GEEKsogen

When are we getting a 3rd person view though?
 
C'mon NQ this is a role-playing game.  Lemme see how cool i look.

Rebuilding Helios will be easier with our enhanced Blueprint Deployment Tools.
 
bptoolv3.mp4  
You can omit any element, swap missing honeycomb, and soon after launch, snap blueprints to deployed cores.
 
What will you build first, Novean?

With so many loving the bus tours, we are considering putting in a Route C before the server goes dark before launch. Hopefully you'll be able to make that time, when announced.

NQ, the talent point rewards for achievements are so tiny that they might as well not exist. Yet these achievements could be a fun and rewarding activity to pursue if they gave meaningful rewards. An easy way to increase player engagement and give them 'something to do' would be to increase these rewards by A LOT. It would also motivate people to learn other parts of the game that they haven't yet experienced.

Examples: 
First Blood - Destroy 1 ship of size XS: 120pts --> 5000pts (about one hour worth of training)
Master Gunner - Shoot all types, variants, and sizes of ammo: 3240pts --> 50,000pts (about ten hours worth of training)
Factory Master - Have at least 50 industry units running simultaneously: 1080pts --> 25,000pts
Speed Freak - Reach max speed for the first time: 120pts --> 5000pts
Billionaire - Reach 1B in your wallet: 9720pts --> 129,600pts (a full day of training)
Expert Miner - Extract ore from 20 different planets or moons: 9270pts --> 129,600pts
etc. etc.
 
Give us rewards that we can be excited about and achievements will be fun! It will give players lots of things to do at launch and encourage them to experience all the game has to offer.
 

Three MILLION hours.... FML... That's a lot of scam. I'd be angry, too, if I lost over 300 years of my life to a scam.

I want to play the game.
 
But it's hard to imagine ever regaining my former levels of enthusiasm knowing that NQ was willing to sell us all a "Launch" and then take it back and sell it again to someone else.
 
I'm sorry but that's just not how you do business.

Please use this thread to discuss the Reset News Announcement. Thanks!

Dear Noveans,
 
This is Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios) again. I’m writing to follow up on our announcement video released earlier today. I’d encourage you to watch it if you haven’t already as it presents our decision to reset Dual Universe when we launch.
 
In this letter, I want to walk you through some of our reasons and give you precise answers on what you will keep after the server reset, as well as how we plan to reward Beta players for their investment in the game.
 
Deciding whether to reset the server of a persistent, single-shard game like Dual Universe is an enormous and challenging decision. It impacts many departments in the company, such as game design, server, live operations, production, community management, and well, pretty much everyone. But most importantly, it impacts our players. Players who have dedicated time, money, and passion to the game during beta.
 
But before we go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room: we started sharing information about the reset before we had solid answers because we wanted to give you clarity on our internal dialogues. Though this gave rise to many fantastic protest constructs, such as Vampskull’s intricate toilet paper ship, it also caused uncertainty for our community. I want to extend to you all a truly heartfelt apology for that and to thank you for your patience.
 
I’ll go through some of the factors we had to weigh below, but what lay at the heart of the decision for us was how we would reward the efforts, support, and contributions of our players during beta while still allowing new players the same opportunity to experience a fresh new solar system to settle at launch. 
 
With that, let’s get into the details.
 

 
WHY RESET?
 
THE ECONOMY
Betas tend to have bugs and exploits, and Dual Universe has had its share of those. We’ve dealt with issues from item duplication and system exploits to our own missteps. We have improved our monitoring systems throughout the beta, but in order to balance our player-run economy for launch, we have to reset it.
 
PERFORMANCE
It’s a technical necessity for us. The game has an extreme quantity of leftover and unused constructs. With changes to maximum construct slots and the Inactive Asset Requisition (IAR) system, the situation has improved, but a full reset will allow us to manage the data load well from the start without the burden of abandoned legacy constructs. With the new systems that we added during beta, data load should not become an issue again.
 
BALANCE
The game’s launch will be a fresh start with every player on the same starting line. We want to give every player, whether a veteran or new, the same opportunity to experience the thrill of colonizing Helios during the first days and weeks after launch. 
 
NEW WORLDS
It’s also an opportunity to improve our planetary bodies in Helios. We want to give planets more identity, to implement what we didn’t have time to do when we launched the beta. We cannot do that while players are building and terraforming the planets. We also want to experiment with new types of planetary bodies, and a reset allows us to achieve these goals. More information on that will follow soon.
 
WHAT WILL WE RESET?
Almost the whole game, with a few exceptions that I’ll cover below. 
 
This means that everything from planets and territories to items and constructs will be reset. The game’s economy and player progression will also be reset, but we will give beta players back some of their talent points and other items through the Pioneer Packs detailed below.
 
 
WHAT WILL PLAYERS KEEP?
 

 
As beta players, you will keep your name and contact list on the new server.
 
You’ll also keep your Core Blueprints after reset. Whether in a container aboard one of your constructs or inside a package, all of your Core Blueprints will be transferred to your nanopack. However, we’d recommend that you organize your Core Blueprints in your nanopack and create Core Blueprints of constructs that you would like to keep ready for the reset at launch.
 
You’ll also keep your organizations. Membership will be reset, but the superlegate will remain as the leader to carry the organization into launch with its name, logo, and manifesto intact. However, organizations belonging to other organizations will be erased.
 
Core Blueprints belonging to organizations, including those housed in containers and packages belonging to the organization will be transferred to the superlegate.
 
Your Two-Factor Authentication rewards will be reallocated to you after the reset. Your Recruit-a-Friend rewards will also be reallocated, with the exception of any game time rewards that you’ve already consumed.
 
PIONEER PACK REWARDS
We’ve also put together three tiers of Pioneer Packs to reward our beta players and give them back some progression, such as a portion of their talent points. They are a thank you from all of us here at Novaquark for the support you’ve shown us during the beta and the time you invested in the game.
 
We’ll deliver these packages during our six-month launch event in a way that preserves balance at launch and allows new players the same opportunity to compete in the game’s economy. At the start, beta veterans will be in almost the same position as new players, but by the end of these six months, beta players and backers will have one of the three packages outlined below.
 

 
 
PIONEER PACK - ADVANCED
This package is available to players who have purchased up to three months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta.
 
Up to 40,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 100,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
Tier 1 Rare Item - 1 Whirlpool collectible statue
1 exclusive decorative item: Deco potted plant white
 
PIONEER PACK - RARE
This package is available to players who have purchased up to twelve months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify.
 
This package is also available to Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Contributor backers from our crowdfunding packages.
 
Up to 46,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 200,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M
Tier 2 Rare Item - 1 Triangulum collectible statue
2 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet
 
PIONEER PACK - EXOTIC
This package is available to players who have purchased at least thirteen months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify for this bracket.
 
This package is also available to our Gold backers and above from our crowdfunding campaigns, as well as Sponsors and Patrons.
 
Up to 52,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event.
6 monthly payments of 400,000 quanta.
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M
5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit L
Tier 3 Rare Item - 1 Circinus collectible statue
3 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet | Deco potted plant black
 
To receive your Pioneer Packs, you’ll need an active subscription. Item rewards are also only available in the first month after release, and you’ll need to log into the game during this time to receive them. We’ll share more information soon on the server-wide talent point accelerator event, and the extra talent point awards for beta players and backers will be delivered on the last day of each month.
 
I want to thank all of you again for bearing with us while we resolved the reset question. We hope that the opportunity to relive the thrill of settling Helios is appealing to you. From the new first-time user experience to a whole canvas ready to be recalled to life, Dual Universe is waiting for you.

We ask that you please use this thread for discussion about this reset announcement.
 
We’re also creating a special episode of Ask Aphelia about the reset. If you have questions from our announcement video or this letter, please send them to us here.
 
Stay tuned for more news on the future of Dual Universe, and look for our next major announcement very soon.
 
Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios)

Hello, Noveans,
 
This is NQ-Entropy here to talk about our upcoming honeycomb HP and mass rebalance.
 
We know that our current system doesn’t serve the game well and we want to improve it. We are changing the way that honeycomb masses work, specifically, we are detaching them from their base material mass and unifying honeycomb masses into categories. We will also change how honeycomb HP is calculated and rebalance resistances across the board.
We also want to invite your thoughts on the proposed changes. The honeycomb mass and hp system impacts almost every area of Dual Universe, from shipbuilding to piloting and PvP. There’ll be an image at the end outlining the details of our proposed changes and a feedback thread where we want to hear your thoughts.
 
Now, let’s dive into the details.
 
SEPARATING HONEYCOMB MASS FROM ITS BASE MATERIAL 
 
In the past, our baseline for the weight of our honeycomb materials was directly based on their base pure and product materials. While a calculation was made to transform it into “honeycomb mass”, it was a straight transformation. 
 
For example: currently, the unit mass for a liter of Pure aluminum is 2.7kg, making its honeycomb mass 27kg for 1m3 (1000L). If a material weighs 2.2kg, its honeycomb mass would be 22kg/1m3.
 
This will no longer be the case, and we will take some liberties when transforming pure and product materials into honeycomb. This will allow us a wider range of weights, with a better distribution of weights at all tiers.
 
While we are taking precautions, this will have an effect on existing constructs. There are certain materials that will relatively drastically change in weight, and that could have an effect on existing constructs. We are actively trying to match the new and old masses as closely as possible, but there will be some outliers. It's worth noting that some materials will also benefit from weight reductions.
 
UNIFYING HONEYCOMB MASSES
 
To summarize, each pure honeycomb tier can access four mass classes: very light, light, heavy, and very heavy. Each existing pure material will take one of these 4 mass slots per tier.
 
Each product honeycomb will have 2 weight classes: light and heavy, with the addition of a special very light honeycomb at tier 1 for plastic. Similarly, each existing product honeycomb will take a light or heavy slot per tier.
 
Finally, we will have building materials such as Concrete, Brick, Wood, Carbon-Fiber, Marble, and Luminescent. These will have exceptionally light weights and are designed to be used explicitly for building with minimal mass.
 
Currently, our proposed values go as low as 2-3kg/m3 for the lightest building honeycomb and up to 100kg/m3 for Very Heavy Pures, which are now the heaviest honeycomb in the game.
 
HEALTHPOINT CALCULATIONS
 
Pre-combat core stress and pre-Shields, we had linear honeycomb HP based on mass. At that time, the meta was huge blocks of indestructible gold capable of absorbing massive amounts of punishment. This was possible in high part due to our poor initial voxel balancing, which specifically made gold a significant outlier. In an effort to curb that strategy, we made a number of changes to voxel health, firstly drastically reducing honeycomb HP and eventually introducing CCS. By the time that was done, Shields had taken over, and voxels were sparsely used on PvP constructs. Additionally, we now also have to consider the new speed limitations in the mass vs HP choice when it comes to honeycomb.
 
Now, with unified masses that we can better control and with CCS to control the extreme upper end, we are bringing back linear calculation of honeycomb HP based on mass. Simply put, a multiplier is applied to the voxel mass, which defines the HP of that material.
 
This will allow players to select light and heavy materials without feeling like there is a bad tradeoff in regards to their mass and their HP.
 
Currently, the mass to HP multiplier is set to 45. For the aforementioned very heavy materials of 100kg/L, that will give you 4500 raw HP.
 
REBALANCING RESISTANCE
 
We are not fundamentally changing how resistances work but are adjusting their values across the board. Resistances are generally increasing to provide better absorption and superior effective HP compared to previous iterations.
 
Resistances will still go up on a tier-by-tier basis, with building materials having the lowest resistances, then pures, and finally, high-tier products, which will have the best resistances.
 
We paid attention to two numbers in particular: Effective Healthpoints and Effective Healthpoints per unit of mass.
 
First, we wanted effective health points to make sense. We wanted honeycomb bulkheads to be capable of absorbing real firepower, and we wanted honeycomb to be good enough to protect elements inside a construct. While the final values and balancing may not be perfect, this is currently something that is starting to work. We’ve run tests with honeycomb bulkheads about a meter thick, roughly representing the armor on a medium-sized ship, and it was more than capable of absorbing multiple hits from max talented L weapons and protecting the elements we had placed behind them. Only after a good amount of shots did holes appear and elements behind start being vulnerable.
 
We ran multiple tests and generally found that they aligned with our expectations. Lower EHP materials were relevant vs xs and s weaponry but rapidly fell to larger weapons, medium EHP honeycomb was relevant versus medium-sized weapons, while high EHP honeycomb was capable of taking hits from large weapons.
 
Secondly, we wanted an EHP/mass curve that made sense as you progress up the material tiers. As of right now, going up a tier of a pure or a product guarantees a superior EHP/mass ratio with high-tier products having the best ratio on offer. This should ensure that going up a tier and upgrading your construct to a superior material is never a bad choice.
 
Finally, a small note on Core Combat Stress. It is currently unchanged as the tests we made noted the new honeycomb values lined up well with the old CCS settings. In view of that it is also a case of not wanting to change too many parameters at once so that in case of further iterations, it is easier to identify issues for tweaking.
 
FEEDBACK
 
It’s important to us that we get this rebalance right. Honeycomb’s role in PvP has impacted players significantly from the beta’s start. These changes will also impact many other areas of gameplay such as shipbuilding by altering honeycomb mass. Before implementing these changes, we want to invite your thoughts, especially on the numbers. If you have opinions on how we’re rebalancing honeycomb, please share them with us in this forum thread.
 
Here is the full breakdown of the proposed changes:
 

 
We look forward to hearing from you, Noveans.
 
Until next time, thank you for your attention.
 
- NQ Entropy

Hear ye, hear ye! The Alioth Exchange is having a grand opening celebration this Friday, July 8th, starting at 15:30 UTC until 21:00 UTC!
 
At 15:30 UTC, the festivities will begin! The Keeper of The Exchange NQ-Nicodemus will be there to welcome you, as well as NQ-Nyota! (Will there be other NQ names that will make a special appearance? Well, you’ll have to be there to find out.) It’s a great opportunity to visit and see the attractions and offerings that players have created and that are on display at The Exchange.
 
Prizes, did we mention prizes?
 
There will be dispensers available from the start of the event and lasting throughout the weekend (for everyone who isn't available during the grand opening event) until Monday at noon UTC. Please “check-in” by activating the dispenser (onsite at The Exchange) to receive your free one-time gift. Activating the dispenser will also put your name in the big draw for the grand prize of one month of game time. We’ll announce the winner on Tuesday, July 12th. Good luck everyone!
 
Wondering how to get to the Alioth Exchange? It is a destination available in the POIs (Point of Interests) and you should not have any trouble finding it. If you do, please ask in the help chat. 
 
The lots in the green wing are all set up, come join us for the grand opening! (And prizes, don’t forget the prizes.)
 
Want to find out more about The Exchange? Please head over to this thread for all the details. 
 
We’ll be opening a discussion thread on the day of the event. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and maybe some screenshots as well (Don't forget to take some!). We hope to see you there!

Dual Universe is home to a vibrant player-driven economy, with many enterprising Noveans finding creative ways of advertising their wares in-game. With last year's introduction of the parking rules for markets and districts, it became clear to us that we needed to supplement external community tools by creating a dedicated, in-game site for players to buy or sell goods and services.

Catering to the entrepreneurs and shoppers of DU, we are excited to introduce the ‘Alioth Exchange,’ a new megaplex offering an opportunity for players to spend their quanta in shops built and run by their fellow players.

“The goal of the ‘Alioth Exchange,’ is to provide a venue for players to showcase goods and services that cannot be done using the traditional market system. Additionally, serving as a Community Hub for information and social interaction to help better facilitate player connection.”
- NQ-Nicodemus, Keeper of the Exchange

The first Exchange site in Dual Universe is being introduced with the Mercury update and will sit at the heart of a teleportation network between all Pioneer Zone districts and markets.

It will house an eclectic mix of player-built constructs, (limited to an XS core) advertising and selling anything from voxel libraries, ship shops, markets, racetracks, Lua scripting, or anything else players choose to build and offer. Shoppers can navigate the Exchange using a directory that creates waypoints to their preferred shops. While shopping, players can enjoy an internal “Fast-Track” system within the Exchange, that is built out of elevators!
Each of the four halls of the Exchange are also marked with a shape and a color such as a yellow cross or a green circle, which will be rendered from afar to help navigation.
 


 
With only sixteen initial slots, space is limited! If you’re interested in joining as a vendor, we’d urge you to start the application process as soon as you can.
Application Process:
Step 1: Read this document carefully to learn our rules, guidelines and requirements. Step 2: Build your construct to a completed state, ready for review by NQ. Step 3: With your XS core construct complete, fill and submit your application form.  
We are excited to bring you this new feature and will be monitoring your usage to decide whether or not to add more similar sites in the future. We look forward to hearing your thoughts in this forum thread.
 

 

 

Summer approaches and with it comes Mercury, our next update to Dual Universe.

As Cyrille Fontaine, our Creative Director, mentioned in his letter, our focus is currently on polish, and Mercury is no exception. This update also brings new features such as The Alioth Exchange, better lighting to improve visuals, Summer DACs, and more.

Read on for an overview.
 
THE ALIOTH EXCHANGE

We’re about to deploy a new installation in the heart of Alioth where players can apply to build a display to advertise and sell their creations. Applications will be open to all players who want to advertise their ship shops, markets, Lua Scripts, organizations, voxel libraries, or anything else that they create.
More details about, ‘The Alioth Exchange,’ will be available in an upcoming dedicated post.
 

 Note: constructs featured are samples only.

CONTINUED GRAPHICAL UPGRADES
 
We’re tackling illumination, vegetation, and explosion visual effects with the Mercury Update. You’ll find that the game world will be more radiant and realistic with our new global illumination, vegetation asset fixes will improve the look of foliage in the game, and whether you’re fighting or simply crashing a ship, you can enjoy more vibrant explosions.
 

 
SUMMER DACs
 
We’re implementing a separate, test version of DACs, allowing every active player to invite a friend to try Dual Universe free for one month. 
These Summer DACs are separate from real DACs, and will not impact your accrued pool of DACs from crowdfunding packages when gifted. 
One Summer DAC will be given to every active player and can only be redeemed by new accounts not yet subscribed to the game. They will expire by the end of the summer if not used. Summer DACs should allow us to test our web-based DAC system before the game’s release while offering your friends a chance to try the game for free!

NOVEAN OVERVIEW

We're adding an in-game interface which provides an overview of your general account information and unlocked possessions. We’ll expand this feature moving forward, but in Mercury, you’ll be able to see your unlocked cosmetic skins in a dedicated tab.
 

 
LUA API
 
Our vision for Lua has evolved over the years and with the new directions we’ve taken, it’s become necessary to entirely revamp our Lua API. These changes will future-proof the API and make it better serve the game by improving and tidying the system. We’re starting this process in Mercury. 
 
Naturally, such a major change will come with an enormous changelog, but to give you a brief overview of what’s coming ahead, we’re going to:
 
Restructure the entire Lua API Prepare an object-oriented approach to be ready for future evolutions. Reduce the use of JSON in the API to favor the use of real Lua tables. Rely more on event-driven code to reduce player loops and server requests. Reduce the complexity and size of scripts Add some of the, ‘nice to have,’ features Add further points of interest to some elements such as the telemeter.  
To summarize, our goal with this update is to reset the API and prepare it for future evolutions. Rest assured that your codes will still work in Mercury and that we’ll give you ample time to adapt your creations.
 
TALENT POINT RESET

Every character will have their talent points refunded back to their pool with the Mercury Update. While we must perform this reset for technical reasons related to upgrading our systems, this is also an opportunity for players to refocus talents into different areas and try new ‘builds’, or to simply correct training away from unwanted talents.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As always, we’ll publish a series of articles delving deeper into Mercury’s features, but for now, thank you for reading, Noveans! We’re excited to move forward with Mercury and are eager to hear your thoughts in this forum thread.
 
 

For @GEEKsogen and anyone else wondering how many DACs they will receive. Here is a quick overview:
 

 
Note:
Early bird variants receive the default number of DACs for their given tier - see Kickstarter page Founder accounts do not gain any additional DACs from supporter packs - see Support Article These numbers could change so be sure to stay up to date with your DU news

Hello, Noveans!
 
I’m Cyrille Fontaine, Creative Director here at Novaquark. These are exciting times and I wanted to give everyone an overview of our objectives and direction for Dual Universe.
 
 
A game like Dual Universe is a never ending labor of love and ongoing development, but there is a point when you just need to assess if it is ready for a release. After close to two years of testing and numerous major additions to the game, we have decided to prepare the game for launch.
 
Development of Dual Universe continues at full speed, and we’re spending the lion’s share of our focus right now on fixing bugs, stabilizing the game, improving our back-end systems, and overall continuing to polish the game.
 
We’re close to deploying a brand new feature that we expect will be a hub for creators and merchants alike to gather and present themselves to other players. It’ll be open to anyone who wishes to participate and advertise their shop, museum, service, or any other point of interest.
 
We’re also working hard to deliver our promises to our Kickstarter backers that supported us from the beginning. We’re searching for a new shipping partner to deliver the physical rewards as well as delivering the digital rewards through the major game updates of 2022. We’re also implementing an initial web-based version of DACs.
 
  Our team continues to analyze game data and read your feedback to focus our efforts on where we can be most effective, and this means that our plans can change with developments in the game, but looking to the future, I want to share some of what we currently have planned in upcoming content updates for Dual Universe.
 
Flotillas are a new feature we’re developing that will allow players to form temporary groups of constructs. These will help in identifying friend from foe, assuming your foes haven’t already infiltrated your squad. This will improve many different aspects of group play ranging from fleet engagements, running convoys, piracy, and more.
 
Another gameplay feature we’re looking to add is recycling, which would enable players to better manage their inventories by turning parts of broken or unwanted elements back into components.
 
We want to expand PvE with the goal of helping players bring the game-world to life and improving the story in which everyone experiences the game. The mission system is one area of focus for this goal in developing more complex, interconnected, and lore-oriented objectives. 
We’re also developing a power management system. A good way to consider how energy will work is to look at how construct maximum speeds have changed. Players must decide how to specialize each ship, and similarly, must make choices on how best to distribute power across their constructs.
 
We want to increase the quantity of discovered planets and moons as well as new aspects, biomes and gameplay opportunities, and to produce planetoids the size of big asteroids, much like the Thades belt rocks, but claimable as a territory.
 
One of the most resource-intensive features that we have to tackle is planetary warfare. It brings significant change to the game and, before we can achieve it, we have to bring PvP in general to a more mature state. We know that territory warfare is an important game system to many of you, so continue to help us improve PvP by engaging in fights to generate data for us to analyze and continue to improve the system.
 
There are also many other features that we are looking to improve or introduce in the future.
 
 
Now, let’s discuss the topic of a reset.
 
We have seen your many posts across Discord, our forums and social media. We’ve heard your frustration and know that many of you are waiting for a decision about whether or not we will reset. Let me assure you that no matter what we decide, you will not be reset back to square one. Of the different options we’ve been discussing in case of a reset, we are certain that you will keep your core blueprints, including blueprints owned by an organization that you lead. We are also looking into which other important parts of your game progress could be kept if we do reset.
 
Yes, the internal discussion about a possible reset does continue, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the most significant decision we currently have to make for Dual Universe. We appreciate our players and your engagement with us, but I also want everyone to know that all of us here at Novaquark are eagerly awaiting the day we can share concrete news with you.
 
That is all for this message. Until next time, thank you for your attention, Noveans!
Please don't hesitate to provide your feedback here.
- Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios)

Do you know the ingameprice of one DAC?
No?
I dont know either, because the price depends on how much Quanta other players want to pay for playtime.
If players dont want to trade DACs, the price will be very high. If the players trade DACs a lot, the price will be very low.
So it depends on the players, and the players only how the DACs are used, traded and priced.
Its just a chance for players who have not much RL money but a lot of time to work ingame to play the game. 
Is it pay to win, when you need to work ingame for it?
I say definately No! You cannot "Win" in a creative sandbox when there is nohing to "Win"
It is Play to pay!
People who say, DACs are pay to win, have no clue how DACs work...

We hope everyone who attended our Fools Defense event held on our PTS on April 1st had fun.
We especially did, and thanks to our fellow Noveans, we had a ‘blast’!
 

 
As some of you might remember in our previous announcement for the Fool’s Defense event, there were some prizes to be had. We are pleased to announce that the winners have been chosen and the Wheel of Foolish Fortune is ready to start spinning! Which prizes will our foolish actions provide those that dare take a spin? Find out on the PTS on Saturday April 9th, 14:00 UTC for all the wheel spinning action.
 
After combing through our logs with a fine tooth comb, we have chosen six participants whose bravery, dedication and foolishness left the server room sizzling. We are now inviting them to prove their luck and talent once again by taking the Wheel for a spin!
 
Walter - For landing the final blow causing the destruction of the defenders station, many developers were harmed in the process. (Yes, we checked the logs thoroughly.) Copperlein - For being so good to us on the PTS, yet destroying Nautilus A’s Core, and breaking our heart. Dronko - For destroying Nautilus B’s Core, and again breaking our heart. (Et tu, Brute?) Wolfram  - For being devs’ best friend by reporting bugs on our forum. Mastuga - For being such a Trooper with the amount of ammo (pew, pew, pew) they used during the event.  Honvik - For forcing so many players to return to the resurrection pod. Skyreaper - For coming back to life so many times we thought they were a cat!   
Winners please present yourself on the PTS on Saturday, April 9th at 14:00 UTC for your chance to spin the Wheel! If you are unable to attend, a Novaquark representative will spin the Wheel in your place. Prizes will be given out shortly after the spinning of the Wheel has concluded. 
 
Please note: All players will need to go through the new FTUE on the PTS in order to participate in this event, please allow yourself enough time to go through it. 
 
Players who wish to join in the fun on the PTS are welcome, teleport over to PVP Platform 2 (::pos{0,0,2729026.2814,-98851321.2156,-1455512.2758}) where you can witness first hand the spoils of war!
 

Greetings Noveans, there is an important part of our Athena update that we have not discussed yet: our new First Time User Experience (FTUE) tutorial. Let’s remedy this without further ado!
 
Dual Universe’s FTUE has been drastically improved upon to provide players with an easier to understand, more concise and overall better introduction to the game.
 
Here are the details about what the new FTUE includes:
 
SAFE MOONS

As many of you know, we provide every player with a Safe Moon territory. Safe Moons are planets placed in a Safe Zone of space, where no PvP actions are allowed. In addition to being PvP-safe, the territories on these Safe Moons are permanent, which means once you have claimed such a territory, you have a persistent residence in the solar system. The Safe Moons are also excluded from Upkeep Costs.which we believe are a crucial aspect for a player’s peace of mind, should they need to take a break from Dual Universe at any time.
 
As the game continues to expand and more Noveans join the adventure, we added a brand new planet: Haven. It is one of the Safe Moons of Alioth, the other one being the well known Sanctuary. With this update, new players will now land directly on the moon called Haven, which is designed specifically to be friendly for new players: it has three main rings of land, each of which present with different environments, as well as no bodies of water. Haven has a total of six biomes, and 20 new markets - including 10 districts that connect Haven to both Alioth and Sanctuary thanks to a shuttle system that players can take freely. No matter where players find themselves, they can now easily visit their fellow Noveans!
 
Haven
 
Shuttle Station
 
STARTING THE FTUE
A big change in the new FTUE is that players will begin their journey by landing on Haven. Once they complete their character customization, they will then be required to select their starting territory. The new players will then find themselves in a lander directly over their selected territory. It will automatically be claimed by the player and Aphelia will guide them through the rest of the FTUE.
 
Players will also choose an Outpost to deploy on the planet as part of the introduction to the game. Outposts are small bases that allow players to try their hand in Dual Universe’s basic features. They are equipped with a Resurrection Node, a VR Station and a Basic Mining Unit S (small) to provide them with a smoother start. Aphelia will direct players to the location of these elements in each Outpost, and explain their purpose.
 
There are ten different outposts to choose from. Which one players choose is purely a reflection of their design preferences. For example, they may wish to go for a new settlement aesthetic and choose the Station Outpost. On the other hand, the Pilot Outpost provides players with a runway for an aviation environment. Don’t forget the Tri Outpost with how it brings a sci-fi feel as it elevates just off the ground!
 
 
Station Outpost
 
Tri Outpost
 
After the quick introduction is over and players have explored their Outpost, they are then free to do what they like. Players can find suggestions of next steps using the Outpost’s ‘Objectives screen’, use the VR Station for advanced tutorials, expand their Outpost constructs or venture out into the universe with an organization or as a lone wolf.
 
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With the fundamentals learned and the introduction complete, players will now have what they need to begin their Dual Universe journey. What will they create? Which organization will they join? The tools are in your inventory Noveans, what will you choose?
 
Your feedback on the new and improved FTUE is invaluable so that we can welcome many new players to our game and improve Dual Universe. Please help us make this the best experience possible for everyone by providing your feedback here!
 

I'm actually pretty impressed at the update overall, looking forward to try it out on PTS though.
 
While I know some changes aren't very popular, specially the one where mass reduces max ship weight, I do see this will address the issue of mission exploiting while also incentivize building smaller/lighter ships for PVP instead of massive gun bricks with weapons spammed all over the place. Not that those can't be built, they can and will be built as siege weapons, sure, but they will also have their downsides, both in terms of not being able to catch up with small targets and also being vulnerable to smaller attack ships, basically we'll start seeing more classes of ships instead of "one L core fits all".

Good info, thanks for the devblog. But how exactly do the stasis weapons work? Do they decrease the max speed of the target by a flat amount? Or do they reduce engine/retro/adjustor thrust? Or do they increase the the effective mass of the ship, sort of like ships currently behave when approaching max speed? Does this affect the target's adjustor maneuverability?
 
EDIT: Also, could you give us the formula for the ship speed changes, so we can get some expectations of how fast ships might be?

What does it mean, the 18 hours of lockdown? is it protected still or anyone can beat the construct?
When 18 hours finished, you can put on the shield again? Or after 18 hours you can attack and try to own the construct?
 
P.S. Can you may us be able to get ready for a massive offence, or to get ready for massive defense? Aka, if shield got broken, 150 hours later you can attack, and you have 60 min to own it, otherwise the shield rise up again?

Can we have more info on just how much you are going to slow heavy haulers,  like what sort of speed reduction vs mass please ?
 

extremely excited!!
 
i will be ready 
 

Haha, challenge accepted! I hope you know what you just signed up for.

Hello, Noveans!
 
Let us know your thoughts on the upcoming PTS event!

Hi everyone!
 
You probably heard that NQ-Pann has left Novaquark a few weeks ago.
Today, we are happy to announce that a new Community Manager is joining the team: NQ-Nyota ! ?
Please give her a warm welcome! 
 
P.S: on a side note, NQ-Naerais is still unavailable but should be back in a couple of months.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.