Fembot68

I have to agree with several of the posters here - this game is not turning out to be in the bill of goods we were sold.  The sandbox elements are being replaced with a much more hard core economic model which definitely appeals to some (look to Eve which I also played for many years) but, honestly, I already have a job which pays better and is more fun than this is to play so *why would I keep paying a subscription* for a less fun job?

So, this my concrete feedback is for the devs:
* If you are eliminating the sandbox-ness - that is, the ability for people to be able to *largely* produce at least some level of ships and bases entirely on their own or within a small group for fun - then explicitly come out and say so, and make it clear in your marketing literature.  It was not clear to me when I signed up, and obviously it was not clear to many other players, thus the brouhaha.
* Publish a concrete plan for your economy.  This change feels *haphazard* at best, it's so massively disruptive.
* Remove this game from *public* beta.  It isn't ready for that yet.  This is either late alpha or early, private-beta level given the kinds of qualitative changes you are making.  I feel you are unnecessarily risking your consumer base by confusing and disappointing them.
 
As a fellow game developer, I truly wish you the best of luck, and I'll keep watching but from the sidelines for now.

agreed  that was the best game ever 
 

So now this is live, after checking, to get my crafting back to where it was where I could craft whatever I wanted it will take me until mid April next year just to train the talents for all machines.
On top of that there is now 4 of each type of industry, basic, uncommon, advanced and rare and 6 different types of each size assembly. Also uncommon, advanced and  rare versions of elements.
 
To make something you need the schematic..
 
Canopy Windshield Schematic S - 1 million,  L  -  16 million....you know this is a window right?
Schematic for Uncommon Military Atmos Engine - 25 million(Cheapest it seems).  Advanced -  116 million.
Warp Drive Schematic - 145 million. 
Warp Cell Schematic - 5 million.
Assembly Line L Schematic - 5 million( Basic)
Container L schematic - 4.3 million
Container M Schematic - 4,3 million.
and so on...
 
This is a Troll right?
 

I take it back. Having seen how this has been implemented, this has no place even in a well developed game.

Because mega factories, like the one I solo built on a L space core, are consuming too many of their infrastructure dollars.  So instead of figuring out a way to optimize their code, or rewrite the CPU consuming portions with a better algorithm, they are slapping Schematics on us to slow us down and, at least temporarily, shutdown large portions of our factories to relieve the CPU load they are causing.  This is the second time they have done this... their attempt at solving the problem via the large batch sizes was their first effort.  Net result:  I have a transfer unit for a rare item that will engage once every 8 days to move a batch of that product.  A few months after they did that hack, the problem is back again.  As it will be a few months down the road if they manage to keep their player  base once we have paid the schematic cost.

Please ask about how soon we can expect a change with ships being stuck to others in space. Removing the manoeuvre tool's ability to lock ships in space will require everything to be on a landing pad. Ship's clumped together in space stick together, large core ships are the absolute worst with this.

Also ECU's don't keep a ship still if you fly off about ~300 metres away.

The game right now has several issues that need to be adressed before the Alt+F4 and element destruction changes.
 
Several players have login timeout / disconnect issues. Those issues seem to happen only to certain players connecting via a few internet hubs. (Seems at peak times the Amazon servers do not work very well with certain internet hubs ... as the game runs better, faster, and with less lag when those players use a VPN ... which is paradox). DU does not use the processing power of your graphics card. It‘s main source of processing power are the CPU cores. Additionaly my system is capable of running 24 threads ... but DU only uses 12 threads ... as it only uses one thread per core ... even if your system could use two threads per core. My CPU is screaming, while my GPU isn‘t even bothered to turn on its fans. That‘s a huge waste of processing power. Repair unit does not work. Needs to be fixed before the changes happen. When you buy a tokenized ship from someone, the elements get the „when put down“ boosts of the creator. If I have to replace broken elements, those boosts will be lost. They need to have a possibility to keep those boosts upon repair/replacement of the elements. Otherwise most of the tokenized bought ships will be fubar once they have been repaired. With limited ressources in the system it is not smart to have element destruction in the game as this will drain ressources from the game faster than NQ can imagine. Higher tier ressources are already hard to find ... these changes will make things worse ... prices will skyrocket ... and new players will be forced to fly around in crappy ships ... which will make new players leave the game before they reach a point where they can afford the better equipment. Stuck adjustors will be stuck forever, when the Alt F4 changes are implemented. This needs to be adressed beforehand or we have a lot of „adjuster shipwrecks“ AGG towers on low surface altitude planets are littering the atmosphere. Many of those towers are sitting on 1 voxel wide „poles“ that support them. Those structures are invisible during flight, spawn very late ... too late to break. I have crashed into them more than just once. With Alt F4 gone ... you can‘t even do an emergency break to avoid the destruction of your ship. AGG towers must be banned from the game ... easiest way to fix this ... make AGGs work from any altitude ... and make them work faster in vanilla settings. The way AGGs work now is just forcing players to litter the game with trash towers everywhere.

When territory warfare gets implemented you can fight for your org? I don’t get this question. It’s a sandbox, you make your own goals/fun. NQ has already stated that pvp will be an equal part to many pillars of gameplay, not the main focus.

This is my two cents for what its worth. 
 
1. Ammo and shooting people is far too cheap.  it should cost lots of money to wage war just like IRL.   Its too cheap right now as every individual player can make a war ship and shoot at anything that moves.  Just my opinion here but those "should be" amongst most expensive things in the game to make.  Players should have consider the cost of the ammo they waste shooting new player ships. 
   
2.  Pirates and PVP encounters  should flag that player with some kind of timer that makes them attackable in safe zones.   This can have a reputation associated with it also that could make someone  be permanently attackable in any zone.     I don't know about the rest of you but I am tired of people  shooting at me then running back to safety after I open fire on them. 
 
3. Bugs in the game:   I also feel the changes that are coming are needed in one way or another, however at this point in time there are way too many bugs and random disconnects.  It just too soon to put this in without some kind of stop gap.   This could easily be restricted to PVP fire or maybe only the more expensive engines with more power have the perm damage. 
 
4. Elements on ships:   This is a Major peeve of mine and a lot of other people.  Why do we have to stick all these elements all over our ships.  Why do you keep making them not be able to be hidden inside the ship somewhere.    We can make ships that look amazing but after sticking all the wings and crap all over them they look like garbage.  Will you please make them able to be hidden away in some compartment of the ship ?  
 
5.  People that I know that have quit:   My fear is some or most of the changes will magnify the reasons they left the game and cause more people to leave. 
 
The reasons they quit (quotes from them)
a.  It takes way to long to do anything 
b.  Mining is awful and I hate it.  They know its boring as they made an achievement for it WTH!  
c. PVP is completely broken,  it looks like they spent 20 minutes making the gunner interface. Any little XS core can take out most any ship without even taking fire
d. This game is way too buggy,   every time I go anywhere near other people I have to completely repair my ship after crashing 
e. We need more content so that we have something to get into besides mining and building I am board
f. The help desk is useless  they just state the "there are orgs out there to help with stuff like that"  "I have had a ticket in with them for two months and no response" 
g.  They don't listen to us and don't care what our opinions are
 
6.   New players are going to have a really hard time getting into the game or making money.   Maybe when we get a new solar system it can have new rules like, planets have more gravity, warp doesn't work unless you have some upgraded module or whatever other thing you want to add.  
 

If we add up several talking points from JC during the interviews over the past few months a picture starts emerging which could work _IF_ the game would be rebooted (ie wiped).
 
The combat changes
Good starting point for an overhaul of (space) combat from what I see
 
Perma damage
While the changes itself would be good, it may be too early due to the instability in game. This sill trigger more workload for support which is already stretched very thin
 
Maneuver tool changes
whatever.. I guess. The change to make the range 128M is OK but he refusal from NQ to clarify this will be the default or the L5 distance is raiding eyebrows 
 
Movement resume from a disconnect
Same as perma damage. too soon due to a lot of instability and it will also cause more work for support
 
Mission system
first basic implementation
 
Blueprint changes and locking control elements as far as accessing Lua
I understand the need for the changes but I hope that it will be possible to remove the creator lock and then make a BPO which is basically a master BP in case this is needed for commission work in some cases. Locking Lua down will only bring restrictions for the average player who wil now have to depend on creators providing updates and fixes in case of bugs. The nerds will have ways to lift the code from memory anyway.
 
Industry
This is the big one I expect. While there no substantial information, we know JC wants to achieve a number of goals here:
Slow down progress Break up mega factories introduce tiered industry elements As there is no information yet on what will happen and as I do not expect much to be said on this in a fundamental way on the Q&A as this will be highly controversial and NQ will not want o rock the boat until the patch notes arrive 5 minutes before the patch goes live, I will be mostly speculating based on what we know with some guesswork inserted.
 
NQ will start gating elements through Talents Batch sizes will further increase and/or production time will get longer T1 items will be nerfed in general to be below current elements, they will be usable but slow you down in many ways when travelling T2 elements will be basically what we currently have Further tiers will add to this but mostly benefit combat and not impact your average safe zone player much Industry will get smaller as NQ will introduce a cap on how many Industry elements can be used on a core depending on the core size. Building mega factories will no longer be viable.  
While all of this in itself is actually not terrible, the snake in the grass would be that existing industry will be "promoted" to T2 and thus for existing (placed) industry nothing much changes. Mega factories will be able to continue as they are as long as no changes are made to them at which time the cap on elements will activate.
 
If this turns out o be correct, this would be bad because it will provide an insane advantage to exiting constructs owned by larger orgs and it will become much, much harder for smaller orgs, solo players and new player and orgs to even try and match this. It will create a "have and have not" culture and will massively play into the next big controversial item;
 
Driving/forcing the use of markets
With their industry intact and high productivity capacity, big orgs and mega factories will be able to pretty much force their prices and control supply on the markets. Their profit margins will be such that they can buy up smaller batches and resell or write off even and still maintain profitable. Generally the result wil be that small group/solo and new players will be forced to use markets and existing larger orgs and industrialists can pretty much set prices as they see fit and from that follows that there wil be little to no room for actual competition on markets.  This could potentially become a choking factor on the economy and the game as a whole.
 
 
Now all of this could actually work out IF the changes were introduced on an even playing field and that would mean a wipe. Obviously a wipe would still mean there is an advantage for larger orgs but they would have to start off on the same parameters as everyone else and so that would IMO be fair enough. As the closest alternative I could see the element cap go live on all existing industry which would mean mega factories would cease to operate and require a rework. That way there would be at least some level of equality. I also hope that I'm wrong on existing Industry being upgraded to T2 on the patch.
 
 
 

@NQ-Naunet    I agree thank you!!

Happy Friday, Noveans!

I'm coming to you with a few more answers/clarifications for your reading pleasure.  I really appreciated everyone's patience while I rode the merry-go-round of feedback handling.
 
Alright, let's dive in!
 
To start, I think it's prudent to address the question of "why did you make a tool change without fixing [insert bug description here] first?"
As predictable/banal as this may sound to some, it's worth saying; while we are forever working hard to fix *all* current bugs, certain issues will be looked at before others. We deeply respect your opinions about our priorities (NQ is especially fortunate to have a community full of game-dev-savvy people), but we simply won't be able to please everyone no matter what direction we take. We ask that you continue to trust in the internal knowledge we have (combined with your feedback) when it comes to bug fixes paralleling feature development and/or changes. Alt+F4:
As many of you are relieved to see, we fixed a longstanding limitation to the feeling of continuity in DU; quitting the game should never stop a ship! The recent changes we've made ensure that as soon as any player sees a construct, that construct will remain visible to everyone in the vicinity. So, using Alt+F4 during a fight will no longer 'freeze' your ship. Instead, she'll still be simulated for any other player who is still there. (And if nobody is around you, you won't have to worry about a thing!) By making this change, we hope to prevent players from "gaming the system" using Alt+F4. Of course, we'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback and will rebalance things accordingly to make sure this gameplay pillar keeps retains its depth! Regarding the 50m restriction:
Based on feedback from all of you, this has been increased to 128m, which is the size of the largest build zone! As for concerns about moving unwanted constructs from player-owned tiles go (@casegard):
We've seen some solid points raised about how the maneuver tool was being used to clear away constructs - the scenario quoted above being a great example. We're currently thinking hard about a viable solution for this! AGG:
 As mentioned previously in this thread, the intended meta for AGG will reveal itself in 'atmo PvP'. We acknowledge that it currently functions as a temporary solution for hauling heavy loads from the ground into space, and that players like to leave their ships hovering above their base. We will consider formally implementing an “anchoring” at high altitude feature in the future!   I sincerely hope this has been helpful to everyone, but please continue to deliver your (welcome) feedback here.

Have an excellent weekend!!



 

Hmm... I wanna say I strongly disagree, because I feel that having to build another construct and carry it around all the time just to go up and down 1km from surface to carrier is a very interesting trade off for not having to carry around too many atmospheric elements on a ship that's mainly designed to travel through space. But I'm curious why you'd think otherwise?
 
YES! Definitely.
 
Thanks a million for that follow-up ❤️ 
 
Even tho I'm really sad about losing this since I kinda loved my carrier hovering over of me. But parked in geostationary orbit doesn't work, as that's still within the gravity well of the planet and planets don't spin - even if they did, that orbit would be considered movement, which stops when I log out and... I kinda fail to align this part of the response with DU physics..? So I guess orbit must refer to "far far away where there's no gravity anymore" (meaning not in orbit) which translates to "Dock at a space station!" and "Forget about docking an L core at all, btw." and I feel ships like that don't need an AGG in the first place.
 
Leaves only surface landing AGG ships and for these I don't understand what "missions that require altitude consideration" means. I'm sorry, but after reading this it feels like I can kick my AGG in the bukkit and forget about that technology, as I don't see any real advantage of carrying that weight around anymore  
 
I'm trying to find an application for it, but..
Vertical engines don't work properly to jump to 1km altitude and go down again in a comfortable way. (at least not vanilla (meaning without some serious Lua scripting)) If my ship got enough airfoil and is powerfull enough to lift with a full haul, I'm not going to wait an hour for the AGG to climb to 15 or 20 kilometers altitude and just use those engines to get away. If my ship is parked so far away that I need several hours to either take it down to fill the cargo, or need even more hours to load it going back and forth with a smaller hauler, I can just as well do multiple jumps between planets and not use a big hauler in the first place. It already hits diminishing returns when going big on a hybrid and the only thing that makes large AGG haulers a good investment is dropping the hybrid tag and going for the fact that you can skip the weight of most atmospheric elements to reduce the hours long chore of "hauling up and down" to one trip that takes approximately 1 hour down, park, load and then 1 hour up again.
 
I guess I may go for option 1 above.. add some vertical engines, sweat through the awful period where your binary inputs shut down the engines completely, so they need to spin up first before braking your fall, carry 10L containers as dead weight with me to mine into them, then launch empty and vertically to 1km to transfer cargo once AGG kicked in and then use my elevator 10 times to get all the dead weight L containers back into my carrier.
 
...
 
Wait a second... that doesn't sound fun at all. Especially considering the price I paid for the AGG, I think I should sell it while at least some people remain who think that element is worth anything?  
 
...
 
Okay, given some more minutes of pumping crocodile tears... maybe it just means that we need to establish a base of operations on every planet and have atmospheric mining carriers ready while the AGG carrier only comes down for a short period to load up and be gone again. Okay, I guess that might work out too.
 
Still, I will dearly miss that carrier hovering over me, making me feel like "YES! You did it!" all the time - and the amazing feel of using my own elevator platform that worked so incredibly well in tandem, taking visitors up, talking about tech, just having everything working perfectly and showing off while inspiring, explaining and giving advice how to do it.
 
To me this decision takes away much of the awe that the AGG brought us and leaves a rather shallow feeling. Sure it might clear up the sky a bit - but I always loved the sight of massive carriers up there, dreaming about being one of those captains once. Luckily I did it and was able to experience this time before that bubble got popped  

Good question! I'll find out.

Agreed  spell it out like we are kids, obviously we don't understand how "anti gravity" is supposed to be used .      In orbit only down to planet,  only dropping down to pick stuff up and drop it off ? 

Then I see no use at all for AGG as described...IF the ship can lift the weight without AGG and navigate from the ground anyhow....What then is ANY use of Agg as it can already obvously navigate at 1000M in atmos. Could JC provide a scenario so we understand the intended use? Also how the heck do powerful engines and fuel park anything above a base?
 

Hey all! I'm back and getting caught up on the replies that have come in since my last visit to this thread.  

I think NQ need to fix the bugs first before this ever gets released. Spinning ships due to adjusters stuck on applying force. Was told this was a lua issue although the fix I had the admin apply did not work. I think we need to have a type of parachutes for our ships. If our game crashes for whatever reason I would rather have it resume once I enter the cockpit vs just having it start back in motion because once I join the game I wont be in my cockpit and I wont have time to make the correct actions. How many times have you tried to fly and all of a sudden your ship goes out of control due to adjusters spinning you out of control for no reason. The same applies for the elements getting damaged and having us only have so many life's for those elements. NQ bug that spins your ship out of control you crash and swear at NQ's bugs and cry your tears out cause now you have to rebuild several elements or repair every element on your ship and life's are lost for those elements due to bugs that haven't been fixed and changed that made it worse....

What a joke this nerf really is...
 
We are supposed to be in like year 9000 or something and yet we are still flying around with fossil fuels / rocket fuel and no actual scifi tech or at the very least nuclear powered ships, fusion reactors, solar power, plasma, or anything cool lol. Hell we dont event have a proper hover jet / helicopter rotots? and yet with anti grav you cant even sustain it now? Or even move a ship more than 50m?
 
I could see if NQ was like hey we are taking away the max from the personal maneuver tool but we are going to add some kind of mounted  machine on static/dynamic cores. Or that if you are in your own territory you can move it more or outside your territories you cant move it as much.
 
Its like really?

So why put anything on a dynamic anymore? All my libraries are on dynamics because tiles are really big and if I'm working on something 500m away I don't really want to run back and forth to get shapes. And then what about that thing that happens when you move something and it goes drifting back to the original location. Does that apply to my 50m limitation? Then what about when your buggy code causes my core to explode and it goes flying off into space? I've had that happen dozens of times. Seems like shutting it down instead of working on it is the play. 
 
The optimization of the game should be prioritized above all else because it would alleviate some of the issues you are having with people asking for ports and repairs. Not nerfing the tools we use to work around broken code.

Honestly I just want all my talent points back as this tool is totally flipping useless now.

These two explain one major use nicely, albeit log out/in, not alt+f4.
 
Fix AGG staying up BEFORE this change goes through.

Do you know how many time in the last two days bugs and glitches have caused people to crash ships ?  I mean a speck of dirt in the sky so small you cant even see it  will completely obliterate a whole ship.    Flying along with noting in view then; a tower loads in 10m ahead of you.   
Thruster locks, brakes not working, and a host of other things that happen.  Which we pay for in scrap now, we should not have to pay more for parts being destroyed after three of these.  If the limit was set to  30 or 40 it would be okay.  
The PVP thing,  yea I see 3 times otherwise you can sit there and repair things over and over never loosing anything. 

For the most part the pvp changes will be great allowing players to fight back.   After giving this more thought I know how the PVP changes will be exploited as I am sure this has been posted before.  We will have spike ships;  very small cross sections loaded with guns.  it will make them harder to hit and able to maintain their L guns.    20x 20 x full length L core ship with L guns the problem will still exist in a different form. maybe even worse because they will have more ammo.  For the time being just do the radar fix so players can fight back  this will help. 
 
PVE damage some players don't seem to have the same amount of game crashes and render bugs as others but some concession should be made.  I am also thinking about new players learning to fly also. how many times did you crash when you were first starting out ? 
 

Do you know how many time in the last two days bugs and glitches have caused people to crash ships ?  I mean a speck of dirt in the sky so small you cant even see it  will completely obliterate a whole ship.    Flying along with noting in view then; a tower loads in 10m ahead of you.   
Thruster locks, brakes not working, and a host of other things that happen.  Which we pay for in scrap now, we should not have to pay more for parts being destroyed after three of these.  If the limit was set to  30 or 40 it would be okay.  
The PVP thing,  yea I see 3 times otherwise you can sit there and repair things over and over never loosing anything.