of how combat works. There is no cube meta, just shallow and undefined DU combat.
 
Regardless of their differences, and other very strange differences, weapons themselves all do pretty much the same thing, just at a different scale.

I don’t know what the NQ team imagines will ‘fix’ their problems, but you guys really need to be careful not to tip the scales. Any drastic changes need to consider both ends of the spectrum, being, weak cheap ships, to heavily armoured ships. As things are now, weak ships take about an hour to kill, and heavily armoured ships are immortal ammo eaters.
There is a MASSIVE disparity between ships on either end of the spectrum. Coupled with the fact that people can farm as they please and build what they want very safely, ships will always be at the top of their game, and the top of their strength. Ship designs won’t be out of necessity or purpose, but solely out of attrition.
 
WHAT IS MORE DIVERSE COMBAT?
Anything that isn’t DU combat as it currently is.
Do away with unrealistic arcadey damage types. No one really cares about resistances or ammo types.
Weapons need a purpose. Ammo, needs a purpose. The fact that things are separated by damage type and resistances, is pretty shallow and meaningless.
Weapons need a REAL purpose, a REAL function. Not a DPS count.

Ships in DU do not have set HP values like in other games where constructs cannot be handmade.
A dynamic system needs dynamic mechanics!

SUGGESTIONS PROPOSED TO MAKE COMBAT QUICKER, EFFECTIVE, FUN, AND CHALLENGING.
Halve the total HP of every voxel.Ship death on core destruction? I think not. Make Cores Impervious to weapon damage. (Explained further down)

Change what weapons actually do. Introduce penetration damage models!
Laser blasts and missiles may do the same thing, creating devastating explosions on impact, but the best way through armour, is through it. Cannons need to pepper ships, railguns need to be actual railguns, and create big holes from entry point to exit point, though lacking obvious things like tracking, rate of fire, huge ammo space. Armour itself doesn’t have to be useless, it needs purpose. Enough armour can still stop certain penetrations like cannons, but to a point where the armour needs be quite impractically thick where designers may opt for only certain parts of heavy protective armour. Though this doesn’t negate the need for armour entirely in which a ship would be incredibly vulnerable to blast attacks from lasers or missiles.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT.
 
I believe we all have a pretty good idea of what NQ may do for energy management.
Give ships an energy cap, and each element will take up a certain amount of energy until there may be no more that the system can energize.
I am suggestion a slightly different alternative. Lore around the fact that dynamic cores are a technologically advanced whatever, with unique power systems that can power ships or whatever.
The technical details of proposed core energy management:
Cores produce a certain amount of energy on their own. Enough to comfortably power a battleship if need be.
Cores are impervious to weapon damage.
Cores cannot function if they are generating too much energy. (If you have too much unused energy)
Cores will become disabled by prolonged use with too much energy unused.
In other words, to safely operate a core unit, you need to be using the energy it provides, else it can become unstable and explode.

HOW DO WE USE THE ENERGY?
As with the simple system, each element will provide its own energy cost. HOWEVER, a core unit will provide an energy cap that will easily supplement the biggest ships.
IF you are building a smaller ship, on a core that requires a high energy usage, you can use a new element, ENERGY  DAMPENERS. These elements will have different energy cost depending on size, and will do nothing other than REDUCE YOUR UNUSED ENERGY TO AVOID CORE DESTRUCTION.
So the whole deal behind this is that a ship can be destroyed if it has too much unused energy. How does this work in combat? Simple. Elements that are destroyed will stop using energy. Freeing up a cores energy capacity, and causing it to become more and more unstable, to the point there is too much unused energy, and the core explodes.
Energy dampeners don’t have to be expensive, giant, or cumbersome for builders, they just need to BE there. This way a ship will be destroyed from being disabled. Not after a 10 hour missile excavation expedition to the core.

This however presents another problem, adding or subtracting elements during combat. I believe NQ can work their way around that.

NQ could indeed also switch ammo types for every from what they are now to just, explosive, or armour piercing. others may be imagined up but these are the basics of what weapons actually do, and it makes SENSE.
 
Ontop of this, considering fleet battles. A typical strategy is for an entire fleet to target 1 ship at a time, and the fleet battle becomes a race against the other fleet, in which DPS is particularly dominant.
Getting destroyed within seconds because you're being targeted by an entire fleet is not fun. Without the ability for this to happen, a fleet battle flows more like an actual battle, rather than eve alpha DPS strategy.
My opinion of this comes from the latest battle feature many large core ships. We were unable to target individual ships correctly as a group due to ship names being all the same. This appeared as something that needed to be fixed by NQ at first, but after thinking about it, I actually had fun. Definitely more so than targeting one ship at a time with the entire fleet.

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

still an online singleplayer game

Effective immediately, all mining and transport in and out of Talemai and its moons will cease.  Company Waste Management has taken over after reports of multiple OSHA violations and violations of the UMU (United Miners Union).  Independent organization named RockHoppas has been dispatched to Talemai to replace all current miners.  Only people with proper Mining permits are allowed to and from Talemai and their cargo will be checked for any contraband. 
For inquires about Mining Permits please contact JohnnyTazer with your reason and your fee ready.  Its 5mil per person, per week.  And 20mil for a whole organization.  Thank you for your continued cooperation as we take this time to sort out the mess on Talemai.  

- JohnnyTazer
  Waste Management Consultant