[DUAL UNIVERSE: WHAT'S COMING NEXT]

btw folks, having multiple cans linked to one fuel hub has one big downside... it would also limit output link count... so it wouldn't be really practical unless whole hub would only provide one data uplink aggregator and kept OUT ports of individual fuel cans intact.

[DUAL UNIVERSE: WHAT'S COMING NEXT]

The news sound good, only hoping the implementation isn't just the way of least pain like asteroid "update" (read UI change with a tweak of few timers). Even if it means it will take 12 months instead of 4.

Some points to cargo delete lock:
1. I entirely support the notion of cargo jettison instead of delete lock.

2. The jettison can needs to have short life span and radar should be able to show it's mass.

3. Remove cargo destruction from container hub destruction - it's nothing more than warehouse index and doesn't hold anything on it's own.

4. Every loss of container life should imo also affect what's inside, how much gets lost/ruined is a matter of balancing.

[1.2 thoughts]

Asteroid revamp is a joke... 1 man job for 1-2 days tops (okay +2 for test) - a bit of touching on one frontend view and RNG on spawn + timer on despawn on server. That's all. We still get ridiculous broadcast, we still get Damn Stupid Asteroid Tracker. Unknown asteroid composition before tracking out... while we already have spectroscopy irl, that at least makes sense from game point of view. Change like this could have easily make it to one of small weekly patches.

[Recycling]

Ergonomy of recycling is truly bad. Other than that it is a weird lottery.

What I would have expected - Recycler as described by Mncdk1 - input bin, output bin... talents and remaining lives of element that that affect output result in % of original product materials (as would be needed to produce respective element by full level 5 industrialist). 

[Schematics storage]

Rising difficulty by forcing questionable, far from ergonomic user interface is not a good way to make things harder achievable. It's like removing automine/dig lock to make digging harder.

So definitely +1 on any form of clickfest reduction here. 

[Forum Changes!]

A bit sad about ideas being shut down for those rare occasions some comes at all late evening, but overall changes look like improvement, time will tell.

[Element Stacking Needed Badly]

7 hours ago, Hagbard said:

i honestly like it the way it is now. stacking should not be allowed. instead players should try to build more efficient, which requires skills and learning how the physics in this game work. if a planet has a high gravity, it should be expensive and difficult to bring mass to the orbit, this is what forces us to invent either more efficient ships or other clever to achieve what we need.
i wish they would even make it more challenging by introducing energy systems that would stop those massive ships with engine walls to exist. this would create job opportunities in the game and drive innovation forward. but just allowing single ships to hide even more engines by allowing stacking would not be the right way forward. same for xl or xxl atmo engines. just accept that a single ship cannot do everything and at the same time be efficient or cheap to run.
Instead we should innovate and try to live with the physic limits. can a single player run 60l containers without efforts from the surface to orbit? no.
so how can we solve this? today there are lots of ways already. use agg ( and accept the slow ascend speed, use elevators, use smaller shuttles that bring up some mass each flight to orbit or space station, use bigger space only ships, work together, think innovate based on the given limits. this is what creates challenges and drives us forward. ( and somehow slows down the mission misuse as well, which is a good thing)

I think by stacking here is ment aggregation on the level of inventory UI, currently when item has dynamic property it's not stackable even if the property bears same info (ie. basic atmo engine M "2 lives left")

[System missions]

With currently limited set of planets and furher ones in progress I suggest not to just 'drop' them in system with server downtime but...
 

1. Alter Aphelia to actually contain wallet... all taxes end here. Out of this wallet, system missions are funded (ie. when Aphelia gets broke she can't issue next mission till more tax is collected) - this is to scale with power of game economy
2. Create set of missions under one 'epic'... let's say "Ion Voyage" - these epic missions need to take long enough time for developers to keep up the pace
   1. Discovery - set of missions that in the end reveal bare celestial body - needs some timing and scheduling between progress of epic and development speed
      1. Bring ores (missions like 'bring 1000/10k/100k/1M hematite" to destination) - flat buyout price per unit so small/new players can participate just as much as big ones
      2. Haul the ores (the one actually delivered in previous missions) to various places across system. Decent pay, collateral higher than ore cost. Also of various volumes to allow various players participate (losing mission leads to issuing of new 'bring ore mission')
      3. Once respective volume of materials is on the location, issue crafting missions to produce elements (issue previously delivered ores - respective to what untrained industrialist would need allowing some savings for the trained ones, high collateral above market cost of product, low profit for untrained, decent profit for trained industrialist. Requested products are delivered on same place (this is to stretch industry across known system)
      4. Hauler mission to fly them to Alioth Ark. Once whole list of components, elements, voxels, fuel is delivered, building of observatory inside market circle starts (this gives some small headroom in case devs need to catch up - once finished, after next downtime planet appears on map. At this point, planet contains hexes that are not claimable, surface ore that is not claimable, no markets, no atmosphere
   2. Ideally in this phase conquest should come... planet should be settled by hostile NPCs... 1+ per planet hex (ie. enough for everyone who wants to shoot)... bounties for PvE, kill missions etc. to give fighter pilots some fun - this phase ends with last alien wiped out. Once completed, surface ore is harvestable, hexes are not possible to claim nor scan
   3. Settle in - At this point, planet needs Planetary office and terraforming
      1. Planetary office provides set of similar missions to Discovery. Once planetary office is built, hexes are claimable, but not mine-able/scannable (except unclaimable ones scheduled for featured locations like markets)
      2. Terraforming - basically bring in large volumes of oxygen/hydrogen - once completed, planet gets atmosphere, hexes become mine-able and scannable
   4. Reach the civilization - Currently planet has no markets nor public warp point
      1. Build markets - set of missions similar to "Discovery", at the end of the set new market appears on predetermined location (n markets = n rounds)
      2. Build warp beacon - set of missions similar to "Discovery", at the end possibility to warp to the planet is enabled
3. Once game gets into implementing more systems similar set of progress can be implemented for it.
4. Possible smaller scoped repeatable epic missions for ore belts (org/individual ? scaled where reward is a claim of ore belt hex) more similar in playstyle to removed planetary mining (bear in mind main epics need to require very massive volumes of everything so extra ore from belts turns in necessity rather than surplus) - lifetime of such belt is reasonably long but limited.

 

The goal here is to add something to do for every tier of players, feeling of progress and participation, while trying to add as little dev work as possible (which couldn't be done in all cases, sorry). While we wait for next planet pop in, it can be utilized as an economy engine. The downsides in design are that some parts are sequential (you can't really fight vs aliens above planet that wasn't discovered yet) which puts part of player crowd on the bench while other part plays on progress.

 

Overall, there is lack of content for fighter pilots or gated behind high dev effort (plus I have come with only one place where it could fluently fit in the epic progress).The biggest downside is the necessity of NPCs to provide something to do for fighter pilots, but I fail to see how provide fighting content without it. And it lacks PvP content entirely, for that I don't see much other reasonable options than planetary warfare though.

 

Just a mind excersise with many loose ends so feel free to brainstorm folks.

 

[Link multiple elements]

If it is possible somehow, rly sorry, I haven't found a way.

Use case: link one element of origin with multiple target elements

 

Workflow:
1. Enable linking element tool

2. Click on source element
3. repeat: ALT+Click on n destination elements (ALT pressed while clicking automatically sets next link source)

Result:
links created between source and each of n destination elements (1:N mapping) as long as there are available respective in/out links

[NQ No Longer Supporting Discord... Thoughts?]

Paying for quite bugged beta was questionable at best, but paying for service with close to no SLA is a bit too much for me. Really, if something breaks friday night it's like 60hrs at best before they even get to work and then have to dig through all those accumulated tickets over that time. Plus turnaround time for ticket support 'have you tried'-'no change' turns lots of support events from minutes/hours (ingame/discord) to days.

IF the game was rock stable... bearable... with current state, no.

[MARKET OVERLOAD - Two Solutions]

I have to agree, landing pad is there for landing, not for placing static constructs like shops or adverts. I have seen some decently figured out alternatives of these shops done as an extension to the sides of landing pad, which, imho, is decent solution I can live with. As long as there is one direction (north/south etc.) left unobstructed for ships not able of VTOL or less experienced pilots, shops extending on the sides should be acceptable.

Having high container range I just park my ship 2km away and vertically land, being too lazy to stumble over various collision boxes, but fresh pilots won't have that advantage. In the end this landing pad scrapyard is very limiting for new players experience and as such should be abolished.

LUAs throwing overload exceptions on market hexes should be automatically reported and compacted out at certain exception count. Leaving them there is both useless and stupid. Arguably I'd also prefer no datacube writes allowed.