Snapsis

Great news!  Joystick support first please

Thank you for this post. I look forward to all of these features.
May I suggest you introduce just a weeeee bit of Lore into the PvE system too! who are we fighting? and why? This is a very important part of game cohesion and player motivation. Also who damaged Thades? Was it really Aphelia as Tyim insists?  Inquiring minds want to know! Drop some crumbs.
/grin
 
Tordan

Jago -     2.66% tiles claimed (1616)
Teoma - 2.48% claimed (1505)
Both out since launch.
 
Talemai - 3.34% (1768 tiles) claimed in less than 24hrs.
I think our work is done here.
 
NQ : Now do you understand why we need a different ore distribution for next planet?
 
Edited to add more evidence.
This is a field of Gold all captured by one Org within 36 hours.
::pos{0,41,-25.0361,-89.9769,-0.0003}

I don't care if the information was leaked or not.
 
Because the real problem here is being able to completely control a number of limited finite resources in a MMO, and then being able to hold them indefinitely. That is just bad design.
 
And being able to it in 24h or less is ridiculously bad design..
 
So thank <entity> we had this long beta before release, where NQ worked actively with the community to get all the kinks out.

Lets just keep it simple shall we?
Since before release NQ has been told in multiple forum threads and constantly on Discord why this system is flawed.
We all know it is flawed. Even those of us that know how to work the system to our advantage advocate for a change.
 
Stop acting like it just needs more constructive feedback.
 
If the game designers want some help they need to engage.
Yes, let it be possible for anyone to find T2 within 20-30 hours of gameplay, and T3 within 40+ hours.
The way it works now very few people that scan first have the chance at up to T4 with very little time invested.
Then it's over. They have the tiles until they decide to sell said tiles or they abandon the game.
 
Here are two ideas:
A very simple way to change the system for the better would be to just increase the number of hotspots and make them smaller.
 
Another idea would be to have the process of finding ore take days on a single tile and be random in the size and type of pool that is found.
 
Digging for mega nodes was bad, we get it it. But if people can still have a chance to find a "mother load", even if it needs to be mined out slowly, that is way better than scanning tiles for hours on end and not finding anything but T1.
 

@Msoul Respectfully again, I don't misunderstand as you believe I do. You seem to think my response is a lack of understanding, it is not.
I acknowledge your view points and also want to express why posts are made in the nature they are.

As Jinx pointed out, many used to be more constructive at one point until the felt unheard. In order to play DU the game almost requires the player to treat it as a second job. Because of the level of investment, there is an emotional feeling of player ownership of DU by the community despite what is stated in the legalize of NQ claiming omnipotent rights to even our creative works.

You seem to also believe that the communication breakdown is off topic of the OP's post but it is not.

It is NQ's ATTITUDE towards its community in communication is also very matching of how it approaches development, and thus the results are like dropping barrels of gunpowder into a volcano. The reason things aren't louder and more explosive is persistent dwindling of the player base. NQ thinks the lava is bad and continues to try to drain it(remove/drive away players), but the lava is the heart of the volcano, the same as the community is the heart of the game. If the lava/fire (community/passion) dies, the volcano (game) also dies.

The fact that another planet was added with the same distribution problems expressed is why we believe we aren't being heard. Just as you believe I would have wrote something different if I understood what you said, we as the players believe Ore Distribution would have changed if NQ was listening to us.

@Msoul - I also want to say I think while well intended, your attempt to fill in NQ's gap is getting the fire directed onto you, when really we are frustrated with NQs dev decisions, something you are powerless to do anything about.
 

I get what you're saying, but it's hard to take any conversation "seriously" when the chance of NQ engagement is near-zero.
 
If people honestly believed their feedback might be seen by devs, the tone of this forum would likely be very different. There's thousands of posts that go into pages and pages and pages of detail, but communication has never been bi-directional. There's no reason to believe this will change after so many years.
 
You might say that devs would come around more often if the tone was more serious and productive....but that's not how these things work. 
 
You need to have a presence in the conversation if you want to control its tone and direction... 
 
It isn't our job to make these forums a serious place for productive, detailed topics -- and there's no reason to assume that's NQ's goal, either.
 
If it were, they should do the work to change the tone by showing people that they are in fact engaged, they are human beings trying their best, and they do indeed have a plan for the game. 
 
What doesn't feel helpful in my opinion is the "cop" attitude where things must go in the proper threads and must stay on topic because "we have to be helpful for NQ". 
 
If NQ valued this as a channel for comms, they'd spend even 10 minutes a day on posting or cleanup.
 
I appreciate that you want polite, focused topics that are grouped into common threads, but to be blunt...I don't see how it's really any of your business how people use this forum, or if they don't put things into the threads you'd like, or don't adopt the tone or level of detail that you think would help NQ best. 
 
The issue with the community being heard is not the tone or content! It's that NQ hasn't shown any shred of ability or interest in engagement. It's their job to be professionals, engage their customers, and control the tone and content of their own forum.
 
Not mine. Not other players. Not yours, either. 

Jago -     2.66% tiles claimed (1616)
Teoma - 2.48% claimed (1505)
Both out since launch.
 
Talemai - 3.34% (1768 tiles) claimed in less than 24hrs.
I think our work is done here.
 
NQ : Now do you understand why we need a different ore distribution for next planet?
 
Edited to add more evidence.
This is a field of Gold all captured by one Org within 36 hours.
::pos{0,41,-25.0361,-89.9769,-0.0003}

Buy game codes from Markee Dragon.
Be quick! https://store.markeedragon.com/index.php?cat=360
 

Honeycomb_Values.csvHere is a csv of the table provided in NQ's main post if anyone is interested in taking a closer look at the numbers.
I have included my findings below along with some personal feedback. Hopefully you find it helpful.
 
Resistance Feedback

 
The proposed progression curve is quite interesting. Looks like products on average are 15% more resistive than their pure counterparts with a little bit of diminishing returns at the exotic level. I think this might be a bit too much as the difficulty of obtaining higher tier materials is substantially higher than merging two different types of the same tier. Consider reducing the offset on products to make them equal or less effective than the next tier of pure. Also the variance across resistance types is constant  throughout the tiers (~9%) with products having only slightly less spread than pures (~8%) . Consider further reducing this and establishing that manufactured materials have more uniform resistances. The idea behind this change is to give manufactured materials slightly more consistency in light of the fact there are fewer options to choose from in a given tier. As to the overall extent, I think the extreme ends (10% and 75% average resistance) are right where they should be. If however, you are considering implementing other features that will influence these values (ie: talents, elements, etc) then you might want to reduce said range to reserve some working space and avoid needing to revisit these changes later on. 
 
Hitpoints/Mass Feedback
 
Obviously these factors are not associated with progression so the objective is just to find a a good setpoint for the hitpoint/mass ratio, the average material mass and an acceptable amount of variance between material types within a given class. The currently proposed figures are as follows:
45 hitpoints/kg/L Pure material average of 2790 hitpoints (62 kg/L) with variance of 1440 hitpoints (32.5 kg/L) Product material average of 2129 hitpoints (47.3 kg/L) with variance of  608 hitpoints (13.5 kg/L) Building materials are all identical with 450 hitpoints (10 kg/L) I fully agree that building materials should have minimal hitpoints (and mass) along with little to no variance. Ideally this will encourage players to use said materials in non-pvp/non-critical applications without needing to worry too much about optimization. Products and pures have approximately equal average but products are a bit more consistent. I think this is perfectly fine and the current setpoint of around 2500 hitpoints (55 kg/L) seems reasonable. The only potential problem is the hitpoints/mass ratio. This is actually a very important number because mass affects speed which can also contribute to effective hitpoints when you take into consideration tracking limitations on weapon elements. Unfortunately I have no idea what a good setpoint would be as it really depends on what kind of dynamic you are aiming for with regards to small/fast vs large/slow.

How does this affect anything other than PvP?

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.
 
 
 
 
 
 

If they are correct then it will take weeks to make enough cells just to warp the material needed just to make the cells in the first place. Someone please tell me there's more to this.
 
NQ - please keep in mind that we don't need more AFK-gaming. If your intention is to force people to slow-boat then you're shooting yourself in the foot with this one.

In the upcoming 0.28 Panacea update, we will introduce the Vertex Precision Tool (VPT), which adds a whole new way of bringing detail to your creative designs.
 
This all may sound quite complex initially, but once you get used to the tool it’s quite intuitive. If you’ve been holding back because voxelmancy seemed too complicated, now’s the time to give it a try. By allowing you to simply equip the VPT and move the vertex around on a changeable grid, the process of designing with voxels is greatly simplified and far more user-friendly.
 
Here’s a brief demonstration of what the VPT looks like and how it’s used:
 
 
Heads up! The information in this blog leans heavily into the extremely technical side of things. Those who are into voxelmancy will probably dive in with unfettered joy. If building isn’t your jam, you may wish to stop here and get the TL;DR from one of your builder buddies later.
 
VOXELS DEFINED
 
Much of what you see in Dual Universe was built by players using voxels. The term “voxel” is very generic, a shortened form of “volume element”. Voxelmancy is an advanced form of building that can be quite complex, and there has always been a gap between building with standard geometric shapes and fine-tuned designs. The VPT aims to bring a game-changing  bridge for the gap between these building styles.
 
How exactly the voxels are implemented depends a lot on the software that’s being used. In DU, a voxel contains two things: material information and a vertex position information.
 
The material information is pretty straightforward; it is exactly the same as in a pixelated image where there is a material (think of it as a synonym of “color“) for each little square. We use what we call a uniform grid, meaning that voxels are put next to each other in a 3D grid and all have the same size. For example, on a planet voxels are 1 meter long (1m x 1m x 1m) whereas they can be 25 centimeters long (0.25m x 0.25m x 0.25m) on a user construct. It’s exactly how pixels work in 2D images, and you may already be familiar with these kinds of voxels because they are present in games like Minecraft.
 
VERTICES POSITIONS
 
Let’s drill down even deeper into the well of technical stuff.
 
As stated above, voxels contain material information and a vertex position information. The Vertex Precision Tool doesn’t touch materials, so let’s talk about vertices.
 
3D geometry is composed of vertices, and those vertices are linked together to form faces that will be rendered on your screen. For instance, take a simple single voxel cube. It is composed of one material, but has eight vertices on the eight corners. Since our voxels in DU store both a material and a vertex position, our “single voxel” here is composed of eight voxels because it takes eight vertices to form a cube!
 
This is where it starts getting complicated. We can consider that there are two voxel grids, one is the material grid and the other is the vertex position grid, and the two grids are shifted, dual to each other. There are eight vertices around a material, and there are eight materials (we can consider the void as a special kind of material) around a vertex.
 
So what are we talking about when we talk about a voxel? A little bit of both, depending on the context. Confusing right? We’ll try to be specific and talk about vertices, but remember there is only one vertex per voxel, although one voxel cube is composed of eight vertices (and thus is in reality eight voxels: one with matter and seven without matter.)
 
Take a look at this picture. It is in 2D because it’s easier to understand (and to draw), but this is the same thing in 3D. This image represents a voxel sphere (more like a circle since we are in 2D).
 

  The dotted lines are the uniform grid that represent the voxels. At the intersection of those dotted lines, you can have a blue dot, representing a material. So, we have our material grid: either emptiness or a blue material. Inside of all of those cells, there may be a vertex. There is a vertex if and only if all four corners are not the same. If one of the corners is blue and another one empty, it means we have some material change here and thus something to see. So we need a vertex to know where we see the surface. On each of those cells, we have a vertex represented. The vertices are then linked together to form the surface.
 
POSITIONS VALUES
 
Before the Panacea update, you could only get such a sphere with the sphere tool, but with the VTP you’ll now have the opportunity to change the vertex position manually. This raises the question: what coordinate system do we use?
 
In theory, we could use an infinite range of values. For example, we could say that the vertex should be at one third (on a given axis) in between the two materials as shown in the grid, so its value (on this axis) could be 0.333333333. It could also be 0.1415926535, or whatever we want.
 
However, we need to store those vertex positions, and we want to be efficient so that we don’t take too much disk usage so we encode the vertex position (on a given axis) on a single byte. This means we only have 256 different possibilities for a vertex position, but we don’t really need more. A vertex position is a coordinate with three numbers (for the three axes) where all of these numbers are integers (with a maximum 256 different possible integers).
 
So what are those possible values? Before answering that, we need to consider where a vertex can lie. On the sphere representation drawing, you can see that vertices are inside the zone defined by the four surrounding material points. This is indeed where a vertex should be most of the time, although we may sometimes want to overflow a bit, reach a little further than the vertex is supposed to. This will encroach on the zone of the neighbor voxel, but it does not have to be a problem. We decided that a vertex could lie on its one zone, but also the zone of its direct neighbors. On the 2D schematics above, it means that a vertex can be placed anywhere on the nine squares around it.
 
A vertex encoding actually encodes three vertice’s positions. We want to have an encoding for all the important positions, the middle of each of the three voxels and their borders. This means that we need a multiple of six. We’ll use 252 as it is very close to 256. Now let’s see this coordinate system in a picture. The picture below represents four simple cubes in voxels (yellow, red, blue and cyan).
 
We will be talking about the vertex shared by the red and blue cubes. There are actually two of those vertices in 2D, one top and one bottom; let’s talk about the top one. We state that the position it is in in the picture will be 0 (it’s a convention, the one chosen in the Vertex Precision Tool), and above the cubes we showed all the position values this vertex could have
 
 
So 0 is the position of a vertex in a simple voxel cube. If we move the vertex into position 42 (both the top and bottom vertex of this red-blue junction), then the red rectangle will now be 1.5 times bigger, and the blue rectangle will be half its current size. If we move the vertices to -42, it would be the other way around. Note that all the values between -42 and 42 are the values where the vertex is supposed to be without overflow. This is the zone we described earlier.
 
If we were to move the vertices to value 84, then we would enter the territory of the vertex shared by the blue and cyan cubes. This becomes a little dangerous and could result in strange results. In this example, it would lead to the blue surface to completely disappear and be replaced by the red one. The blue voxel would still exist, it would just have a null volume.
 
And, in the example of these four cubes, if we were to go to a value above 84, it would result in an ill-formed shape because the blue shape would have a negative volume. This would probably create visual artifacts, and we may prevent this situation in the future.
 
ENCODING CHANGE
 
One last note for those who are familiar with voxelmancy. In Panacea, we use an encoding of 253 positions (from -126 to 126), which is different than it has been. We used an encoding of 255 positions (it was from -128 to 128 but previous -128 = actual -126). Since there is no exact mapping between the old encoding to the new one, this means that vertices in your constructs may be shifted up to 1mm (vertices at position 0 will not move, but those at extreme values will move the most). This will probably be unnoticeable, but we wanted to err on the side of caution and share this information.
 
You may wonder, why 253? It is for the reasons explained before, to have those nice -126, -84, -42, 0, 42, 84 and 126 values. The 255 system did not allow for that. We could have chosen 193, so that you could split a voxel in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64, but that would have meant a huge loss in precision and significantly deformed most constructs. So 253 it is, and you can now split a voxel in 42!
 
USING THE VPT
 
There are exactly 253 positions on a single axis including zero that a vertex can be in due to it being divisible over three voxels. Negative 126, 0, and positive 126. As such, the width of one voxel is exactly 84 positions. And each vertex can be moved exactly 1.5 voxel away from the center position.
 
Thus, the grid on which a vertex is moved is adjustable to a size that covers 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 21 or 42 positions, 42 being the size of half a voxel. This allows the accurate placement to the finest detail or to quickly scale up and move a vertex by a half, a quarter, a sixth, or a twelfth of a voxel.
 
See the image below to get an idea of the different size grids available to the VPT.
 
 
Once selected, the vertex cursor can then be moved with:
The up, down, left arrow and right Arrow keys for the x- and y-axis.
The Page Up and Page Down for the z-axis.
The Home key to send the cursor to the current position of the vertex.
The End key to send your cursor to the last confirmed coordinates.
(This also happens by default when you change vertices.)
The Alt+Home key combination to send the cursor to the centered 0,0,0 coordinates.
Holding Control+Scroll will adjust the grid size between the available sizes.
Left-click confirms the placement and moves the selected vertex to the cursor.
 
The VPT will give you the finest precision possible, no more complex voxelmancy of copy-pasting things around to get a specific shape. You may not use this tool all the time, but when you do you’ll find it exceptionally helpful for fine-tuning.
 
WHEW, THAT’S A LOTTA INFO!
 
Still with us? We know there’s a lot of information to process, but we felt it was worthwhile to share the details with our voxelating community members that would appreciate seeing how the sausage is made (so to speak).
 
We can’t wait to see the cool new stuff Noveans build with the Vertex Precision Tool. As always, we encourage everyone to join the conversation on the forum in this thread. If you have questions about the VPT or want to share your thoughts and tips about voxelmancy in general, that’s the place to go.
 
 

Our whole corp left the game with the introduction of schematics. At that time we had a large production plant with contract manufacturing for other players up to complete shipbuilding. There was a lot of player interaction. When we read that Schematics might be completely removed, we were happy and started to reactivate old contacts. Unfortunately, we now have to state with this news that NQ simply doesn't want players to play the way they want, but would rather have a rigid theme park concept. It's a shame for a game that could have been something big.

Create a new planet that is far away (like 10000 SU) from all the others and put sparse resources on it.
Let players teleport one way to this planet where the process will make sure they only have their talents and no other items.
 
Have some loot littered around the planet in caves, or abandoned outposts.
Some of it could be very high value exotics.
 
Have an artifact that is very heavy that must be brought back.
The goal will be to get back to civilization with the artifact.
 
You would have to build a spaceship from scratch, any elements that needed schematics would have to be found on planet.
 
Give a time limit for getting back. If you are not back in that time then everything you have collected up to that point will be lost and you will be teleported back.

So just wanted to provide some feedback.
 
1). The Atmo XL questions...  The dev who responded said they think ailerons and wings go up to L, but they don't.  Ailerons and wings only go up to M and people are putting 200+ wings on their ship because the Stabilizer L is extremely inefficient on both size and drag.
2). You showed off all of that awesome voxelwork but didn't give any credit to the artist in the description.  Makes me very sad. 
3). If you foresee a bunch of exploity bugs around the player market...  shouldn't you be trying to implement prior to release so all bugs and exploits are ironed out prior to release/wipe?

After extensive testing with @Bellwether here is what we found out about the latest patch.
 
If you do not have Dredger > Mining Efficiency skills you will mine 25% less than what the territory scan shows.
 
I believe this is the way the skill was originally intended to work, but it was bugged and not doing anything before so feels like a nerf to mining ( a big one).
 
It is a real deterrent to mining because you are faced with "losing" ore every time you mine until you get the skills to make it 100%.
A better way to implement it would be to have the scans show the 75% values and if you have better skills you get more.
 
To Test this.  Scan a tile, then mine 100kl of an ore type and do another scan.
If you have less than level 5 on Dredger mining efficiency your scan will show that you took out more ore than you actually did making you a sloppy miner.
 
 

One small, but annoying thing for me is the destination cursor - its really hard to tell whether its locating a point directly below you or on the other side of a planet. It would be good if it changed colour to indicate a clear line of sight or not.
Thats drives me nuts.
 

@NQ . A few small tips on UI that will lower aggravation:
    1.    If you have a button that is precisely for one thing and not easy to get to then you don't need a second prompt asking people if they really meant to click on it. For example the Exit VR button.
    2.   All fields for entering data should preferably select all text currently in the field, not start at the end of it. Or just blank.  This is true especially for the fight on entering currency which I can't believe is still an issue.
   3.   No Horizontal scroll bars like on Achievements screen.
   4.   Keep the part the user needs most as center of attention and don't use up half the form for some large Icon.  It may look pretty the first time, but is very annoying when it stays in the way of getting things done.

@NQ . A few small tips on UI that will lower aggravation:
    1.    If you have a button that is precisely for one thing and not easy to get to then you don't need a second prompt asking people if they really meant to click on it. For example the Exit VR button.
    2.   All fields for entering data should preferably select all text currently in the field, not start at the end of it. Or just blank.  This is true especially for the fight on entering currency which I can't believe is still an issue.
   3.   No Horizontal scroll bars like on Achievements screen.
   4.   Keep the part the user needs most as center of attention and don't use up half the form for some large Icon.  It may look pretty the first time, but is very annoying when it stays in the way of getting things done.

Hi Deckard,

First, we need fixes for lag, desync, miss and all the recurring PVP problems that make the game uninteresting and make players leave. Battles on DU are made of small fleets and it is abnormal that a simple 1vs1 is difficult to bear because of these concerns.
Not to mention the many abuses left possible with the alt F4 to stop the ship + reconnections to resume the same speed while we had to brake to not lose the target, the dead cores which never stop if there is a VR or a person who reconnects on it etc...

Stop Janko ship (stacked elements/glitched) and elements/weapons deep in the voxels.

We need a solution for piracy. Disconnecting characters on ships was not interesting and you did well to prevent that, but we need new solutions. With the arrival of shields it will be even more complex to intercept hauler which, once they see us on the outskirts of the planets, will return to SafeZone or they will be out of the pipes and therefore inscannable for us.
We would therefore need radars with more range (at the same time making high tier railguns and radar interesting) or a tracking system.

We need recycling, in order to be able to make a minimum profit from totally destroyed vessels, instead of storing them in pieces in containers without being able to use the damaged elements for BP or sales.
 
And soon with the asteroids, we need a system that is more open to team play. Currently they are so small and so rare for high thirds that it is going to be a real headache and if small groups or solo players are not attracted to this content because of the big PVP groups, they will not create any content, the others will not come any more or will avoid the fight and will come to mine in jetpack.
If there are more high-tier asteroids, there is less risk, so more people will take risks.

Finally, the PVP balance does not matter to me, I prefer to have a game that works even without a meta that I like. Give us the opportunity to play, that's all we ask.

I'm more for better jetpacks, but have them use fuel from Nano.
Replace the "compactable" ship.
 
I wouldn't mind fall damage either.
 
As for real aerodynamics, of course, but we may want to get past the simple things like OP air brakes, and overlapping elements first.
If ship builders want their ships/planes to look "real" we need to get rid of the WOE (wall of engines).

Earlier this year, we presented our plans for the future of Dual Universe, following player feedback from the beta. Along with these plans, we had an internal roadmap, which we thought needed further refinement before being able to share it publicly, as we want to be able to give our community a reliable view of our plans. We now feel that this time has come, so here is the roadmap for the remainder of 2021. 
 
A few important things to note: 
This is a work in progress.  Dates may shift.  Features may be added or removed.  
Please also note that there is more further down the line, past 2021. We just want to be realistic about content and timings and start with delivering what we think is important for 2021. We hope to be working with you, our community, to deliver fun and interesting new features and improvements, thanks to our “new” release process, which includes the PTS, and to your ongoing feedback.
 
Which features on the roadmap are you most excited about? 
 

or Pure ingots, or maybe even elements, rare schematics, frankly Anything but quanta.
Having quanta as reward motivates me 0%, especially since the markets where you can use it are lagginfested