_Durk_

Ever since the devblog about core limits released, I've not wanted to play. I logged in for 2 minutes to take a screenshot of my base and to queue up more core talents. I'm satisfied with the new proposed limits. Before I was going to be maybe 10 cores over the limit and now I'll have breathing room for the future. Other than that, I've been watching the discord chat do it's usual thing, people saying that anyone complaining about core limits are worthless and should just leave the game. People throwing out insults and calling people names. Why on earth would I want to join a group with people like that? Am I supposed to join an org with people like that who I wouldn't trust in my most desperate hour? If they're my only lifeline, I'd rather just call it quits than trust them with even the smallest thing. I wouldn't take a ride from one market to another from somebody who does nothing but insult and berate other people everytime their name pops up in chat. It's been that way for a while, PVPer's calling people carebears for not wanting to fight in PVP space and screaming for territory warfare and safezones to come down so they have something to destroy. People constantly saying they want a wipe to set everyone back to square one and if you speak up against a wipe you're told you're selfish and have mental issues in real life. Maybe some people do have issues in life and they play a game to escape? Now, I have no confidence on what the future looks like. I wouldn't be surprised if a wipe is required and I've wasted my time building things. Some people like to destroy things and that's ok, but they want to destroy everything made by people who don't like PVP and play for a creative outlet. And they're loud and vocal and never stop on their crusade to wipe the game and run off anyone who doesn't think or play like they do. I know not all PVPer's are bad, cruel people, but it's that vocal few that color my entire view of that portion of the game. So now, I can log in and MU calibrate and cut down on core counts and wait for the vertex tool which I've wanted for months, only to constantly have it in the back of my mind that everything will be wiped or some other change will be put in place like territory warfare so that somebody can come and take my solo base just to see me get upset. I won't rant about it happening in discord when the time comes, I'll just slide silently out the side door flipping the bird to everyone as I go. This whole fiasco has ruined my mood around the game and left me with very little confidence that things will work out in the end. Maybe I'm just "too emotional and need some help". I've come to expect overwhelmingly negative feedback from other players so I expect it. For now, I don't have the energy or desire to play the game, just log on and put money in tiles and wait and see if things get better or worse for my desired gameplay style.

I've been going over in my head why I would want to join an organization. A territory treaties system would give players the option to work collectively with other orgs. Org A Org B Org A and Org B are neighbors. They have tiles bordering each other. Both could form a treaty with expectations of them both. Org A offers to pay Org B five million quanta a week and Org B will give Org A 2 cores and some percentage of their ore. Both Orgs receive a bonus based on the total members of each org to the speed of industry machines and the decay rate of mining units. 60 total members gives a 2% reduction in speed. These numbers are just for example and can be adjusted after observation and feedback from the community. Down the road if it's decided member number expectations are too high or low, that value can be altered. It could be a system based on RDMS but with specific options for terms like reduced industry speed, increased MU output, etc. this would encourage players with their own organizations to cooperate with an automated system. Org B knows they will be paid because the box they have stored their ore in will only become accessable to Org A when they've paid that weeks quanta. No trust required so people are less likely to get betrayed. If people do find backhanded ways to mess with their neighbors through treaty violations, that's politics. We already take risks with RDMS. If you pay more quanta for more cores you'd get access to bigger bonuses to industry speed or mining units. This is just an idea, but it's a solution to getting people to work together and still maintain some sense of self sufficiency. Depending on how cooperative the involved players are with one another, they could have more complex and valuable treaties allowing more access and better bonuses. To attempt to avoid people breaking the system, give it time length requirements. People can only collect traded items or cores at the end of a minimum 3 month period. If the treaty is abandoned, the cores given through this system are returned to the donating player, chosen at random. Though I'm sure people will find some way to abuse it and it will require several more safeguards. To spice it up from RDMS, give it a special UI with handshakes, doves, and olive branch icons and call it the Treaties Menu. I'll admit I'm not sure how feasible any of this is, just throwing the idea out there.

I know there's a lot of anger around the proposed limit of core counts for orgs and I see the issue is that people aren't playing realistically. The average player is going to have one account, maybe two. Many people with beta keys used them all to create alts for themselves when they were intended to be given to others to join the game. We all know it happened. People talk about their industry alt or their pvp alt all the time on the discord. Each account they have now gives them 250 org cores, ultimately for one player to control. Add to that the ability to have multiple orgs per player. If people had one org per character and had to pay for multiple accounts, we wouldn't see the extreme amount of cores now in the world with so few players. It's too late to prevent people from using beta-keys for themselves. To combat this, NQ is proposing a massive cutback on the maximum number of cores a character can have in an attempt to control mega players. Just like with taxes trying to drain the wallets of players with billions of credits, this only hurts smaller scale players. People with 5 accounts with maxed out cores are having to scramble to figure out what they can do to get under the new limit, but imagine a solo player with around 55 cores now being told they are both over the limit and cannot make anything else. Do we pack up our entire bases and move to join an org that only wants us for core count? What are we then able to do? Mine for the org and carry cargo? I feel like a start would be to keep the core limits as they are but prevent characters from having multiple orgs. That addresses the players with multiple orgs worth of cores and people with multiple beta-keys will have an org per key. When the game releases they will have to decide at that point if they want to pay for 5 to 10 accounts, but that's far down the road. And undo Auto HQ to remove constructs of players no longer in game. Send out multiple emails warning players of the changes with a head line alerting them that the email isn't just spam about the state of the game. Remove the HQ designation from tiles and start a 30 day timer for people to re-designate HQ tiles. In a month, all of the bases that belong to players who have no intention of returning to the game or keeping track of current events will be salvaged and removed, cutting down on the cores cluttering up the world. As things are now, the threat of cutting down core counts to 25 per org will only ruin the game for several solo players and run them off. That's my opinion of the situation and I'm sure people will pick apart every little bit of it, but I'm still laughing in shock at the devblog so much that I can't get upset by trolls being trollish. If things stay as they are planned now, the game will likely die anyways so no point in getting upset over someone telling me my thoughts don't matter and I'm wrong.

I'm reposting this from the vote page here to make sure my voice is heard. "I'm just absolutely astounded at the proposed core limit. Assuming you have your talents maxed for org constructs, you get 25 plus your 15 personal. I had guessed something like this was coming, but I imagined maybe a 100 core limit for orgs and only one personal org per player. This is just astounding. I really feel like I should be mad, but I'm so burnt out on taking what changes we are given and working around them that I just cannot muster anything other than shocked laughter." It's not my intention to be disrespectful of NQ, though I get that it comes across harsh when said in the heat of emotion. I am disappointed with this idea. I have roughly 50 cores. I can consolidate some cores, put static hallway displays and statues on the static grid. I don't have alts and I only have one org. To be told I'm over max cores immediately is stressful and the immediate reaction to that is to be angry. People would say that the point is to join organizations, but frankly I don't trust people very easily and I'm not looking to join a group that treats me as a source of ore, or now as a source of core slots, ignoring my priorities in game. There will be people who don't want to play in groups and they shouldn't be excluded or limited in play. I would have been ok with maybe a 100 core total limit. I could easily cut down my core count but I think the proposed limit is far too harsh, if not for myself then for other players who have built larger installations.

I'm just absolutely astounded at the proposed core limit. Assuming you have your talents maxed for org constructs, you get 25 plus your 15 personal. I had guessed something like this was coming, but I imagined maybe a 100 core limit for orgs and only one personal org per player. This is just astounding. I really feel like I should be mad, but I'm so burnt out on taking what changes we are given and working around them that I just cannot muster anything other than shocked laughter.