Splatinum

Forget about any complex designs you might have for automated miners, the clear solution is to just make Rock Roombas that vacuum up all the infinitely respawning ores on the surface. Mechanically identical to whatever you were planning, but much more entertaining than some bog-standard drill on a tripod.

Makes sense to me. 
 
All good games require conflict to work. Hell, even Stardew Valley has conflict. 
 
Wanting PvP doesn't mean wanting more combat in its current state. NQ needs to understand that they can't design for a hardcore audience as if it were still 2003.
 
There needs to zero "do-nothing" roles like gunners and a lot less asymmetry in ship balance (like Lethys suggests, better defenses for non-combat ships).  
 
When people around here say that DU needs PvP to work, IMO they really mean that the game needs conflict to work...and PvP is the most obvious driver of this conflict. It isn't like they're going to add NPCs, hah! 
 
There's a billion ways to balance against ganking, which seems to be the main concern with PvP.
 
Getting ganked is never fun, especially if the cost of death is super high as it can be with DU.
 
Again, this can't be the hardcore of 2003, this isn't Eve, and DU won't survive without more scale, which means more mass-appeal, which means combat itself needs overhauls...

I don't think that "you should just be able to shoot anyone you want without repercussions ever" is a feature that folks have really been clamoring for. It's strange that this is such a common response to anything even vaguely supporting the implementation of some form of open PvP in the game. To be clear I like EVE's security system making it extremely costly to even consider fighting someone where NPCs can sniff it out, but it doesn't have to be that extreme to be engaging. I don't want to post 600 more words about this game, but suffice it to say there are many proposals (both NQ and otherwise) for how to make combat an option without opening it up to pure chaos. It'd be cool if maybe some of them were to be implemented some day.
 
Content doesn't necessarily need to be locked behind PvP per se, but some amount of content should be locked behind high risk activity. And given that NQ seems violently opposed to even considering the addition of non-player threats of some sort, that risk is most likely going to be from other players.

DU's design is pure chaos -- of course there's a wide divergence between die-hard builders and die-hard PvPers. 
 
It's NQ's fault that they decided to make it "only run by players" so that PvP is the only possible avenue for conflict. 
 
Like good stories, all games need conflict to be interesting. It could be conflict against the environment trying to survive, against NPCs, or against each other. Conflict is what drives engaging content, not combat. 
 
DU's combat model is crappy, frankly. It's a niche within a game that's already too niche for its own good. There's a reason the only social posts about DU are builder creations.
 
When I do see someone posting PvP videos...it reminds me why I don't do more combat. Slow, boring, and if you're an unlucky gunner? An extra side of slow and boring. 
 
It's possible to have combat without meaningful conflict -- asymmetrical battles can feel greatly unfair when there's no true conflict, e.g. being ganked or one-shot. The nature of this game means most battles will be asymmetrical -- that's just how it goes when players build their own ships and not everyone has a full crew. 
 
Is it realistic? No one cares; well designed games aren't driven by realism. 
 
NQ decided to build this game without having a real idea for how to drive conflict. That's like writing a story with no antagonist. There's no simple solution, here...simply adding more opportunity for PvP won't completely work, IMO. 

I don't think that "you should just be able to shoot anyone you want without repercussions ever" is a feature that folks have really been clamoring for. It's strange that this is such a common response to anything even vaguely supporting the implementation of some form of open PvP in the game. To be clear I like EVE's security system making it extremely costly to even consider fighting someone where NPCs can sniff it out, but it doesn't have to be that extreme to be engaging. I don't want to post 600 more words about this game, but suffice it to say there are many proposals (both NQ and otherwise) for how to make combat an option without opening it up to pure chaos. It'd be cool if maybe some of them were to be implemented some day.
 
Content doesn't necessarily need to be locked behind PvP per se, but some amount of content should be locked behind high risk activity. And given that NQ seems violently opposed to even considering the addition of non-player threats of some sort, that risk is most likely going to be from other players.

If you want a civilization building game you have to give players a way to resolve conflicts beyond just shitposting at one another in and outside of the game. Since conflict is what makes any story interesting, you want to encourage players to get into situations where they come into conflict with something, and hopefully numerous ways to resolve them. That could be conflict with other players, or the environment, or themselves, whatever. Resolving any of these conflicts doesn't necessarily require combat, but let's be honest it's one of the more fun ways especially when you're in a sci-fi setting and get lasers and missiles and shit. Games exist that are fun without resorting to combat, but there's absolutely no hint that NQ is cooking up some sort of amazing and fun new nonviolent systems to blow our minds. I expect we're going to end up fighting a lot of the time. The particulars of how you fight can evolve over time but if fighting is a way you want players to be able to resolve things. The first step is letting them do it.
 
Ultimately though, I'm of the opinion that combat in DU is likely to primarily be a means to an end. It's possible they could come up with a better, more interesting system and maybe they actually pull it off, but there are a lot of rather tedious games out there that prove you don't really need something especially complex or revolutionary if the experience is in service of a larger goal. It doesn't really have to be a seismic shift in how we view space-fighting; in fact, it could remain fairly simple so long as there's actually something people are able to fight over. (Early on, anyway, it would hopefully improve over time.) A surprising number of people already put up with the grinding tedium for almost no reward other than the experience...imagine if they were able to feel like they were achieving something more by getting into those fights.
 
It's interesting to see how many different ideas people have for ways to shoehorn engaging combat into Dual Universe, but I think its future is more likely to lie in providing a scaffolding for peoples' interactions to generate a larger story that people are as interested in reading about as they are in being part of (if not more).
 
TL;DR The game needs conflicts and ways to resolve them, and that'll probably be by fighting cuz NQ doesn't look like it's coming up with anything else.

Forget about any complex designs you might have for automated miners, the clear solution is to just make Rock Roombas that vacuum up all the infinitely respawning ores on the surface. Mechanically identical to whatever you were planning, but much more entertaining than some bog-standard drill on a tripod.

A separate, distinctive tech tree for organizations sounds like a swell idea.
 
Something that players cannot directly invest into unless they're of the appropriate rank in a sufficiently advanced organization, providing a distinct incentive to form and progress those organizations or join existing orgs that are doing the appropriate work. Serves as a great place to put the vaunted "endgame content" that people speak of in hushed tones when talking about sandbox mmos.
 
You could brainstorm forever about the particulars of such a tree, but I think the concept is a good one.

Where to download social drivers

So, I quite like this change, but it's absolutely not something that can be injected into the game in the state it is.

There is little enough for players to do in the game at the moment. This will make building constructs significantly harder for people, taking that activity out of reach of many. That leaves us mining, and flying around in space shooting at other ships. With little to no reason to engage in the latter.

If this is something that's going to work, it needs the whole game to be on board.
 
Atmospheric combat, not just space Incentive to engage in combat (strategic benefit to holding certain areas such as fighting over resources) Resource sinks such as power to make sure that, once up and running, there's an ongoing cost to running a factory other than feeding it mats. And most crucially...
A full, comprehensive wipe. Skills, mats, resources, reset the planets, delete all constructs, start all players back at the arkship.
 
Potentially allow people to keep blueprints so that all the design time that's gone into those isn't lost, but that's it.

Since there are many MANY changes is coming and if some of the rumors are true and game is taking a more Eve like approach with indy and elements ,etc would you please just reset all the talents we have ( by reset refund them as free points ) so we can customize choose a specialization like you want us to be 
All our character talents developed so far based on how game is working and since there are HUGE changes coming, I am hoping you provide a talent reset / respec like "ALL" other MMOs offering to their players under similar situations.  

I think radar detection and lock time should also depend on the averaged cross section over time with range factored in. e.g.
 
Imagine that each ship within the max range of a radar is given a score based on their cross section, distance, whether they're thrusting (per engine), braking (per brake), or firing guns (per gun).  If the ship score is below the first threshold, they are not visible on radar at all.  If it exceeds that first threshold, then they are detected, and the can be targeted for a lock.  The amount of time a lock takes, depends on how many points below a second higher threshold the ship is, the further below this threshold the longer the lock takes.  Once at, or over this threshold the lock takes a flat amount of time (perhaps based on the size of the radar), being well over the threshold might make the lock take less time (optional).
 
The lock time would be dynamic, as the ship score increases the lock time drops in real-time.  If a ship is being locked, but drops below the first threshold then the lock fails.
 
This would allow some stealth gameplay and would allow for skilled pilots (well timed thrust/braking) and well designed ships (smaller cross-section, fewer engines/brakes etc).
 
Radar quality (via talents) could be introduced to reduce the thresholds, making a radar more effective.
 
Talents or variants of engines/brakes/guns could reduce the score these elements add to the ship score.
 
 

I hope we'll be seeing a set of skills to train into that extend the lifespan of elements influenced by them, or reduce the impact against repair limits, etc...
 
What I'd love to see with regard to element size limits on the various cores is to have it done via a capacity limit, similar to how chairs currently have a fixed amount of PVP capacity which is taken up by radars and weapons and such. Do the same thing for element limitations. Each core size has a particular element capacity, balanced such that using lots of appropriately sized elements remains possible (perhaps XS cores get unlimited XS elements and so on, or else just number tweaks until it feels right) but using larger elements will quickly consume that capacity. Like, maybe the numbers work out in a way where an XS core could technically accommodate a single Laser L, but it wouldn't then it wouldn't have any remaining capacity for other parts making it functionally pointless. In this scenario it would make sense to have a set of passive skills affecting both the core capacities and the capacity cost of various elements, so perhaps someone who put in the weeks of time necessary for a level 5 skill could squeeze that big gun in there.
 
This would allow clever ship builders or those with higher skill levels to produce more effective ships within the core size. Someone with more experience and a higher level would be able to shove just a little bit more onto the XS core fighter, making it more lethal than someone without those skills can produce. Or engines, or containers, you name it.
 
Further, this whole concept would allow for specialty cores, or even unique cores. That is, cores that you can craft with high level stuff or find out in the world that selectively ignore certain core capacity limitations. Perhaps you find a special rare gem while mining that can be used in the production process of a core that can mount engines one size larger with the same capacity cost, or cores that reduce the mass of anything attached to them, or cores with more health or more repair capacity, etc etc etc. There are more ways to iterate this than I can possible think of here. (even if you don't like my capacity idea, pleeeeease consider specialty cores separately I think they'd be super neat)
 
I really think this would be superior to just setting arbitrary limits based on size alone. Something like this stands only to widen ship building horizons while adding an important set of constraints to the build process. Constraints that don't feel forced upon us but are a natural outgrowth of the building system.
 
Whatever changes are made, the game should (in my opinion) absolutely be avoiding arbitrary rules like the ones being proposed. Certainly there will be places where they're just going to be the only realistic solution, but limiting what goes on core sizes at least can be done far more elegantly than just saying "no big thing on small thing cuz we say so." 
 
Thanks for reading.