Olmeca_Gold

You don't have to roleplay piracy or like it. But if you want to contribute to suggestions toward the development of DU and be taken seriously, you need to develop an approach that considers a balance across all (rival) playstyles. We already start the discussion with the assumption that this game isn't just for law abiding peaceful citizens because NQ says so. There are many other space games you can play free of pirates and unwanted pvp.

How dare someone wants to be a space pirate in a sandbox sci-fi video game and expect their gameplay to be well-balanced amirite.

Build mode in combat is enriching the game with voxel repairs and such. They can just disable the deploy element tool inside the build mode to achieve the same thing. PS: The game does need to make piracy a viable career. This mechanic will become more frustrating once everyone is up to speed. Self destruct buttons stop being interesting once you lose only assets (and not lives) upon pressing it.

He is right that mining shouldn't be a prerequisite of beginning to enjoy the game. He's wrong that to achieve that, they need to provide free ore and kill the value of mining. Sure the tutorial can give you some elements and voxels to build with. There should be no expectation of sustained free stuff. That'll get abused so fast. The game needs a plethora of activities to generate basic value. Players should choose one of them.

Their feedback will never be elaborate as ours. NQ needs to just better assert their own critical thinking when absorbing player feedback into their game development and not let survivors take full reins of development. My claim isn't that some existing development schedule is taken off track. It is that "surviving player feedback" takes more priority than it should. The schedule will say "more iteration on PvP". Details dictate how that develops. I already gave many examples in my OP. 1) PvP priorities have been focused on the construct building aspect. Borg cubes are a big issue, but truly they not the biggest issue with PvP. Lack of commitment mechanics is the biggest issue with PvP consensual PvP (PvP among PvP'ers). Lack o af risk/reward spread for non-consensual PvP (piracy etc) is the second biggest issue with it. 2) Many features in the feature upvote page are builder-grounded features. Mining units are favored by construct builders who don't want to mine. Focusing on that request instead of a better mining experience fits the survivor bias pattern. Similarly, voxel vertices editor is something they should work perhaps 2 years later, not now. Because shipbuilding is already super interesting without that, but PvP and other areas aren't. 3) I heard JC speaking significantly against API because surviving players prioritize "immersion". Organizations in single shard sandboxes lose 200% of depth without API. Without the API there is no security checks. Meaning we as organizations can't provide new players (or even players we've known for months) with organization assets to help them. It's free lunch for RDMS thieves. Without the API there is no in-depth market PvP. We could do so much with it. RDMS management, organization membership management, organization role management. They could target doing all these tools ingame, but that's not a realistic target. API is a great way to outsource most needs of a single shard sandbox. 4) They just released the game at the current state into the beta believing "the basics are there". The basics to start the sandbox were there only for construct builders. Not for PvPers, explorers, RP'ers, empire builders. Even mining needs large revamps. 5) Just look at their social media. 80% of the posts are slick constructs, LUA, ship expos, ship promo videos. Those people and organizations get official promotion. People had big PvP battles. No promotion. We created an org with 30 paid careers just to get people interested. No promotion. Anyways, I can think of more examples but I'm not claiming I can find 100 ways NQ submits into survivor bias. There are just enough samples to begin seeing a pattern. I'm not pessimistic about the game. Just wanted to provide a constructive early-warning. A conversation around this is tangential. We can agree to disagree with this statement. We could debate it if NPCs were currently financially viable for NQ. In essence, the game would have been way deeper with missions, or NPCs to grind; instead of a superficial daily allowance. It would take nothing from your experience either.

A game is an idea, a form of art. For every such idea, there is a potential level of development depth the game could reach once the company invests sufficiently in it. For every such idea, that level of depth changes. Imagine tetris as an idea. No matter what you do developing it, it'll be a fairly simple game. For DU as an idea, the potential I see is as huge as JC likes to advertise. "The possibilities are endless". Moreover, for every such idea developed and published at some level, there is the real group of people who's interested in right now. And then there is an imaginable group of people who would be interested in it once it's developed near it's full potential. For most other games, even in AAA ones, it's easier to think of the former group as a sample of the latter group. That's mostly true. For an FPS game, the kinds of experiences which it's potential players are looking for are typically not as diverse. So you can develop a beta, hire some FPS-lovers to test the game, and that'll be used to improve the game. For single-shard sandbox MMOs it's not as straightforward. Because people become interested in them for very, very different reasons. Such a game can become a melting pot of people who enjoy fast action, building, character progression, meaningful social interaction, roleplay, command and conquer, and more. It can be a game with players whose next favorite game is Call of Duty, Farmville, Minecraft, Diablo 2, Second Life, Fallot New Vegas, or StarCraft. That potential is pretty powerful. But if in your earlier development you focus on one or a few of these areas, and neglect some others; then the priorities and tastes of the group of people who like the game now will not be the same as those who could play it once it's full potential is realized. Treating the current group as a sample of the potential group would then be committing survivor bias in your decisionmaking, I am not in game development business but I have seen into development of Eve behind an NDA veil (as a CSM), so I have some insight into single shard sandbox sci-fi MMOs. Here is the way I'd assess NQ's specific situation from a complete outsider perspective. Due to the game's dynamics, NQ had to develop the construct building aspect of the game first. Without constructs, there is nothing to fight with. So arguably until the end of alpha, there was a potential of building great things that was already a super-engaging gaming experience for some. And perhaps some exploration, some factory building, and some piloting existed. But there was no meaningful PvP, RP, chracter progression, command and conquer, high level organization building opportunities. So years of alpha backers came into the game, but those who stuck with the game were mostly players who'd enjoy the more developed sides of the game. Now, due to both financial reasons nobody can change, and also for tech reasons (there was no other way to truly test the technology), NQ had to "start the sandbox" by de-facto committing to no wipes and making people pay monthly subs. No matter how much NQ will say "beta", once you start the sandbox, that's the start of the game for many. For example, I really didn't start playing DU to beta test it and help you. I started, because I saw great potential and I wanted to come in in time to be one of the competitive players. But then, the way I'm reading new feature announcements, JC interviews and such is that, NQ began treating the feedback of the current group as a full representative of the potential group. I explained some specifics about how this happens in my OP. And here in this quote it's also present. According to the above analysis, this is exactly what I'm suggest to be false. The kind of people who could play DU in it's greater forms aren't even in these platforms engaging with you yet. Given the current state of the game and it's players, NQ cannot just look at the feedback of existing players across a plethora of sources, then decide what should be a priority. What needs to be done is imagining the true potential of the game, and balancing developmental priority decisions between current player needs and the needs of a way more diverse potential playerbase (ofc all this would happen in the context of financial and organizational limitations - AKA DU could have been way better with NPCs but they are too costly for now).

When making their plane design decisions during WW2, the US-army once concluded that the most-hit areas of planes should be the parts which must be improved by more armor. This seemingly common-sensical conclusion was proven to be false by the statistician Abraham Wald. The issue was that, the Army's conclusions were drawn from planes actually made home after sustaining damage. One would notice a way different damage distribution and draw very different conclusions, if one actually looked at planes that fell down in combat and didn't survive. I suggest that a similar error might be beginning to haunt DU's developmental prioritization. NQ is beginning to take the feedback of the currently surviving DU community very deeply to decide which areas of the game they should improve immediately. While this might seem common sensical, it might also be creating a bias similar to the above example. My (very anecdotal) experience of reading DU community gives me the impression that we have a lot of people here who enjoy making ships and constructs. I know this would be an oversimplication, but let's for the sake of argument categorize these players with othergames they might enjoy. Let's say current DU playerbase has a lot of Minecraft, Satisfactory, Factorio people. This would check out, because voxel building has been one of the most advanced and interesting aspects of DU since early alpha. So people who would enjoy this kind of gameplay came into DU and "survived". The game ended up being interesting to them at the current state. Meanwhile people who would enjoy PvP, dogfights, exploration, empire building, creating huge organizational (managing real people, not factories) tycoons etc. either didn't come into the game yet, or didn't "survive". Eve, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky kind of players didn't fill DU's current playerbase. And I know many of them dropped out after the weak experience in their areas of interest after beta launch. Ofc, there is greater diversity in player mentality compared to alpha, but still insufficient. I would argue in its full potential, DU should appeal to all these types for different reasons. But since the game is still in a very early stage, the population of DU is less diverse across these player mentalities and the effects of this bias are greater. Meanwhile, some developmental prioritization decisions are being made by the influence of the existing playerbase, rather than the playerbase DU should be appealing to. Here are some examples how this happens. 1) A feature upvote page was created with no regard to principles like "nobody reads the second page of search results". Then features were upvoted by mostly pre-beta players, cemented on top by the web page's design, and those began taking significant NQ attention. 2) Due to surviving players, ideas like "voxel vertices editor" or "mining bots" are heavily upvoted. These are features which the Satisfactory and Minecraft kind of players would enjoy. They wouldn't enjoy mining so they'd seek ways to build without mining. But DU should be a game which should also appeal to people who like to mine. Bots would devalue their work. Instead of working on an improved mining experience, prioritizing bots is a clear example of survivor bias in development. 3) Similarly, voxel builders are already achieving greatness in DU. Instead of elevating their gameplay further, NQ's developmental prioritization should be getting other gameplays to that level of interestingness and fun. 4) The incoming PvP patch is grounded on solving shipbuilding problems. But meaningful choices in ship design isn't the only balance domain for a fun PvP experience. In a balanced single-shard sandbox sci-fi MMO there needs to be PvP commitment, non-consensual PvP, and a meaningful risk/reward spread. I would argue the lack of warp disruptors, warp bubbles, webs; the ability of PvP'ers to bail out of any fight even after engaging in it, are more important issues than borg cubes. I'm sure it'd be better for more people if NQ solved the core gameplay experience of looking for meaningful PvP for hours and not finding anything, or the ability to bail your ship out of engagements (thus economics, chance of death, consequences not mattering), rather than fixing the shape of my ship. Of course, in an ideal world, NQ should keep improving all aspects of the game. I am not arguing at all that the game does not need a vertices editor, nor that borg cubes aren't a big issue. I am just saying that NQ should be wary about de-prioritizing important developmental areas which also happen to have no voice in the community since people who would care about these issues aren't even playing yet. The game is very early and I'm eager to see how things will develop. This post is meant to be more of an early warning to NQ and a conversation initiation. I hope they keep the great work up. o7

Both games are single shard sandbox MMOs. Ofc they are mechanically different. But there are very basic principles that makes this genre interesting. One of them is the risk/reward balance across alternative activities. Another is PvP possibility and emphasis. Both of these are inherent to my suggestions. So yes, in these regards DU should be like Eve. Else there is really no point in playing altogether in the same universe. We could just make constructs on our local computers, mine planets or fight with our constructs on LAN or in 60 people server instances like SC or Battlefield.

NQ could solve this and create a prototype granular safety system at the same time. 1) Move all warps to planets to a single location around the planet (perhaps one Aphelia warp beacon per planet) 2) Disable space construct deployment in their immediate vicinity. 3) Have some of these beacons outside the PvP zone, some inside and differing distances from the planet/safe zone. This would create what's essentially "gates" in Eve, which function as choke points people find players to fight with. Perhaps interstellar gates or asteroid belts will function this way, but I doubt many solar systems will be created soon and most of the traffic will happen across planets. Moreover, varying distances to the safe zone would create "hisec", "lowsec", "nullsec" type of risk variations without needing NPC enforcement like Eve does. Planets can be safer to warp, but less rewarding to mine; and vice versa.

I'm a cloaking enthusiast in Eve, but DU can apply the concept of stealth without cloaking devices. Radar detection reduction is all one would need to get stealth ships in this game really. Applied finely, this would have been super interesting. I have a fully fleshed out post about this in the ideas section.

o/. I'm coming from Eve. Eve made me grow a passion for single shard sandbox MMOs. Few days in alpha made me decide DU will be the only other game in the same genre, and given enough time and development it can be miles ahead. I really hope that happens. Are there other ex-CCP'ers in NQ? Particularly early-CCP'ers at the design side. The very idea of that game was a big leap in gaming and MMOs. I believe developing a single shard sandbox MMO puts a company in an extremely unique position, relative to others in the gaming industry. Wondering how much of that experience will transfer here.

Idea: As a small addition to the changes proposed in the Intellectual Property Devblog, players or organizations can now transfer "creator" titles over "master constructs" to others, solving problems and opening up further possibilities. Why: The new intellectual property management system will solve some problems. Namely, individual ship sellers can sell ships without giving the buyer the ability to infinitely copy it. Also there will be organizational IP ownership. However, it would be way better if the system was also deployed with the above modification for following reasons. Firstly, the proposed system is still too focused on dynamic-construct trading. Dynamic constructs projects are typically short term. People wrap them up, begin selling their ships. Static constructs, such as factories, are ever-evolving projects with several players getting involved. Since the beta launch we are tending to our factory. We plan to do modifications for years. As such, people come and go, the projects change hands. One issue my own organization faces right now is how one of the currently inactive legates dropped the cores of our factories. This legate realized perhaps 30% of the current progress, was voluntarily demoted, and went inactive. Since the factory is not in his ownership, he couldn't make an RDMS policy for us to be able to keep blueprinting the new iterations of the factory. And now we are in a situation which we worked on this factory hundreds of hours, but are unable to blueprint it, copy it, and so on. To prevent such situations and ensure continuity in long-term projects, we need a system which allows us to fully transfer IP just like how there is such a possibility in real-life. Yes, the new system will let organizations own these long-term projects. But then one might not want to yield all legates the same IP power over the construct. The game would be better off with further granularity, and letting players hand over the creator titles over master constructs. Secondly, the proposed system is still too individual-focused. Yes we have ship designers selling ships in DU. But we could go one step further, and we could have shipyards employing ship designers. Yes, organizational 'creator' title will be possible. But this creates three limitations. (1) Designers will need to be legates in the organization. (2) They will need to deploy the cores in the organization's name. (3) Every legate in the organization will have access to master blueprints. There are many scenarios in which this won't be enough. Running a shipyard like this would have many trust-barriers; giving all designers access to each other's IP, giving all designers modification rights of the RDMS and assets of the organization. Again, in real-world, we need a capability to fully transfer IP from one agent to another. Then the system would let people manage their IP relationships however they want. Technical Clarification: The server doesn't have to continually track creators of constructs for changes in the "creator". Once a copy is made, the creator title can stick to it. And the new creator can only apply to new copies.

I've just noticed they are in the "coming soon" area in the starting screen. This means NQ is sinking the precious devtime into this idea, which is alarming to me. I know there are other threads about this. But they are not well-argued. If NovaQuark is reading, and I hope they are, let me repeat the stern warning about how terrible mining units will be for the game's economy. This will be overshadowing any damage that we've received during the "bot buy orders for all tiers" first week of the game. In a healthy single shard sandbox sci-fi, you want many careers/playstyles interdependent on one another. These playstyles become rewarding by generating value. Mining is one of these playstyles. And it's going to lose most of its value to mining bots. NQ/JC thinks there is a way which these will work to get just enough ore to not devalue it much, but will be enough to those who don't like the grind of mining. But that's something they will not, and cannot achieve. The bots will crash the value of whatever ore they can gather. Let me tell you why. I had the privilege of a deep look into the developmental process of the maker of the only other single-shard sandbox sci-fi in the market. CCP. The one thing that unites CCP (particularly early years) and NQ is a drastic underestimation of the extent which players will push the boundaries of the game. I heard so many stories about how CCP thought players will achieve some task in years, while it took a month. They have learned a lot from these kind of lessons. NQ is now re-learning the same. The bot orders for T2-T5 ore were one such example. T4-T5 was only bought on Alioth. Which means NQ probably thought it'd take months for players to reach to another planet and actually bring the T5 ore back. They thought it should be a sufficient limitation to prevent players breaking the economy. It took us 15 hours to bring back the first batch and make 80 million. People earned billions in a week until NQ put an end to it (and deleted some of those billions). The same underestimation will happen here. If NQ limits the ore yield of the automatic mining bots, people will mass-deploy them. If they implement limits per territory, people will make endless alt organizations to get more territories for cheap. If they do planet-wide limits, people will run them across all planets. If they do account-bound limits, people will purchase beta invitations (currently 20 million). If these things yield 10% of the normal rate, that'll still be 17 hours of mining per week. That's more mining time than most of us put in the game. Even at 1% of the mining yield, it'll still be profitable for some RMT'er to sub many accounts for this from $7 each, and sell the ore value generated by them to players willing to pay black market for money. And NQ will not have the manpower/technology to enforce bans on them. While other games are actively fighting bots, this game will be such a godsend to RMT'ers where they can actually automate income generation. All they care about is generating value with the least amount of effort. People upvote and promote this idea because many don't like the grind of mining. That's such a bad reason to get mining automation in DU. If people don't like mining, they should buy ore. That's how a single shard sandbox is supposed to work. You generate your value the way you want to do it; and complement miners' playstyle by paying them for the way they like to generate it. If you want a free source of ore to just build things without effort, then why play together in an MMO at all? We could just build stuff in our clients with infinite ore, show them off or fight with them in multiplayer mode. The very reason to actually exist in the same single shard universe is that interdependency. If you don't like to mine, you buy ore, and make a miner's day. I know LUA and programming is cool and NQ wants to promote that. But once people create their systems, easily automatable activities will get old super fast. We're already experiencing it with giga-factories at the industry side. With mining bots, NQ would be doing the same to mining side. NQ/JC thinks there is a limitation window in which these things won't devalue mining as a profession, but will be useful for players. There is no such window. NQ/JC thinks there is, because they are underestimating what players can and will do in the kind of game they are trying to develop. Any set of limitations will be exploitable by mass-deploying these bots, and thus devalue mining as a DU profession. I want this game to succeed so much. But NQ doesn't need to re-learn single-shard sandbox lessons which others learned 10 years ago. Things like abundance of resources, passive income, etc. ends up being bad for long term player enjoyment. No matter how much they ask for it.

Idea: Each ship is assigned a "signature radius" based on X * Y * Z of their cross section. This value isn't only tied to hit/miss formula, but also to radar detection range, identification speed, and lock speed. Then create a bunch of exotic voxels as "stealth coating". Ships with this coating have a bonus for significantly reduced signature radius, and are "stealth" in the sense of the word that's used for real-life aircraft, thus creating a stealth class in DU. As in other games involving stealth features, the voxels should have their adequate weaknesses. Why: These are two ideas bundled together. In earlier threads I suggested that to fix the borg cube meta, NQ should integrate cross section to the hit/miss formula. I'm glad they are going that way. I think one step beyond this would be introducing a signature radius value for every dynamic construct based on their cross sections. The signature radius value going into not only hit/miss but also radar-related formulas further demotivates the borg cube. It also creates more opportunities like stealth ships. Many MMO's have "stealth" classes where the idea is choosing who you fight with, engaging and disengaging easier; with its own downsides. Eve Online carved a really good place for stealth ships too. I think DU has a potential here with a concept of ships "suddenly appearing on radar with a surprise attack". Better yet, they do not really need to 'cloak' like Eve. They just need to have reduced radar detection ranges, like real life. One opportunity to implement this is introducing a "stealth coating". The game would create great design opportunities by introducing honeycomb material with radar-resistance and stealth technology. The game would calculate how much of your ship is covered with stealth voxels (sort of how dimencia's hud calculates 'structural integrity'), and provide a bonus to reduce radar detection (the default 2 SU detection, not 'identification') range based on that value; thus creating a class of stealth ships which can be used for surprise attacks. How Can They Be Balanced: As in all other games, stealth class should bring in its own achilles' heels. Like in many other games, this can come in the form of HP weaknesses, and stealth cover diminishing upon engagement. - Stealth coating drastically reduces the amount you can carry in cargo containers -prevent stealth freighters-. - Stealth coating not only has low hp, but also drastically reduces the hp of all voxels of the ship -so you can't "tank" a ship and also use stealth coating on top of it-. - Stealth benefits disappear upon firing guns or identifying a target -no untouchability when actually engaging-.

Idea: Add 20 more rights to RDMS system for each build mode tool and it's negation (the alt key). Perhaps add an expanding menu to keep rights UI simpler. Why: A good sandbox game is one where cooperation and organization among players is rewarded. With respect to industrial complexes, the game is already struggling with making teamwork necessary, let alone encouraging it. Current RDMS system is one reason why teamwork is discouraged. Mega factories take a lot of time to build, and build right to delegate building. The build right is too powerful right now. Someone can scoop your entire factory and go with it. We'd want new recruits to work on the large factory projects. But trusting one of your legates let alone a new recruit with your 150+ hours building the thing is impossible. Now, if we could limit some rights while handing out some, that would solve at least the discouragement. Perhaps we want people to be able to add machines and links, but not remove them. Perhaps we want them to add and remove machines, but keep cosmetic the voxel-work intact. Perhaps we want them to just link everything we put down. The new granular system would allow us to at least trust more people with mega factories. This would make teamwork on factories at least possible, then NQ can focus on making it rewarding as well.

A sandbox can find a balance between the interests of the prey and the interests of the pirate. In such a game you won't lose your 3 days of effort every single time, but very rarely. You will have opportunities and counterplay to avoid pirates. There is no point in discussing whether piracy should exist in DU. You can prefer game with minimal PvP. But NQ is publicly going the other way. I think they are 100% right that's the better direction for what DU can be. Lastly, I wouldn't talk about what's currently popular in a game this early in beta. PvP is too primitive to be widely popular. That doesn't mean a good PvP system wouldn't be central to a popular Dual Universe.

Idea: Use a system similar to surface mining to create a class of respawning items (e.g. Ancient Relics) collectible with the gathering tool. Then add bot buy orders for these items. Why: DU has great potential for exploration gameplay. People should be motivated to move around. Planets, moons and other things in the system are already beautiful at this early state, waiting for players to roam around. But a balanced exploration gameplay should rely on sustainable rewards. The wrecks do not really cut it. They are exciting but really rare. It is not possible to motivate people for a reliable income if they took 1-2 hours of they time. And they will eventually be gone. Meanwhile, daily rewards are a bad way to keep seeding quanta into the economy. That money could be used elsewhere as rewards to motivate players do fun things. Thus we need Ancient Relics (or whatever NQ wants to call them). Feels to me that this type of play can be created at a significantly low development cost. It could start as simple, sparse, respawning nodes that can be sold to bots as described above. But it can also be built upon. NQ can eventually create variation between relics. Some more expensive, some cheaper. They can place them in space as well. Some actual reason to visit the rings of Thades. Some of these space relics could even take hours to extract, creating a PvP-conducive situation. Could even build a puzzle minigame around them. All that can take a lot of time. But it can begin with the simple, low cost version. How could they be balanced?: - They can be at the right window of rarity/value. - They can take time to extract. - They can respawn in a rate that guarantees X amount per planet/moon.

Thanks! I'd rather be on the transparent side to demonstrate we're not abusing our players' labor like some might do. Join one of our meganode ops as a day1 player, and you get millions as your effort's value, alongside the others who make that op possible. DIA is founded on being in a mutual relationship with its members. I take our transparency as advertisement. It's been a big hard rush trying to get our main functions in working order without depending on 3 years of blueprints. Now that we have ships and constructs ready for most purposes, I could finally focus on organization building and recruitment for last couple of weeks. And we are diving deep into PvP. We lost one of our flagships to AG the other day in a 3v1. I'm proud to say we came to a point, where we can afford to lose more and learn more, and eventually catch up with the big behemoths.

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There is no tension between "civilization building" and PvP. There is almost no time in the history of human civilization without war. We build stuff and we destroy stuff. All sandbox games will have this dichotomy between the "builders"; people who play to own/build, and the "doers"; aka people who play to have enjoyable experiences (e.g. fights) in a game. These are just two fundamentally different reasons to play a game like this. It's no different than people who play WoW for items/char building vs people who do so for doing arenas/battlegrounds. A game doesn't have to appeal to both of these kind of people. For example, Minecraft or Farmville is better for the builders. Battlefield or Dota 2 is better for the "doers". But a sandbox like Dual Universe should accommodate both these kind of people. And it's a huge job to find a sustainable balance (there is never "perfect balance") between the two. I'd also argue that people who play to own/build are typically more zealous about their desire for security and non-interruption because pirates don't need to exist for their gameplay to be viable. The fighters, particularly space pirate kind of people, understand that in any such ecosystem hunters are dependent on the prey and thus value a more balanced game where builders have their fair space of existence. Ofc there are always exceptions.

Interesting. Been working for me and many others I know nicely since we begin to do it. I don't know what kind of additional complication you are in.

I am glad the above idea I offered here and elsewhere is confirmed by @NQ-Entropy on Youtube as the direction they want to go. @NQ-Entropy, if I may be so bold to follow up on that; if the server can know which side I am receiving damage from, and take the cross section facing that side as the variable going into the hit/miss formula; that'd be the optimal addition for PvP'ers as it gives them the option to turn their sleek side toward the enemy and receive less damage. However, I feel like this can be costly to develop compared to the case where you take X * Y * Z as the variable that goes into the hit/miss formula. This too, would encourage thinner or tube-shaped ships. Either way, you could also introduce X * Y * Z as sort of a "signature radius" value, and use that not only for hit/miss but also for radar identification speeds (and any other place which you want to distinguish small/sleek ships vs large/cube ships). o7

Credit to HugYouHardcore. Here is a workaround that i just tested and works. You basically "stop using construct rights" on the hub you want to link to, and make an RDMS container access policy for yourself. 1) "Stop using construct rights on element" for the container hub you want to link to. 2) "Set element rights" and tag the hub. 3) Create a new RDMS policy. The agent is you (or whoever will link to the hub). The rights are container retrieve, view contents, put rights; plus "use element" right. The tag is the tag you gave to the container hub. The link will work.

Any good sandbox (even purely PvP based ones) need to be hinged on a risk/reward balance. To accommodate the maximum number of players in your game, you need low risk places/activities with low rewards, and high risk places/activities with high rewards. That includes zones mostly or fully free of PvP risk. I am saying this with a 10 year Space Pirate career in EvE, with full intentions to do the same here. If they open everywhere to PvP, monopolies would emerge and devour all the interesting diversity. PS: I admit the reward differentiation to compensate for no risk is not there yet. But it's very early. They should have kept the production capabilities of the safe zone to T1 only. There is no point at all to produce anything outside the safezone too.

Yeah I like the tonnage differentiation idea.