Atmosph3rik

The purpose is to make the Territory free from taxes. You get to keep it forever without paying taxes on it, as long as you're still subscribed to the game. It would be great if NQ had some way of determining who might be coming back to the game, and who won't. But they aren't psychic. There will be people who pay $15 and play for a month, claim a territory on Alioth, build a giant parking lot. And then quit the game and never come back. If there is no way to free up those territories NQ will be paying to host that Parking lot in the game forever. And we'll be paying for it too. And the territory will be out of play forever. No one else can use it. And we all have to look at the parking lot forever too. The game needs to have a system that deals with that situation. Or it will just become more and more bloated with abandoned constructs and territories. Your territory on Haven is permanent though. So if you think you might want to cancel your sub for a while, you can move everything there, and then it will be safe as long as the game is still live.

I think you're confusing the rarity of winning 1st place in a land race. With the rarity of winning anything at all. Just because you can't win 1st place, doesn't mean there isn't still a prize for 2nd, 3rd, 4th place etc. Those 2nd and 3rd place territories are still out there. And NQ has promised more races in the future. If you decide not to join the race because you don't think you have a chance at 1st place anymore, that's on you.

I think it's a misconception that it's only for a lucky few. When the reality is that it just takes a lot of determination and some planning. Maybe a bit of teamwork. There are still so many territories out there that are worth mining. But everyone wants one of the highest value 7 tile flowers. Most of the territories that i mine are just one or two tiles that are adjacent to a flower. At least one of them i found just by looking at the map until i found some territories with Limestone in the name, and then scanning around them. You can still easily make millions a week off of a few lower value tiles. I see complaints about people sitting on territories, but i think a lot of those territories are probably for sale too. Just because they've already been claimed, doesn't mean they are out of play. It might be good if NQ helped facilitate those sales happening in game, so people would feel more confident getting into it. But the DU Auction House on discord has also built up a pretty solid reputation. And NQ is planning to add more planets. There will be more land rushes. And if someone wants to put in the work, there will be more opportunities to claim the highest value territories.

I hope these aren't the OPs ALTS. The identical wording and the timing of their responses, in the same exact order, after each of your posts is a bit odd.

I read the whole post. But maybe i'm misunderstanding something. Are you saying that because it would be a 3-6 month cycle, people could just leave all of their infrastructure in place in the hopes that a territory might have a payout that is worth mining again at some point in the next few years? If it's randomized, i don't think that would work. You could sit on a tile for years and never win the random lottery. A large portion of the territories don't have an ore pool that is worth mining. Unless i'm misunderstanding, this would require everyone to rescan the planets every 3-6 months to rediscover the territories with valuable ore on them. NQ is already planning to add more planets with new ore. Depending on how much demand there is, they can add as many of these as they want. They could add a new planet every 3-6 months if the games growth demanded it.

To imagine how food (Survival style) would work in DU, i think you can just take the schematic system and replace the word "schematics" with "food" and there you go. Open the window, select the thing, queue it up and wait for it. When it's done you put it in the place that it needs to go. Or you can't do the thing that you want to do. Lather, rinse and repeat. The game already has TONS of survival mechanics, they just aren't human survival mechanics. Industry has to be fed schematics or they won't run. Your ship needs fuel, or it won't fly, it needs to be repaired or elements will stop functioning. Territories need to be fed taxes or you can't mine on them. Mining units have to be fed calibrations or they won't mine ore. I don't see the difference. We already have farming in the form of territory mining too. It's a system that you set up and then maintain and eventually it produces a thing that you need.

I think the amount of mass reduction across the tiers is fine. I just want to be able to use them with a hub. What i really don't like is the way the negative aspects scale through the tiers. An Exotic GI container L weighs 75 tons while the uncommon version weighs 22 tons. I understand that they're trying to create a balance, but it just takes all the fun out of upgrading to a higher tier item. It makes sense for a military engine to have more hps then a freight engine, and a freight engine to have a lower warmup time then a maneuver. But it doesn't make sense to me for the warmup time on an exotic freight engine to be so much worse than the uncommon version. The idea that if i upgrade the four large containers on my ship to exotic GI then i'm carrying around an extra 200 tons when the ship is completely empty. It just kind of saps all the fun out of it. I would rather they scale back the bonuses and not scale the negative aspects at all across the tiers.

I don't think NQ's intent is for Plasma to only be available to people who PVP. I think they want to give PVP players something fun to do, and a way to earn Quanta. If none of the plasma finds its way into the market, then NQ might need to reconsider. If those holding the Plasma don't want to sell it, then just keep increasing the cost of ammo until they don't have a choice. 😁

The rumor is that connecting the Inverted containers to a Hub removes the benefits but retains all the negative aspects. So you don't get the mass reduction, but you still get the increased weight and the decreased storage capacity. I haven't tested it myself but that's what i've heard. Assuming that's true. You wouldn't want to connect the Inverted containers to a Hub, you would want to use them individually. All of the benefits of the Optimized containers do work with a Hub, so if you switch to Optimized containers then you wouldn't need to ditch the Hub.

Up until now snapshots haven't really mattered unless your ship was getting shot at. But it sounds like they are going to matter more now. Could we get a bit more info on snapshots? I know that i can take a manual snapshot from the context menu in build mode. And i think a new snapshot is taken every time you leave build mode. But i also get a message saying that the snapshot failed sometimes. If i enter build mode on my ship, while it has damaged elements, will they be saved in the snapshot and no longer be able to be repaired by the maintenance unit? Maybe i'm misunderstanding something, but that doesn't sound ideal.

I've heard it mentioned in game at some point that the gravity inverted containers don't work with hubs by design. Does anyone have a link to the ethereal Discord post that might have started that rumor? I've never seen any info on this anywhere. The only way i knew they didn't work with hubs was because i overheard a conversation about it in general chat. As a ship builder this doesn't make any sense. We've always had the convenience of Hubs, and it seems as though the mission system was designed with the assumption that we would never need to split up a mission package into multiple containers, because every ship has a hub. If for some odd reason they don't want us to be able to use the gravity inverted containers with a Hub, then we should be able to split up a mission package. I don't want to have to design a ship around an Extended XXL container. If this is really an intentional design feature, then it totally changes ship design. Hubs are something we've always had. Why take them away now?

Personally, i think an intelligent person would see the obvious danger in leaving the cover off a manhole and focus on solving the simple problem. Rather than patting themselves on the back for not falling into it themselves. A truly intelligent person would be confident enough in their own intelligence that they wouldn't want to set other people up for failure just to make themselves feel a bit smarter.

You're still talking about frozen french fries here. The only improvement that you've brought to the table is cost and time savings. And the entire premise that there would be an improvement to the product is based on the hypothetical idea that the developers will do something really amazing with the extra time or money that they'll have. Which could be true, but still isn't anything that would be credited to the AI. The story you posted above is boring and derivative. A child could write that. You could blame that on your prompts, i guess. But either way it's not great. Salesman is also one word. It's interesting that the AI just went with Sales Man as the name of the character, but still seemed to know that he should be selling something. I guess that's one point for the AI lol

So procedural generation would be a pretty good example of what you're talking about already being implemented in game development. I think you could argue that procedural generation has improved game development. But i don't think it can be credited for improving the games themselves. For a while, game companies were boasting about using it. But now when a company like NQ uses the aid of procedural generation to build planets. The focus is on the fact that the planets are hand crafted by devs. Not the procedural generation. Because consumers learned that on its own procedural generation equals quantity over quality. Without being curated by a human, it's just a bunch of noise. When you describe an NPC reacting to any possible action, i picture how well the trees in DU react to being procedurally placed on any possible terrain. It works, but it's not great. Definitely not something to brag about. Circling back around to what you originally said, that i disagree with so strongly. The words "AI driven game mechanic" I haven't seen any examples of what those words actually mean. It sounds like hollow marketing speak. And i would be wary of any game company that was investing heavily in it.

I'm probably not explaining myself very well here. So let me try this a different way. Just to be clear i have no issue with "AI" in general. It's just a computer program. They're great. I'm a fan. But the way the term is being used recently in the industry just sounds like hype. Let's say you went to eat at a restaurant that specializes in hamburgers and french fries. And they have a huge sign on the wall bragging about how they are switching from fresh cut fries to mass produced frozen fries. As if i'm supposed to be excited about that... As a consumer i don't see anything to be excited about. And when i hear a game company talking about AI as if it's a direction for the company to go in, that means nothing to me.

You're claiming that AI will improve video games. But all of your examples are just general improvements to video games. Better NPC behavior, better graphics etc. But you still haven't explained how AI is essential to any of that. All of those improvements were happening anyway, they always have been. AI could speed up the process, and lower costs. But those aren't improvements to the games, that just makes them easier and cheaper to make. Currently making a video game requires filthy capitalists, management, and people who code and play video games. Do you really think removing the need for people who code and play video games from the process is going to result in better games?

How do you reward an AI? Are there AI biscuits? Do you let it kill just one human as a treat? You're still just describing better NPC AI. Your example of with the heavy armor is exactly how it works in Elden Ring and all the previous Dark Souls games. That's not anything new. The only reason some games don't have it is that it wouldn't improve the game, or they didn't want to pay someone to code it. The only change that your describing is that a game company might hypothetically not need to pay an actual human to code anymore. You still haven't given an example of how AI specifically would improve a video game. What does it bring to the table that isn't already there?

Video game characters moving and acting realistically is already AI. It always has been. What you're describing is better AI. It doesn't seem like you or the people who are making those videos are really clear on whether AI is the new technological breakthrough that will change everything, or that AI will create the new technological breakthrough that will change everything. It's like saying you've discovered the secret to turning lead into gold, and all you need to do it is lots of gold.

That's crazy. I can't believe i never noticed that before. Excellent tip. Thanks!

Do you have any examples of an AI driven game mechanic? I have no idea what that means.

Yeah, having the high-density spot be halfway outside the search area, and in the very corner, is really frustrating. I can calibrate units that are mining low value ore all day and find the spot in a few seconds. But as soon as i try to mine a T3 unit the spot ends up hiding in the corner.

Good stuff! I just wanted to add my voice to what @Hagbard said above about the Fuel Intake Changes. That sounds great but what we really need is something that works like a container HUB, for fuel tanks. So we can link multiple tanks and display them as one tank in the HUD.

All i really want is some clarity. If i knew that they were planning to fix it, or not planning to fix it, then i would move on. But when something makes playing the game this frustrating, I start to wonder if maybe I haven't made enough noise. Maybe NQ doesn't even know about it. And when I eventually end up on the forums, it's usually when a bug/feature has pissed me off enough that it motivates me to come make another post about it. Which doesn't usually lead to the most politely worded or "balanced" feedback. I can accept a yes or no answer. What's hard to accept is not knowing whether NQ is even aware of an issue. This has been an issue since day one.

If an element is obstructed, why does it not report that it is obstructed all the time? It's almost as if an element that is obstructed at 1% only reports that it is obstructed 1% of the time. If an element only reports that it is obstructed 1% of the time, is the penalty only in effect 1% of the time also? I have no idea if this is an intentional design "feature" or a bug. But after spending months designing a ship, meticulously placing the elements and voxels, carefully watching to build helper to make sure they are unobstructed. Only to have an engine suddenly become obstructed once the design is nearly complete. It's not fun.

Ugh i'm so annoyed about this. The last thing NQ told us, as far as i know, was that stacking detection was NOT working and that they were planning to rework it and then let us test it BEFORE elements would actually be deactivated by it. But that was several updates, and an official launch ago. And it seems to have been deployed in the same broken state that it was in at the time of that communication. My speeder has zero flagged elements 90% of the time. But if i compact it and then deploy it on Haven it suddenly has one adjuster and one brake flagged. I had the same issue in Beta with the same speeder design and reported it. The adjuster isn't even visually touching the brakes, and none of the other elements that are in the exact same position are ever flagged. We've been begging NQ for literally ANY information on the current state of this system for months now. Will it ever work correctly? Do they know that it isn't working correctly? As a ship builder it would be nice to know how close i am allowed to place one element to another, when i am placing it. Not two days later.