I know that many folks have already chimed in on the topic of core restrictions, but I'm going to add mine to the mix...NQ-Deckard asked us to comment, so here it goes.
I'm new to DU, I didn't play during Alpha or early Beta due to limitations with my hardware, but once I had the financial ability to upgrade my system I did - the very first thing I did was install Dual Universe and get started. I've only been playing for about 3 months now - but learning curve aside and minor bugs here and there I've had a great time.
I came for the mining - but shortly after I got going that was removed. Boo.
I moved to asteroids, but the ore market had tanked so I fired up as many MUs as I could. Still earning quanta was slow, but damn...I love this game. The visuals and the ability to literally do anything kept me around daily.
So I spent time learning how to build ships and other things, diving into voxelmancy and coming up with things to build and maybe sell...plus some grandiose plans for a massive base in the mountains. So I claimed numerous tiles to get started...taxes came.
Still, I pulled it together and kept things rolling. I hatched numerous plans and started building up my base and other projects. I felt the most creative that I've felt in MANY years. I was happy and being productive and more importantly learning and enjoying myself.
Whoa! The vertex precision toll is on the horizon! Awesome, some very difficult to do voxel things I had planned will be easier...but wait...core limitations arrive.
As a solo-player running his own org with no other members this means that I'm restricted to just 25 constructs. Uhm. How is that supposed to work? My MUs total 6 core already, I have 4 ships currently and a base that is 6-7 cores currently, plus other constructs on the base. I'm near to the max already...and haven't even begun ship building projects or my mega base.
To say that I'm disappointed and depressed over this planned change would be an understatement. In the very short time I've been in DU I've become very addicted to it and play every single days - for hours. But after this devblog was published I haven't logged in once. Why bother? My mega base will never become a reality, my current base building must stop - and even be shrunken down if I want to build any ships - or set up any more MUs.
I've worked in the software development/Engineering space for over 20 year. During which time I've seen my small application grow from 50,000 clients to over 1 million. During those years we've had MANY challenges and hit the wall on server and software limitations numerous times.
Do you know how we handled it? We increased our server(s) memory/CPU/storage, and when that cap was being reached we expanded our server farm. *WE* the organization delivering the service(s) to our clients took the costs of expanding, maybe prices to our clients were increased a little to compensate, but *never once did we say to our clients, "Sorry, but we can't handle you using our application the way it was designed for you to use it. You need to limit your usage.* Not once did that thought ever come into our minds.
Why? Because it's not good business. Period. The day you ask your clients to adjust to your shortcomings and limitations in that manner is the day that they stop being your clients.
I totally understand your limitations and sympathize with your plight, but please - a change like this totally kills any chance for solo players to do anything creative in the game. At the very least increase the max to 50 constructs per player and a base of 50 for orgs. A limit of 100 constructs is bad, but it's a whole lot better than 25 - and something I can plan around.
Thank you for considering this request. I still love DU and have high hopes for it, but right now I'm concerned for it's longevity. The outcry among the player base is quite dramatic.
Good luck.
-Trakkur