Naunet running by with a quick edit for clarity: Element Destruction will be applied to all damages sustained, both in and outside of PvP battles.
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Draw your weapons and get ready to shoot first! In today’s Dual Universe Dev Blog we will discuss an upcoming PvP feature: Element Destruction.
In its current iteration, the feature works rather simply. Once destroyed, an Element can be restored indefinitely. There is currently no way for a crafted Element to disappear from the game unless it’s done intentionally. This poses a problem in the dynamics of the economy. In the real world, most purchased goods will inevitably need to be replaced. This helps to fuel the economy by creating a steady demand of goods. And, as in the real world, Dual Universe relies on a strong supply and demand chain for its economy to thrive.
To facilitate this, we’re making some changes to Elements that will not only give them value as a commodity on the Market but also add some exciting layers of strategy in how they are manufactured and used by discerning pilots who won’t settle for anything less than the best on their prized ships.
Let’s take a closer look at the incoming changes.
ELEMENTS DESTRUCTION
When an Element on your ship is damaged in combat, can go next to it and repair it using scrap. If destroyed, you can also restore it completely. The change we’re making will limit the number of times an Elements can be restored, i.e. three times for an Engine and five times for a Container. Once an Element has hit its maximum amount of restores, it is Destroyed and can’t be repaired anymore.
This will be less brutal than an immediate destruction, allowing you to manage a critical situation during combat, yet give you the opportunity to plan for a long-term replacement strategy as your restore counter is approaching the limit. Getting low on the restore counter for an engine? Swap it for a brand-new one at the next station.
An Element which has been restored once or more will be allowed to be brought back into a player’s inventory, but please keep the following points in mind:
This Element will be marked as a Modified Element. As such, it cannot be sold on Markets or used in Blueprints
This Element can be bartered.
Unlike certain other modified elements, the restoration count cannot be reset.
The number of times an Element can be repaired depends solely on the nature of the Element.
Note that this is a first step. We may introduce other forms of degradation in the future, possibly impacting Element performance. Another important thing to note is that when an Element of type “Container” is fully destroyed, everything it contains is destroyed as well. This includes all types of fuel and ammo.
Tier 2+ Elements and Industry Units
To push this logic even further, we introduced the idea of a new class of elements with better stats, by extending some existing elements with variants into higher tiers. This will impact Engines, Weapons and Radars to start with, and we will also make a push for Containers and Control Units a bit later.
In any real world industry, you have room for producers specializing in high-end products with better returns, or low-end products with higher volumes. This is what the addition of Tier 2+ Elements will bring to the table. We envision a future where Tier 2-5 engines will become the norm for performance-savvy players because of their better stats while Tier 1 will remain a commodity that is basically good enough for most players who don’t care about the stat boost. This adds variation to the gameplay and will certainly be a factor in PvP and efficiency-oriented logistic operations.
Note that only Tier 2 Industry Units will be able to produce Tier 2 Elements, the same for Tier 3 and so forth. Industry Units of higher tiers will be considerably more expensive to produce and/or buy.
Element perma-destruction
A deployed Element that has been destroyed cannot be brought into the inventory. This Element is totally non-functional and can only be deleted or Replaced.
When Replacing an element, all custom properties and settings are maintained. This action will consume an Element of the same type in the player’s active inventory, as it would do with an Element that was deployed standard. Of course, we will introduce a proper tool to replace your Elements to prevent the need for reconfiguration when you’re swapping in a fresh new one. This should help to create a healthy level of demand as PVP increasingly heats up across the Universe.
Weapon limitation by core size, and better hit formula
Speaking of PVP, we want to address some imbalances in general around PvP.
Several things are on the way to address this, some of which might affect your ship designs:
Limitation of weapon sizes based on the core size, no more L weapons strapped onto an XS core unit.
Previously, the probability to hit another ship was based on the size of its core. From now on, that probability will use the surface of the ship that's visible from the view of the shooter as defined by the cross-section of the ship from that same point of view. In other words, the surface of the ship exposed to your weapons will matter and generate more damage. That way, building a borg cube will simply not be efficient and will expose you to greater damage risk.
Radar lock range unification: Instead of having each radar lock different core unit sizes at different ranges, every radar will now have a global lock range at which it locks all targets. Smaller radars will now lock at lower ranges, but retain their faster lock times while larger radars will lock slower but at greater distances. Unlike weapons, there will not be any further core-based restrictions on radar placement.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts about these changes. We appreciate your support and look to your constructive feedback to help us make Dual Universe the absolute best it can be.
Dear NQ,
While I am sure you are working steadily and extremely focused on dealing with the current server issues. I feel it's warranted since it's been nearly a week dealing with these issues, that server issues need to come to an end. And sooner than later. All Betas have a rough start. However this is the worse my community and myself have ever seen.
Server issues for much longer are simply not going to be accepted by the DU community. We are starting to lose players, because they have a bad taste in their mouths, and most will not return.
Players are spending hours and in some cases days on loading screens. Players are dealing with the constant pending operation, computing data, and terrain that doesn't load.
Players can't voice their concerns on Discord, due to the Mod Staff actively silencing discontent, and issuing unwarranted mutes. Which I assume you have directed. And on top of all this we get no communication at all. Just random restarts that actually make game play worse.
Regardless, the server issues need to be wrapped up and soon. You are charging for a Beta, that has no current way to cancel the subscription, and you expect players to just keep dealing with these issues. That's not how this works. Deal with the server issues, even if you have to schedule employees around the clock to get it done. There is no more time on this issue. NQ you are killing the game in the first week of Beta. There is only so much to do in the game, and currently players can't even do it.
