Excited for Alpha release in 2017? Of course you are.
At Alpha Academy, we are dedicated to learning and testing DU in it's early stages. Come join us and share you're ideas and creations while we wait for Alpha. If you're already in an organization don't worry, we accept anyone who wants to learn more about the game!
First, and most importantly, this isn't an official NovaQuark project, and I don't have any idea what the interfaces in the actual game will look like, I'm basing most of this off of the LUA Dev blog and my knowledge of how C/C++ bindings are exposed to LUA. If they want me to change the name of this I'll be happy to. Secondly, I have no idea where this topic belongs so I'm posting it here in General. I think we need a programming-related subforum but that likely won't happen until Alpha at the soonest.
Over the Holidays I was thinking about tools I could work on now that might be of some interest to people out there. Things like a ship crew scheduling app, a wiki for programmers, a timeline site keeping track of DU events, a ship delivery scheduling utility, etc. Ultimately, however, I kept coming back to this idea, as it would help me while learning a new language for my job and it would help people who don't know much about LUA (or programming in general) start to wrap their head around what it might be like in DU (as well as help some of those AI-projects out there).
I came up with the idea to create a Core Unit "Emulator" as a standalone web service that people can target with LUA scripts.
I'll try to explain what this looks like...
A programmer would set up LUA on their computer, install the LUA sockets module, as well as copy a piece of code into their own projects that would bootstrap them into being able to communicate with a server over the net.
From there, function calls into an object would act as calls to a "Core Unit", which under the hood would really just be some socket communications going on to a server doing all of the actual work.
From the perspective of a programmer, they get access to various details about a ship (speed, velocity, pitch, yaw, rotation, etc) that they have to adjust to meet a set of parameters (per round) after a simulation is run. So your scripts would have to account for things like losing an engine, running low on fuel, turbulence, etc. and ultimately get the ship into a given set of passing parameters within a given period of time.
Alternatively, I could write a standalone program that you use to run your scripts against, it doesn't particularly matter to me if it's a remote service or not.
How does this help new programmers? It would give the ability for people to try writing LUA in a way that resembles what LUA programming in games is actually like.
It won't be what Dual Universe is exactly like, none of us have the ability to write something like that because we can't know what the interfaces actually are. However, it will give you enough experience in LUA to be able to adapt what you learn very quickly. Ultimately it comes down to having a set of elements giving you information via function calls, processing that information, and being able to do things with said elements via other function calls. If you can get around that basic concept then you'll be in a much better position overall.
It would give people an excuse to start learning LUA now, but it won't be very "fun" or realistic, and you'd have to use it knowing that it's not like Dual Universe at all. There probably wouldn't really be graphics either, you'd be flying by sensors only...
I'd even love some help building it on the server side, which I'm currently doing in Golang because I have to learn it for my job. It's not super difficult to program in, but it would certainly be cool to have a helping hand on programming the actual physics side of things. I just don't want to do it all myself, although things like this tend to go that way.
All in all, I'd be willing to help people learn LUA along the way as well, provided you have some knowledge about computers already. You could easily take what you learn and apply it to other games that are scripted through LUA as well (WoW is one of them).
Who would be interested in even using something like this?
I guess I should make a video explaining all of this, as this wall of text is probably too verbose.
2nd of January, 2017.
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Howdy folks, another day another set of charts!
As you can see from today, it's another average day of low growth, just meaning that there has been less than ten or so members joining the top ten.
There really isn't too much to point out today, but, Dual Secure, who is number eleven is now known as Dual Secure Military.
Anyway,
just remember if you are looking for a group to join, search through more than the top ten, they may seem great but there may be more fitting options for you elsewhere!
As far as I understand it, if you purchased a pack that includes an Alpha key then you will have access to Alpha.
The game developers selected a number of people for the "Alpha Team" who will get access regardless of pledge, but are otherwise identical to anyone who bought a supporter pack.
As to your age, no one would have known it if you didn't say it. I believe 14 puts you well below the average age of the community, but it shouldn't hinder you in any way.
I want to start by saying this is not a solicitation for another game simply an idea sharing with a bunch of fellow gamers in organizations.
There is a game on Steam called Empyrion Galatic Survival, I share this because organizations could use this game to design buildings, ships, space stations, tanks, etc that we want to see in DU. It's been out for a few years now, it's an alpha early access game but really incredible for what its status is. Has active developers and lots of promise, so your money would not be wasted. In short it's a smaller (more realistic) version of DU in my opinion.
There are servers that support 200 players both EU and NA, I have a friend who runs a 200 player server in EU that I can recommend to people. Have any questions you can message me on Steam add me as a friend Sgt Wolk is my Username. If you don't have a Steam account, make one its free. I will reply as soon as possible!
If Devs do not like this post please just delete I will not post it again. I just wanted to give a tool to people while they're awaiting for DU to be launched.
I would like to give my acceptance speech, to reassure all the members who may be worried by the sudden transition of power. This is not a time to be divided, but a time to come together. Mmmtheboss worked hard as your leader, and we all owe him our thanks for his hard work, for laying the foundation, but just as the scaffolding for a building is different than the structure of its foundation, so too must the future of The Void Republic be different than its past! The people have spoken and it is time for new leadership! A new administration!
Of course, being as I am still first and foremost dedicated to my other responsibilities, there are going to be some changes around here to bring The Void Republic in line with the greater community. Policy changes, position reshuffling, the works. This will only be beneficial to the citizens of the Void Republic.
People of The Void Republic, you have been let down by your leaders. For too long, they have betrayed you and soiled your reputations. They have left your borders (and channels) open and unprotected, letting trolls and spies walk among you, belittling you and degrading your image and your self esteem. I will cast out the spies and push out the trolls. I will develop new propaganda and memes, so that when the enemy makes jokes, we can respond in kind, with pride and self-respect. I will repair the shattered reputation of The Void Republic and it's member groups. I will make the community respect us, respect all of you for your hard work. I have an amazing reputation in the community, really, it's just terrific. So I will make yours great, just fantastic.
We are going to build a space wall and make Terran Union pay for it! We are going to stop all our jobs from being outsourced to the Solar Empire, and put Void Republic citizens back to work! We are going to defeat the enemy!
We are going to MAKE THE VOID REPUBLIC GREAT AGAIN!
I think that depends on the time frame you're talking about. I imagine there will be two groups of people in the first month or two: Those who sell everything they mine to the npc traders in order to gain currency, and those who keep it all for use in construction/industry. As time goes on, the economy will settle down as people start to meet their basic needs, and commerce will pick up with the more industrial focused groups probably selling their goods and services.
I know my group, Evil Inc. will (hopefully) be working with bulk resources for trading and manufacturing purposes once we get established and there are some trade hubs.
NPCs ruin and defeat the purpose of MMOs as far as I'm concerned. If I wanted to fight NPCs I'd play a single player game. I wouldn't mind the threat of NPCs for the purpose of guarding resources, but nothing should be gained (XP, money, loot) when killing them, other than access to the resources, otherwise it would introduce a grind. But even that would make the resources easier to find because the NPC would be a marker for them. So I really don't think they are necessary at all in DU.
As I have said on other threads, I think it would be interesting to have a few "hostile worlds" scattered around where either the weather, terrain, or wildlife (or all three) were particularly dangerous. The planet would have some sort of rare materials or other attributes that would make it worth it to colonize the planet. The wildlife in this case wouldn't be a raid boss or be particularly worth farming on their own; they wouldn't drop any loot. It would simply be a persistent threat to those who tried to colonize the planet. It could also open up some new and interesting gameplay. Imagine stirring up the nest of a hostile creature to get it to attack an enemies base, or timing your sneak attack to coincide with a storm.
Like Twerk said though, npcs in this game would have to work very differently than fro mother games.
The focus of the game is "no NPCs" and "no NPC storylines".
Also, the whole "kill dragon, get plasma cannon" is not something that works in this game as crafting is at its center, not to mention, it's a sci-fi game, not Sword And Sorcery game. It's not Everquest to have humongous bosses roaming the land, requiring 50 people to take down and evn if such bosses were to exist on a planet, I got two words for you : Orbital Strikes".
See? It doesn't work that way in a game like DUAL.
Before starting to read the Lore Bible, here are three things to keep in mind:
- Some names and acronyms (put between brackets) in the texts below are still temporary names/placeholders. The final names will be decided in the following days. The update will be announced on the forum and on the social media. We don't want to keep these names, for different reasons varying for each case. Once in its final version, it will be published on the Community Wiki hosted by Gamepedia in a more structured way.
- It was a difficult decision but we have to consider that some parts of the short story written by Alain Damasio will be modified or removed. We all agree in the team that Alain Damasio has made a short story of the highest quality, but this short story was written more than a year ago (July 2015) and at that time, too many points regarding the game universe were unclear or undecided. With all the recent additions to the Lore Bible (those released today publicly and those which remain hidden as "secrets" for the time being), it generated some inconsistencies difficult to solve. We tried to find solutions or workarounds, without success. Some points were also not possible to represent in-game, gameplay wise. While the short story will be updated in the near future to fit with the current Lore Bible, in the meantime here are the specific points from the short story you should not take into account when writing a Fan Fiction for Dual Universe (if you want it to be eligible for being integrated to the official backstory of the game, of course. If not, you are not bind to such limitation).
Unfortunately, Sohan Decker is not a member of the Alpha Team, as he woke up just a few weeks before the Arkship landing on Alioth and do not participate in the neural simulation that will take place more than a year and a half before the landing. Aphelia memory must have had a glitch when talking to Sohan for the first time.
When approaching some Kyrium, the matter doesn't reflect human faces aging or growing younger. Sohan Decker has probably some hallucinations, a possible side-effect of the long cryogenic sleep.
While probably convinced of it, Sohan Decker didn't communicate with an invisible entity by using elements and he didn't get some schematics of a high-performance reactor in Kyrium as a reward. The proof? When asked to show it, he's not able to find it anywhere! Poor Sohan. Probably another hallucination. Cryogenic sleep seems to have a lasting side effect on him.
- The Novaquark might slightly change the Lore Bible over time, but we will try to keep those changes to a minimum, to ensure that it doesn't contradict fanfictions that have been already integrated to the official lore. These changes will occur mainly when an inconstancy is discovered in the official lore. And in this regard, we count on your feedback to track down every little detail that might seem inconsistent (some details may be awkward on purpose though ). As always, we remain open to your feedback on the Official Lore. Let us know what you think about it!
That being said... Happy reading!
Dual Universe Lore
Dual Universe takes place about 10.000 years after the Grand Exodus when humanity left the Earth to establish itself in new star systems. The information below is meant to help answer the most common questions about the game environment and try to set the general framework where fan fiction can be written.
Main historical dates
2027: Discovery of the doomsday Neutron Star that is heading towards the Earth. Collision will happen in 498 years. There are margins of error, so we don’t yet know if it means annihilation or simply major disruption in the solar system’s planets, but the end result is the same: the Earth will not be able to host humanity anymore. The event is nicknamed the [“Star Kiss of Death”], or [SKiD]. It’s basically the Armageddon.
2049: Creation of the United Earth Federation (UEF), a transnational institution in charge of coordinating humanity’s efforts and response to the SKiD. After concluding there was no hope to save Earth, the “Rebirth Program” is launched to analyze possible responses and escape strategies. New measures are voted to encourage natality in the population, to fight against a nihilist movement that advocates a “no future” philosophy and maintain a sufficient level of humans in the long run to fuel the Rebirth Project’s considerable needs.
2084: Better measurements have narrowed the margin of error. We are now certain that the neutron star will hit our solar system, and will actually collide with the Sun, turning into a black hole that will ultimately swallow or eject into deep space all the planets, Earth included. There is no hope anymore. Major funding is directed towards the Rebirth Program. All nation states must contribute at least 20% of their resources
2100: Mankind is entering a new era where robotics and AI have profoundly transformed society. Work as we know it has long disappeared, and social influence has replaced money as the currency of value. People do not “work” anymore, they have “activities” that can get them socially recognized. Money is still used, via a Universal Revenue, mainly as a way to control the scarcity in production, and balance the availability of goods against their rarity.
2130: AI have reached a threshold of global sentience. It is active in political, economic and social debates, and, while its benefits are recognized because it allowed the transition to the post-work era, more and more concern is raised about the sentient aspect and the potentially uncontrollable dimension of the AI agenda. Irrational fear rises. The AIs try to reassure the population that they have no rational reason to threaten humanity, but it only increases the level of suspicion within society.
2145: Massive rebellions all around the world signals the end of sentient AI, introducing a permanent universal ban on this technology, enforced by the very powerful UEF. Against all expectations, sentient AIs accept this and willingly shut down without any form of violent action.
2150: Society is reorganizing itself, as many “jobs” that needed sentient-level AI (surprisingly many, including low skill manual work), are once again left to humans to perform. Robots, in general, are banned also, as most of them required sentient-level AI to function properly. Early attempts at designing automated non-sentient robots all failed in the late 21st century, as it was discovered that sentience was a necessary byproduct of any sufficiently sophisticated AI for it to be able to interact with a complex world.
2200: A major summit of the UEF signals the alarming lack of progress on project Rebirth at the dawn of the 23rd century. Debates continue for years afterward about priorities, what technology to use to build Arkships that could help evacuate Earth, who would be eligible if we cannot host the 3 billion people still in the current population.
2200-2400: Major political events keep slowing down humanity and the UEF in its attempts to advance the technologies needed to build functional Arkships. Many wars, economic crisis, and nihilist terrorism are plaguing the progress.
2400: A period of calm and peace opens up. Major progress is suddenly made in the technologies needed to build the Arkships. Some are scheduled to be built within the next decade.
2440: Several key technologies are unlocked: cryosleep modules, nanoforming technology, nanopack condensers, resurrection nodes (it is unfortunately too late to use this to save humanity, as we would need to install billions of them out of the solar system, on a hospitable planet. There is not enough time for this).
2450: The Arkship technology is now mastered. Mass production begins. The race is on to produce as many as possible.
2500: Terrifying high-resolution images of the neutron star are provided by our most powerful telescopes. Riots break out all around the world over the selection process that dictates who gets to board the Arkships. The process was created by a scientific committee from the UEF, aimed at gathering the maximal amount of genetic diversity, plus a lottery to offset the fact that not everybody could go. Massive euthanasia programs were organized for those who had to stay, in order to provide them with a painless death at the time of their choosing.
2510-2536: The first Arkships leave Earth. Each Arkship is heading towards a particular part of the galaxy. One of them, the Novark, is heading towards the Scutum-Centaurus arm.
2538: The neutron star annihilates the solar system. Arkships are on their way, heading towards different regions of the galaxy.
12477: The Novark arrives on Alioth with a mighty thud as it deploys itself into the planet surface. From afar the planet shows many similarities to that of Earth, a blue and green marble sitting in the goldilocks zone of its star. Large continents surrounded by equally large oceans define the planet's appearance. Mountain ranges suggest continental drift, and large forests have taken hold over most of the planet. Primitive lifeforms are abundant. There are no obvious signs of advanced lifeforms.
Year 0 after arrival (0 AA): It will be your turn to write History in-game.
The world in 2500
In the century that preceded the Grand Exodus, the Earth’s population had dropped considerably, down to something less than 1 billion people. The “no future” movement had gained a considerable momentum. people were simply trying to tend to their immediate needs; losing any vision for the future or any concern for the consequences of their actions. Natality had dropped to an all-time low, crime had been continuously rising, and nation-states, as we know them, had long disappeared.
The UEF was the last large-scale social structure still holding, among a myriad of medium to small sized city-states. UEF representatives and offices, research centers, production units, etc, were scattered all around the world within the largest city-states. The UEF’s role now extended far beyond its initial goals, including a feared and powerful armed force to maintain order and ensure that the proper funding was collected from all city-states, in order to fuel the Rebirth Program.
A global language shared by all people on the planet started to emerge at the end of the 21st century. By the end of the 22nd century, almost everyone was speaking at least two languages: the global language (the “common”) and their local native language, each city-state having somehow evolved a variant from their original country’s language.
Economy
During the first half of the 21st century, the Internet quickly decentralized the economy, removing intermediaries and frictions. Anyone was able to open their own marketplace online, with powerful central aggregators to help integrate available offers. This was both true of goods and services. This highly distributed model of economy stood the test of time, both during the sentient AI era, and even after, up until the last century.
One of the main challenges of the last century, after the city-states model had become the norm, was logistics. Transporting goods over long distances carried the risk of being attacked by pirate hordes living outside of the city-states. The UEF and other independent security groups were in charge of ensuring protection, but still, the risk made inter-city trade dangerous, and local markets were the preferred method for basic commerce.
A global currency, the [U2] [(Universal Unit)], is installed by the UEF at the beginning of the 22nd century. It has acquired a growing support over the years and is still used as a reference currency on Alioth to help organize the exchanges of goods and services between colonists.
Culture & Society
At the moment of the Grand Exodus, humanity, and more precisely the UEF, was divided into four main political movements, essentially different from each other in the way they decided to answer one simple fundamental question: what is the main driving force in the development of humanity? Behind this question lies the promise of a political agenda on how to best rebuild civilization after the Grand Exodus and where to put priorities.
The [Luminous] are the first group. They consider the main driving force to be knowledge and wisdom. They value science, industry, and technology as the main sources of progress, and were heavily involved in the Rebirth Program, which led to the construction of the Arkships. They are, of course, very much respected for this even if some may criticize them for their all too rational take on things.
The Alphas are the second group. For them, the main driving force is, well, … force. They believe that people will respond mostly to strength and balance of power. They favor military action as a way to control and orient the evolution of the world in an attempt to avoid chaos and prevent instability. Their intentions are good, but they often fall to scandals involved with their expeditious way of handling subtle situations.
The [Ethereans] constitute the third group. They believe in the power of culture and arts. For them, humanity needs to be driven by dreams, beauty, and ideals before anything else. This is what gives us meaning. They are not against more practical endeavors but like to see these activities as a way to expand and support their vision. They have many supporters but are also often criticized for their lack of pragmatic action.
The [Emporium] is the final group. They believe in the power of money and commerce. They think that this has been the life and blood of human societies for millennia and, even if they will gladly regret it in private, they think this is nevertheless what gets the job done and can really set people in motion. Some point to them as a cause of an ever greater inequality, but they know how to silence critics and make people happy.
None of these movements are inherently good or bad, they all value human life and sincerely want to help drive humanity to success again.
Science & Technology
After the early 2400 years, science and technology suddenly advanced very rapidly. Incredible innovation occurred, becoming the foundation of the industrial, societal and economical program of Project Rebirth. Here are some of the most prominent breakthrough:
Nano fields: an expected advance in theoretical physics led to the discovery of a new force in nature, called the nano force due to its scale, that allows the fine control of the molecular dynamics of matter with incredible precision using high-frequency nano fields. Nano fields can be focused and modulated in a very precise way to destructure, collect or deploy and assemble matter in a short range radius. This is the core technology that gave birth to the nanoformer that every colonist is now equipped with.
Calabi-Yau Compactification: the science behind CYC has been inexplicably lost in the Arkship archives. It is the technology that powers nanopacks, which are extra small containers (that colonists wear on their suit), capable of amazing volume and weight reductions of almost anything contained in them. All we know is that it seems to work based on the possibility of storing matter within the extra dimensions of space-time allowed by String Theory, inside what is called the Calabi-Yau space. The exact science and understanding behind them have been lost and attempts at reverse engineering have all failed. Due to the limited number of Nanopacks available and their considerable value, further attempts to reverse engineer them are discouraged.
Nano fields displacement: this is a direct application of nano fields, used to collect, store and maintain matter within containers. The matter constituting objects is analyzed and de-structured first then stored using stable nano fields and can then be retrieved later via a reverse process that reconstructs the original object. Unlike with CYC, only limited volume gain can be obtained, and no weight reduction is possible.
Nano 3D printing: based again on the versatile nano fields, advanced 3D printers became possible. They are capable to assemble matter from reservoir sources to build small sized technological parts; from electronic to industrial units. Coupled to the automated assembly, this quickly became the basis of the industrial chain.
Quantum branching: Quantum Branching is at the heart of the Resurrection Node technology and is based on the “Many Worlds Interpretation” of quantum mechanics. At any moment, in particular, when you die violently, several versions of the universe coexist in parallel. Scientists working on EPR pair experiments unexpectedly found a way to instantly switch one universe with another, and in particular to switch the universe where you die with another one where everything would be exactly the same, except that your body position would be inside a Resurrection Node. The amount of matter to switch increases the energy cost of the operation, so RN teleport only the minimal set of mass to get the desired effect, which is... your naked body. A Resurrection Node is paired with your body and cannot be used by somebody else. It will make you virtually immortal, even if natural aging will probably get you out of the loop at some point.
Propulsion Engines: the conquest and exploration of the arrival star system, as well as nearby other stars, is a clear objective of the UEF for each arkship colony. Several engine technologies have been perfected as part of the Rebirth Program to allow for various flight modes, either within the atmosphere or in space. Warp drive technology was near completion and should become available a few years after the arrival, and even stargate instant transport has been sketched as a not too distant possibility but was unfortunately still not available at the time of the Grand Exodus. Warp drive speed is believed to be in the range of 100 times the speed of light, while super warp probes, that could be used to seed stargates, could reach up to 10.000 times the speed of light Making it possible to cross the entire galaxy in just 10 years.
Environment & Alioth
Alioth is a rocky planet orbiting a yellow dwarf star, very similar to the Sun. It has been selected due to its very similar Earth-like environment, including oceans, forests, mountains, and lakes. It has a moderate fauna and flora. The temperature during the day is similar to what can be found on Earth, but nights can be extremely cold.
The planet underground contains all the usual materials needed for basic industry, but more rare resources may have to be later harvested from one of Alioth’s three moons, or even from more distant planets in the system.
The planet day/night cycle is only 5 hours, and its weather pattern is relatively stable. Overall, Alioth is a very life-friendly planet, carefully chosen to facilitate the starting years of colonists.
The Arkship
The Arkships are a marvel of technology. They can host millions of people in cryosleep for extended periods of time. Made out of Kyrium, they can sustain incredible amounts of deceleration or acceleration, and absorb the corresponding crushing forces for whatever stand inside them. The origin of Kyrium is not well documented, and it seems that the material cannot be produced from a known industrial process, but has probably been found during some mining operations within the solar system.
Designed to travel close to the speed of light for extended periods, the Arkship engines are also not part of the colonist UEF documentation and no assembly schema could be found within the archives. There is much debate over why the UEF would intentionally withdraw such potentially useful information.
Each Arkship is controlled by a proto-sentient AI that was allowed to be built against the very strong UEF AI ban because it was argued that it would have been to hazardous to let the fate of humanity rest with dumb automatic machinery that would possibly not be able to react to unexpected situations. While being an exception to the AI ban rule, the onboard AI is still however not allowed to take control of any machinery or robot beside the Arkship itself. The Novark AI is called “Aphelia”.
Once on approach to the destination planet, the Arkship is designed to literally “plant” itself into the planet, to allow the deployment of deep geothermal energy collectors that should sustain the ship functions for potentially unlimited amounts of time. One of the key functions of the ship once arrived, is to deploy a 20km radius safe zone area where colonist would be free from any form of aggression from the outside, or… from themselves. It was indeed decided that the potentially violent nature of mankind under stressful situations should be mitigated with appropriate supervision. Within the safe zone, Aphelia is in charge of maintaining order and providing support and information to colonists.
Regrettably, one known consequence of prolonged cryosleep periods is that the subject will suffer from a loss of episodic memory, as well as most high-level cognitive memory like expertise, skills or know-how. To mitigate this side-effect, the Arkship archive contains large data banks that are transferable to colonists via a wireless data transfer process involving brain implants capable of stimulating neural activity. The process is slow and can take days for the most advanced skills, but is an effective way to re-enable lost knowledge for long time space travelers.
The Arkship extreme energy efficiency, designed to allow the ship to travel for millennia, forced trade-offs on what could be embarked in order to minimize the total mass, and of course, human bodies were preferred over any other “mass”. For this reason, and because nano 3D printing would make it possible to easily rebuild them, no ship or industrial machine was included inside the Arkships’ cargo. Humanity would have to rebuild civilization from scratch. A large set of Resurrection Nodes tuned to each registered colonist where however installed inside the Arkship to avoid any loss of precious life once arrived on the destination planet. For these reasons, the inside of the Arkship, besides the propulsion machinery, is mostly occupied by cryosleep pods, as well as Resurrection Nodes.
Alpha Team
While most of the Arkship passengers will wake up after the Arkship landing, a few thousand among them become half awakened between a few years and a few weeks before the arrival: the Alpha Team. While their bodies are still asleep, their brains are awakened and connected to an advanced neural/computer network that immerses them collectively within a virtual reality that is meant to simulate their first steps on the destination planet, for education and testing purposes.
During this simulation, of course, nobody can die (this represents the Alpha phase in-game). They are given easier access to certain resources in order to help them experience various stages of the tasks they will have to face in real life when arrived. The Alpha Team will then be in charge of guiding newcomers and helping to bootstrap the first months of civilization rebuilding on the destination planet.
Mysteries
The cryosleep memory loss side effect and the apparently incomplete archive has given birth to several mysteries for which colonists have developed many “theories”:
Kyrium is an absolute mystery. Nothing is available in the Arkship archives about its nature, how it was found, how to create it or even manipulate it. No colonist have the slightest memory about the Kyrium. If Aphelia is asked for information on Kyrium, the Novark’s AI will just give an elusive answer, explaining its lack of information as memory loss. Obviously, this is not a satisfying answer.
Aphelia is in charge of the Novark and the well-being of all the passengers. She seems as caring as invasive in the private life of the colonists. While she doesn’t seem brutal, hostile or coercive by default, her behavior is perceived as if she monitors every action of each human that has been aboard the Novark. She also seems to avoid disclosing information on some specific topics - at least that’s the feeling of some passengers - despite the fact she always says if she doesn’t give a satisfying answer, it’s because the answer is beyond its capabilities. For these two reasons, many colonists think the AI is not trustworthy. Aphelia seems to have incredible defenses against hacking, far higher than anything the most experienced colonists in hacking have ever seen, reinforcing the feeling that the AI might hide a lot of things.
The Arkship light speed engine is completely undocumented. No schema is available to rebuild one using 3D nano-printing, or by any other means.
There seems to be no trace of the records pointing to the destination of the other Arkships within the galaxy.
1) I do wonder how much of an issue that will be when it comes to the open world nature of the game as well as the single shard system. MMO games that include in-game voice, generally have it "group / squad / by invite only" for a reason, and since you are playing in the first person view here, I don't know if such as system would be possible. Considering the significantly less populated games that don't particularly do this exceptionally well.
2) How many groups / squads / clans will use open coms type system? Heck, even if it's squad only and whatnot - how many people would actually use it in their communities - considering things like having to be in the actual game to use it, lacking various options that third party voip software provides, the ability to have various channels, etc.
3) How much resources would need to be required to be used making a decent voice system? Remember, software like Teamspeak, Ventrillo, Mumble etc. is a standalone software, developed by an entire team on it's own. And it's fair to say that unless as much time, effort and resources is put into an in-game voice system, it's not going to be as well designed and thus have major disadvantages. Which does ask the question of - would it actually be worth it, and what is going to be sacrificed in the end?
4) So basically, I feel that having Arma style system, is a bit of wishful thinking for this model of the game - unless people are willing to compromise on other things. Now if that's not the case, fair enough, it would be a good thing to have. If it doesn't work as well when it comes to voice detection and whatnot as TeamSpeak is for example, I don't see myself or many others using it. If it can be made as good, without sacrificing elsewhere, then great - but I personally would rate it as in list of one of the lowest possible priorities for me, in what I'm looking for in a game such as this.
Pretty sure it's done this way with regards to hard timers in both Eve, and planned to be done here, because unfortunately people don't all "live" in DU, and instead exist in the limitations and constraints of real life. People play all over the world, at different times, in different timezones, and can't drop everything on a whim even if they are instantly somehow notified that their shields are "under attack".
So really, it's more of a mechanic that enables the defenders to have a chance at countering their attackers, and actually provokes a PvP fight - albeit 48 hours later, instead of shooting down shields and taking over bases of each other when the other party is simply not online. Though I'd have to say that I agree with the point that 48 hours doesn't really work in this concept either - as the attackers 12 hours away, simply have to time it to have the shields go 'offline' at 9pm their time, when the defenders are going off to work at 9am theirs. So I don't know what is the best way to go about this either.
What I would like to see, is some way for smaller organisations with much smaller structures to effectively 'hide' their structures better. A small secret outpost with a small shield should be much harder to locate in the first place, than a much larger one, Maybe have a bit of a 'risk and effort vs reward' scenario - whereby a huge organisation with 10'000 people wouldn't be going around blowing up small 10 man bunkers "for the lulz", while it's still viable and profitable for a 50 member organisation to attempt the same feat. Though once again, I don't know how this can be practically achieved in realistic terms.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that once we have the game in alpha, and have a feel of what the world is like and how it works, people may have better ideas how to go about doing this - but until that point, I feel it's really taking stabs in the dark.
I would say in order to command respect, a large organization would let another org know they are going to attack before they actually do it. If they don't, since they are a large organization everyone will see it and know what happened. Lots of other smaller orgs will see that and may wonder if they are next... That large org will become unpopular and probably make enemies just by treating everyone else with arrogance. So in the best interests of the longevity of a large and powerful organization, I think it would be a smart move and we could probably expect to see that. On the other hand, smaller orgs might not care so much about things like that, and indeed they wouldn't really need to.
So yes, I think we could expect to see declarations of war, but more commonly with famously large orgs.
"Yo, Kuritho, should we warn them that we are about to basically destroy everything they own?"
"No, Kefir, that is a horrible idea. They'll just pack-up and go."
"But its nice-"
"This is why you're a janitor, Kefir."
Currently there's not much we can except point fingers. You could also PM the mods, as I did, but that might get tedious. Maybe one day we'll get a report button that is specifically only for if the org broke the naming rules. (No salty reports if one of their members made you explode.)
Here are a few details that I would like to see as options but seem to be rare in scifi games:
Transparent visors. Too many games make facial customization irrelevant as soon as you put on a helmet.
Pockets. Whether you're an engineer, a soldier, an explorer or a miner you're going to need a place to store some gear to keep at the ready but this is something I very rarely see in scifi armor/outfit designs. The nanoformer backpack is nice for bulk storage but I would still want to keep some duct tape, a leatherman and some spare ammo where I can get to them real quick without using my backpack.
Safety tether harness. Even if safety tethers aren't actually used in the game it would be nice to at least imply their existence in the universe with a line attach point and leg harness. It would also come in handy for grappling hooks, rock climbing and re-creating that tether trick Holden pulled with Naomi in The Expanse.
Emergency O2 hose and attachment point. It could be interesting as a functional piece, just in case you or your buddy has a problem with an O2 supply. (You did bring a buddy on that EVA... right?) If not functional it would still be nice to see as a cosmetic detail.
Custom decals. Ideally I would like to display two of them, one to represent my organization and one for me. Of course I would also slap both logos on my constructs.
Name tag. Any organization that has lots of people working in space will probably want to put fairly large name tags on their suits.
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