If you may please, a moment of silence for the fallen in the September 11th attacks…
412, that’s the number of emergency workers who perished that day. Over fourth-fifths of those were firefighters, many of whom rushed into the buildings to escort the able-bodied out and carry the injured. They didn’t know it would be their last day, only that a fellow citizen needed their help, and that they had the tools and training to provide such.
Present in the towers at the time of the attack was Welles Crowther, if you haven’t seen the story of the man with the red bandanna, I’d recommend it.
To all those serving in the role of a first responder, and to everyone that keeps us safe, you have our utmost gratitude as we look back on this harrowing date in American history.
Huh, SAR is orange (others say yellow). I always identified E&E with the coast guard which apparently falls under red. I am conflicted...
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Now, onto DU related things.
26 rescues were performed over the past two weeks, that’s 31 for Beta 1 and 170 overall!
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I could throw in a few stories here, but, for those not in the loop. I’ve given up on working on the current website, the back end design software I’ve used for over two years now has just too many problems and I’ve moved on for my sanity. The additional restrictions that have been thrown in over the past year also didn’t make much sense so I’m out.
Instead of the drag and drop template work I’ve become accustomed to for quick and easy deployment, I’ll be taking a much more fine-grained approach to site design where every element will be hand placed. Just so long as my brain juice flows fast enough, I should have something out later this year, no guarantees though. Most of the content will be recycled but I hope the new deployment will make things feel ‘fresh’. It’s still not pure code, but its more involved than I’m used to.
To make up for the lack of stories, I’ll just be pulling feedback straight from reviews that are submitted.
8/31 - Sophilautia
I ended up stranded on the ground on Sanctuary Moon after my ship spiralled out of control and got stuck in the air on relog while trying to get to another of my ships. I contacted Eyes & Ears and they immediately responded, sending someone to help transport me asap for a very modest fee. I was very pleased with the service! It's great that Dual Universe has emergency services like this available.
9/2 - Malkazaar
I had this amazing idea while was mining at Sanctuary.. lets try my luck on this moon..seems close.. patched up the dragonfly and godspeed... after a while I was staring the Moon4 from my base at Sanctuary in despair.. most of my newbie efforts are crashed up there... In this despair with no real knowledge of the game.. "Deus Ex machina" Eyes & Ears Search & Rescue advertisement on discord.. They do fulfill their services and more! Solidarity!
9/6 - Barneylee
I did not have enough Kergon after a server restart to get back to Alioth - i was about 8 SU out.
Wolfpilot - responded: I did not have to wait long - 45 mins at the most. He kept very good patience amognst all the internal errors/inventory errors/rights of transfer errors etc (we tried everything to get my fuel) - once the servers came back on - i had access to his tanks - took enough to get back - realized vertical boosters needed kergon but i was dry again - Wolf once again came to the rescue.
I paid a total of approx 48K (with a tip on top) I would recommend Wolf to everyone who needs rescue - Thanks again bud!
9/7 - KernelBeep
All around brilliant service, the response was quick, my rescuer (DarkHorizon) was amazing, both patient with the DC's and i even learnt a few things on the journey. Well worth the money, will use again and highly recommended!
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Some more changes hit our discord server since the last update.
We now have a channel (#emergency-role-assignment) where non-members can exchange their ‘Guest’ role for another role designating them as a victim. The ‘Victim’ role grants access to our ticket system for filing emergencies that are privately handled by our dispatchers and disseminated to our rescuers. No longer do you have to venture through our website for a special discord link, just join our discord, swap roles, and file your ticket!
The Victim role restricts access to all guest accessible channels in an attempt to streamline communication and notifications from our discord so that way players only get a notification when our dispatchers have communicated with them inside their ticket. Swapping back to the Guest role hides the ticketing system and restores access to the previously hidden guest channels.
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With the launch of Beta, I mentioned in a previous post that we were switching over from free service during the alpha phase with wipes, to paid service during beta with more or less permanence.
The previous pricing structure was a bit of a hassle since we intended to use a custom Lua script present in each of our ships. This script is designed to log our mileage and gas consumption among the more dynamic trip-based aspect while other things like scrap, elements, and fuel sold, rescuers involved, players rescued, and so forth could be input manually at some point during the trip. Work on this script has progressed and it’s very much barebones, but it hasn’t been deployed, nor to my knowledge has it been tested by anyone in the organization.
After some discussion on the issue of pricing, I decided to simplify things. 6,000 quanta would get you one rescuer dispatched who would bring you whatever resources you needed to get fixed up and rolling again. Since most of the quanta was going towards the purchase of materials and only 6,000 was profit plus whatever tips, this was obviously not going to get us anywhere, but my lowballing was deliberate on this.
After seeing what the team came up with and a bit more discussion, we implemented an improved pricing strategy and put it to work. Now our prices are starting to feel somewhat realistic for the time and effort involved on the part of our rescuers, especially with the current UBI taken into consideration.
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While this is good, I wanted to improve this somehow and while back of the envelope math was suggested, I knew we could do better. With no Lua, I fell back on a previous suggestion of implementing a pricing calculator vis-a-vi google sheets.
It’s still a work in progress but this is what we’re working with. How it works is very simple.
The cost of something, say dispatching a rescuer (10,000) is built into the calculator. Input two rescuers, output 20,000 quanta. Other variables of which are mostly trip-based like transitioning from an atmosphere to space, cargo mass, player transport, and the need to stop (yes it can happen more than once in a rescue) are all factors that can influence the final total. Yes, even our dispatchers have a fee associated with them, they need to be paid too!
All these factors have a set price, a rescuer just needs to add in the variables and presto, a total is provided.
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As a part of an update to the calculator, yesterday I rolled out a similarly basic payroll system. Take the final total, and break it down between dispatch, a 5% service tax, and everything that goes to the rescuers and pilots. Divide the rescuers and pilots portion in half, half goes to the rescuers, half goes to the organization for future expenses.
To tighten things up a smidgen further, I included a variable that would divide the rescuers and pilots portion equally among them all. If only one was involved, they got the whole pool, if three were involved, they’d get three equal shares.
This will probably further evolve over time, but for now, it’s what we’ll work with.
If you’re interested, the calculator is public so feel free to fill in the gray boxes and see how things add up.
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For those of you that are seriously and completely out of the loop as far as Eyes & Ears goes, a bit of bad news. PVP caught up to us quicker than anticipated but this was not something unexpected, it was simply a matter of when it would happen, and it turned out to happen one week after the official Beta launch.
While flying between planets, one of our rescuers got caught with their proverbial headphones on and the music cranked. While the destruction of this member’s ship was disconcerting since the antagonist in question could clearly see ‘RESQ’ in the video that they shared, it did shed light on some necessities and changes that would need to be made should something like this ever happen in the future.
All rescuers are encouraged to have radars equipped to their constructs. While our current constructs are all privately created and run by individual rescuers, official constructs will sport such measures to allow us to identify potential threats from a distance and take steps to evade any hostilities intended on us by a third party.
Secondly, and perhaps most abruptly, all rescuers are required to record their rescues from start to finish. Even if nothing is going on, even if you’re in a safe space, even if you’re stopped at a red light. Outside the game, the police wear body cameras to protect themselves from false accusations, this also protects the public from undue or excessive force by the officer. The mandate to record rescues is in the same vein as the mentioned real-life counterpart.
This has of course the unintended consequence of cutting down our rescue team somewhat as not everyone has a powerful enough computer to both play Dual Universe and record at the same time. While unfortunate, this is a needed measure as this experience has readily proven that even in a virtual universe, being a universal good doesn’t grant you universal protection.
The day after the incident was made public, I had a small showing of support from some members of the community. One organization offered us safe harbor (the second of two in a weeks time) while another offered quick revenge. The latter was immediately turned down, not only does Eyes & Ears not publicly call for revenge, we are more of the mind in letting karma do its thing.
While a public blacklist of players who are barred from our services (we will have a blacklist, public or private is the question) might go against the whole ‘revenge’ thing, that does not mean we will tell people to simply ignore those who find pleasure in attacking the unarmed without provocation.
I know the Fuel Rats experience the same thing in Elite Dangerous, it wasn’t a matter of if, only when. We’ve taken our knocks and learned a few good lessons from it. We appreciate and thank everyone that’s shown their support for us during this bump in the road.
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Previously I had mentioned that two organizations had approached me with interest to host Eyes & Ears bases and outposts. While I do drive a very hard bargain, I’m always open to talking and might even reconsider past rejections with a few remittances on my end. Hit me up in Discord or here on the forums and we’ll discuss.
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That's all for now, until next time, fly safe everyone!
