Anonymous

So, in DU, there was a pre-SKiD online game called SE where people got so addicted to it they actually started worshipping the gods of that game in RL, and have bought thier beliefs to Alioth.
 
Seems legit. Certainly no less believable than RaptorJesus.

Hope this idea works out for you!  Good luck :-)

As I currently understand it, Stargates will be usable based on having the proper permissions or something along the lines of a key. The Stargate owner can collect fees when people use the gate. This is a nice system; it's simple, but I think it can be easily expanded. I think a system that can be based on the mass of the ship will allow for more emergent gameplay around stargates. People could of course choose to just have a flat rate, if that is what they prefer.
 
I propose three additions: 
The ability to charge a fee for using the stargate based on the mass of the ship. The ability to set different tiers of mass that have different tax rates. The ability to crate different "keys" or permission levels that have different tax settings.  
I will now go into more detail why I think this is good system and why it should be very easy to implement.
 
First, taxes based on mass: why? Well, it's more fair. Why should someone who is flying a tiny shuttle pay the same fees as a space trucker who is hauling millions of kilograms of goods? How do you balance the two if you can only charge a flat tax? A mass tax helps solve that. If you charge one Quanta per 10 kilos and the shuttle is 1000kg, then that person pays 100 Quanta whereas the massive freighter of, say, 10,000,000kg pays a million Quanta. The freighter can easily afford a larger sum because it will make money off of the cargo it is carrying and it is just a cost of doing business. The pilot of the smaller ship will be happy because their fees will be low, since they don't have to pay some middle ground, one size fits all rate. The stargate owner is happy because it let's them collect more taxes overall while still remaining competitive. How difficult would this be to implement? It shouldn't be too hard based on what we know. NQ have indicated that ship and cargo mass will be taken into consideration by the physics engine, so they data already exists and all that has to be done is some basic multiplication. The plus side of this is that since cargo is also already accounted for, an empty cargo ship pays less fees than one that is fully loaded
 
Mass tiers, this is where it really starts to get interesting. Users should be able to set "tiers" of mass that have different rates between them. For example, perhaps the rate for ships between 0kg - 10,000kg is 0.1 Quanta per kg, 10,001kg - 50,000kg is 0.5 Quanta per kg, and 50,001kg and up is 1 Quanta per kg. In this way, the large ships get the more they have to pay. Consider three ships:
Ship 1 is 5,000kg and pays 500 Quanta.
Ship 2 is 30,000kg and pays 15,000 Quanta.
Ship 3 is 120,000kg and pays 120,000 Quanta.
 
Why would you want to do this? To dissuade larger ships either for market reasons or military reasons. Or perhaps there is the theory that the bigger the ship, the more money the owner has to burn. That's up to the gate owner, but the true power of the mass tiers comes out with the third point.
 
Different keys. The tax settings should be tied to each key and not to the gate itself, allowing for different keys with different settings for different people. There are many reasons that people travel and this would allow the fee system to be better suited for each person. I will give an example. Perhaps someone is coming to tour an empire, or apply for a job or whatever, and they need to get around but don't want to spend a ton on fees. Naturally, the people who live in the region don't want somebody who may not be fully trusted dumping a ton of goods on the market to compete with local businesses or bringing in a large battleship and causing trouble, so the tourist is given a key designed to meet these needs. The key could be set so each use under 2,000kg is only 20 Quanta but over 2,000kg it's 20 Quanta per kg. So if that tourist tries to bring in a 20,000kg freighter they are going to be smacked with a 400,000 Quanta fee. More taxes for the gate owner and it strongly discourages that tourist from bringing in larger ships or a lot of cargo. It's emergent and not set in stone. You could also raise the price even further to really discourage large ships. Maybe over 10,000kg it's 500 Quanta per kg! That's 10,000,000 Quanta for that same 20,000kg freighter! Good luck turning a profit on that. So long as that tourist follows the guidelines of their key, they can avoid paying much in fees, but if they try to do stuff that they are not supposed to they will pay the price, literally. 

Reality check.
 
Using our one REAL measure (Earth):
 
Surface area: 501,000,000 km2
 
Dry bits (usuable "territory"): 139,870,000 km2 or about 29.2% of the total surface area.
 
Arable land - example only - obviously mining is different): About 55,948,000 km2 or about 10 of the total surface area...
 
And then to refine it further (for instance) when it comes to human settlement, historically something like 80% of all human settlement was within walking distance of salt.
 
Key takeaway - there is a crap ton of "territory" to be had in a setting like DU - you may consider this "infinite". But only (if modelled right) a very small percentage of that territory will be usable in some way and thus matters - Sovereign Territory therefore is really actually "finite" and always will be.
 
Sovereign Territory isn't about how much km2 you control - it's about WHAT is in the territory you control, or what controlling that territory strategically gives you access to or control over.

Please - before there's another round of forum bashing people for having opinions, concerns or otherwise - let @NQ-Nyaltzar sort it out.
 
Flaming every thread about the business model in know way helps the community grow, discourages dialogue, and suppresses the free and frank exchange of ideas.
 
The OP, and @EagleOne in another thread had either valid concerns (which Devs have addressed - they don't need our help) or suggestions (which were flamed down rather than being taken on-board and passed on to NQ with a thanks for the idea) - frankly, the Community response has been a little disappointing.
 
It's going to be a long and lonely 2 years if we're not welcoming and constructive. Yes - the threads frustrate you all, but you win more friends with honey than with vinegar.
 
2 cents.

Agreeing with twerk here. Wouldn't it make more sense to have item tags break when its dropped from a dead player? Otherwise there's almost no risk in venturing outside the safe-zone until hacking is implemented.

Gl then with that org when every member has the right to mess with the community page. In-game it would be manageable with rdms, depending what other stuff legates can do. Outside of the game (forum, community page) they can edit and delete everything

Actually, that is exactly what I want.  A legate is person who can vote, so that is just another way of saying in a democracy, all members are voters.  Of course, in a large organization, having everyone vote on each decision would tend to be impractical, which is why they can delegate their votes.  That makes the democracy a republic, but the members would still be legates.

Always good to see more information! I had actually been wondering a lot specifically about this system. 
 
This system seems like it will work very well for most organizations, although I still wonder how it would work exactly in regards to investing in a company. For instance, could Legate votes be turned into a large number of share and sold so that investors would have a voting power proportional to the size of their investment? And what protections are their for investors? Would there be a way to force the corporation to pay dividends? If the company goes into insolvency, will shareholders be entitled to a share of the remaining assets?

Definitely interested to hear about how this would work.
 
Also, would you need to be face to face with another member of an org to give them a tag.
For example, if I were granting passage to someone else through the border of my territory node, would I Have to go face to face with them and press some button to open up a tag assigning feature, and then assign a temporary tag so that they may get through my land instead of going around?
 
Very good dev blog though, interesting read.

Thanks for the devblog.
 
Good to see that Organizations are at the heart of this game, and we finally have a proper system to work with as gamers to make our space pimping empires be all they can be. 

Thanks for the update on that system. I have to think this through and then give you some more feedback

I slowly stumble up from my seat among the luminous and declare
"You're all aware of Project Rebirth, I raise 2 tickets 3million apiece who wants ?" The formerly oblivious crowd rushes like a juggernaut towards me including the bartender. Oh dear.

No. Next question.

No. Next question.

No. Next question.

No. Next question.

No. Next question.

No. Next question.

FYI - our (Sohan Deckers) Arkship was built only two-three years before the Final Collision. If that helps.

Alas, "new lore" will be made in game, as the game plays out - we cannot write that yet.
 
"What Earth was like" must, to a degree, be set in stone by someone, and indeed, realistic and sane limits must be placed on backstories and character concepts lest people make sweeping changes to the setting that can affect everyone if all backstories/concepts are valid. For instance - a popular backstory that has a critical (to the story) technology in it (say for instance time travel) that won't be in the game at all, ever, can in fact act as a negative on the community who may otherwise build up expectations around the game (say everyone starts to reference said tech in their own backstories) which will never ever be realised. Does that make sense?

Pat answer - ours was the only one that hit a planet, the rest just kept going and going and going, forever ever.
 
(But non-pat answer - /shrug things could always change? The Aether backstory is a great example of where it's dangerously close to creating background that may not be in there (the "other" AI - Eidelon etc) because it is so damn cool and easy to use as a springboard in one's own stories).

Looks like a good option to me! Simple enough to remain legible as a tiny symbol, and unique enough to be easily distinguished from any normal letters.

This is quite simple.
 
Those who were alive pre-leaving would refer to themselves by the identifier they previously used. Terran, Martian, Belter, Titan.
 
Those who are born on Alioth, or are so "native" as to having lost all previous connection - Aliothan (or Aliothi) would be appropriate.
 
Arkers, Novarkers etc etc would not likely be used since most people were on them less than a day or two really, in terms of "awake" time - mentally, most would likely feel the Ark was a bit like 'a very short bus trip where you fall asleep and have a vivid dream before being waken before you are ready because we're at your stop.'
 
HOWEVER - there is little chance that the countries which exist now would exist then, and a range of new "countries" would exist in some places, and have been dissolved in most, replaced with single world governments, or corporate powers. It's why I call my character an Terran (where I live) Anzaki (my cultural/genetic stock), not an Australian, and he politically is an Aetherean (as opposed to an Etherean, Alpha etc).
 
A more salient question would be "what are the countries of the world when we leave", or "what does a UMF'er call themselves", or "what languages are still spoken (and thus - what cultures still exist).

Well met Nadie
 
I personally am well aware of that in the Lore but find people tire of me pointing out stuff like that. /shrug. So to clarify - which city-states rose and dominated, in that sense. I have a personal and professional interest in spending time working that sort of fine detail no one ever sees but it's not always shared
 
It would seem we misundertood the OP however.
 
And in that context - yeah - just Players is fine. We don't need a label for each other beyond that, and externally it just makes us sound cultish, like EvEers or WoWers or any other social media tribe. In my mind - if DU us teh awesome, we don't need to label ourselves - only everyone else as we are the "normal" in terms of relative comparisons.
 
(And I may have spent too much of today buried in semantic modelling so also feel free to ignore me )