ColonkinYT

It's beyond stupid to ask players to read and obey rules that can easily be integrated into the game itself...but this is something that's been said many, many times.
 
Game rules are meant to be integrated into the game, and if NQ doesn't want to do that basic thing, at least they can have a lighter hand in enforcement. 
 
Hope you have fun in whatever game you find, @Cergorach! I'm sure there's plenty of other studios that would work much harder for your sub money. 

If I’ve learned anything over the last 7 or so years, it’s that NQ prefers to do things without lube. I’m afraid it could never be.

DU is more S.S. => Simply Stupid 😉

I do not agree with this statement.
Automining generates ore (goods) and does not introduce quants into the game. Through ore, quants could only be entered into the game by bots to buy ore. This remark may seem unimportant, but it is not.
After all, ore can be dug on asteroids and collected on the surface.
In fact, none of these actions give you money directly. As a consequence, if ore prices fall, then all of the above activities suffer, not just auto-mining.
Now only these direct actions give money in the game:
1. Daily entrance to the game.
2. Completing missions.
3. Complete daily missions in the surrogate station.

I do not agree with this statement.
Automining generates ore (goods) and does not introduce quants into the game. Through ore, quants could only be entered into the game by bots to buy ore. This remark may seem unimportant, but it is not.
After all, ore can be dug on asteroids and collected on the surface.
In fact, none of these actions give you money directly. As a consequence, if ore prices fall, then all of the above activities suffer, not just auto-mining.
Now only these direct actions give money in the game:
1. Daily entrance to the game.
2. Completing missions.
3. Complete daily missions in the surrogate station.

A month or so ago, I said that deflation is the path to the abyss for the game.
They twisted me at the temple and said that I did not understand anything in economy games and was generally stupid.
Although any market economy is essentially inflationary.
What. Less than 3 months later to see where the deflation in ore prices has led. I did not expect such a sad outcome.
It seems that one of the guys will be able to write a dissertation on the topic "How to kill the economy in 3 months. A quick guide for gamedev."
I don't even know how to fix the situation without another erasure...

All of that plus:
 
The original vision as stated was a group of disparate features that had not been tried in this combination before.  Some of the intended features are in conflict with other features.  It isn't impossible to get them balanced but that balance should have been achieved in the pre-alpha and alpha or the project scrapped then.  To push into later stages without addressing the conflicting systems within the design was a recipe for disaster.  It is also telling that there is so much finger pointing and blaming of groups.  United we stand, divided we fall.  There was a spectrum of players who wanted everything, but more were at one end or the other; squeezing out players all the while. 
 
All of that to say:  Why should we build the game for a company that ignores and blames us?  That's just a lose-lose scenario.

I remember initially they bragged about that some mega_french_sci-fi author involved name of whom i'm always forgetting. But it seems NQ had only enough money to make him interested for couple of short texts, that become irrelevant somewhere in first years of endless changes.

Science fiction differs from just fantastic nonsense in that it does not ignore the existing physics, mathematics and other sciences. It adds what is missing, what is not yet there (not invented, not seen, not developed technology).
Relatively speaking, there are liquid engines with N thrust. And for the interest of the plot, engines with a thrust of 10N, 100N, 1000N are needed. And in science fiction, this is more or less justified (often authors use existing hypotheses that have not yet been proven, etc. Which, by the way, are strictly scientific (but may be erroneous. A vivid example is the film Interstellar. None of us have seen a black hole. But at the same time, it view, effects of time and gravity are based on scientific hypotheses.)). It does not ignore existing science.
 
What we see in places in DU suggests that this supposedly "science" fiction was written by the humanities. Which of science only learned to subtract and divide (budgets). Because in some places the fundamental foundations of the universe are being violated (by the way, we still don’t know why exactly this is the case with us. We just see how it works).
 
I already wrote about speed. Now let's talk about transmutation. Nobody is embarrassed by the fact that the weight of some things increases many times compared to the original substances? How is that in general? According to what everyday experience did we take 2 liters of plastic and get 2 liters of gold (we don’t take the chemistry of catalysis - there, purely theoretically, if you do not take into account energy consumption, you could get substances, but the mass of the starting substances can be more and not less). What is the weight gain due to? from what kind of black hole did something that doesn't exist fall out and add matter? And so periodically everywhere such inconsistencies.
 
If we turn a blind eye to them, then let's replace the engines with horses, wings with carts, spacesuits with armor, and we will go into space on horse-drawn carts. After all, in fact, with such a quality of study, little will change.
 

From scientific to DU, only the setting. No more.
I would call this genre - fiction for ignoramuses.
Only the maximum speed limit, depending on the mass, is worth something. In what science can you find it?
And there are plenty of other things that ignore the basic laws of physics. Not new undiscovered technologies (such as packaging of matter), but ignoring the basic science that exists now.
This is more and more like some kind of [filtered]ing fantasy with a damn shitty plot (more precisely, with its absence).
I agree that with JC there were many times more logic and connectivity. Since then, the game has turned into some kind of Frankenstein.

From scientific to DU, only the setting. No more.
I would call this genre - fiction for ignoramuses.
Only the maximum speed limit, depending on the mass, is worth something. In what science can you find it?
And there are plenty of other things that ignore the basic laws of physics. Not new undiscovered technologies (such as packaging of matter), but ignoring the basic science that exists now.
This is more and more like some kind of [filtered]ing fantasy with a damn shitty plot (more precisely, with its absence).
I agree that with JC there were many times more logic and connectivity. Since then, the game has turned into some kind of Frankenstein.

I think the craziest symptom of this oversharing is the way you used to be able to see all the tunnels inside the planet you were digging in, if you managed to clip your head through a tunnel wall (which wasn't as rare an occurrence as you might hope...). What's the point of my machine even knowing about things that are entirely outside my ability to perceive or affect.
 

There are tons of good ideas in these forums - even some concerning the server-load long term to help them keep the costs down.
But whatever NQ does is totally weird, if the honest intention of NQ is to keep the game alive.
 
Bring back classic mining and fill those damn holes after 1-2 month if nobody was there again.
 
Make some energy limitation PER account to reduce to much load from factories. So the Multiboxer still have a reason to multibox for what they're happy to pay.
 
There's multiple formula which might work perfectly for DU. But NQ just cant or wont find them.
 
The rat race discussed on the topic is just an UNBELIEVEABLE thing to me. Ridiculous. 
I really blame NQ to let the game die, obviously. I'm not playing the game since release because I'm not fancy to loose all my progress again. And this will happen for sure, somehow.

This game already had a normal mining design. It was based on digging ore by hand. You invest time - you get a reward. But as we know it is quite expensive. Therefore, there is an easier task. Quickly staked the tile and sit on your ass exactly. And the mining units will get everything themselves. Just keep paying taxes.
If you take a lot of things that were buried by "improving" the gameplay in 0.23 and later, then this is essentially a different game. And this game is more and more like offline grinding in a mobile game. Sit and wait for your farm to complete the cycle.
I remember how on the beta there were ships with multi-layered sometimes composite armor. Tried different combinations. And it consumed a lot of high-level resources. Not to mention the fact that the thrust-to-weight ratio also had to be kept in balance. And now there is actually no armor. No need for voxels, no need for engines and loads of fuel.
Nerf, nerf, nerf...
All they could think of was a nerf for the sake of a momentary gain in server power.
But it's all like playing jenga. He pulled the element without calculating everything and starts to crumble in another place.
Let's be honest. When a game goes down the path of cost reduction, it is about the end of the development cycle. And by the end of the life of the project.
 
P.S. Regarding the possible awareness of the distribution of ores.
As in Occam's razor, everything has a simpler explanation.
In any normal game, before going into production, there is a closed test. (or pts test).
If you have access to the test server, then nothing else is needed. It is unlikely that there will be different planets on the test and in production.
And it is enough to know the tile numbers. It seems to me that this is the simplest and most likely explanation. THIS IS JUST MY HYPOTHESIS.

Of course, it would be fun, but these bonuses will not solve the problems.
There is one psychological factor of deflation. Because of him, people leave the game.
When prices fall, you work more and get paid less.
Nobody likes this either in games or in real life.
And the reason here is far from Mining units. (Although in them, too, offline mining is such an idea.) The root problem is in game design and the lack of balance in the production of resources and their consumption. Much more ore is produced than can be consumed in the current situation. And when there were bots, it was possible to destroy excess ore for money. Now this possibility is not available. And surplus ore is putting pressure on the market.
Space fuel is not able to greatly improve the situation. (Although the step was taken right but too late).

I have been working on a digging project as well.  I find that the errors associated with digging go up exponentially the closer one gets to other players and constructs.  I also find that changing between tools (flatten and mine), tool sizes, and how your pointer is aimed all increase your ability to bypass most of the errors.   Keep in mind that doing it this way greatly increases your chances of leaving tiny, ship killing fragments of terrain voxels.

For me the worst is terraforming. I am a masochist and will often dig out entire core volumes for our base, like a 12-M-core-long tunnel dug through a Thades mountain. But these last few weeks I'm getting Internal Server Error every time. Sometimes repeatedly, sometimes not. It's really throwing me off the rhythm and reducing the efficiency.

I could quote by name because the forum remembers everything))). As many have said, the market will adjust itself and prices are about to find their limit. (this was still at prices of 18-20 quants per liter). I think the reality surprised even these people.
But it would look like gloating. I have no malice.
There is regret that we were right. I've been following your threads closely. And I largely agree.
Although, on the other hand, if you see that a person sticks an iron bare plug into a socket, then it is predictable that he will be shocked.

I often see posts on twitter by people saying things like, "I said xxxx but (unnamed other) did yyyy to me...."
Often "unnamed other" is expanded in their post to "everyone"...

Yet strangely I never see much in the way of actual twisting/trouncing/schooling/teaching/destroying/burning/flaying/scalding..  When I look back at the history, it's usually just one or two people disagreeing with the OP.
Funny stuff...

Anyway, I posted several times about deflation death spirals for this game, here's a recent post I remember posting less than two months ago... and the posts created some lively debate.
 

What? You still haven't gotten onboard with Dual Universe's NQnian physics? Go back to DU university you pleb! Weight increase in space fuel is due to Deck-chlorians physically manifesting after they have gorged on stem bolts... The reason why they can't be in the same fuel tank is obvious, the Natron stem bolt eating Deck-chlorians hate the Limestone stem bolt eating Deck-chlorians, etc. If you combine them in the same fuel tank, you'll get a clogged fuel tank at best or an exploding fuel tank at worst (due to the massive foodfight). Many testpilots also complained about highpitch voices shouting "Natron stem bolts are better!" giving them a headache...
 
@NQ-Ripley We demand this be made cannon now! 😉

Since we are talking about fuel again.
I have the same questions again and again.
1. Why space fuel weighs 6 times more than its ingredients. And in general, many times more than mineral ores and many refined ingots. Even more iron ore.
2. When we finally have ONE space fuel and not 4 different ones. If they add more cosmic fuel from T1, will there be 5 or 8 fuels?
3. If it doesn't work with recipes, when will it be possible to mix different types of space fuel in a tank?

With regard to the current roadmap and our current condition in relation there needs to be open communication.  Failure to communicate at this point only ensures further negative sentiment, if any.
 
I personally have difficulty handling negative feedback; I get it.  The game industry is a tough beast to saddle and ride with the MMO being the bucking bull of the metaphor.
 
If one can't deal with negative feedback then WTF is the thought behind developing a PvP anything?  Any project with any amount of niche or potential will hold sway over a small segment of dedicated players but will never rise to the level of MMO Community without communication.  Final call:  step up or quietly accept failure.
 
This is meant as a tough love message to NQ.  You've already alienated major segments of your dedicated player base.  You've already blown your shot at attracting a big wave of new players via Steam.  You've already started the slide down the slope towards game death.  If you have any fuel left in the tanks it's better to dump your current DeltaV into escaping the gravity well of certain failure than to try to slow the process of crashing on an unforgiving hostile planet with no hope of escape.

They don’t have to put timings on a roadmap at all, just a list of what they’d like to achieve, and an order in which they’d like to do it. Frankly I don’t even need that, a simple statement of the games direction and priorities would suffice.

And the initial M for that matter. 

 
MMORPG clearly stands for:
 
“Marginally Multiplayer Overly Restricted Progression Game. “

So the cost of DU is not really CPU cycles but CloudFront - DU uses Cloudfront to push out all the voxel data. Any construct or terrain change you make is stored in cloudfront and pushed out to other clients as needed and then stored as cache by your client, at least till the cache is invalidated. Just how much data is pushed is easily tracked by checking your cache size folder. For the estimated costs it's pretty easy - https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/pricing/
 
You can confirm this easily by the way - 
 
 
Keep in mind that NQ likely has a contract with AWS that is for negotiated pricing, it's pretty rare for any significant users to just pay the list price.
 
That's why mining had to go and that's why constructs have to get destroyed if not tied to a paid account - else they are forever sent out to other clients and NQ pays for it.
 
Tracking millions of autominers is just a bunch of rows in a table - it's not a significant cost really. 
 
As to why NQ made the AM timer 24 hours instead for 20h like the "daily" timers in many games - it's because they have a consistent history of failure to learn from the mistakes made by other games.
 
"Daily" timers being either set to a specific reset time or less than 24h to avoid the constant 'shift right' for the players has been standard practice for some time in other games.
 
I had previously posted a breakdown of what I estimated NQ to be paying for hosting and how many players they needed to cover their staffing costs with the profit assuming France average DEV costs + taxes - and that post got deleted and I took a 3m ban for it sooo uhh not doing that again - you're welcome to draw your own conclusions though...admittedly I did also state that you shouldn't buy into DU because of that data because well...uhh...DOA.