StaticAstraeus

The scanner was introduced/created for the old mining system and it made sense back then: scans told you what and how much was in a tile; scanning over time showed depletion status; it was useful and made sense, even the time it took to scan was acceptable (to me) since you got something out of it every time. However, the feature was repurposed with little thought: you still get a scan data stamp even though it completely meaningless (values never change) The irony of it all, and what really makes me laugh, is that the ore distribution appears to follow a "heat map" style distribution that is suspiciously similar to the mining minigame, but you don't have the tools to hunt down the right location with the scanner. Silly, isn't it? The mining minigame is not all that engaging on the extractors, but it would be an actual play loop on the scanner. Of course that would make it to easy, since the resources don't shift over time... at least on a planetary scale; and yet they jump around like demented rabbits on every tile every 24 hours... go figure But hey, what do I know? I stopped playing after the first month ended. Don't get me wrong though, I still want to see the game succeed, but as the saying goes "grab a chair; you'll get tired if you wait standing up"

It sounds fairly realistic to me: You spend a fair amount of time trying to get things done in a semi-fun way, realise there's not enough hours in the day to actually do what you want to do because everything is time-gated to oblivion and then you lose all your progress. You have to appreciate the irony

So, that was the "Exciting News" we were supposed to look forward to? Two things that by all rights should have been in during beta, and a whole bunch of fluff (emotes, suit skins and pets?) And this will happen in 2 months? One has to wonder just how dull things are around the NQ office when this is considered "Exciting" But hey, good on you for the grid snapping and the scrap thing. Better late than never and all that. Guess I'll try again in another year.

Right, right... "Emergent Gameplay" was it? There are many things I could say to that, but this is not the place, and the time has long since passed. @DU: Good luck with that, you'll need it.

A week into the two weeks free trial and a few things spring to mind: - I miss the old mining system (planet side), but I quite like the mining units. - The Voxel precision tool is great: so many nagging bits in my old designs that I had given up on can now be fixed; big thumbs up on this one - Schematics still don't make much sense from a lore point of view and it adds yet another time gate, but the ability to trade them is nice. - Haven is a "butt-ugly" moon... I miss my Sanctuary tile (seriously though, was this moon designed with the express intent to make people want to venture out to the other planets? Because it certainly gives me that vibe) - Building still rocks (the voxel side of it anyway, for everything else the game is lagging its competitors quite badly; some more effort on this front will be necessary if you want to stay relevant in the market) - Can't comment on the PvP side. DU's oversimplified approach to it has never appealed to me. - The new/updated tutorials are well done... but you might want to guide new players to them a bit more vigorously. I've seen the same questions pop up on the help channel so many times over the last week it's actually amusing by this point (soon to become annoying and then exasperating) Can't say I'll stick with it after the 2 weeks are done. There are too many time gates and not enough content when compared with other titles that do not have recurring subscription fees. This is not meant as an attack or a call for action, it is merely an observation. In conclusion, I would say the game has (or is) a solid foundation. The question is: "What do you plan on building on top of it?"

A slight rebrand would certainly not hurt the game's odds. Granted, I haven't played since 0.23, but my Steam Wishlist has been updated recently. This game doesn't have much going on when compared to other titles (sad, but unfortunately true): The building is very nice. The mining is functional after the changes, but it's nothing special (the old system was better in my opinion; I quite enjoyed it) The economy is "insert opinion here". Industry is passable, but hardly inspiring in its current form. There are no survival style aspects to the game at all (no, I'm not counting pvp) And PvP is not particularly interesting; before people go on a rampage after this comment I'm referring to the inability to create ships with proper teeth to let you rip into your enemies without multi-crew in a latency dominated environment. Also, the clunky nature of the interface and how combat works in general is just plain off-putting. Jumpgate got PvP right back in 2001, it can't be that difficult to do it these days. I'm not sure what DU has, but it's not PvP; it's just frustration with extra steps (in my opinion). And before people brand me a "carebear", let me build a proper ship without flight/fight restrictions and you can drop all safezones for all I care. Give me a chance to fight back against gankers/griefers and not just be their "content" and I'm all good. Lose the safezones with the current game mechanics and you can kiss any chances of success goodbye.

Oh good lord, is this change for real? Schematics are data, why would they be consumed? Limited use Copyright enforced by the AI overlord? That's just plain silly. This is what we (in the business of actually developing schematics for a living) would usually call an "over-engineered solution"... and no, that's not a compliment. You want to limit the amount of stuff a player can make in a set period of time? Add power requirements to the damned machinery! you want to make 100 screws? that will cost you 1kWh (random figure) you want to assemble an engine? that will cost you 10kWh (another random figure) you want to smelt several tons of ore? that will cost you 100kWh (random again, but higher than assembly since it is a energy intensive process in real life) Get a generator in game that produces a set amount of energy, gate how many you can have/deploy with skills. There you go, job done. A simple idea inspired by real life that opens up no end of possibilities for further expansion: energy trade; energy storage; energy harvesting... and so on.

The reason is quite simple (at least from where I sit): perception People like rewards, not punishments, and you would need a ludicrous supply of "suspension of disbelief" to ever see paying taxes as a rewarding experience. Just think about it. If energy system were in place, it would still be borderline work. And yet, that would be deemed acceptable by many. It's the difference between a rewarding activity and a punishing one. The irony here is that if they had a spun a tale (lore) around it and given an in-game justification for the system, the fallout would have been much smaller. The idea of taxation makes sense on the main planet, as long as it goes towards supporting some service that provides value/fun, and yet it makes little sense on the fringe areas where law may not even apply. A "problem" is an opportunity to develop a system further, not a dust-mite to be bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer

And this is where your argument falls apart, at least as far as I'm concerned. The only limits on "what you can become" in real life, is your ambition, hard work and determination. Every time you tell yourself "I could never do that", you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Disclaimer: this obviously does not extent to achievements that are not within your biological abilities, but anything other than that is fair game.

It could do, I'm honestly not sure. The first time I came across the term was during the EVE beta, so you should take my definition with a "pinch of salt" It's almost like trying to figure out where "lol" first came from

That's just how PvP works though. You can't paint a bullseye on your backside and expect not to get shot. There are plenty of people out there that get their jollies from hunting/hurting others, especially those who can't fight back. If you think this is unfair, you would have loved Jumpgate

It's a term that originated in the early Eve days (as far as I'm aware). Where you go out and blow the stuffing out of npc pirate ships. Ratting was the act of destroying ships that were in the act of piRatting. Personally, it always sounded weird to me.

While I would not class myself as a pure programmer/developer, it is one of the tasks I often have to delve into. As such, I do not believe the endeavour is beyond the capabilities of developers that work for NQ. Is it beyond managerial aspirations? More than likely, but it could be done. At the end of the day, in the engineering world, anything is possible... as long as the person in control wants to put in the effort.

It would have a better chance against Empyrion, and I'm afraid even that would be a losing proposition at this point in time. Against SC? The words "statistically insignificant" would be a major understatement.

You could make an entire game around the R&D aspect of stuff... but here's my simplified suggestion. You build/buy a "research" unit/station. This unit is tied to the Ark ship's mainframe (for lore purposes) You can run research jobs that take a set amount of time and resources plus require access to the mainframe (this access can be monetised, since you are using a service) To research the more exotic stuff you need existing tech to already be known. And as a stretch goal, you can run projects to try and improve the statistics of the parts at the cost of something else (I'm thinking SWG crafting system now, that was ace)