Scott1sh

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

I've been offline for a while and moved to another planet due to all the Org players quitting the game.  I want to come back but was waiting for a lot of the issues to be addressed and improvements to be implemented.  Am I right in thinking then that that actual weeks of work mining and constructing these bases on territories will firstly empty my bank account with tax then make all my buildings and equipment available for looting?

This is the first thing about this game that has truly put me off coming back if I lose all the hard work and innovation I put into this game.  I have stored 1000's of voxels ready to come back and complete a range of ships and buildings semi complete.

If this tax system is limited to Orgs then fine, but if you are forcing players to play your game or lose everything then this isn't a tactic I'm comfortable with.

1M a week?? Welp. Shouldnt have bothered renewing my sub. Completely killed the game for solo players. Thanks NQ.

This week we will be making some visible changes across the community areas of Dual Universe. While this is primarily affecting our forums, some changes to the community in general are included: 
 
Forum restructuring and clean up EULA and Code of Conduct updates Additional improvements on the way Enforcement
Bored Boards:
The forums will be getting an overhaul over the next couple of weeks including the reduction and closure of some of the less active forum areas as well as an amalgamation of some of the remaining ones. This should help new and returning members of the community find the information they seek more quickly. We will be relocating some rarely-used sections into a read- only archive. 
 
In addition, we will be cleaning up the sea of pinned posts. We may have developed a pinning addiction in the past, we’re ready to move on from that now. 
 
We realize changing a community layout can feel overwhelming and chaotic, we are hoping to reduce the clutter and make it easier to get what you’re looking for faster! This isn’t the only plan we’re working on, but more on that later.
 
We will also be reopening the moderator application in the coming weeks. If you’ve ever wanted to get your mod on, this will be the time to apply. 
 
The Legal Stuff (EULA and Code of Conduct):
We have updated sections of the EULA and Code of Conduct to make it clear that we will not tolerate real money trading (RMT) within Dual Universe. Please take a few moments to review the changes.
 
Idea Box (forum):
We know there have been some recent concerns specific to this forum and we would like to address them. 
 
First up, and most importantly, we want to thank everyone who has posted in the Idea Box. You have provided our team with hours of entertainment, amazing suggestions and wonderful creativity; however, we have heard a rising number of complaints about not seeing those ideas manifest within the game. We assure you that every idea is read, but not every idea can be implemented. And remember that game development takes time. A lot of time.
 
Because we have so many ideas coming at us from the Idea Box, the UpVote page and more, we would like to remind and reassure you that our team is currently focused on the existing game plan and updating it to make sure that the performance is solid and that the game is fun to play. As we’ve said in recent blogs, you may not see a lot of obvious changes frequently, but we are hard at work behind the scenes.
 
We are going to restrict the Idea Box for the immediate future to feedback regarding the existing game loops and elements only. This is not to say we won’t look outside of that, but at this time we have a backlog of content and ideas and need to focus on the existing mechanics. Once we've cleared the backlog, we'll be in a better position to consider suggestions.

Enforcement:
Now that the adaptation period of post-alpha and post-NDA lift is behind us, we are going to put more emphasis on the enforcement of our policies and tighten the consequences for people violating them. We are doing that in the spirit of continuing to build a welcoming and tolerant community of players.
 
Until then, thank you for your patience and patronage.

 

Space can be lonely, and, if some adages are to be believed, no one can hear you scream out there. You may want to bring along some friends, maybe not so much for the screaming but for sharing fuel and good times. That’s where docking and boarding comes in. 
 
Previously referred to with the blanket term “parenting”, breaking them off as boarding and docking clarifies what they are and what they do. Just as the name implies, boarding allows passengers to come aboard your ship. Docking makes it possible to have ships connected to other ships, even when both are moving. This boarding/docking relationship basically has the same functionality and behaviour as before but with the added benefit of rights management.
 
In its original design, boarding or docking a construct was not consensual. Neither the player who owned the construct being boarded/docked nor the player whose construct was being attached to another could decline. They may not have even been aware it had happened in some cases, it simply occurred due to their proximity. 
 
This was a problem for a few reasons, most notably that it opened the door for bugs and exploits. In addition to negating those, revisiting the feature also gives us the opportunity to make it more intuitive and purposeful. 
 
ASSIGNING RIGHTS
Owners can use the Rights & Duties Management System (RDMS) to assign Right to Board or Right to Dock to their constructs that will let others board or dock, or to forbid such requests. 
 
Dynamic constructs have the ability to move, as opposed to static constructs - like buildings - that are immobile. With the necessary rights, avatars will be able to board dynamic constructs, and smaller dynamic constructs (let’s call them shuttles) will be able to dock with bigger ones (aka carriers). When boarded or docked, the player or the shuttle moves with the carrier, and their mass is added to the carrier’s physics. 
 
A player or a shuttle will need to be near the carrier in order to board or dock, it can’t be done from a distance. The distance is commiserate with the size of the target vessel, the minimum distance being 32m and 128m being the maximum. 
 
BOARDING
Players are able to board any inactive dynamic construct. This makes it possible for them to tour constructs on display in a marketplace or the like. The construct will go into the “active” state when the owner or someone else with piloting rights jumps into the driver’s seat, and unauthorized passengers will be automatically ejected.
 
If a player enters a dynamic construct with the proper rights or when the construct is inactive, they will become boarded and can move freely around the construct. 
 
The UI display may look something like this: 

This is a sample of the UI that is still in progress 
 
If the construct is active and the player attempting to board does not have the necessary right to board, they will be repulsed. The effect is similar to hitting an impassable barrier with no damage taken. The UI display may look something like this:

 
DOCKING
Once shuttle pilots with the necessary rights are within range, they can manually dock to a carrier. This is done through a contextual menu that is accessed via right-click. The shuttle will then be invisibly tethered to the exterior of the carrier. 

 
Without that clearance, the shuttle will be repulsed.

 
Authorized shuttle pilots will receive an opt-in confirmation to signal when they are within docking range. 

 
The “Docking” widget in the piloting UI informs the pilot of the shuttle when they are in docking range through this small open chain link icon.
 

This is a sample of the UI report to show a shuttle’s docking status.
 
PARENTING ADVICE
The owner of the carrier is considered the parent, and those who are granted boarding or docking rights are children.   
Just as real-world moms and dads, construct owners can give their “kids” the old heave-ho when it’s time for them to leave the nest and fly solo. This is done in a Build Helper’s submenu where all boarded players and docked shuttles are listed.
 

 
Buh-bye! Boarded avatars can be ejected at any time directly through the carrier’s Build Helper interface. 
 
This results in ejected players suddenly finding themselves adrift, possibly in deep space. Here, they have two options. Jetpack to a safe place. Depending on the distance, this could take quite a while; however, it’s safe (they can’t be attacked) and they will arrive with the inventory in their nanopack. The second option, suicide, will get them on terra firma faster, but they will lose whatever they were carrying. Probably a good idea to stay on the good side of the carrier captain to avoid being in this predicament. 
 

 
With a few simple clicks, the carrier pilot can easily de-dock shuttles, too. 
 

 
TAKE IT FOR A SPIN
These changes will be featured in an upcoming release on the public test server (PTS). We highly encourage our community to explore it when it’s available, then let us know what you think about the ease of use and convenience. Until then, feel free to join the discussion on our forums.
 

Despite our recent efforts to expand and clear out Market 6, we are still getting reports about performance and clutter. We want to assure our players that we understand your frustration and are still working to find better permanent solutions. 
 
Meanwhile, we will be addressing clutter across Alioth this weekend. Our plan is as follows:
Dynamic constructs that have not had direct interaction with their owner over a set duration (currently 30 days*) will be hidden.  Constructs at the market that violate our rules,  Code of Conduct and EULA will be removed.
If your construct is hidden, you can unhide (recover) it by using the Fetch tool. To do this, right-click on it in the Construct list on your Map screen. Any constructs that you own, whether visible or hidden, will appear on this list.
 
Fetch functionality now works for organization-owned constructs as well. For hidden constructs that belong to your organization, your legates can retrieve them via that same functionality. 
 
Our customer support team is at the ready if you still need assistance recovering your constructs. Simply ping our Live Support staff in the in-game help chat with “@GM” or file a ticket on our support page and we will dispatch help right away!
 
Please note that this is intended only as a temporary measure to aid performance and improve your experience when visiting these areas. 
 
We look forward to seeing the results from these changes over the weekend.
 
May your frames be plenty.
 
 
*Duration may change based on our findings 

PART THREE: FINDING THE FUN 
 
In this third and final segment of this series, we’ll take a look at Dual Universe gameplay and how we’re aiming to improve it. There’s a delicate balance to strike between staying as true as we can to the original vision, making smart design and production choices, taking players’ feedback into consideration, and creating more opportunities for community engagement. The game needs to be challenging but, most of all, fun. It can be a tall order sometimes, but not an impossible goal. 
 
This is far from being a comprehensive list of everything we’re working on, but we think it’s a good starting point for sparking conversation with the community. You’ll also notice that we have intentionally stayed away from precise timeframes. We would rather stay flexible and give ourselves the opportunity to revise our plans based on the feedback of players. 
 
Now, let’s get to the good stuff!
 

BREAKING THE MONOTONY 

Even if the main pillars of the game aren’t quite finished yet, the launch of the beta allowed us to see how the various systems work together, how fun they are, and what actually works or sometimes doesn’t.
 
Analyzing data on player behavior and reading the copious amount of feedback we receive (thanks for that!) have pointed to two main objectives we’ll be addressing in the coming months (in addition to continuing to fix bugs and balancing issues). These are: 
 
First, emend gameplay loops that are tedious for some players. We call it “fixing the player routine”, so that playing DU doesn’t feel like “going to work”. Up the stakes, adding meaningful opportunities for conflict so that the in-game economy, social components, and building aspects come together. 
  Some elements of gameplay are more fun than others in Dual Universe. Mining can often be seen as a must-do for many new players, and because it is perceived as mandatory it can rapidly feel tedious. Earning quanta is fundamental. When we launched beta, it seemed like mining was almost the only way to get money, especially for new players who didn’t have much in the way of resources or allies. 
 
To make it more interesting with a real sense of progression over time, here is the high-level plan:
 
Make it easier for newcomers to gather resources from the surface of planets without the need to dig; Then, transition players to deploying mining units once they’ve claimed a territory. Mining units will supply a steady stream of ore, depending on the specifics of the tiles the player has claimed. These mining units come in tiers and should add a sense of progression even to early mining. There will also be a production optimization gameplay if you want to use several mining units. For players who want to specialize in mining, we will introduce asteroid mining. Think of asteroids as epic mining with high reward potential. Asteroids will be spawned in the universe. Players will be able to scan clues in space to discover where they’re located. Some asteroids will contain not just regular ores, but also rare and valuable ones. Once discovered, there will be a delay before their location is broadcast to all players. This is an opportunity for explorers who find these asteroids to reap their resources first or monetize their location. The control of valuable asteroids will also create opportunities for combat, information trading, and collaboration between players. Please also note there will be asteroids in safe zones with lower-value ores.
  THE QUEST FOR QUANTA   
Another way for players to earn quanta is the previously-announced Mission System, coming in version 0.25. It will include two components: a job board to facilitate interactions between players (for example, “I need gold delivered to this location”), as well as a secure framework for player- and NQ-created hauling missions. We hope that this will kindle the game’s economy with increased specialization and proper tools for exchanges between players. The upcoming introduction of in-game challenges will also add fun ways for players to earn cash. 
 
On that note, we plan to revise the way the markets work, considering different ways to improve connections and making it less painful to trade for goods. This should make markets more accessible and fluidify trade.
 
We are looking into how we can rebalance the industry. The reaction to changes introduced in 0.23 told us that there is more work needed here. The role of schematics is definitely one of the areas we’re looking at; whatever we do with schematics, we are particularly sensitive to making a fair move for players who have invested in buying them. 
 
Builders haven’t been forgotten. We just delivered new tools for them in 0.24, and we are already working on new ones that should let builders enhance their artistic arsenal to create more amazing constructs. We’re pretty excited about them, but should forewarn you that it may be some time before they appear as higher priority changes will take precedence. 
 
The first-time player experience will get a full overhaul to facilitate the onboarding of new players. We’re doing away with the long monologues from Aphelia and the length of time it took to get into the action. The tutorials will be more contextual, and the experience of new players should get them into the core gameplay faster. As it is now, new players sometimes need to travel long distances to find a tile free of neighbors and suitable for future expansion. The redesign will allow these new pioneers to start with their friends in a location of their choosing in a more streamlined fashion. They will also be able to select an outpost design and receive startup resources. 

STOKING THE PVP FIRES 
We know a lot of players want to hear about PvP. Once we’ve fixed the main gameplay loops, this will be the next thing we’ll tackle. Our goal is for space warfare to be one of the driving forces of the emergent gameplay, fueling the economy of the game, including for players who don’t want to directly partake in combat but might want to provide ships, ammunition, and services for those who do. 
 
While there are PVPers who are in it for the thrill of the pirate’s life, there are others who aren’t pirates so much as protectors who enjoy defender-type PVP scenarios. In its current state, PVP can be seen as gratuitous, devoid of reasons to fight beyond pillaging a bested ship’s cargo. The current PvP mechanics will be modified with the addition of construct shields and a rebalancing of weapons, among other things, as well as introducing territory control in space and, later, on planets. Controlling space territories will give players benefits such as the ability to acquire highly-lucrative space resources (i.e. rare gas, singularities) and a worthwhile reason for organizations and solo players to fight. Not only that, but you’ll be waging war in style with an array of new, unique cannons and skins. 
 
GLITZIER GRAPHICS
Admittedly, graphics improvements have been on the back burner for a while in favor of building the main gameplay systems. Upgrading the visual immersion has now taken a more prominent position in our priorities, the goal being to give more “life” to Dual Universe. 
 
This ongoing process began in 0.24 when we overhauled many of the assets used in world generation (i.e. trees, rocks, ground textures, etc.) We’ve also undertaken a big push on visual effects, with a slew of new and improved visual effects planned for gradual release in the near future. Continuing our efforts with the recent addition of new voxel textures for builders, we will freshen up many older elements in the game to bring coherence between older and newer assets, as well as between voxels and assets.
 
We are also investigating longer-term visual improvements. For some time, we’ve been working on prototypes for a new planet generation technology to make sure that our planets are interesting to explore. Before we can roll this out, we will be doing an overall pass on the existing planets, like Jago, with improved terrain and more varied environment assets. There is also a project to improve lighting with the inclusion of global illumination.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Again, please remember that all these changes will be tested first on the public test server. The final versions of these features may vary depending on your feedback and our own thought  processes. In terms of timing, most of the “player routine” fixes are planned to be gradually introduced before the end of the summer while the space warfare and PvP revamp should begin rolling out sometime after.
 
As you hopefully see, a lot of these changes are based on your feedback and a more grounded, pragmatic approach to game design. We realize that many of these topics require additional explanations and that they will probably trigger more questions. We will answer them in due time, as we’re able, in future devblogs. Until then, we look forward to hearing your thoughts in this discussion thread. See you there! 
 

Hello Noveans!

Currently, screen unit content is an HTML page. We synchronize screen unit content between players by sending the whole HTML; however, screen unit HTML content can be pretty big and uses a lot of bandwidth and frame time to render when updated every frame by a programming board or control unit. This has a significant impact on client performance for players, especially when a lot of screen units are in the same area. 
Performance improvement is of paramount importance to us and an ongoing request we get from players. Consequently, it is something we will continually work to achieve. 
 
To address this, we are bringing a possible solution to PTS so that players can try it out. This prototype involves using a new API to draw screen units with a dedicated Lua script. This will use simple drawing commands like
drawRectangle(a,b,c,d) drawText(“Hello DU”) Simple actions like setTextContent will not be affected. 

In addition to performance improvements, this new tech also allows for some unprecedented possibilities to create even better screen displays than before. Check out this video to get a taste of what it can do! 
 

We realize that this change will mean that players won’t be able to use SVGs on screens anymore, and that SVGs are easier and more flexible than uploading static images. It’s important to note that the new Lua system will still allow you to draw complex images. You don't really need any Lua knowledge, and it’s easier than the DPU system.

Additionally, we added an option to deactivate HTML screen units for players who experience the worse framerate. We expect this to bring significant performance improvements in markets and parking areas.
Once the change is fine-tuned, thanks to your feedback after trying it on the PTS, we will announce a transition period to allow players time to switch over to the new API before we disable support for HTML-based screen units. We will continue to support both techs during this transition period.

We strongly encourage everyone to check out this change when it’s available on PTS and share your constructive feedback with us on the forum. 
 

The Upvote page was created as a convenient way for the Dual Universe community to submit their suggestions for features and changes they thought would be the most useful. 
 
In order to better process the existing Upvote recommendations, we’re going to temporarily suspend the addition of new suggestions. Instead, we’d like to ask the community to vote on the ones that are already listed. 
 
You can use the “Search” feature to seek out the topics that you are most interested in and then cast your vote to bring those to the forefront. This will help us better gauge suggestions that are of the utmost importance to our community. 
 
As always, thank you for your input and support. Together, we can make DU the best it can be. 
 
Vote Now.

Hello again Noveans,
 
While this year may be winding down, the Dual Universe team is winding up for all the great things players can look forward to 2021.
 
 In this video, Creative Director J.C. Baillie highlights a number of upcoming features and improvements that will take DU to the next level, including: 
 
Beautiful graphics enhancements A mission system that will create more emergent gameplay Wallets for organizations let you share (and protect) your organization’s financial assets Territory warfare to entice more gritty player-versus-player action  
Watch now to hear more about all of this and much, much more! ❤️
 

 

The points will be applied after a brief downtime starting at 9 am UTC | 4 am EST on December 17th.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Hello Noveans,
 
December is halfway over, meaning the arrival of the new year is tantalizingly close! 2021 is sure to usher in some big changes, and we couldn’t be more excited to experience those with you. ?
 
While we were rolling out 0.23.1, we noticed that players who had talents in training lost what was accumulated during our downtime. So, in the spirit of bringing out the old and ringing in the new we would like to offer everyone 1 million talent points (~1 week’s worth) to not only replace lost points, but also as a bit of a holiday gift! Build, explore and be merry!
 
Thank you for your continued support. We sincerely hope that you and yours enjoy a restful holiday season!

Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 

0.23 and What We Learned

In reading through the reactions from our community regarding the recent 0.23 update, we’ve gained some valuable insights. 

Before we talk about the changes we’ll make in our processes going forward, let’s get back to the fundamental reason behind the update itself. What we did in 0.23 is at the heart of the vision for a game where a society of players is interacting directly or indirectly with each other through an elaborate network of exchanges, cooperation, competition and markets.
 
As it was, the current state of the game consisted mostly of isolated islands of players playing in almost full autonomy. A single-player game where players happened to share the same game world but with little interactions.
 
It’s hard to imagine how the appeal could last for more than several months for most players once they feel they have “finished” the game. It is also a missed opportunity to try something of larger proportion, a society of players growing in a fully persistent virtual world. For this to work, you need more than isolated gameplay. Players need to have viable reasons to interact and need each other.
 
In many single-player space games, you have ways to make money, and the game then offers you ways to convert this money into whatever you need in the game to progress, mostly via markets. This is the state in which we should end up for Dual Universe once all the necessary ingredients are in place, You get into the game, you farm a bit of money in fun ways, and you buy more and more powerful ships, equipment, weapons, etc., to help your character grow. The difference is that here, the ships or equipment you buy have been made by other players, instead of the game company. On the surface and during the first hours of gameplay, to a new player it would look similar to any of those other space games, but it would in fact reveal itself to be much deeper once you spend a bit of time in the game. Everything you would do would be part of another player’s or organization’s plan, everything would have a meaning. And soon you would realize that you too could be part of the content creation and, somehow, drive the game in the direction you want.
 
In its current beta stage, DU doesn’t have enough ways for people to make money because we haven’t yet had the opportunity to implement all of the necessary features. There’s mining, of course. Trading is not as good as it will eventually be because markets are not really used to their full potential. As a consequence, players rightfully turned to a solo or small org autonomous game mode. 
 
We tried to nudge people out of this with the changes introduced in 0.23. While necessary, many players expressed that the changes of 0.23 came too soon because it lacked a variety of lucrative ways for people to make money outside of mining.

What We’ll Do Now
 
The vision expressed above still holds. We want people to consider going through the industry specialization only if they intend to become industrialists and not necessarily to sustain their individual needs; however, we understand that it’s too soon to press for intense specialized gameplay considering the lack of sources to earn money. 
 
Here’s our plan for now. We will modify the formula of the schematic prices to make it considerably more affordable for Tier 1 and still challenging and worth a commitment but less intense for anything Tier 2 or above. 
 
This will allow most factories focused on T1 to resume their activities rapidly while keeping an interesting challenge for higher tiers, spawning dedicated industrial facilities aiming at producing to sell on the markets. We will also reimburse players who have bought high-priced schematics since the launch of 0.23 (please give us some time since it may take a few days as we go through the logs).
 
We will keep monitoring the price of schematics to see if it makes sense to increase or decrease the costs. The right approach to set such a price would be to evaluate how much time it takes to recoup your investment by selling the products that the schematics allow to produce. It should be a few months so that the investment is a real commitment and it makes sense to plan for it.  We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. 
 
Feedback and Testing

The release of 0.23 also taught us that we need improved ways to test new features, both internally and with community participation. The Upvote feature on the website was a good start, but it’s not enough. 
 
To address this, we have two courses of action that will be taken. The first will be to set up an open public test server, hopefully with shorter release cycles, for players to try out new features. This will also allow us to explore ideas and be more iterative. If all goes according to plan, this test server should be introduced for 0.24, the next release. It will mirror the content of the production server with regular updates to sync it. 
 
The second important initiative is to revise the role of the Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV), getting them more involved in early discussions about new features and the evolution of the game. We are still defining the framework, so more information will be released as available. 

What is to Come
 
In the short term, we will push a few corrections to improve 0.23, which include:
 
Ships will now stop (be frozen) when their core is destroyed in PvP, making them easier to catch. Element destruction will impact the restoration count only when it occurs through PvP, at least for now (not when the ship is colliding/falling as we want to avoid having players penalized simply for crashing their ships because they’re learning how to maneuver them, for example). Recycling of un-restorable elements through a recycler that will take an element as input and grant a small amount of the schematics required components as output.
The next major release is already in the making and will be about the mission system, a first step toward giving players more fun ways to earn quantas. We will reveal about it shortly so that we can get as much feedback as possible.
 
We also want to reassure you that the mission system is not the only answer to offering more varied ways to earn revenue in Dual Universe. Things like asteroid mining and mining units will be introduced in the next few months. 

This list is by no means complete, but should be a good jumping off point that gives players reasons to fight and to explore, opportunities for pirates, new ways of making money, and a plethora of other activities our creative community will think of even if we didn’t. 

That’s it for now! We want to thank you again for your support and patience as we progress along this beta road! See you soon in Dual Universe!

Want to discuss this announcement? Visit the thread linked below:
 
 

We will need a renewable source of ore if elements are destroyed. We need to fix bugs before adding more features / annoyances to the game. The number 1 reason I crash is because of bugs. Have fun guys!

Damage should only be perma if it is via weapon fire.

Naunet running by with a quick edit for clarity: Element Destruction will be applied to all damages sustained, both in and outside of PvP battles.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Draw your weapons and get ready to shoot first! In today’s Dual Universe Dev Blog we will discuss an upcoming PvP feature: Element Destruction.
 
In its current iteration, the feature works rather simply. Once destroyed, an Element can be restored indefinitely. There is currently no way for a crafted Element to disappear from the game unless it’s done intentionally. This poses a problem in the dynamics of the economy. In the real world, most purchased goods will inevitably need to be replaced. This helps to fuel the economy by creating a steady demand of goods. And, as in the real world, Dual Universe relies on a strong supply and demand chain for its economy to thrive. 
 
To facilitate this, we’re making some changes to Elements that will not only give them value as a commodity on the Market but also add some exciting layers of strategy in how they are manufactured and used by discerning pilots who won’t settle for anything less than the best on their prized ships. 
 
Let’s take a closer look at the incoming changes.  
 
ELEMENTS DESTRUCTION
 
When an Element on your ship is damaged in combat, can go next to it and repair it using scrap. If destroyed, you can also restore it completely. The change we’re making will limit the number of times an Elements can be restored, i.e. three times for an Engine and five times for a Container. Once an Element has hit its maximum amount of restores, it is Destroyed and can’t be repaired anymore.
 
This will be less brutal than an immediate destruction, allowing you to manage a critical situation during combat, yet give you the opportunity to plan for a long-term replacement strategy as your restore counter is approaching the limit. Getting low on the restore counter for an engine? Swap it for a brand-new one at the next station. 
 
An Element which has been restored once or more will be allowed to be brought back into a player’s inventory, but  please keep the following points in mind:
This Element will be marked as a Modified Element. As such, it cannot be sold on Markets or used in Blueprints This Element can be bartered. Unlike certain other modified elements, the restoration count cannot be reset. The number of times an Element can be repaired depends solely on the nature of the Element.  
Note that this is a first step. We may introduce other forms of degradation in the future, possibly impacting Element performance. Another important thing to note is that when an Element of type “Container” is fully destroyed, everything it contains is destroyed as well. This includes all types of fuel and ammo. 
 
Tier 2+ Elements and Industry Units
To push this logic even further, we introduced the idea of a new class of elements with better stats, by extending some existing elements with variants into higher tiers. This will impact Engines, Weapons and Radars to start with, and we will also make a push for Containers and Control Units a bit later. 
 
In any real world industry, you have room for producers specializing in high-end products with better returns, or low-end products with higher volumes. This is what the addition of Tier 2+ Elements will bring to the table. We envision a future where Tier 2-5 engines will become the norm for performance-savvy players because of their better stats while Tier 1 will remain a commodity that is basically good enough for most players who don’t care about the stat boost. This adds variation to the gameplay and will certainly be a factor in PvP and efficiency-oriented logistic operations. 
 
Note that only Tier 2 Industry Units will be able to produce Tier 2 Elements, the same for Tier 3 and so forth. Industry Units of higher tiers will be considerably more expensive to produce and/or buy.
 
Element perma-destruction
A deployed Element that has been destroyed cannot be brought into the inventory. This Element is totally non-functional and can only be deleted or Replaced. 
 
When Replacing an element, all custom properties and settings are maintained. This action will consume an Element of the same type in the player’s active inventory, as it would do with an Element that was deployed standard. Of course, we will introduce a proper tool to replace your Elements to prevent the need for reconfiguration when you’re swapping in a fresh new one. This should help to create a healthy level of demand as PVP increasingly heats up across the Universe.  

Weapon limitation by core size, and better hit formula
Speaking of PVP, we want to address some imbalances in general around PvP. 
 
Several things are on the way to address this, some of which might affect your ship designs:
Limitation of weapon sizes based on the core size, no more L weapons strapped onto an XS core unit. Previously, the probability to hit another ship was based on the size of its core. From now on, that probability will use the surface of the ship that's visible from the view of the shooter as defined by the cross-section of the ship from that same point of view. In other words, the surface of the ship exposed to your weapons will matter and generate more damage. That way, building a borg cube will simply not be efficient and will expose you to greater damage risk.  Radar lock range unification: Instead of having each radar lock different core unit sizes at different ranges, every radar will now have a global lock range at which it locks all targets. Smaller radars will now lock at lower ranges, but retain their faster lock times while larger radars will lock slower but at greater distances. Unlike weapons, there will not be any further core-based restrictions on radar placement.  
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts about these changes. We appreciate your support and look to your constructive feedback to help us make Dual Universe the absolute best it can be. 
 


**Edit note: Clarified RESTORE vs REPAIR verbiage

[Updated Nov 19, 2020 @ 3:02 PM EST]: The rules outlined below apply to teleporting both avatars and constructs. This means that, outside of the list of approved scenarios, we won't be able to fetch your ship and bring it to your location. 
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Good day fellow Noveans,
 
I come bearing support-related news! More specifically, I’d like to address teleportation requests with all of you.
 
For a while now, we’ve allowed players in need of a port to say the word on Discord and - voila - your wish would be granted! ✨
That worked well for a time, but our Discord support channel is now beginning to slip under the veritable wave of port requests… and we’d like to rescue it and all those in need of a ‘lift’.
 
As of November 19th, we would like everyone in need of teleport-related assistance to use the in-game chat support, or submit an official support ticket. By using the in-game chat function instead of Discord, you’re likely to receive an answer quicker because our GMs are ready and waiting for you there!

Having said that, we’d also like to inform everyone that we will no longer grant port requests if you’re simply out of fuel, stuck in one of your own constructs, or just generally stranded. All port requests will now be investigated, verified and potentially denied if the request falls outside of approved scenarios.

Some examples of when to ask for a port (approved scenarios):
 
if you’re stuck in an Aphelia construct if you’re trapped in any other player-owned tile (unable to dig) if you’re unable to get past the loading screen upon logging in
  What to do if you’re just stuck/out of fuel/stranded: 
 
Don’t forget: there are plenty of player organizations available to assist in your travels through space! Be sure to check out the organizations and services provided on Discord and our Forums. Some organizations will be happy to provide you with transportation, refueling, repairs, building help and so much more!! ?

How to contact support:

To access in-game chat support, simply click the “support” tab in-game, as depicted below.


 
From here, it’s as easy as typing up your request, starting the message with "@NQ" and sending it off!
 
To submit an official support ticket, please click HERE. ?

Then, select the hyperlinked text that says “submit a request” in the top-right corner of the page. Once you see the screen featured below, select the appropriate category for your issue and go to town!


 
(Quick note for those submitting crash reports: PLEASE do not forget to include a crash log and/or XML logs with your ticket!!)

And there you have it! Let’s all do our part to keep the Discord server free and clear of port requests so that players with big ol’ bugs and other issues to report can receive the visibility they deserve.

~NQ-Naunet

PS - I want to give a special shout-out to all of our support staff for everything they do!! Thank you, all!!