LeoCora

The problem with this analogy is that i honestly don't care if NQ "survives" if they can't fulfill their end of a transaction that we entered into.
 
It's sort of like if i walked up to a Lemonade stand and ordered a glass of Lemonade and they were like "Ok coming right up" and then took my money.
 
And then after considering the cost of lemons, and sugar, and the labor it would require to juice the lemons.  They came back and said
 
"Oh boy we're so sorry but our business just couldn't survive if we made you a glass of lemonade, so here's a nice glass of water instead.  Now could you please step aside so we can sell some lemonade to the next person in line.
 
I get it that it's more profitable for NQ to launch the game again, but what about the launch that i already paid for?
 

I love this idea...it ticks all the boxes without being over complicated.
 
1 adds meaningful design decisions.
2 allows for ship design
3 makes armour useful 
4 makes sense as a mechanic in its own right.
5 gives a reason to have proper mixed fleets.
 

Take the ideas shared here and make game systems allowing the player base to create similar things. If the tools exist to empower players to create quests/treasure hunts/and other adventures the community will create events and content for as long as the game is online. While some of this is possible it takes a lot of advance means to achieve today. Give us better systems to create more player content and get out of the way! 
 
Please NQ take the time to empower the player base once and enjoy the benefit of players content for lifespan of the game. We need not be given fish; we need to be given the tools to fish.

Plenty of players have created things like this. It is just hard to advertise them. 
And even if advertised them, any prize money would have to come from the player himself.
And even if we handed out free money for people who do their things, you can not prevent people from just taking the stuff.
 
Instead of giving us the tools to do it, you now ask for ideas for NQ impemented, NQ advertised events, which you have to tools to reward? 
 
Sure, do a riddle ship, like the one I made, with a little story and set up, like mine, and little riddles, like in an escape room. Like mine. Use the in game elements, like operators and pressure plates so that codes and clues can be input and checked, like I did.
Or just exactly copy any of the other sweet riddles and escape rooms that other player made, but could not advertise, reward or make abuse-proof.

Treasure/Hunt pvp.
 
Orgs or players can setup a set of clues..... write the clue on a screen and place a BP of the screen into a container... then they set up a mission with the location of the 1st clue....each player that find it can take one BP.. spawn the screen and read the clue.... there could be any number of clues leading to boxes....caves.. ships anchored in space....eventually leading to a grand prize... that might be a BP... a container of items... or even a ship in PVP space that needs to be found and claimed...
 
could lead to some fun pvp encounters..... if the ship is claimed you need to show you have all the clues to be awarded it....
 
 
it will need some thinking but basically there could be loads of ships floated in space.... or mission boxes... maybe NQ could help by spawning the ships at far off destinations so they are not accidentally discovered..
 
If we want to be creative people could even write lore/stories around the missing treasure...  If NQ sponsor the event the eventual rewards could be quite big... for the more involved missions.... some people that are good with LUA could create puzzles/escape room style locations that need to be solved... with some creativity this could be as big as we want!

Once again, as predicted in the PTS feedback thread, NQ launches the update no matter how buggy it is. One of their flagship new features is still [filtered]ed.
 
GI off

 
GI on

 
The ground is lit up far in the background. Come on, this was reported right away on PTS.
 

The glass furnaces are lighting up the ground for 500+ meters. Just to the left of those transfer units, you may see a tiny construct in the distance. That's a hair over 500 meters away.
 

Ground lit up again
 
And after walking forward a bit

 
This feature is ready for live servers? Has this received _any_ testing before or after PTS?
 
Same shit, different patch.

Hello there. I'll try be civil about this, as civil as possible, but understand I'm infuriated.

You perfected lumi-voxel in the PTS, absolute chef's kiss, but I come onto the update today and it's been ruined once again by that super jarring lighting multiplier effect. Lighting was finally quite consistent and positionally consistent in the PTS, now it isn't. It is, quite frankly, a mess.

For those reading this thinking: "I need lumi voxel for cheap lighting", let me tell you, they added a very simple thing in the PTS and now in live to be the solution, HDR for lights.
You can now increase brightness of lights by more than 100%, and it makes a huge difference at no FPS cost compared to normal brightness lights. Example of just one L light set to max brightness.

Maybe you don't understand the issue, I don't blame you if you weren't in the PTS, let me show you an extreme but common example: (Courtesy of Zer0Krypt)

Dual_Universe_2022-06-28_12-38-04.mp4 In this video, you see him standing right underneath the lumi-voxel, then he stands off from it and the whole room becomes dark. What should have happened is nothing, he should have seen zero light change, as in, there should have been no light no matter where he stood, or very little. Not this extremely lit to absolute darkness nonsense.

Please, I beg you NQ, fix this horrible effect by removing it. You removed it for the PTS, time to remove it forever.  

I have never read a bigger pile of one-sided bullsh*t basically advocating for full wipe in order to easily do away with schematics.  Just announce the decision and get it over with.

At beginning of beta it was announced "no more wipes except as required for updates" (like the mining update that was done).  So if NQ do decide to wipe, it would be yet another promise broken.  This also completely ignores that people have been paying monthly to play...

As for "removing unfair advantage" and "level playing field". These are fallacies to help people sleep better at night.  The players with the know how will return to the positions of abundance they have now in short order.   There will always be "haves" and "have nots".   All a wipe does is a slap in the face of the people that put time into the game after being told a wipe would not happen.
 
Make a system that creates schematics rather than remove them.  The problem with schematics, like the markets, is that they do not give player agency.  A player cannot make a schematic at all, they have to be bought.  Make science research a thing.

Cons for wipe have already been mentioned:   As I said, the "NQ thoughts" are heavily aligned to a wipe disregarding promises and small details like leaving an empty world, avid supporters of the game just leave, and paying customers just get their stuff removed.  

What a wipe also does is remove the history of DU such as it is... like Thoramine.  Deleting a piece of DU history like that is unforgivable.

all of my radars in voxel are obstructed. how can NQ claim you can 'build anything you can imagine' and at the same time say 'but only some of it will work'.  what a joke.
 
as for repair crews... whats the point?? why have someone sat on your ship waiting for the shield to go down so they can fix stuff when they can just be in another ship adding dps... pvp in DU is a mess

I don't completely agree with you.
 
Basically, it's a few interesting things for the gameplay that the radars are exposed.
This can lead to having a repair team to repair this as a priority during a fight. So a possible argument for the multicrew.
 
But on the form, well it's NQ what, it's always disastrous. They never try to sell / explain the slightest thing they do... It's quite desperate.
 
Good story to be constructive for NQ and why this change is badly led / incomplete:
 
1) You can still put your radar entirely in voxels. This completely avoids the principle of exposing your radar
 
2) Item Pool HP is ridiculously low
Voxel HP pools are ridiculously low
Weapon damage is ridiculously high
 
3) This still gives a significant advantage to the ship without voxel and playing only with a shield (their radar will never be in danger)
 
4) The cross section system always destroys all interest in PvP the game. People only use 3 or 5% of the maximum cumulative usable area of a core. It is absurd. Bringing out the radars will not increase the size of the nano ships
 
5) To really bring depth to PvP gameplay, such a change would need to be accompanied by real gameplay features.
You expose the radars to enemy fire, so ok but make sure that for example XS ships can lock these radars during a fight rather than randomly spraying an entire building.

 
In short, this could have been a coherent change with a real strategy for the future of the game.
But right now, I don't feel like there's an future.

The radar changes kill all armoured ships...it's like a knight going into battle with his manhood poking out...who would do that?? 
This is another example of NQ having no idea what they are doing..all of my ships pretty much now need a rework..and some are just not viable...I spent 2 years of long nights and broken sleep in this game, not doing it all over again...so I'm out. Good luck NQ, you are going to need it.

It's well scripted video mimicking the style,  which we've been accostumed to seeing with each eve online expansion. I'm sure it has potential to get some new people excited enough to give Dual Universe a shot, however it's a gross misrepresentation of what the actual experience on live service is; both visually and gameplay wise.  I would go as far as to say it's coasting dangerously close to what may, even legally, constitue false advertising; especially considering the closing statement declaring "ALL AVAILABLE NOW IN THE ATHENA UPDATE" ; by which beyond resonable doubt, NQ implies, what viewer sees, is what really happens in game. 
 
Despite all the hurdles and false starts we've seen in past 2 years, i still belive DU is unique, has a fair bit to offer, and may yet grow into something truly exciting.  NQ certainly doesn't need to do themselves a diservice by reaching for this type of low hanging fruit.  Sure you may get a few more subs initially, than your would have otherwise gotten with more honest presentation, but quite a few of those new recruits will end up being pretty  steamed,  once they get to experience DU pvp first hand, and those will be the people you don't get to monetize beyond the intial cost of entry.  
 
(not to mention "the" determiner before name "Athena"  as name, is grammar error, unless Athena is, in this context  an acronym)  I'm but a simple forum troll, i can afford the sort of blunder, but for a serious company... not a great picture to present.

The video would have to be many hours longer for you to understand the actual game mechanics that it takes hours to get from a planet to an alien core station depending on the ship. The mechanics should be presented more clearly, especially that you don't notice many battles with ships, but at most see a blue ship icon with distance and name. Most of the time, the ships do not render at all because of the distance, as the video suggests.
There is also no indication that you can only "play" a battle by clicking "select ship, identify, shoot". There are no great flight manoeuvres to avoid being shot at. The ships themselves looked great in the video, but this is hardly reality, because they are often elementary ships in order to keep the ship size as small as possible and now also to minimise the weight due to the maximum speed.
I generally feel that the time you have to invest in the game to finally get to a point where you can really play and have fun is too extreme. Has NQ really thought about what exactly a player is supposed to do while flying through space for 2-6 hours? Whether it's a mission or now the alien cores.What exactly do the developers expect the game to be perceived as? In our organisation, people watch series or films on the side or simply start another game. Excuse me - but is that really the way it's meant to be? You have to consider that we use high-quality hardware to play the game, as well as then (at least here in Germany) a high value of electricity costs to implement this hobby - and NQ expects me to "play" a game while I tune out the game to do other things? This reminds me of the browser games that you start once a day, send your ships somewhere to attack something, click through the productions and then go offline again to check the next day whether everything had worked.
The video itself, well, you notice that not much time and money was put into it, which is understandable at the moment, as you are happy for every sign of life from the game.
 

That looks pretty cute as a fan project!
 
That feels disgustingly dishonest as a DU promotional video...

No one thinks this is fun...it's a huge waste of time and electricity. If I wanted a screen saver, I'd put on a screen saver.
 
There's a not-so-fine line between "hardcore" gameplay and "boring as all F" gameplay. 
 
If the most attractive thing about slowboating is that it gives you time to do chores IRL...well, that's literally the opposite of engaging gameplay because it's forcing you to do anything else while the game plays itself. 
 
There's no rationale at all behind this game design choice. They could have hired some random person from one of those slightly scammy "game design" colleges and been better off than whoever is making these decisions. 

really appreciate the detailed reply.  It sounds like pvp ships are destined to remain tiny little blobs with no design flexibility.  My M core only has 45t of voxel and is already considered too heavy in athena.  I feel like we have all this design freedom in DU but in pvp its squeezed into a thimble.  
 
I like that you appear to want 'some' honeycomb to be used.  but as primarily a ship builder, building pvp ships at the moment is dead in the water. 
Venting should be a tool that gives arnoured ships an advantage because they can tank more damage but are easier to hit...but at the moment having armour is such a disadvantage (especially on m cores that become too easy to hit by exotic L weapons if they are armoured/bigger) that the benefit venting brings is insignificant.  
 
DU has miles to go to make pvp work imo and NQ are moving 1mm at a time. 

really appreciate the detailed reply.  It sounds like pvp ships are destined to remain tiny little blobs with no design flexibility.  My M core only has 45t of voxel and is already considered too heavy in athena.  I feel like we have all this design freedom in DU but in pvp its squeezed into a thimble.  
 
I like that you appear to want 'some' honeycomb to be used.  but as primarily a ship builder, building pvp ships at the moment is dead in the water. 
Venting should be a tool that gives arnoured ships an advantage because they can tank more damage but are easier to hit...but at the moment having armour is such a disadvantage (especially on m cores that become too easy to hit by exotic L weapons if they are armoured/bigger) that the benefit venting brings is insignificant.  
 
DU has miles to go to make pvp work imo and NQ are moving 1mm at a time. 

really appreciate the detailed reply.  It sounds like pvp ships are destined to remain tiny little blobs with no design flexibility.  My M core only has 45t of voxel and is already considered too heavy in athena.  I feel like we have all this design freedom in DU but in pvp its squeezed into a thimble.  
 
I like that you appear to want 'some' honeycomb to be used.  but as primarily a ship builder, building pvp ships at the moment is dead in the water. 
Venting should be a tool that gives arnoured ships an advantage because they can tank more damage but are easier to hit...but at the moment having armour is such a disadvantage (especially on m cores that become too easy to hit by exotic L weapons if they are armoured/bigger) that the benefit venting brings is insignificant.  
 
DU has miles to go to make pvp work imo and NQ are moving 1mm at a time. 

but the point is having to fly in a straight line for hours isnt 'gameplay'.  its terrible and stupid and just another example of a gameloop badly implemented. 

As we all know DU Wipe hype has currently crippled the game after the post.  Less and less people are logging in as a result sadly.  This is also a good opportunity to go back to original plans perhaps?
 
1) DU was always suggested to be a Civ building game with one safe zone.  You cannot build civilizations if everything is protected on every world under a safe zone bubble.  We should remove the safe zones that were added and go back to the original plans of the game.  The purpose for example of sanctuary was a protected world (I presume Haven is too).  Without NPC's the game needs that conflict mechanic so should you need to go out you need 'friends' not totally do everything solo.  It is an MMO after all.  I still remember early Beta people did such that and when hauling ore used defence ships for escorts.  Now we warp from safe zone to safe zone.  With all mining in a protected areas you can never remove a person who got 'lucky' and found an infinate ore.  So why not go back to original plans from the get 'go'.  Or at best keep Alioth, Thades, Madis etc Safe but everywhere else non-safe zone.  
 
2) Element sinks both PvE, PvP are 100% needed or you'll go back to this situation in 12 months time or less.  Even in PvP element lives dont disappear reguarly (may more in Athena as more add voxels to builds).  Again industry needs the ability to make quanta and it is an ore sink so 100% makes logical sense.  Or alternatively introduce a 'decay' formula.  You use it more it slowly loses HP to where every fully repair reduces the elements max HP down till you eventually need to replace it.  This worked GREAT in Star Wars Galaxies.  
 
3) Mining could have 'fields' that sporadically change.  Worked great in Star Wars Galaxies.  It would mean you may have to re-scan, redeploy every so often.  But ore values change in time so one field is never 100% to remain like that forever.
 
4) Add NPC's for PvE.  Eve has it, why doesnt DU? the events we've had are not always brilliant but sadly NPC's would give people to target something and capture (good for practice)
 
5) Add alliances.  Legit alliances so they show different colours on your tooltip?  i.e Organge Friendly, Green Org and Red anyone else.  Alliances can be declared by the Super legate.  IF you wanted to expand you can have alliance constructs.
 
6) Base shields extend to all constructs including planetary shields for TW (when it is added) timer system needs tweaking but concept is 100% there.  Of course this would work well with planetary atmo pvp so maybe a full future expansion.  Plan it in place?
 
7) If an expliot occurs REMOVE what they gained.  Dont shrug it off.
 
😎 Removing alts (free Beta Keys).  Obviously if a wipe happens this will force people to buy their alts or not.  Legit doesnt bother me if someone pays for 10 alts to mission run.  Situation we are in is some people have 80 Beta account alts for free!!!
 
9) More Lore, more events.
 
10) player market and taxes.  We need removing the NPC ones and bringing player markets in.  Come on why have NPC ones when Freeport for example is excellent or Utopia Station where legit we need player driven content
 
This is a snapshot.  This could be an amazing game title people love building, people want a legit combat mechanic, people want that civ building too.
 
Honvik
Premier of the Empire

I like where they are going with mining, i feel like the optimisation bit is grind for the sake of grind.  Maybe the mining units could be composed of elements and voxel and be player built constructs?  ... it could have added some creativity... then maybe over time those elements could degrade and need replacing......  then maybe the elements could be different tier too.... but then maybe a fast drill head needed a faster CPU to run the calcs, maybe a fast head needs replacing more often... or a slow drill has lower output but more time between changes..... 
 
I feel like with a bit of creativity some of these game systems could be made to be more involving with relatively little work?  its just stats isnt it?

I like where they are going with mining, i feel like the optimisation bit is grind for the sake of grind.  Maybe the mining units could be composed of elements and voxel and be player built constructs?  ... it could have added some creativity... then maybe over time those elements could degrade and need replacing......  then maybe the elements could be different tier too.... but then maybe a fast drill head needed a faster CPU to run the calcs, maybe a fast head needs replacing more often... or a slow drill has lower output but more time between changes..... 
 
I feel like with a bit of creativity some of these game systems could be made to be more involving with relatively little work?  its just stats isnt it?

I like where they are going with mining, i feel like the optimisation bit is grind for the sake of grind.  Maybe the mining units could be composed of elements and voxel and be player built constructs?  ... it could have added some creativity... then maybe over time those elements could degrade and need replacing......  then maybe the elements could be different tier too.... but then maybe a fast drill head needed a faster CPU to run the calcs, maybe a fast head needs replacing more often... or a slow drill has lower output but more time between changes..... 
 
I feel like with a bit of creativity some of these game systems could be made to be more involving with relatively little work?  its just stats isnt it?

We just had a reply from one of your support ticket GM's
 
Whilst I wont share the screengrab from it I'll write what they said.
 
'I'd suggest you make a new org and build a new city'
 
Are you for REAL???????????  NQ what planet are you on lol
 

This is a lie. Or at least a selection from some incomplete data set.
 
I'm on Madis, and mining is 50% "Pending operation".
People are posting better specs than mine and having a worse time. Pending Operation is a constant feature for me, as is "no buildings" when I get back to base from a few hexes away.
Internet connection speed is definitely a killer. I was (for "reasons" ) trying to run across a shonky WiFi on the 20th, and that really didn't go well. 
The interface has to take some blame here. It took me a couple of goes to realise that the "obfuscated" UID and Password fields actually *did* remember the values I had entered, rather than being prompts to enter anew.
 
"Most" is overstating the issue. "Pending Operation" (and its wicked friends) has nothing whatsoever to do with local PC capabilities; it's *all* about exchange of information and synchronisation with the servers which are struggling to keep up; this morning (BST/UTC time), when there were only a few Europeans and scattered Antipodeans playing, mining was blissfully free of "P.O." and this changed rapidly once the States started waking up, with no significant increase in local population. All the industry that's crashing with "unknown server error" is nothing to do with client device. All the loading screens halting at nn% and not progressing are nothing to do with the client (they happen to people who have a perfectly fine time once in-game). It's all about the backend infrastructure and the architecture of the game lying on top of that.