Thor Wotansen

I think this idea is great except for one thing, we already know all that stuff. Everybody just got off a spaceship that spent 10,000 years getting there. If we have the tech to navigate properly and accurately for 10,000 years, not to mention have all the machinery on the vessel function for that long, then I think we have advanced enough tech to know what's in that rock. In fact, you can right now buy an X-ray spectrometer that will tell you what elements are in whatever you point it at down to something like 5 parts per million, and it is a little bigger than a hair dryer. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, however I think the research thing needs to be applied to the skills and element improvement rather than materials and resource gathering.

Any space elevator needs to be on the equator to work. My if you're using a magnetic propulsion system you could launch from anywhere, if you don't mind a weird orbit. However, if you do have a space elevator you get fee trips to Mars and Venus.

As someone who has a lot of experience in rl animal husbandry I can say that it is not hard to raise livestock if you know what you're doing. I would suggest a system where you could leave the animals out to forage in the surrounding area. If you want them to breed you might have to feed them something rare that might cost a bit, but to just raise them it should be fairly simple.

I think that the name of a planet should be a randomly generated alphanumeric (HS4-RD) that is only changeable once. The first person/organization to get say ten claim units and hold 80% of the claim units (whichever comes last) should get the right to name the planet, and a mod or Dec can review the name and approve it. There won't be that many new planets being discovered.

There will have to be a mode like this. If people want to design the kind of epic ships that I'm sure they do they won't be able to without a "creative" mode. I for one, intend to make some fairly elaborately shaped hulls that will require a good amount of time to get right and I would hate to have to do that in the world.

This is a great idea. However, the ark ships shouldn't be damaged. They are designed to crash into planets, so they should just need a massive power source. And the arkified zone around it once it is restored should be claimable by anyone.

Glad to see this is a thing, although I suspect it will only really work in whatever the virtual workspace turns out to be.

Just to clarify a few things, I am strictly opposed to anything going from one container to another without some form of physical connection or somebody actually grabbing it and moving it by hand. My thoughts on how moving cargo from where you make it to where it's used are pretty simple. I'm going to use the mining example, but this could work for other things like refined metals or other goods. Basically, the mining tool gathers materials in whatever way it ends up doing that, and in the process compresses it, much like how the Nanoformer works. The compressed matter is injected directly into the storage container, which has the tech to keep it in it's compressed state. When the container is full, you have to swap it out, as the conduit from the compressor only has a limited range before the compressed matter becomes unstable. This mechanic could be done a few ways, for instance, if you wish to put materials into a container from a production element you would have to attach the output to a compressor element, which would then have an attachment point for a cargo container on it. This might seem complex, but if you have a huge factory that makes ships or whatever, and you're buying a lot of ore to refine and form into the hulls, all you have to do is buy the full containers of ore and hook them up to the refinery modules. Then you could have an automated system that swaps the containers when they get empty. You can then take the empty containers and sell them on the market or return them to your mining guy.

After some thought and discussion I have deiced to lay out my thoughts on survival mechanics and how they might be implemented in DU. I understand that some do not wish to have any survival mechanics at all and just want to build things; however, I think that in a game with the huge potential for immersion that DU has, we need some form of survival mechanic. I have spent some time thinking about this and I think I have found a way to have bot simplicity and complexity, depending on how each player wishes to play. With the Nanoformer we have the technology to compress matter, which is how we can mine materials and use them to construct things. This seems like a really handy technology so why not use it elsewhere? I propose a system that creates Life Support cartridges for player’s suits that contain all the necessaries, food, water and oxygen. These cartridges are created by an element that would require some uncommon, but not to rare, resources to build. The cartridges have enough life support to last for about 8 hours (time can be varied for balance) and can be swapped out of the player’s inventory on the fly. During different activities the various components (e.g. food, oxygen) might be used up at different rates, but this is kept simple by the HUD on the player’s suit displaying the remaining components as a percent value. If a player wishes to have more info on what is being used they can open the menu via whatever interface we are provided to look at the details. The suit would also have a power cell that may also deplete at varying rates, but also displays its remaining effectiveness as a percent value. For the players that want more in depth survival mechanics, there could be a module that adds various stimulants to the basic life support cartridge that effect different stats either positively or negatively. For instance, there might be a stim that improves targeting, but reduces one’s effectiveness at repairing damaged equipment. Creating stims would be an entire science with its own skill tree and the more skill a player has the more effective a stim is and the less severe the penalty. This allows a player who desires complexity to carry a variety of life support cartridges with different effects, and to swap them out at will, depending on the task at hand. In the same way, power cells could perhaps be overclocked to provide more power or longer duration, however the effects of overclocking a power cell would be random energy surges that have the potential to damage nearby electronics. Should such a power surge occur near a cargo container full of a volatile substance, the results could be catastrophic. While this all might seem very complex, it really isn’t. If you just want to go about mining or building and not having to worry about fiddling with this or that just so you don’t die then you can. Simply make sure you have a few power cells and life support cartridges in your inventory and you’re good to go. But if you want to experiment with always having the highest performance at a given task then you can have the complexity of a varied diet and potentially dangerous power cell.

I had an interesting discussion with Yamamushi via discord today about cargo containers and cargo and how they would be handled in the game. This also ties in with how ships might dock to one another. Mostly this is a bunch of questions and speculation, but here goes. We were thinking about how cargo will be moved around, and wondering if it would make sense to have it stay in the cargo containers rather than being piped around like in Space Engineers. We both agreed that it would make more sense for the cargo to stay in the containers and have a system for swapping out the containers on cargo vessels rather than having magic pipes. One possible RP explanation for this is the storage method that compresses the matter, as is described in the various story episodes in the devblogs. The container is the vessel that holds the matter in it's compressed state, and in order to remove the matter it would have to be reconstituted to it's original structure. This would make trading a bit easier as well, because instead of trading ore or raw metal by the kilo or cubic meter or whatever, you just trade it by the cargo container. It also makes it important that the cargo containers remain powered, lest they lose containment and make a big mess. If this is a feature, I would suggest that as well as not being powered they should have to sustain a certain amount of damage to go poof. In a similar vein, there should be some cargo that is more unstable than others, for instance certain types of fuel that are more efficient should have higher power requirements to maintain containment.

Girly scream holy shit I can't wait

oh absolutely there will be cities, the central hub of the Cinderfall Syndicate will be a massive complex, and I know Silverlight Industries will have some pretty big installations as well.

what in this post is in any way on topic?

Back to what Corn Flakes was saying earlier about surge loading, I think that's too complicated and punishes people who can't get good scripts. I think that the damage reduction should be tied directly to the power input. This means that you will have to have a significant power source to use shields. Remember, we're trying to have more reasons to have multiple players on each ship.

Now that you two are done hashing out your stupid technicality can we get back on topic? I agree with Aetherios that it be a plethora of dumb sensors controlled by a central processor, that's what I was going for, but the main point is the mechanic, do people like the idea of having to place sensor grids or would you rather have one sensor for the entire planet and have instant godlike knowledge?

Worry no more, for it is my goal to populate the DU verse with pretty ships that preform flawlessly.

We know that there will be radar elements but we have yet to hear how they will be used to display information. I propose that they have a limited range and in order to get a full picture of the area, say like around your planet, you would have to deploy sensor arrays, small satellites that have radar and an antenna for data transmission. This could also be done with scout ships or drones set to fly the perimeter. This would make tactical information like enemy fleet positions and size be entirely dependent on the sensor systems you have in place. It also leaves it open for the enemy to try to take out your array before they arrive. This in general makes for great emergent gamepaly, as you can have all sorts of intrigue and espionage and assorted other fun things.

I'm actually curious right now whether the point of control is at the origin or the destination. In other words, if I have permission to use this jumpgate can I jump to any gate regardless of what the owner wants, or do I have to have permission from the destination end? This is an important consideration, because if I can't controll who comes through my gate I will have to put up giant insta-kill cannons around my gate in a new system.

I'm all for Alioth and the starting system planets being neutral and largely superweapon free, but if my organization expends the infrastructure and effort to find a new system and builds a stargate that gets us there, why should we not harvest that system as we see fit? Silverlight Industries certainly has interests in expanding it's reach and if we discover a system rich in minerals and other resources I'm sure we will defend it and control who gets access. If this means we have to make a superweapon to do so we will. War is harsh, but the market is truly unforgiving. Remember that the most dangerous war is waged with economics, not weapons.

I suppose we will have to wait and see what kind of propulsion systems we will get. I have been thinking on the lines of very fuel efficient and powerful engines (compared to what we can make today IRL) or engines that simply consume huge amounts of power. To make the game at all enjoyable the engines can't consume enormous amounts of fuel just to hover, because that would basically make every ship be 75% fuel tank to have an effective range. The capital class factory ship I described earlier is something you bring out for the rich veins of rarer metals or the huge deposits of common ones. The mission profile is to just make a pass over the area and leave, but when you leave there's a giant hole where the ore deposit was. Think a Star Destroyer sized vessel that removes cubic acres of material. And remember, we have matter compression tech.

I wonder if one couldn't just run a pipe up for the materials. That might be cheaty though, considering how it's supposed to be hard and all.

I have always loved to draw. I remember I used to sit for hours in the classroom after school, or under a tree, and draw. I never drew pictures of people, or of landscapes. I drew my ideas, the vehicles my young mind imagined sprung fully formed from my head and landed on the pages of my tattered notebook. It’s funny, I can remember every page of that notebook, the way it felt in my hands, but I can’t remember my mother’s face, or the name of the town I grew up in. I do remember the day I got the message that I had been selected for the Arkship Program. I didn’t tell anyone for a week. When I told……. when I told her about it she cried; how could she not. I would have stayed with her, I would have help her as the world tore itself apart and fell into the neutron star. We would have grown old together then, who knows, we may have even died young, but she begged me to go. I think I was working on something at the time, I can’t remember. She said it was important that I go. I remember finding her the next morning, cold and still in our bed. I have nothing left to live for. I have nothing left to die for. I can still see the ideas running across my mind. They keep me busy, building this new world. I am thankful for my shattered memories. They keep me working to rebuild the life mankind had before. They help me live on without buckling under the weight of all the pain of the past. Together in this new world we will make new memories and the old world with all its pain and loss will be forgotten. I had a funny dream last night of the last time I was happy, 10,000 years ago. I can’t remember it, it’s just a feeling at the edge of my mind. I caught myself turning around to see her smile, but she wasn’t there. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ll meet her around the corner, or in the elevator. I am haunted by the most beautiful smile.

First of all, thanks for inviting me. As for the questions about whether or not we shall be making ships of any size, I can assure you that if it is a conceivable ship class we will be making it. Small ships, of course, will be a large market for us but I have plans already for much larger ships and buildings. Naturally we shall have to wait and see what we get to work with, but that will merely be the final layer of the design.

Why shouldn't planetary mining be done with ships? Obviously in the beginning it won't be but once things get going I expect some pretty huge factory ships to be going around strip mining huge swaths of planet. That's one of the reasons I think the area around the arkship needs to be the territory of large organizations who are planning big building projects. We don't want the arkship to be sitting at the top of a little pillar of ground with everything else mined away. But yeah, expect massive capital class mining ships that refine the ore as they mine it and ship it off in transports without stopping withing a year of launch.