Underhook

I have not played since January.
Got an email just now regarding a new code of conduct.
1) Exploiting the game through any game error or bug that gives an unintended advantage.
I'm on board with this one (above). 
2)  Promoting or sharing information regarding exploits, cheating programs, or other activities intended to give players an unfair advantage.
This one, I don't like.
I never exploit and the only way I ever know one exists is by youtubers or forum posters telling me about it.  In many cases this allows me to develop strategies to avoid the glitchers and not be their victim.  As the saying goes "sunlight is the best disinfectant".  I'm sure its not intended but in most games it seems to be the case that glitches go unchecked and the few people who know about them quietly wreck the game for others over a long period of time.  However, it seems that when a prominent youtuber exposes the glitch ........ suddenly the glitch gets fixed and the game developer tells us it had nothing to do with the publicity.  I sure this is not an attempt to silence criticism but it may be the result.
 

Thank you to Haunty above for the contribution.
I have completed my space station so can now answer some of the questions myself in the hopes it assists others.
 
CORE:  Yes, we need a space core and yes the core effects gravity direction.  My suggestion for your 1st station is to ensure the arrow is above the core and that the core is above the planet so that the gravity of the planet matches the gravity of core.  So, then if we build the landing platform between outer space and the planet gravity will assist landing.  So, gravity will pull us down onto the landing pad.
 
What happens to my ship whilst I'm building or placing the core:  A kind soul in support chat told me to log out and back in again so my ship would remain stationary.  Then I placed the core whilst standing on my ship.  Once the core is placed, we can go into build mode so we can move around the build area freely.  My ship stayed in place whilst I built and when I was half done I just used the move tool to place the ship.   Its hard to believe that the Devs planned for us to log out to get the ship to remain stationary.  Somebody in chat said maybe the remote control or emergency control could be used for this purpose (if you want full immersion).
 
ORBIT:  So, the core and therefore the station does not orbit the planet  (you dont even need to place them anywhere near a planet).  Space Stations are stationary objects.  A Space Core behaves just like a Static Core.  I'm telling you this because I originally thought they had to be orbiting a body.  
 
PREPERATION:   Make sure you take a Space Core with you (obviously) and its a good idea if you carry enough materials to build a basic landing pad.  I just used my personal transport (no container) and my suit had enough room for a small core and honeycombe for landing pad.

If we click on the word "market", it will group the markets of each planet together, alternatively we can click on the word "distance" and it will show the planet we are currently on at the top.  Probably not quite what you are asking for but its workable for now.

I haven't received it either.

Generally speaking, if you think this community is toxic you either do not understand the concept, are a troll or have not been around other communities much..
 
IMO obviously.. YMMV

As there is _no_ counter to attacks currently in game, I'd say that suggestion is rather one sided.
"put guns on your ship" is not a counter.
 
With the amount of senseless and pointless pewpew currently in game and the amount of loopholes and borderline exploits giving attackers a massive advantage I'd say NQ needs to bring in proper countermeasures and introduce ways to deal with logged off beacon alts before giving more room to those looking for kills instead of fights
 
I'd say, while NQ proceeds on the PVP overhaul they have announced, why don't you find and engage with like-minded players where you will actually get a risk/reward ratio from combat  PVP..

As far as I can tell, the movement in Elite Dangerous is just as actual (not my word) as it is in DU.  Elite Dangerous is orders of magnitude larger and you can travel at much faster speeds.  The difference as far as I can tell it that Elite renders your 1 ship where as DU renders the many parts of the ship.  

When you say "should automatically collapse"  do you mean because of real world physics or because you dont like them?
If we are talking about real world physics then we probably need to take into account that this game is science fiction.  In reality the ships would not fly, the hovers would not hover, the mined materials wouldnt be transported to our container 1 km away etc.
I do find them a hazard when flying.  Hopefully future optimisations will make them draw in a little sooner.

Nailed it

the Stop auto-renewal is there..... but also not..... 
 
clicking on "my personal account" then "Upgrade Pledge" will take you to the screen where you can buy a sub.
from here, then click on your account name in the upper right and select "My products"
this will make the "Stop auto-renewal" button show up. Going straight to "my products" from the home screen will for some reason not make the button show up.
 
Edit to show screen without stop button in one tab and missing in the other. Bug is now repeatable.  (I pressed the button and it changed to "renew", but, that is the button)
 

 
 
 
 
 

Mass in tons x distance in SU / 4000
 

Nailed it

From what I've seen this past year in DU and from my 30+ years of gaming and 10+ years of game development, I can say that:
 
- NQ is inexperienced with game development and more generally with software development. They're learning both as they go making a lot of mistakes.
- The game is clearly not designed from the ground up to be a game. Like some other projects out there, notability No Man Sky, the starting point wasn't a video game but some cool computer technologies. For DU it was dual contouring voxels combined with classic 3D models (the elements). For NMS it was their adaptive procedural generation system. Usually games are designed the other way around: you plan your gameplay systems and then invent, create or reuse computer technologies to implement these systems. So basically the 'game' aspect of DU is not yet fully designed and finished and they're sill iterating based on what their tech can do it. For short: "we have these cool techs, what game can we make with them ?" instead of "let's make this cool game : which techs do we need to do it ?'.
- the beta is at best an early alpha
- the alpha was a PoC/tech demo
- they clearly don't play their own game, at least not like a normal player would (playing with cheat codes like spawning infinite resources/money or instant travel to anywhere doesn't give you the actual "feeling" a normal player get but rather a distorted one. Designing and iterating the game with that distorted feeling is a very bad thing to do. All seasoned game designers know that. Same for metrics/Excel based game design decisions.
- they don't clearly know what their target audience is.
 
I think at least 2 more years are required to have a real beta. Doing this in the open with paying customers will not be a good journey.
 
 
 
 
 

@Underhook
If the shuttle is built SOLELY for warping cheaply and lightly (only >25 tons of cargo carried preferably on the player) then you should be able to warp virtually everywhere and back for less than 6 warp cells round trip, 40 would be for multiple excursions.  The cost goes up exponentially for adding more honeycomb than you need, heavier materials for looks and every element added past the bare minimum needed to get you and the warp drive off a 1g planet and into the warp capable zone and then land again after warping.
 
My lightest warp shuttle with 2 small containers can make the trip from alioth to madis on 3 warp cells, 5 warp cells with its max carrying capacity of ~60 tons.  I have seen shuttles without any cargo boxes and bare minimum elements/voxels do the trip on 2 cells.  However my MUCH beefier medium cargo container warp shuttle takes at least 5 warp cells for that same trip but can get off Alioth with a bit over half a kiloton of cargo and then warp (for a much higher warp cell cost due to weight).
 
I have heard a container for the warp cells is not even necessary, that if you keep the warp cells in your inventory then it will deduct them from your nanopack.  
 
But what do you want?  To move just you and your handbag?  Or are you planning on going on shopping trips and coming back with a few hundred tons?

If your ship ends up at 100 tons, 40 cells will take you 1600 su. That's plenty.

No, I didnt finish half way through my

Yes Merry Xmas to all the Du players and staff at NQ

Yes Merry Xmas to all the Du players and staff at NQ

There should be some T1 or maybe even T2 asteroids in the safe zone to practice asteroid mining. But large amounts and higher tier ores should be limited to PvP zone.

It is tough on new (especially solo) players.  That said it was really tough on some established solo players.  Imagine you mined, created multiples of every machine put every bit of quanta you made into making your factory bigger and bigger.  0.23 hits and you have a factory that does not work and no quanta.   The stuff that you could sell is now worth 20% of what it was the day before, even then its not selling.  A lot of players were in that position and I think some of them quit.  A lot of them seemed to try and get the schematics to at least get part of their factory going again.  When 0.23 hit, I took one look and said to myself.  Industry is no longer viable for the solo player.  So, I looked for something else to speck into that would be a feasible way to play.  Now that they have reduced the schematic prices, some solo players might be able to eek out an existence but it will be tough.  As I have said in other threads, the game is alpha.  it might be worth having a break and coming back later.  My subscription runs out in Jan, so I'm still thinking about it.

One thing that I noticed since 0.23 is a psychological change to how I view parts of the game. I started a few weeks before the patch, I did not lose a large factory or a big investment. What I lost was an aspect of the game that provided motivation for the other areas of game play. As a new player, designing a factory and building elements for my own ships was fun and provided a challenge. I wanted to mine and discover ores on other planets because it let me build something new. The accessible industry provided motivation to explore and play the game. After the schematic changes it turned mining into a wage labor proposition. I was just raising quanta to buy stuff. It reminds me of a job where your working on an exciting project you're invested in compared to a job your working at just for a paycheck. I'm still enjoying the other aspects of the game, but I have a far greater sense of having to spend some of my time "going to work."

If a wipe is required at all then most likely that would be a time to do it. Especially if they can do working magic blueprints. However it is not the ONLY time a wipe could be needed. There are of course other factors into what may require or prompt a wipe as a better idea then struggleing on.
 
For example i doubt anyone here with common sense would complain much if NQ came out and said for example "we figured out how to fix the code base and heavily optimise the game, however we need to wipe to impliment it due to several under the hood changes being imcompatable with the current save" That would be a situation where a wipe would make sense.
 
Another example of a wipe condition is to implment new features. For example they may tie in several new systems such as mining vehicles or player avatar gear. However said systems would break or be broken by current builds. That is also a wipe condition.
 
Lastly something may corrupt. This is supposidly an entirely new way of running a MMO i.e sharding. Its not at all unlikely they will go to do something eventually that works great in their private test world. But when deployed live makes the game go boom but only after enough time the backups are overwritten and said problem is unfixable.
 
That said i may be against a wipe NOW, but that is only because it makes no sense and serves no real purpose other then to "punish" a group of players who got ahead and in the grand scheme and does otherwise nothing good for the game and only harms it in the long run.
 
Currently as i said before if we wipe now any "fairness" issues are only going to be 10 times worse and most of the players calling for it will be worse off then they were before and those who could care less if BOO flys around in giant L core golden toilets with guns and M aggs or whatever else goes on. The ones they want punished wont care and will take massive advantage of the current lack of content and avalible progression to lock down the game even more.
 
And for those rustys calling for no safe zones. No. There is a reason even your vaunted eve has them. You want pvp and a healthy game then you need the prey to have safe places to hide. If you want them to venture out then you need to have reasons for them to WANT to go out, forcing them to pvp for the sake of pvp just drives them off and puts another cut into the game so it leaks lifeblood faster. 
 
Right now those lures dont exist and with the game the way it is, a "no safe zone" game would fold up wither and die on the vine. This is because you would gate 95% of the content behind months of grind and mandate mega orgs while killing off a huge percentage of the games population as they throw in the hats and leave. Especially as new orgs would have zero chance against established ones who basicly blocade systems.

Currently I am making quanta by picking up schematics and transporting them to places where they are unavailable and selling them.
I have just started an org (partly because I want the cores) to provide emergency services.  Repair, refuel, core delivery, parts deliver, taxi, boosting services etc.
Just have to be a bit creative.  Every time you run into a problem in this game it is a potential job.  For example today, I need more ships but dont have enough cores.  I have decided to decommission my space station over Ion.  But, I need to get my ships back and I'm not sure how I can do it.  Now if somebody was offering a service to either drop me out there or better still, fly my ships back for me.  I'd pay.
If you look at DanelSHE's post above (might be a few above).  There is somebody basically asking for a service.  That player does not want to be going place to place getting schematics, machines etc.  Market pick up service right there.
Actually, just to prove a point.  I paid for a taxi 2 days ago.  Picked me up from my space station over Alioth and dropped me on Madis.  400,000 quanta.

No offence to you, your post is well written.  It just seems to me that everybody is suddenly an expert on economics.  Economics itself is hardly a science and we rarely see economist agree in the real world.  I'm just stating this because what you have said sounds great.  Somebody else (even me) could argue the exact opposite and it would sound great too.  The thing is we are trying to predict the future.  The vast majority of predictions about the future are wrong.

Just another Unicorn Jockey