Scavenger

The Dual Universe Demeter update is fast-approaching. In addition to the geometry reset and the introduction of mining units, Territory Upkeep will also be part of the package. 
 
Territory upkeep presents two benefits from a design standpoint: it should help prevent infinite land grabbing by introducing a constant financial constraint to massive land owners as well as provide a resource sink to help keep the economy in check. 
 
We looked at different options to bring some form of balance in the control of territories. For example, the current setup for organizations, that allows infinite nested organizations, ruled out a progressive tax system, as nested organizations with one territory each can be created to only benefit from the lowest tax level. 

OFFLINE, ONLINE AND TAXES
For now, the cost of claiming a territory will be at a fixed price of 500,000 quanta. After the Demeter deployment, the territory will be free from taxes for three days, which is the equivalent of having a tax break for the first week. 
 

 
Accessing the Territory interface through the Wallet menu will show you a list of your territories and their stored funds. Here is where you will add quanta to the balance for any of your territories. Taxes will automatically be withdrawn from this balance at a rate of 1,000,000 quanta per week. Each territory can hold up to 13 weeks of quanta.
 
Territories with unpaid taxes will go offline. Once funds have been added, you will be able to activate the territory once again and it will come back online, allowing mining and industry processes to be restarted. If the territory was online before the tax was successfully withdrawn, industry and mining will simply continue to run.
 
In the event that the territory successfully pays its tax, and the balance is reduced below the point that the next taxation cycle will have insufficient funds, a notification will be sent to the owner or the legates of the organization that owns the territory.
 
If the territory does not have enough quanta to cover the week, the territory will go offline and cease all mining and industry operations and a reminder notification will be sent to the territory owner or legates of the organization that owns the territory. During this period, the affected territory will not contribute to the adjacency bonus of the mining units.
 
If a territory remains offline for two consecutive tax cycles (two weeks in total), the ownership to the territory is lost and it becomes abandoned, unless that territory is flagged as a headquarters from the territory interface.

HEADQUARTERS
Each player will be able to assign five territories as their headquarters. These territories do not lose ownership when offline and remain in the players' ownership even if taxes are unpaid for longer than the two week grace period. This feature is only available to player-owned, not organization-owned, territories. We will monitor how this develops; in the future, these territories may be subject to the loss of their headquarters state if the account in question is unsubscribed; however this will not be the case in Demeter. 

TERRITORY EXCHANGE
To allow for the transfer of territory ownership to another player or organization, a territory can now be tokenized. By simply right-clicking on the territory unit, a token can be generated similar to the way constructs can be tokenized. Once tokenized, the territory will be frozen, preventing the deployment of new static constructs and terraforming operations. Mining and industry units placed on the territory will continue working as intended so long as the upkeep taxes are paid. 
 

 
The token itself will contain information about the territory and the static constructs deployed on it. Although it can be used to take ownership of that territory, this does not grant ownership of the static constructs on it. The quanta balance of that territory will transfer with the territory to the new owner.
 

 
If the token expires, it disappears and the territory will be unfrozen and remain in the token creator's ownership.

REQUISITIONING CONSTRUCTS
While territories can be lost by remaining offline due to unpaid taxes or they can be traded to other entities, static constructs may still be present on those territories.
 
The new owner of a territory can requisition any static construct present on his territory. Requisitioning will start a two-week window where the new territory owner must allow access to the static construct for the former owner and where the former owner of the static construct is able to remove that static construct by dismantling and removing it from the territory. If the static construct is still present after two weeks, its ownership will automatically be transferred to the new owner of the territory. Constructs on abandoned territories that haven’t been claimed by a new owner can’t be requisitioned though. 

STARTING WITH DEMETER…
We understand that players will need some time to adjust to the new Territory Upkeep system. In order to allow time to prepare, the first tax payments will be subtracted from the territories two weeks after the Demeter release date. Once the update is live, we will announce the exact date and time the first tax cycle will begin. 
 
CAVEATS AND COMMENTS
As with most new systems, many things are subject to change, including UI, naming conventions, tax rates, etc. Your feedback has already made a difference as the system was being developed, and we’ll continue to look at our players’ input to see what further adjustments need to be made. Share your thoughts in this forum thread. 
 

Good move clearing old scans!

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. 
 

So let me get this straight...
 
Being shot at will cancel warp. So the tiniest pirate fighter can keep even a large freighter/capital ship from warping away just by shooting it. Isn't this catering to pirates a little TOO much? Can we consider having a damage threshold that must be met to cancel warp? Or heck, make it so you  have to take hull damage to cancel warp. Or perhaps taking damage will pause or lengthen the spool-up time. This mechanic works well in Elite Dangerous, where you can spool up your FTL drive, but having someone close enough increases the spool time exponentially.
 
This change gives a single XS cannon the ability to interdict ANYTHING indefinitely. Makes it way too strong IMHO.

ALL ABOUT ASTEROIDS 
Ahh, those crunchy little rock nuggets, filled with fabulous sweet surprises. *nom nom nom* Okay, so they aren’t so little, and they probably aren’t all that delicious, but those sweet surprises are very, very real. Some say they smell like quanta.
 
Let’s take a look at asteroids, one of the key features coming in Apollo (0.26), now available on the public test server. What are they? What’s in them? How do you find them? How will they impact the gameplay of Dual Universe?
 
WHAT ASTEROIDS ARE, WHAT THEY HOLD
Asteroids are small, temporary celestial bodies. You will be able to track, discover, and mine them. They respawn in dispersed batches weekly, and asteroids in each batch will initially spawn over the first 24 hours.  
 
The addition of asteroids will bring some spicy elements to gameplay as they provide a real incentive for PvP other than mere pirating (not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s your thing). Another upside is that locating and mining asteroids, along with transporting their bounty, will encourage cooperation and interaction between different groups of players. One can never have too many friends, right? 
 

 
At the end of the life cycle of these asteroids, they will be despawned, to make way for a new batch to spawn. For testing purposes, this is set to one week but is subject to change based on community feedback. 
 
And, last but not least, it’s always good to have another way to acquire resources. Asteroids are also more resource-rich than your average mining territory. The ore they contain is of varying tiers, depending on the area in which they are discovered. Higher tier ore will be found in the more dangerous PvP zones. The greater the risk, the higher the reward. 
 
HOW TO FIND THEM
Although it is technically possible to discover an asteroid as you’re roaming around in space, it’s more likely that you’ll need some mechanical assistance. 
 
Say hello to the deep space asteroid tracker (DSAT). It serves two general purposes: to display all existing asteroids in the system, regardless of their state, and to track undiscovered asteroids. Once an asteroid is discovered, you’ll use the DSAT to set a series of waypoints to it. 
 

 
The DSAT display panel shows: 
Rumored: Asteroids that exist but have not been discovered. Discovered: Asteroids that have been successfully discovered. Broadcast: The shared location of discovered asteroids.  Discovered countdown timer: The length of time remaining before broadcasting the location of a discovered asteroid. Scan: Click to begin scanning for an asteroid’s location.   

 
Information about the specific asteroid being scanned is displayed in the box above. The Rarity field shows the type of ore you will find there, ranging from Basic, Uncommon, Advanced, Rare and Exotic. 
 
From there, you can select an asteroid to track. The DSAT will ask you to scan several information points in the target area in order to zero in on the final location of the asteroid. These information points are unique for each player; sharing them won’t enable anyone else to speed through the scanning process. Once you have reached and scanned all the information points, the location of the asteroid will be revealed.
 
When someone touches down on the asteroid, the time starts ticking. In four hours, the location will be revealed in the Broadcast section of the DSAT display, visible to anyone with a DSAT unit.  
 
(Important note: The four-hour time limit is subject to change based on testing results and player feedback.) 
 
DIG IN
Good news for the lone wolves of the world: Single-player asteroid-hunting is completely feasible. It is about picking the right amount of risk and having a well-designed ship for dig-and-run action. A major perk of being the first to discover and begin mining an asteroid is that you’re pretty much guaranteed to pull out a few nodes of higher-tier-ore from the get-go. A tier-3 asteroid might contain a couple of tier-5 veins.
 
How long it will take to fully deplete all of the asteroid’s resources depends on a wide range of variables. How large is the crew? How good are they at working together? What equipment are they using? A well-oiled machine of a team with top-line equipment has the potential to complete the task before the four-hour broadcast timer dings. (Potential being the operative word there.) 
 
A more likely scenario is that you’ll have competition. Being the first to successfully locate the asteroid doesn’t give you exclusive rights to it. Anyone else can scan and locate it, too, or stumble upon it out of sheer luck. 
 
SWITCHING THINGS UP 
Although the basic mining gameplay and mechanics are in place, a big change for miners is that asteroids have extremely low gravity and no atmosphere to speak of, giving you the option to mine and dig entirely in jetpack mode if you so choose. 
 
Another significant departure is that with asteroids having the potential to spawn in PvP zones, this will also be the first time players can mine and fight in the same general area.
 
CHOICES
With plenty of options related to asteroids, you’ve got some important choices to make. 
Is your sole business to find asteroids and sell the location information to others before they are publicly broadcasted? Will you stick to the safe zones and leave the dangerous resource gathering to others? Do you use the Job Forum to hire help to mine and transport ore? Will you scour the skies looking for miners to loot?   These are simply a few possibilities. There are countless more, and endless stories of victory and defeat waiting to be told. 
 
What will your asteroid glory story be? Share it in the forums. 
 

I personally think that it would be a great improvement to the game (and the community in general) to allow and encourage developers to post/stream their progress on the main youtube channel. They don't even need to be fancily edited or something, just a 30 second clip showing a feature/mechanic that is being worked on would be a great way to show progress on features and get feedback as soon as possible.
It would be a lot more efficient to get feedback on a feature that is halfway in development than to get it as soon as it is in a playable state, to then possibly need it severely reverted or changed because there are problems with it. It would also help us know how far away we are from features, instead of complete radio silence until it is ready for the PTS.

Space can be lonely, and, if some adages are to be believed, no one can hear you scream out there. You may want to bring along some friends, maybe not so much for the screaming but for sharing fuel and good times. That’s where docking and boarding comes in. 
 
Previously referred to with the blanket term “parenting”, breaking them off as boarding and docking clarifies what they are and what they do. Just as the name implies, boarding allows passengers to come aboard your ship. Docking makes it possible to have ships connected to other ships, even when both are moving. This boarding/docking relationship basically has the same functionality and behaviour as before but with the added benefit of rights management.
 
In its original design, boarding or docking a construct was not consensual. Neither the player who owned the construct being boarded/docked nor the player whose construct was being attached to another could decline. They may not have even been aware it had happened in some cases, it simply occurred due to their proximity. 
 
This was a problem for a few reasons, most notably that it opened the door for bugs and exploits. In addition to negating those, revisiting the feature also gives us the opportunity to make it more intuitive and purposeful. 
 
ASSIGNING RIGHTS
Owners can use the Rights & Duties Management System (RDMS) to assign Right to Board or Right to Dock to their constructs that will let others board or dock, or to forbid such requests. 
 
Dynamic constructs have the ability to move, as opposed to static constructs - like buildings - that are immobile. With the necessary rights, avatars will be able to board dynamic constructs, and smaller dynamic constructs (let’s call them shuttles) will be able to dock with bigger ones (aka carriers). When boarded or docked, the player or the shuttle moves with the carrier, and their mass is added to the carrier’s physics. 
 
A player or a shuttle will need to be near the carrier in order to board or dock, it can’t be done from a distance. The distance is commiserate with the size of the target vessel, the minimum distance being 32m and 128m being the maximum. 
 
BOARDING
Players are able to board any inactive dynamic construct. This makes it possible for them to tour constructs on display in a marketplace or the like. The construct will go into the “active” state when the owner or someone else with piloting rights jumps into the driver’s seat, and unauthorized passengers will be automatically ejected.
 
If a player enters a dynamic construct with the proper rights or when the construct is inactive, they will become boarded and can move freely around the construct. 
 
The UI display may look something like this: 

This is a sample of the UI that is still in progress 
 
If the construct is active and the player attempting to board does not have the necessary right to board, they will be repulsed. The effect is similar to hitting an impassable barrier with no damage taken. The UI display may look something like this:

 
DOCKING
Once shuttle pilots with the necessary rights are within range, they can manually dock to a carrier. This is done through a contextual menu that is accessed via right-click. The shuttle will then be invisibly tethered to the exterior of the carrier. 

 
Without that clearance, the shuttle will be repulsed.

 
Authorized shuttle pilots will receive an opt-in confirmation to signal when they are within docking range. 

 
The “Docking” widget in the piloting UI informs the pilot of the shuttle when they are in docking range through this small open chain link icon.
 

This is a sample of the UI report to show a shuttle’s docking status.
 
PARENTING ADVICE
The owner of the carrier is considered the parent, and those who are granted boarding or docking rights are children.   
Just as real-world moms and dads, construct owners can give their “kids” the old heave-ho when it’s time for them to leave the nest and fly solo. This is done in a Build Helper’s submenu where all boarded players and docked shuttles are listed.
 

 
Buh-bye! Boarded avatars can be ejected at any time directly through the carrier’s Build Helper interface. 
 
This results in ejected players suddenly finding themselves adrift, possibly in deep space. Here, they have two options. Jetpack to a safe place. Depending on the distance, this could take quite a while; however, it’s safe (they can’t be attacked) and they will arrive with the inventory in their nanopack. The second option, suicide, will get them on terra firma faster, but they will lose whatever they were carrying. Probably a good idea to stay on the good side of the carrier captain to avoid being in this predicament. 
 

 
With a few simple clicks, the carrier pilot can easily de-dock shuttles, too. 
 

 
TAKE IT FOR A SPIN
These changes will be featured in an upcoming release on the public test server (PTS). We highly encourage our community to explore it when it’s available, then let us know what you think about the ease of use and convenience. Until then, feel free to join the discussion on our forums.
 

Dear Noveans,
We are glad to inform you that several QA jobs have just opened at Novaquark. As having a deep knowledge of the game is a big plus and some of our devoted players may be interested in breaking into the video game industry, we wanted to announce it here first before posting outside the community. 
 
This is a permanent, full-time, remote position. 
 
Responsibilities:
Create test plans and test cases for assigned areas of the game based on production expectations containing accurate verification points, including edge case test scenarios and potential knock-on issues over other areas that could be impacted by specific integrations. Execute test, document results, and measure impact. Report on the user experience and test results, escalating when necessary. Analyze information provided by the Development and Production teams and identify risk areas. Partner with Development, providing solid communication and collaboration. Ensure all test tool data is high quality and updated daily. Document and maintain all necessary testware. Participate in test closure activities; i.e. testware evaluation, knowledge transfer. Always champion the customer experience.  
Requirements:
Able to develop and foster strong working relationships with development partners, customers, support teams, and management. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including accurate and timely reporting. Excellent organization and time management skills. Passion for software quality and a keen eye for detail. Able to analyze and interpret data/workflows, recognize critical issues, and raise concerns. Previous experience with issue tracking databases (JIRA, Hansoft, DevTrack, Mantis etc.) Good troubleshooting skills. Fluent in English (written and spoken).
Pluses:
Gray-box and white-box testing experience. Certified ISTQB advanced test analyst or equivalent. Experience with application lifecycle and test case management tools. Previous quality assurance experience with an online title, preferably a MMO.  
Qualified applicants should send their resumes to jobs@novaquark.com. 

The Novaquark Team.
 

PART THREE: FINDING THE FUN 
 
In this third and final segment of this series, we’ll take a look at Dual Universe gameplay and how we’re aiming to improve it. There’s a delicate balance to strike between staying as true as we can to the original vision, making smart design and production choices, taking players’ feedback into consideration, and creating more opportunities for community engagement. The game needs to be challenging but, most of all, fun. It can be a tall order sometimes, but not an impossible goal. 
 
This is far from being a comprehensive list of everything we’re working on, but we think it’s a good starting point for sparking conversation with the community. You’ll also notice that we have intentionally stayed away from precise timeframes. We would rather stay flexible and give ourselves the opportunity to revise our plans based on the feedback of players. 
 
Now, let’s get to the good stuff!
 

BREAKING THE MONOTONY 

Even if the main pillars of the game aren’t quite finished yet, the launch of the beta allowed us to see how the various systems work together, how fun they are, and what actually works or sometimes doesn’t.
 
Analyzing data on player behavior and reading the copious amount of feedback we receive (thanks for that!) have pointed to two main objectives we’ll be addressing in the coming months (in addition to continuing to fix bugs and balancing issues). These are: 
 
First, emend gameplay loops that are tedious for some players. We call it “fixing the player routine”, so that playing DU doesn’t feel like “going to work”. Up the stakes, adding meaningful opportunities for conflict so that the in-game economy, social components, and building aspects come together. 
  Some elements of gameplay are more fun than others in Dual Universe. Mining can often be seen as a must-do for many new players, and because it is perceived as mandatory it can rapidly feel tedious. Earning quanta is fundamental. When we launched beta, it seemed like mining was almost the only way to get money, especially for new players who didn’t have much in the way of resources or allies. 
 
To make it more interesting with a real sense of progression over time, here is the high-level plan:
 
Make it easier for newcomers to gather resources from the surface of planets without the need to dig; Then, transition players to deploying mining units once they’ve claimed a territory. Mining units will supply a steady stream of ore, depending on the specifics of the tiles the player has claimed. These mining units come in tiers and should add a sense of progression even to early mining. There will also be a production optimization gameplay if you want to use several mining units. For players who want to specialize in mining, we will introduce asteroid mining. Think of asteroids as epic mining with high reward potential. Asteroids will be spawned in the universe. Players will be able to scan clues in space to discover where they’re located. Some asteroids will contain not just regular ores, but also rare and valuable ones. Once discovered, there will be a delay before their location is broadcast to all players. This is an opportunity for explorers who find these asteroids to reap their resources first or monetize their location. The control of valuable asteroids will also create opportunities for combat, information trading, and collaboration between players. Please also note there will be asteroids in safe zones with lower-value ores.
  THE QUEST FOR QUANTA   
Another way for players to earn quanta is the previously-announced Mission System, coming in version 0.25. It will include two components: a job board to facilitate interactions between players (for example, “I need gold delivered to this location”), as well as a secure framework for player- and NQ-created hauling missions. We hope that this will kindle the game’s economy with increased specialization and proper tools for exchanges between players. The upcoming introduction of in-game challenges will also add fun ways for players to earn cash. 
 
On that note, we plan to revise the way the markets work, considering different ways to improve connections and making it less painful to trade for goods. This should make markets more accessible and fluidify trade.
 
We are looking into how we can rebalance the industry. The reaction to changes introduced in 0.23 told us that there is more work needed here. The role of schematics is definitely one of the areas we’re looking at; whatever we do with schematics, we are particularly sensitive to making a fair move for players who have invested in buying them. 
 
Builders haven’t been forgotten. We just delivered new tools for them in 0.24, and we are already working on new ones that should let builders enhance their artistic arsenal to create more amazing constructs. We’re pretty excited about them, but should forewarn you that it may be some time before they appear as higher priority changes will take precedence. 
 
The first-time player experience will get a full overhaul to facilitate the onboarding of new players. We’re doing away with the long monologues from Aphelia and the length of time it took to get into the action. The tutorials will be more contextual, and the experience of new players should get them into the core gameplay faster. As it is now, new players sometimes need to travel long distances to find a tile free of neighbors and suitable for future expansion. The redesign will allow these new pioneers to start with their friends in a location of their choosing in a more streamlined fashion. They will also be able to select an outpost design and receive startup resources. 

STOKING THE PVP FIRES 
We know a lot of players want to hear about PvP. Once we’ve fixed the main gameplay loops, this will be the next thing we’ll tackle. Our goal is for space warfare to be one of the driving forces of the emergent gameplay, fueling the economy of the game, including for players who don’t want to directly partake in combat but might want to provide ships, ammunition, and services for those who do. 
 
While there are PVPers who are in it for the thrill of the pirate’s life, there are others who aren’t pirates so much as protectors who enjoy defender-type PVP scenarios. In its current state, PVP can be seen as gratuitous, devoid of reasons to fight beyond pillaging a bested ship’s cargo. The current PvP mechanics will be modified with the addition of construct shields and a rebalancing of weapons, among other things, as well as introducing territory control in space and, later, on planets. Controlling space territories will give players benefits such as the ability to acquire highly-lucrative space resources (i.e. rare gas, singularities) and a worthwhile reason for organizations and solo players to fight. Not only that, but you’ll be waging war in style with an array of new, unique cannons and skins. 
 
GLITZIER GRAPHICS
Admittedly, graphics improvements have been on the back burner for a while in favor of building the main gameplay systems. Upgrading the visual immersion has now taken a more prominent position in our priorities, the goal being to give more “life” to Dual Universe. 
 
This ongoing process began in 0.24 when we overhauled many of the assets used in world generation (i.e. trees, rocks, ground textures, etc.) We’ve also undertaken a big push on visual effects, with a slew of new and improved visual effects planned for gradual release in the near future. Continuing our efforts with the recent addition of new voxel textures for builders, we will freshen up many older elements in the game to bring coherence between older and newer assets, as well as between voxels and assets.
 
We are also investigating longer-term visual improvements. For some time, we’ve been working on prototypes for a new planet generation technology to make sure that our planets are interesting to explore. Before we can roll this out, we will be doing an overall pass on the existing planets, like Jago, with improved terrain and more varied environment assets. There is also a project to improve lighting with the inclusion of global illumination.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Again, please remember that all these changes will be tested first on the public test server. The final versions of these features may vary depending on your feedback and our own thought  processes. In terms of timing, most of the “player routine” fixes are planned to be gradually introduced before the end of the summer while the space warfare and PvP revamp should begin rolling out sometime after.
 
As you hopefully see, a lot of these changes are based on your feedback and a more grounded, pragmatic approach to game design. We realize that many of these topics require additional explanations and that they will probably trigger more questions. We will answer them in due time, as we’re able, in future devblogs. Until then, we look forward to hearing your thoughts in this discussion thread. See you there! 
 

Agreed ....
 
Nothing wrong with subscription based. Du charges 20 dollars for 3 months, meanwhile games like EVE is 15 dollars a month, and WURM Online charges just under 10 dollars per month.  USD ammounts of course. This makes DU as one of the cheapest out of all of them out there.
 
Bottom line, an online game won't last if it doesn't have a subscription. Otherwise how would the servers get paid for ?  Alhough, WoW was probably one of the best examples of a working DLC based MMO that was also subscription based that worked for years. Now days though, you can host your own server.
 
I will say this though, games that allow your own server, do well, but it depends on the game. DU might actually do better if the players hosted their own servers with MODs.

PART TWO: UNDER THE HOOD 

In our previous blog, we spoke about improvements we’re making to our processes in order to get more efficient use of our resources and deliver the best game possible. Today, we’re taking a look at operation costs and how we’re working to make improvements in that area, too. 

THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS 
The server and database architecture behind Dual Universe is new and quite complex. As we had about the game itself,  we had made assumptions about how much running a game like DU was going to cost in various areas. What we found was that our estimations proved to be far too conservative. We had to confront the actual cost of scaling up operating costs for a larger, global player base. And that’s okay. We have a plan. 
 
After reevaluation, we determined that some of our design decisions have had a major impact on our operational costs (i.e. what it costs to run the servers). In particular, databases are a major part of these costs. For example, because the world can be entirely edited and every edit needs to be stored in a database then communicated between the server and the clients, it eats a lot of our I/O allocations, which in turn increases our database costs. 
 
THE IMPACT ON UPDATES
The consequence is that, in the upcoming months, we will be rolling out significant backend improvements in order to optimize these operational costs. We made the conscious decision to keep pricing low in order to make the game more accessible for people who want to play, but that means that we need to keep operational costs in check. Developing these optimizations is time-consuming, but it is fundamental if we want to have a viable game as the playerbase continues to grow. 
 
It’s important to make players aware of this because some of our upcoming releases may not seem like much to you. While they won’t appear to include much in the way of new features, they will be updates to deploy these fundamental under-the-hood changes. For instance, the upcoming 0.25 release will be primarily focused on introducing a “game-changing” incremental storage mechanism for edits to the game world that will have a major positive impact on our database costs. The good news is that we think that some of these modifications will improve performance for the players.
 
Speaking of performance: that’s another area where we’ve been doing a lot of work, using the in-game telemetry to optimize areas where performance was dropping. There are several projects in the works to address performance. Although these may not seem particularly sexy when you read about them in the patch notes, the difference in how much better the game runs and feels while you’re playing should convince you it was worth the time and effort we spent on them. 
 
One example is the in-game screens. They ended up being quite popular among players, but the use of HTML for screen customization has proven to be quite a performance bottleneck in areas where there are a lot of screens. We recently started testing a new system using simple Lua draw commands instead of HTML to achieve the goal of screen customization. This change should seriously alleviate performance issues in areas with a lot of screens while providing the added benefit of unifying customization languages in a more user-friendly way.
 
There are other optimizations like this in our pipeline, and they will be presented in due time. 

MORE IN STORE
Tomorrow, in the third and final part of this series, we’ll talk about DU gameplay, and the challenges of maintaining a delicate balance between staying true to the original vision while taking player feedback into consideration. 
 
Discuss today's blog here!

Dear Noveans,
 
We would like to address the recent speculations that have arisen in our community, and openly disclose some changes that are happening at Novaquark.
 
First and foremost, Novaquark continues to be supported by its long term investors to allow it to launch Dual Universe in line with its original vision. It also puts us in a position to attract experienced talent to complement the team that’s already in place so that we can continue to improve the game.
 
Next week, we will share with you what we think our priorities should be for Dual Universe and how we hope to approach the development of the game with improved processes going forward.
 
An important change to note is that Jean-Christophe, the founder of Novaquark, has transitioned from the day-to-day management of the team to better focus on his position as a board member. Over the years since the creation of Novaquark, JC designed and set the standards for the structural and conceptual foundation of the game, and he feels now that a solid base is there for him to move forward as a strategic advisor. The recent changes in the administrative presidency of the company only reflect the transition of JC to his new role. We’re excited to have the team he has built deliver on his vision for the game.
 
Rest assured that Novaquark’s future is in good hands, and there is a strong partnership between our long-term investors and our team. We believe that the future is bright for the game and for the company, and we cannot wait to tell you where we want to take Dual Universe.
 
With our warmest regards,
The Novaquark team

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

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

The latest design descision in terms of the materials in DU made me a bit nervous since it tends to highlight the repeating pattern issues way more then before in some cases.

But i have read a blog a while ago about "Uber texture"
Since Uber texture can contain alot things i wonder if it will be the solution for that problem:
- Worn edges
- Dirt corners
- detail layers
- Randomize the texture mapping
Since i heared about it it was one of my most awaited features, but sadly it got quite around it.

So my question is if NQ is still working on that feature?
 

The team has been looking into a variety of solutions including many of the suggestions made here, on the UpVote and in Discord (like compression, collections, parking fees, no fees, etc).  I'll let you know when we're ready to announce though

Ok

I would like to be able to just export the list of elements and voxels in my blueprints to an excel file, JSON or CSV file. Currently, I have to read the blueprint window and manually input the shopping list to an external file. Not the model or anything fancy, just the actual shopping list.

Instead, if I could just click  ' Export blueprint' button at the bottom of the inspect blueprint window and it exported the CSV file of each elements name, its hitpoints, its mass in kg,  thrust in Newotons, etc...  that would be fantastic.
 
even simpler, if I could just right click on a blueprint in my inventory and "copy blueprint netlist to clipboard" 
also please let us rename blueprints or at least show "date created" 
 

I know this is something we looked into earlier, but wasn't feasible at the time for current tech reasons. Let me run back past it and see if that has changed

Yes to export OBJ. ?

Yes to export OBJ. ?

Hello,
 
What about having a possibility to export our ship as OBJ file.
 
There is a lot of application with that:
we could include that to DU Creator so customer could see the ship in 3D. we could 3d print etc...  
What do you think about that?
 
Leni

I left? Died? My heart feels like ya'll trying to kill me. I'm still here. 

here is what i woke up to today:



? you guys are turning it around, putting this ship back on course

Nearais was in discord answering questions, chatting and fielding the criticism very gracefully. I thought it might be a short lived interaction with all of the hate that was being vented but we all had a good discussion. Hopefully we can get back to stuff like that if it's not too much strain on resources/time. I too have been critical of the lack of communication since .23 but I would like to take a moment and thank you for interacting with us and maybe restoring some hope. 

The Upvote page was created as a convenient way for the Dual Universe community to submit their suggestions for features and changes they thought would be the most useful. 
 
In order to better process the existing Upvote recommendations, we’re going to temporarily suspend the addition of new suggestions. Instead, we’d like to ask the community to vote on the ones that are already listed. 
 
You can use the “Search” feature to seek out the topics that you are most interested in and then cast your vote to bring those to the forefront. This will help us better gauge suggestions that are of the utmost importance to our community. 
 
As always, thank you for your input and support. Together, we can make DU the best it can be. 
 
Vote Now.