Wolfram

I want to add a small but important note here, that stuff you folks are suggesting, such as being able to change dispenser values or even charge/pay players directly would probably need a new kind of Control Unit that executed code on a safe environment, such as the server. The reason for that is that since all Lua runs on the client, in theory it could be possible to a malicious person to modify a Lua script in run-time and take over control, then do whatever they want with it (eg: changing prices on your dispensers or sending money to someone else). This sort of thing only works in MMOs such as Second Life because the scripts actually run on the server, which mean they are mostly safe (still, it asks for permission for the owner before doing it). Yes EQU8 would catch most cases but still, this will eventually be abused, since the scripts will always be on the client somewhere in memory. Something I really wish we had though were better dispenser UI, at least to be able to dispense larger quantities (like if I want to buy 10 batches of something). This could also come with a small setting where we could set bulk pricing options, so for example, we could have a setting where the base batch price is 100k quanta, but for 10+ batches it drops to 95k, then for 20+ it drops to 90k, etc. Reverse dispensers would also be very welcome too.

I loved the new skybox and was very excited for the water, but as I mentioned on the PTS feedback thread, the water surface now seems to be very transparent, you can literally see the bottom ground instead of the water, with just a few ripples and foam above, which takes all depth feeling away. Would be nice if water had a second pass and was a bit more visible again.

Well I guess it makes some sense then. I do understand NQ's vision of making stuff in large quantity and relying on player interactions, but sometimes I can't afford the time just to fly into a market or even to Honeycomb Central to pick up a small batch and come back while designing a ship, that's why I have a few basic stuff at home such as aluminium, steel and carbon fiber refineries. Anyways, I hope NQ fixes this description issue, at least to prevent others from getting screwed from it. For me it isn't a big deal putting out 3000L of something instead of 1800L, but I'm quite sure it will be for others.

Yeah lol I didn't even realize I was necroing a thread, just saw it was in general and commented hahahaha Maybe some good mod can close it?

Yeah I have to +1 both the RAM part and specially the SSD. The game will feel MUCH BETTER with an SSD for both game and cache, plus it's very common to get over 20GB of the game alone, so make sure you have like 32GB or so...

Well, two things I'd like to talk about here, but it's all related to honeycomb refining. Basically, seems like the Honeycomb Efficiency talents are either broken or don't have correct descriptions. This is what honeycomb refining looks like if you don't have any talents put on, you put in 1800L of material and get 180m³ of honeycomb, every 3 minutes: Now, if you get the "Honeycomb Efficiency" talent, which says "-10% crafting time for XXXXXX Honeycomb Schematics", the batch size is increased, but the time is not changed - at level 3 I've got 2500L to 250m³, still 3 minutes: And this is what the talent description says: To make things worse, this talent is required at level 4 to be able to learn both honeycomb refining and productivity skills. For those who actively work producing honeycomb isn't too big of a deal, but I produce mostly to myself and barely used 180m³, can't even tell how I will use 250m³ or more. Please fix this. As a second note, would be nice if we could run fractional batches of certain stuff such as honeycomb. Like, if I could run just half or a quarter of it would be so much better, specially because there's stuff I simply won't need that much of (such as material used for small details, etc). Thanks!

I used to run DU on my old laptop, which had a 1050Ti 4GB. It ran okay-ish at 720p though, just enough to get like 30 fps max. From your specs the two biggest issues I see might be the processor, as DU is quite intensive on CPU, and the VRAM. It should run though. In worse case scenario you can still play it over GeForce Now too.

Yes please! Would be SO HELPFUL if there was a tool similar to replace voxel, but to replace elements... Would make life much easier for everyone!

Here's an idea that might be quite useful for creators and also would help a lot in a possible wipe scenario: being able to edit Core Blueprints. Basically, if you have the Core Blueprint (and DRM on it), you would be able to "edit" that Core BP and replace or remove elements on it with variations of the same item. So for example, you could replace a Basic Space Engine XL with any other variation of that item, as far it's a Space Engine XL, and optionally you could also remove the elements from it, in case you don't want to deploy the BP with certain items.

Well, I can't see Alioth having any T4 and T5 ores, but a bit of T2 even in very low amounts would be a welcome addition, or at least have more T2 nodes around the planet. For Haven specifically, I think each tile should have a baseline amount of T2, even if it's just 15L or so, because we'll need to make fuel eventually.

I'm quite sure if NQ goes with a wipe and they revamp the worlds, the whole ore distribution will be gone too. But +1 for your idea

Honestly, I really hope that, no matter what decision NQ takes, from now on they take exploits more seriously. This is what pretty much left us on this shitty state of needing a wipe, in first place. Mission implementation was a mistake, sure, and they really seem to be fixing it with Athena, which is cool, but stuff such as the "flash blueprint sale" of last year really deserved a rollback, and sure it was something simple NQ could have done, rolling back the world in a few minutes or just removing those items. Now, talking real exploits, such as item duplication, infinite container range, those who actively use them should face harsher sanctions, either by having their assets removed or being banned (along with their alts too, to prevent laundering). Why has it taken so long while in cases such as Market 15, where the offsense was much smaller, NQ took action so fast? Anyways, I'm okay with wiping the whole world back to zero for release, maybe just leave some talent points in our accounts as a "reward" for our time in beta or something, but please, NQ, take action when players abuse exploits. It's not fun for anyone and this WILL have lots of consequences when mechanics such as Territory Warfare come up.

This is probably intentional though. My guess is that it would allow for 100% automated factories where you purchase ores and get an air delivery and don't have to bother doing anything else. While it would be really awesome to have such thing around, NQ doesn't seem very fond of it, sadly...

It could work very nicely if it was developed inside the talent system! Even less work for NQ to focus on and less chances of things going wrong. The idea of creating high quality elements that are more resistant or offer different buffs is even greater, would add a whole new immersion level to the game, which in my opinion would be very welcome too. I like it!

I was reading some comments regarding Schematics and while I understand they were VERY unpopular, I also understand they made people follow a certain "path" on specialization. Since we might be wiping soon and removing Schematics, it might be a good moment to suggest this. My idea is replacing Schematics with a "research tree", similar to how Rust has implemented for item crafting. It could even reuse lots of code and logic from the Talent system. Basically, instead of having tons of copies of different schematics, you would need to learn or "research" a certain item with points you get over time, to be able to produce it in machines. The more complex the item, the further down it would be on the tree and the longer it would take to learn it. Optionally, Schematics could still exist as a way of "skipping" a few steps and being able to produce items, but with the downside of being a very expensive way to do so. Basically for any recipe you haven't "learned" you still would need to have one schematic per machine running it. Beyond the fact players would need to specialize into specific areas of industry, another advantage of such system is that this could also allow for gameplay mechanics such as players selling the services of setting-up industry for other players, for example.

Would be very nice and interesting if such packaging units could also be used to produce "blueprint packages" or "token blueprints", basically combine a blueprint of an item with the elements and honeycomb necessary for it in a single package that the buyer could then place down.

Honestly, I'm fine with a full wipe (while leaving blueprints behind) as far it's a fair deal with everyone. - Giving a (lucky) few players a head-start by keeping stuff is not fair and probably won't fix anything. The event idea where resources (and maybe even talents) are multiplied is a good idea though and would make the first days definitely "hot" both for old and new players. - For really iconic projects, maybe offer their creators the chance of donating them to the community. The construct is carried over to the new server, but is owned by Aphelia and is placed somewhere in District zone. Basically, it becomes something for use by the community. - Regarding removal of schematics, it's a good idea. The implementation simply doesn't work well for early game and even creating the most basic industry items that are not part of nanocrafter, such as Refiners, simply isn't possible for the first days. You are literally left afk-ing on your base while stuff crafts, which not only is annoying but will probably turn off lots of new players. - Instead of schematics, why not implement something similar to Rust's item reasearch tree? Basically, we could "learn" how to make a certain item in two ways: the first would be "the tree", you unlock items progressively in a tree fashion, and they get progressively more expensive, it could work similar to how talents work today, maybe you could even earn points by crafting items (each batch yields a certain amount), etc. The alternative is a consumable similar to a schematic, but could be consumed by the player to learn that specific item recipe. This could even allow for a new type of gameplay where players would "sell" their services of setting industry machines to a certain recipe, similar to how there's people selling Mining Unit charges nowadays.

I'm actually pretty impressed at the update overall, looking forward to try it out on PTS though. While I know some changes aren't very popular, specially the one where mass reduces max ship weight, I do see this will address the issue of mission exploiting while also incentivize building smaller/lighter ships for PVP instead of massive gun bricks with weapons spammed all over the place. Not that those can't be built, they can and will be built as siege weapons, sure, but they will also have their downsides, both in terms of not being able to catch up with small targets and also being vulnerable to smaller attack ships, basically we'll start seeing more classes of ships instead of "one L core fits all".

Honestly, I can even agree with a partial wipe, as far as the only things that are kept are talent points and blueprints of the we had. Anything else beyond that (including magic blueprints and schematics) can and will be abused by players as a way to dump and hide money, elements, honeycomb, etc. The issue would still be there. Also, the 48h makes no sense and would be a dream for anyone looking into claiming all decent tiles. Alpha players might have paid for the game first but right now what has been keeping the game up is coming from the pockets of Beta players who have subscriptions, you aren't any better or more special to have that sort of treatment.

I honestly don't know. Probably the servers would go dead, just like the day before wipe in games such as Rust (where weekly wipes are common). The difference is the post wipe situation, most creations that made DU cool and attractive to new players simply wouldn't exist at all, everyone would go back to the zero and the game would be absolutely empty. For new players I'm not sure how good it would be...

First things first, I'd like to just leave my opinion clear here, I really don't care if a wipe happens or not. I've pretty much burnt out of the game over the last few months and the only reason I keep a subscription running is because I have hopes that at some point it will get better again, and if it does, at least I still have my things somewhere, as they took over a year to get to where they are right now. That being said, I obviously would just pause my subscription if NQ announced a wipe, at least until the game is wiped and some minimal amount of content is back. I simply don't have a reason to pay for something and invest time on it if I know it will be deleted in a few weeks or months, and also won't have any reason or even time to play when everything is back to stone age. Oh yes, and being back at stone age, that's a good topic. NQ is selling the game with lots of promises (one of them, back when I joined, was of persistance, but let's forget that), such as big battles, etc. The issue with that, specially since everything is player-made, is that after a wipe the game will be basically empty. Pretty much all there will be to do is to get started. Even proper professions won't be a thing, since everyone will be stuck grabbing rocks, queueing talents and starting over. PVP is even worse, first because it's a high risk investment, then also because pretty much everyone will be on the safe zones anyways (even if only Sanctuary is the safe zone, after all, everyone is starting over). A bit related to starting over is how the wipe would happen. Lots of people seem to want something partial just to "fix the balance", which we all know won't do much. A good part of the imbalance of this game is caused by the whales who own a ton of beta key alts and pretty much have those characters maxed out in some skill trees. If talents aren't wipe then those accounts could either have a massive advantage against anyone - newbie or not - or even be sold to new players or anyone looking for an advantage, even though that's against the rules. For that previous point, what I think could work, is requiring a 3 month+ sub at least, at beginning, to keep the points. To anyone properly playing the game it will make no difference, after all it's the minimum sub time you'd need anyways. If you have one or two alts and think it's worth keeping, well you can go for it too, but would quickly make things difficult to handle for whales, since they would have to expend more and more to keep their 10+ alts running. And for a final point, the NQ silence. While I understand they are on a very tough position, they should at least start this discussion with the community. Yes, obviously lots of players will stop playing with a wipe, specially people paying, but I'm sure many are already getting tired and just feeling like giving up the game altogether because of this lack of proper communication. There's also the chance of a massive backlash when the wipe happens. The earlier NQ starts talking about it, the less it will feel like the whole silence thing was a scam to get players to pay for something they won't keep. And trust me, since the whole reason for a wipe is getting ready for release, the worse thing you can do is to leave players with that feeling, as that can (and will) easily turn into bad reviews and things that will turn off potential new players. Anyways, if you read until here thank you so much! I hope the best for this game, for real.

Wiping or not, I really want an answer from NQ. The way they keep going around the answer and pushing it forward is really giving a bad taste, similar to when scam games start "disappearing". At least for me, if they go for wiping I really will pause my subscription until post wipe, as I don't see any point in investing time and money into something that's just going to disappear. Sure, many other players *will* do the same, since there isn't really a point in investing when you know a wipe is happening, but if NQ keeps pushing it like that, by hiding information, I *really* hope they are prepared, because the backlash will be monumental and will be another stain on NQ's public image and public relations, similar to the whole Market 15 story.

If NQ wanted to be 100% GDPR compliant the changes would do minimal if any change. Take for example the "Birds" people used to place on markets that tracked what players got close to them, they did that by combining Detection Zones with Lua's function to get the master player's ID (the ID currently running the unit) and saved it into a databank, probably. If NQ really wanted to prevent this sort of issue they would have limited that function to only ever return the player ID if they ran the PB directly, instead of being able to do it when running indirectly (via DZ, button, etc).

Funny thing is, both me, @Archaegeo and @blazemonger are showing a few examples of how this whole "disabling writing to logs" could be nullified, even though against the EULA. Truth is, even though we won't do it ourselves, whoever plays DU for exploits and profits is probably already doing it in some way, and both don't care and definitely won't be saying out loud and pointing out to the devs. My overall view on this thing is, if NQ really wants to push for the emergent gameplay they keep claiming for, where PLAYERS CREATE THINGS, they will either eventually have to deal with people exploiting (either by improving their anti-cheat or giving their GMs ways to see what's going on the player's client, whatever) or just close down all the creative parts of the game and make it something sterile like Star Citizen, at least you don't have to worry about players misusing Lua. We can keep going forever on this subject too: - Removing log writing for legit players means they might not be able to do some cool stuff, like external UIs to show ship stats, while exploiters will probably use QR/bar codes + OCR to keep exploiting - Then you DRM the whole game client, pixels aren't accessible anymore, legit players and streamers can't capture or stream the game, exploiters might use the QR code from previous point and just point a webcam to the screen - Then you go full on crazy, render the whole screen as a black screen, no info, nothing - congrats, there's no game! Also, I'd like to point out the big issue here isn't even outputting stuff from Lua into the computer. Like, that data is already all available to players with Lua anyways, they will eventually find a way to output it in an automated way. The big issue is players being able to input data to the game client, via virtual keyboard/mouse input. Sure, doing so would kill some stuff like Joy2Key and AutoHotKey, but is probably the most guaranteed way to stop botting.

Yes absolutely PLEASE NovaQuark, if you guys want to remove writing to the logfiles as a feature then also allow us to disable them in first place. I don't need yet another part of my system being stressed by the game. Log into your AWS systems if you want to use something for debugging.