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Emptiness

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  1. Like
    Emptiness reacted to BonemanJones in A Case Against Elements   
    After completing several ship builds over the past few months and really digging into the voxel editor, I've found that the biggest limiting factor to my creativity has been the checklist of elements that are required for any ship to function.

    The Problem:
    I'll use engines as an example.
    All basic atmospheric engine L's are the exact same size. They all output the same thrust. Same fuel consumption, etc. There is a distinct number of them that I will need on my ship if I want to lift a Container L. But what if I want my ship designed with only one massively powerful engine instead of twelve relatively smaller engines? With the current system of elements that isn't possible.

    Elements as they currently exist occupy the role of function while honeycombs occupy the role of aesthetics/armor. For a pure pve ship, using anything but elements is an active detriment to it's functional performance. For a pvp ship, the meta dictates the optimal style/aesthetic (currently a flying cube). This creates a situation where you aren't really designing a ship so much as designing a socket for each necessary component. Effectively a box with a seat in it strapped to some engines. Actual ship design would necessitate many internal components, not just all-in-one elements to be bolted to the hull.

    Currently ship design (for any type of hauler) requires the entire back end of the vessel to be a wall of engines to maximize thrust.

    The Solution:
    I am suggesting a merging of elements and voxels so that you are able to define the size and shape of your elements. Engines would exist in the form of a voxel, and function as such.

    The same can be done for containers, fuel tanks, doors, windows, ailerons, brakes, etc.

    How would voxel based elements work?
    Another game with this build system is Avorion, which fits into the space simulation builder genre (you can look up speed builds on YouTube to get a good idea for how the builder works). You can define an area to function as your engines. With this system you could have the exact same engine footprint. The same weight, thrust, fuel consumption, etc. However, you are now free to style the back end of the ship around one engine instead of many because it's shape and orientation are different. Using my masterful skills of paint I've illustrated a comparison of how things are now versus what I'm suggesting.

    These two ships would have identical weight, thrust, fuel consumption etc. because they have the same volume of engines, just spread differently.
    Voxel based elements would be manufactured just like elements are currently, but instead of outputting a singular object, it would output a volume of voxels, much like the honeycomb refinery does. One voxel of engine would have a set amount of thrust. A voxel of container, a set capacity etc. The larger the element, the more capacity/thrust/fuel/weight...

    What exactly is gained from this?
    Most of the benefit of this is aesthetic, but there is some importance to that. Have you guys seen the Facebook ads and YouTube trailers for DU? Most of them are featuring interesting looking ships to showcase what can be done in the game. The reality is that the markets are littered with ships that are nothing more than engines strapped to a container with a stack of wings. There is a distinct "sameness" to most of the ships I see and it's because I'm staring at the exact same engines and wings and hovers on every one of them. I believe this damages the atmosphere of the game, especially for new players looking to see all sorts of cool ships, or build them, and then end up having to meet the same "checklist" of parts and being restricted.

    Additionally though, you would be able to make better use of space within a ship. Containers could be long and thin for a specific type of ship or more square to fit where they need to. Most of an engine could be internal so it is longer instead of wider. Larger drive cores could offer reduced cooldowns.

    I'd like to hear some of your feedback. Bad idea, good? Waste of time? Let me know!
  2. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from BonemanJones in let the whole world know about this game   
    It ain't ready for that. It'd get review bombed so hard that records would be broken.
  3. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Underhook in Let's talk DU events   
    I like them. Add:
    (6) For industry players. Mission requires Industrialist: Character must have at least x skill points in Crafting skills.
    (7) For miners. Mission requires Mining: Character must have at least x skill points in Mining skills.
    (8) For athletes. Mission requires Parkour. Character must have at least x skill points in Avatar skills.
  4. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from XKentX in Patch day expectations   
    Would be rather funny if some random logged in on a market and all the AGG ships in their sight fell to the ground and exploded.
     
    Honestly, I can't wait. There's probably so many ships lost at varying heights in atmo that will now fall and be more easily salvageable.
  5. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Hiturn in Transfer Units are too expensive for what they are   
    Mass isn't conserved at all right now. It is, in fact, generated from nothing. With max skills, refining hematite, 278.46 kg of hematite ore becomes 406.24 kg of pure iron... even with no skills, 327.6 kg of hematite becomes 353.25 kg of pure iron.
     
    Makes no sense at all.
  6. Like
    Emptiness reacted to le_souriceau in Let's talk DU events   
    I wanted to talk not about any particular, concluded NQ-made events, but more about their overall direction and organization in future.
     
    Can we expect?..
     
    1) Prior anouncement (at least week before start, better - two).
    2) Scheduling on week-end. 
    3) Inclusion of long-term events, where players can meaningfully participate in active stage in duration of several days or even week.
    4) Inclusion of more solo/new players friendly events, where they doing more individual goals, not being clearly pitted against groups of veterans.
     
    What else do people want?
     
    Fire away, we now have CMs that like to read our ideas and feedback ?
     
     
     
     
     
  7. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Deintus in Transfer Units are too expensive for what they are   
    Counterpoint: Factorio has logistic bots, which given a sufficient supply of and power, are basically the magical links of DU. Also, blueprints make mega factories a lot easier.
     
    I would prefer that DU's industry be set up Satisfactory style. It's a nice balance with big factories being possible and big factories also needing time spent to set up.
  8. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from XKentX in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Blah. Anyone else with zero interest in that thing? After the last 'community event' becoming a test of 'who had the most Alpha insider knowledge'...
  9. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Satanah in let the whole world know about this game   
    It ain't ready for that. It'd get review bombed so hard that records would be broken.
  10. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Troikster in Transfer Units are too expensive for what they are   
    I agree that power management won't fix DU Factories, I doubt it will really be an issue and is mainly focussed on ship design anyway. It also goes beyond the limits of this thread, but it bothers me that Industry isn't designed with conservation of energy in mind.  where is the mass going, or where is it coming from in some cases when you create something that has a different mass than your input ingredients? It would be better and more logical if mass would be conserved and we would get a certain amount of waste product and efficiency gains via skills would mean, we get more product and less waste.
     
    Anyway, as for links, I agree a conveyor belt system that physically transports good where they need to go, and take time to get there, would be far superior to magical links where you can only have a certain number of for some reason. Transfer units won't fix magic links. It's more annoying than anything else. If we have the means to build a few dozen/hundred containers and industry elements, Transfer Units won't stop anybody, but for what they do inside the game and in the games own logic, they are too expensive.
  11. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Mordgier in Promises, Promises (referral program and backer pack devaluation)   
    Do you have people you hate so much that you'd refer them in?
     
    Such cruelty....
  12. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Jinxed in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Oh you sweet soul, you!!!
     
    It’s the internet. Some of the most toxic, twisted, sadistic people are more likely to expose that aspect of their personality online and in-game where the worst possible thing that could happen is that they get their accounts closed. The real world equivalent to account closure would be summary execution. 
     
    Given that most people with sociopathic tendencies evaluate the risk-reward scenario thoroughly before engaging, you end up with all the worst murder hobos, changers, griefers, and those challenged in the trouser department descending on these open ended games to do what they want to do IRL but don’t have the balls to. 
     
    or not... who knows. 
  13. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Mordgier in Transfer Units are too expensive for what they are   
    It's a deliberate time sink. The idea was to create a massive time investment in creating a factory and thus create a 'time' value in already produced components. 
     
    This worked for the first few weeks where it made way more sense to just pay more for built elements than to spend weeks waiting for your own production line to build them. 
     
    Yet a month in, everyone who cared enough had their own lag factory that would freeze their pc for 2 minutes straight when they whipped out their link tool and also produced every element they could ever need. So the price of elements fell below the cost of minerals. Oops.
     
    There is a reason Factorio, Satisfactory, Fortress Craft etc all force you to use physical conveyor belts to connect your industry - it's a natural level of complexity that makes mega factories hard to build - but for whatever reason DU decided to use magical links and timesinks. 
     
    Now they want to fix the 'problem' of the fact that everyone has a mega factory - and want to do that with crippling factories with power requirements rather than actually adding more design elements that go beyond "Do I have enough containers and transfers?" - because right now that's what factory building is in DU - building enough containers and transfer units. That's it.
  14. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Mordgier in Transfer Units are too expensive for what they are   
    I admit I last played Factorio back in May 2018 according to Steam - so my memory of bots is rusty - but I know they lagged the shit out of my Bobs an Angels modded base.
     
    I can't imagine DU handling logistic bots - although it'd be neat and sure better than magic links.
  15. Like
    Emptiness reacted to michaelk in If I don't Like it can I get a refund   
    Many trials require a CC to activate -- so that they can sneakily auto-bill as soon as the free time has expired. 
     
    People might have unlimited different emails (thanks gmail aliases), but few have unlimited credit cards or billing addresses. It wouldn't be hard to lock this down to prevent players from abusing a trial.
     
    Also, trial players wouldn't need the same level of persistence.
     
    If you fail to activate billing by the time your trial is up, why persist those assets? Remove them from the game after their trial expires. No abuse, no clutter. If they want to pick up where they left off, activate billing within a certain time or start over.
     
    They already sorely need garbage collection in general. Trials might reduce this clutter by letting people play DU and decide they hate it before littering the world with speeders. 
     
    If the "civilization" is already so toxic and the game so ripe for abuse that new players "must" pay money to make the design work....well, then it really isn't going to be an "MMO", it'll be a niche online game full of toxicity and NQ will have a hell of a time attracting new players. Or is that already where we are? I can't tell sometimes :D 
  16. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Pleione in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Your nature, not mine.  Not a lot of people, excepting mostly  monotheist.  Kill to defend?  Sure, if absolutely necessary.  Kill for food - that is the nature of life.  Kill for fun?  No, not by a longshot.  Sad to be you.
  17. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Pleione in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Can I ask why you assume MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER means PVP?  Lore wise it makes ZERO sense - we just spent ~10,000 years to get to a new solar system and the first and most important thing we do is figure out how to kill each other?
     
    Some of us hope for a better, peaceful, future...
  18. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Warlander in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    In a sandbox game why are they forcing their vision when its supposed to be an organic choice that all players make instead of funneling players into choke points as fodder which will be like shooting fish in a barrel? That is not going to end well when the resources her run out and you cant break into the zone. If they put multi org blockades on these jump gates they will have a solar system exclusively to themselves until we simply just dont have the resources to come through anymore then what happens to 60-75% of the rest of us once all our ships are destroyed and we cant make anymore?
     
    Why is the only route for advancement beyond personal advancement? And NO personal industry does not equal Org industry advancement when a single person can get a large cube fully decked out in a month. Why is there no Org only versions with the same mats for things like frigates, frieghters, corvett, and capital ships through orgs now? That stuff shouldnt require alien tech now. We got here on an Arc ship which should in theory be larger than a mothership you would think.
     
    There is a difference between vision and execution of that vision and the fundamental impact it will have on the overall community. Not trying to brag here but I have been playing MMOs since UO and likely 125+ MMOs overall including most if not all the best pvp games (besides Eve) and I can tell you that if you give the top orgs the keys to the kingdom they will use it to the fullest extent allowed to shut down and shut out everyone else. Not to mention allowing them to mine, stockpile, hoard, and arm themselves for that time. Its going to be a trainwreck when 25% of the population will ever get to see any of that content and further distance themselves with that tech until NQ gives them another solar system to dominate after they have strip mined that too. Sweeeet, what vision.
  19. Like
    Emptiness reacted to Umibozu in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Thats the problem, i have seen in other MMO's what happens when large guilds/orgs control content and deny it for the rest of the community, and it is not a good thing.
    As i said average player is not interested in orgs, politics , pvp to that extent , average player spends a bit of his time playing and wants to chill out , try new things , do bit of mining , build something, do bit of exploring maybe a quest or a mission.
    In-game politics, large org projects are for diehards who spend 6+ hours a day playing, and those will have an obvious advantage , give them ability to control content and the vast majority of population wont be able to leave safe space.
     
    Creators vision and customer expectations have to meet ,  or neither side will benefit. Creator wont have a project to work on and customers wont have a product to enjoy.
     
  20. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from MrBunBun in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    JC seems to not realize how most people have been playing this game with AGGs. That answer really doesn't make much sense.
  21. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Frigidman in DevBlog: Element Destruction - DUscussion thread   
    The entire dev team can't work on the same thing at the same time. Should the artists learn how to program? The modelers learn how to bugfix?
     
    It's natural that new content comes out along with fixes.
     
    And sometimes, the fixes take longer.
  22. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from dizzy@dizzyhigh.com in DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread   
    Are the devs completely out of touch with how people have been playing their game for the past few months? And what's the point of calling it a sandbox if stuff is only supposed to be used in certain ways even if it seems like it could be used in a lot more?
     
    May as well rename DU to "JC's Vision(tm)" and put as the description "Follow JC's Glorious ViSiOn and adhere to rigid rules as you fulfill his WiShEs".
     
    I've had about enough of this nonsense.
  23. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Mordgier in let the whole world know about this game   
    It ain't ready for that. It'd get review bombed so hard that records would be broken.
  24. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Iorail in let the whole world know about this game   
    It ain't ready for that. It'd get review bombed so hard that records would be broken.
  25. Like
    Emptiness got a reaction from Iorail in New Beta?   
    I remember hearing rumors about people getting multiple sanctuary territory units from those pre-public-beta wrecks...
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