Cabana

I don't care what others got thru exploits. I played legit grinded legit killed ships legit and don't feel like I was left behind or was not competitive in PvP. What I do care about is that the 2 years grind would be made a waste of time. What others got thru exploits was negated by anyone running missions. These were nerfed to the ground and no serious Missionrunner considers still fly any mission anymore. That means also no more Hauler kills for any PvP guy the rest besides missions can be warped. A surplus of sz roids and MU took away the need to go rare exotic roids for ores reduced chance for fights and kills for PvP players once again. So if you are a PvP player how would you feel if they take you earned kills in form of a graveyard away do you think that is fair ? Scripters can be day one selling scripts, Builders can sell BP. Just the progress of those that mined fought and traded is taken away. Once again is that fair?

Pardon, but I have the answer about the wipe already.
For sure, there will be a 100% Full Wipe. No blueprints at all, no talent points.

Why ? Because NQ did it always. First they announced a partial reset, and said what they wanted to keep. Then a few days before reset they said : "Well, we made a new decision, probably it will be best to not let players, who spent month in scanning territories, keep their scan reports."

So somehow NQ is SOOOOOOOOO much scared of being unfair to, not even knowing new player yet, that they rather hurt the player which  they know very close and get money from. Player who spend time, money, creativity and passion in it.
Sometimes player in here say it is no content in the game. Sorry, but then you need to play a story driven game rather than a "player creativity content creation" game if you don't get it, there will be no one, taking your hand and leading you to a map with thousends of quests all over the map. 

And WE MADE CONTENT already. It took countless hours every day. Content in terms of nice ships, elevators, bases, cities, infrastructure and amazing scripts of real geniuses.

So my beloved NQ team, do you think most of us can repeat that after a wipe ?
Put same energy and lifetime into it ?
And now, please read carefully :
TO ALWAYS KNOW, THAT IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE WITH A LITTLE PLUGIN OR WHATEVER, IT CAN ALWAYS BE A WIPE AGAIN !!!
"NQ" and the word "persist" does somehow not fit together anymore. 
How can we start over again and put again years in the game, to create something we can keep as long as WE want to keep it (because we pay money to NQ) and not how long NQ "allows" us to keep it ? 
It is 100% your game, and you proved it a few times already to the community.
And please do NOT start promising : "this will be the last wipe in the game"
Me as a comedian, I know how hard it is to find a punchline like this !

What are your thoughts after the wipe ?
Most player will start again from scratch PLUS thousands of new player because the player news in social media channels are that great ? 

Not sure how this can be happening.
I think it could really be the last wipe. Simply because there will be no player anymore to recognize your next wipe after this one.

Please also think about your code and backend technic!
Why on earth...erm......Alioth, do you need so much resets and wipes always before you are going to do a "big" change ?
What about a big change in, let's say, 5 years ? Will you do a wipe then ? (don't smile, say "no", and believe yourself now !)
Do you think there will be always 450k NEW player after a wipe ?

Consider EVE or other games have to act like this ?
To let people pay constantly in beta AND doing resets and wipes isn’t the best idea, huh ?

But for sure also after this, you are going to do a full wipe !
By the way, I always supported you in our community if someone said : "uhh, they changed color of some voxels" "uhh, they made a change here, i dont like" and so on. I always said: "You try different ways to play the game, so let NQ also try different ways to put game mechanic in."

But i truly never thought you would announce a wipe !

Many of us (if not all) would have not put so much energy in building bases (also underground bases dug up) which took years. And now since a few of us dug up their 24 L core underground base because of your surface reset and your tool only could dig out squares and this could not give back the shape the base had before. So after this week's and month of work again, to restore the look of such building you tell us: "There will be a wipe" ? Wow ! Your Balls having the size of Jago and Teoma !

You always told us, this is a fantastic persist world. That's why a lot of player took this serious and creates amazing things because we have known (because we did trust you) IT WILL BE PERSIST.

And now you say: "LOL, no, i´ts not"
 
Me personal, I stopped playing the game at all because I have following projects in DU right now:

- copy/paste my 24 L core space station to a new place because I moved base and I love the caterpillar elevators and want to use them in the future.
 
- calculating a few ships where we want to sell in future
 
- calculating mining outposts, also for selling.

- building base and infrastructure
 
 
The Reason I stopped playing is: How much sense does it make, to work on my projects, if I don't know your decision ?
So by the way, how long will that take in your mind, until we worth it, to hear your decision  ?
 
Last thing: How could a full wipe work to be fair for everybody ?

me, i did a lot of digging ores and then build a factory and got my quanta on this way = after a wipe, gone = very long time to have that many quanta and luxury items again after wipe .
 
Others were creating amazing ships with very nice designs = also gone and also long time to get it back to this level
 
 
And what about our amazing LUA scripting geniuses ? 
First minute in game after wipe = copy/paste all scripts from *.txt files back into game.
So scripter have a 100% backup of all work AND have a "ready to sell" product in about 60 seconds after first login after wipe.

We "builder" do not have such a backup or a "ready to sell" product.

So talking about "fair to all" ? How does this fit into your world ?

Make your decision good, but make it SOON.
Meetings every day, and no vacation until decision.
This is just a splinter, you owe us!
You already have stolen us enough real life time.

But I know that you probably not wanted to hurt anyone of us.

So I wish you a great day and a good progress to your decision.
 
Dylan Hunt
(always for a good commonwealth)
 

 

This fairness argument is so delusional and absurd. Let's say the server starts on 08/01/22, then every player joining this game one, two or 6 month later is entitled to call this an unfair game. 
I would have absolutely nothing against a wipe if NQ hadn't made people pay money for the beta. For me and many others, the start of the beta was the release of the game.

2. Blueprints 
 
Why a builders work in form of a BP can survive the wipe and my work of a PvP player of a ship I captured and later repaired will not be saved? this is hipocrisy at best!

I have held back on my thoughts on this as a statement but this is how I feel. 
Unfortunately we are playing a Beta game. the developers did say there wouldn't be a wipe after alpha and there have been leaks and loose statements about a potential wipe since then. This has caused more harm than good. Personally what I would like to see is a very direct statement when its time. either we are not going to do a wipe or we are  and this is how. then list the reasons why technical reasons not social and List how this will help the game in the future. 
 
we all know sometimes in development wipes are important and have to happen. Some times when the devs them selves do not particularly want it to happen. while they are not public I know all of the devs do play the game and have invested leisure time into the game. Also I know the NQ staff are personally vested in the future of the game and its success as they rely on it for income and providing for themselves and their families. 
 
I do not think the developers want to wipe. If they did WANT to wipe it would have been a very clear statement from the beginning.  they would not have invested the time to help us save cores and dig out structures. Or give away warp beacons as rewards for events. While there has been post about pros and cons on wiping their actions  in game have shown that they want to world we have built to continue on. 
 
I think wiping for the reason of player balance is not a good idea. There will always be player balance issues. You will always have new players who have to catch up and old players who seem to own the stars. Its part of an on going universe. the difference is that in DU you have a community of people who want to help new players. Streamers who are here to support the game and help build up the player base. I think personally a wipe would hurt that. 
 
One of the biggest draws to du for new players is the creativity and seeing the things people have built and done in game. 
but to wipe because some players have to much is not a good reason. Every game has those who have more time and drive. Who will always do well. there will always be things that are exploitable.
 
Utilize those who have in game to help the game at launch. the existing server cleaning system is going to clear a lot of content when the server goes live due to players not paying for beta and alpha accounts monthly.  Let that aspect of the server do its job. That just provides more content for players. 

We as a community have to stop jumping onto what ever story we hear. Have a little faith in the NQ staff. Im not trying to fan boy them. But at the end of the day we have to realize. This is fun time for us. Its work for them. This represents their income and life. The last thing they want to do is to harm that. The developers are on our side. but first they are on the games side. And even though we might not like their actions at times. We have to acknowledge they will only do whats best for the game and company.  And if there is a wipe. In a few years it will be like it never happened. 
 
We will all be laughing about the stupid crap we did during beta while the nubs are looking confused

Our new system map overhaul gives powerful new tools to players in visualizing the Helios system. You can read about this new Athena update feature below!

OVERVIEW
 
Players can now see and navigate around the entire system map laid out to scale in three dimensions.  

 
Setting a Warp Point will no longer replace your current destination. Players may now set a destination waypoint separately to a warp-specific waypoint.  
Space resources such as the Alien Core Units are accessible through the map.   
We’ve added a better organized menu that opens quicker and has a more useful filter system in the top-left menu, allowing players to filter items on the map by name, owner, or construct type.  

 
Players can see coordinates displayed in real time as they move the target around the map, allowing for precise copying of coordinates, position input and bookmark creation.  
THE CONTROLS
 
You can freely move around the map, rotate it by holding left click, pan around horizontally by holding left + right click and pan vertically by holding right click. You can zoom by scrolling your mouse wheel. You can also reset your view back to default with a button in the top menu.  
You can toggle display settings using the associated button in the top panel, such as the target plane or the safe zones. This will let you choose the amount of elements visible on the map at all times.  

 
You can select any item with left click, select and move to any item with double-left click, and select, move to and reorient the camera with middle click.  
You will also see an exact distance indicator between your avatar and any location (or your current selection and any location, if there is one), by mousing over them. Distances can also be quickly gauged using the grid size indicator at the top.  
Players may set destinations, warp points, open planet maps and more from the menu on the top-right of the map when selected. These actions are also served through contextual menus displayed on bodies in the map.  
----------------------------------------

As always, we’d like to hear from you. How do you like the new map? Will it have an impact on your game? Please let us know here.
 

I don't think you even took the time to understand the OP's suggestion (not about a wipe)...and either way, this sort of insult makes you sound like a whining teenager.
 
For someone so concerned about "care bears" complaining...you seem to complain so readily and are eager to throw around personal insults despite not knowing the OP at all.
 
If you're worried about people throwing a tantrum and ruining the game's fun, try looking inward. 

Then I don't get you argument, since if you like me don't care about PvP etc. and just want to do you own thing. Then there is no reason to care about "fairness" in a game like DU where there is no race again time or anything to win other then the goals you set for yourself.
 
And with regards to "fairness" and self imposed PvP competition, I find it strange (not really) that those that complain the loudest, usually has a tendency to stop complaining the moment they get ahead.
 

The Dual Universe egg hunt has begun Noveans! 
 
From Saturday, April 16th to Monday, April 25th, please join us for An Egg-cellent Adventure!
 
All around Alioth you will randomly find colored eggs on the ground as well as some other in plain sight places. Some of them you may find often (common), some of them might be a rare find or if your egg detecting skills meet the challenge, you may find a special Novaquark staff egg! All eggs contain gifts from the Novaquark team, so do not forget to smash them open to see what’s inside!
 
There have been several players who have already found some eggs, so you’re going to need to be quick, lucky, as well as very observant!  
 
There’s more! This Egg-tastic celebration is also a competition. Each egg is worth a certain amount of point(s), which means the rarer the egg, the more points you will get. Colors include white eggs (most common), green, yellow, blue, red and the very special Novaquark staff egg which is the most valuable of them all!
 
Once you find an egg, there will be a special code inside (read carefully!). Copy the code and enter it into this simple form that is linked inside the egg and register your code to start accumulating points!

 
Helpful Hint: Start your search by looking around the Point of Interests (POIs) around Alioth.  
 
Good luck Noveans, be egg-cellent to each other. 

It is quite obvious Athena is adding more features for pvp so that more players and orgs participate.
PVP never been popular among majority of players that own only 1 account. Participating or wanting to, requires levelling hundreds of pvp related talents that most players wont, because there are other hundreds more vital talents to enjoy better a quiet life. 
 
But NQ has done the probably unfixable mistake to open market to shadow PC players, which ultimately broke PVP in DU
There is not a single PVP org member that have less than 2 accounts and play pvp with 2 DU clients open on a single computer
Meaning a minimum of 2 characters seated in the same ship and ready for pvp, controlled by 1 single person, meaning double of weapon power controlled by 1 "at the same time"

Us random folks and orgs have absolutely no chance out there

What should be reviewed by NQ to rebalance this and give equal chance to anyone?
2 solutions:

1) Re enable the VR controls, letting player in VR use remotes / programming boards / command seats / pvp seats
VR could still restrain inventories access, and talents

2) Remove the number of allowed weapons per seat, but allocate it per construct

FULL wipe or no wipe, those are your only good options. People who can come into the game with their blueprints will have an income source that requires NO resources during a time that everyone else is scrambling to get established. These "builders" will have a good income source straight away with which they'll use to capture important tiles on remote planets. And since the ore pools don't rotate/change, they'll be locked down forever (where we are now). Regardless of the actual long-term affect on the economy we'll NEVER hear the end of "haves vs have-nots" because they didn't do a full wipe.
 
So please. Full wipe or no wipe.

Following our policy of being as transparent as possible and to keep everyone informed, we want to give you some insight about the internal discussions the Novaquark team has on the delicate topic on whether we’re going to have a wipe or not, and under which form. The discussions are numerous, as there is no easy answer and we have to take into account all of the pros and cons for each possible solution. We also have been taking into account the players discussions which have happened - and for some, are still happening - on Discord and our official forum. On one hand we have you, our early backers and players, who supported us for quite some time now, and we want to renew our thanks for being so patient and passionate about Dual Universe. On the other hand, we have the constraints of making the game appealing to new players.
 
Please note: By “new players”, we mean players who’ve just heard about Dual Universe, but we also have many backers that have chosen not to participate during Alpha and Beta, so they can begin playing once the game has reached a polished enough state with game mechanics.
 
SO, WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS WE HAVE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT?
 
We know that players have repeatedly asked for an answer to this question. It has been on the table for many months, if not since the Beta opened. The team has been discussing many options on the topic and we’ve gone back to the drawing board many times. Here is an overview of the factors that we are taking under consideration:
 
A reset would be an opportunity to remove things that have been deemed very unpopular by the already existing community, such as the schematics. The only way to remove them in a clean way without causing too many disturbances in the economy is clearly when the in-game economy has been just reset.
 
Many tests/adjustments during Beta have impacted the in-game economy, leading to have some players getting extremely rich way faster than intended, due to an intensive use of some features in their early stage, such as the mission system (and that's understandable, as the situation is part of a normal process in the development of a game). However, it's also common practice in the game development process to usually have some kind of reset when critical milestones are reached, and resetting the economy to have a healthy start once the game has been stabilized and the game features have become more balanced makes sense.
 
As you, our current experienced players, will have quite an advantage compared to the new players on many levels (game knowledge, talent points, wealth, constructs already owned), there's a need to make things a bit more balanced to give a fighting chance to the wave of new players that will join the Community later.
 
We also want to give all the players (new players as much as a big part of the early backers who have waited for the game to be in a fairly polished state) to have the opportunity of the right start.
 
In case of a wipe, finding a way for our veteran players to allow them to keep (or rebuild quickly) their favorite constructs, without creating any loophole for players to bypass the reset (and defeat the purpose of why it’s done).
 
Some planets currently do not have the quality and polished state the Novaquark team wants to give them. We also have seen that a part of the Community has the same opinion on the topic, and this is why the dev team has been planning a revamp for the planets which haven’t received one already.
 
WE CONSIDERED SEVERAL ALTERNATIVES SO FAR TO REACH THESE GOALS:
 
- Doing no wipe at all.
 
Pros:
Satisfying for some of our long-time builders and traders Cons:
Unsatisfying for players wanting to discover the game and start with a more polished version of the game. Does not allow to remove Schematics properly. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Does not allow the rebalancing of the economy properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs.  
 
- Making a partial wipe where the economy would be wiped, but not the Constructs, which would keep all player-made creations intact, with also in mind to prevent some players from storing resources on said Constructs to circumvent the reset of the economy.
 
Pros:
Relatively satisfying for some of our long-time builders. Cons:
Extremely complex to put in place properly without the known loopholes interfering (such as piling up Resources and Elements on existing Constructs before a wipe and removing them after to sell them). Unknown loopholes could break the wanted healthy economic reset. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs.  
 
- Having a “legacy” live server and a new live server, where only the blueprints made before the new server opening would be transferred to the new live server.
 
Pros:
Could prevent any wipe with this solution while managing issues the dev team is trying to solve. Cons:
Opens a number of new issues server-side. Would split the Community.  
 
- Having a full wipe (except blueprints) with solutions to make old time players able to rebuild their favorite Constructs quickly through various means.
 
(Here are a few examples of discussed ideas to reach this goal: for our veteran backers, starting pool of talents points and/or quanta, resource multiplier event right after the reset, etc.).
 
Pros:
Prevents loopholes for an economic reset compared to a partial wipe. Most efficient, proper way to remove schematics. Most efficient, proper way to handle a planet revamp. Cons:
Some possibilities discussed could be seen as an unfair advantage.
Keep in mind, if the above solution is decided on, that an improved version of the Blueprint / Construct deployment tool available to all players will be implemented in-game at the time (or maybe even before) such a solution would be applied to the game.
Such improved version will enable players to have:
A preview of the Construct before deploying the said Construct from a blueprint (this feature should be available with Athena release). An ability to auto-align the preview of the Construct on an already deployed Construct (this feature should be available a bit later after Athena release).
   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Though this may seem to be a long explanation, it’s a (very) short description of everything the Novaquark team has discussed so far on this topic. So stay tuned, and we thank you again for your patience and support. As mentioned before, our decision will not be made on a whim, but will be made considering and pondering all of the factors mentioned above.
 
Let us know your thoughts on all this here!

The upcoming 0.29 Athena update is about more than just PvP and improved visuals. Among the many features this update brings is the Aegis Market.
Read on to learn more about this new commercial hub in space.
 

 
  SPACE ECONOMY  
With the introduction of The Aegis Market, players may now directly access a bot-free market housed in the void of space. Located in a zero-gravity environment, the Market station provides a new dynamic in the transport of cargo, in that merchandise can be bought and sold without the need to make planetfall.
 
Players can now transport resources, including from the new Alien Core Units, and sell them at a market using craft designed purely to function in space. This, along with the updates to our Space Warfare feature can provide new design routes to the next generation of player designed spaceships in Dual Universe.
 
NEW PATHS AND AVENUES TO EXPLORE

 
The Aegis Market is a vast place and it’s surrounded by landing pads for ships to dock. These pads have teleporters which can then take the players straight to the core of the market. The landing pads are all named after the planet nearest to them, and are only about 1KM away from the Aegis. 
 
A landing pad where ships can dock.

 
Teleporters leading players to the market.
 
The market is located at the very center point of the safe zone, at roughly equal distance from Alioth, Madis and Thades. There is also a public warp beacon to the Aegis Market available.
 
Please note that the Aegis Market has an interdiction zone surrounding it. You can't deploy a space core within 50KM of its location. You can however, deploy a dynamic core in this surrounding zone - just like in Aphelia territories on the planets.
 
SPACE MARKETS – SYSTEM EXPANSION
 
While we study the impact and player reactions to the addition of the Aegis Market, we will only be implementing this single new space market. If we can determine that the implementation of this feature is a positive addition to our game, we will explore the option of adding more of them in the future.
 
We’d like to invite you to share your thoughts with us on this feature. Would you like to see more space markets in Dual Universe? What is your initial reaction to their implementation? Please Let us know your feedback here!
 

I spent some time thinking about this issue, especially since I am actually an advocate for the importance of cross section (even if, ironically, my ships as shown above only conform to small cross section along 1 axis). The idea I came up with would be to limit cross section effectiveness to a threshold, to create a sort-of "deminishing return".

Say you have an L core. The lowest cross section "effectiveness" you'd reach with that idea would be if you get, say, 800m² of cross section. No matter how much smaller you manage to build than that, it wont lower the hit probs anyone gets against you any further than they'd have if you had 800m² flat.

I would apply the same to the other cores, M for example I would say 400m² and smaller. So if you have 180m², 250m² or 390m², you'd have the same hit probs against you and would only INCREASE hit probs against that M core when you start going beyond 400m² cross section. Cross-core-size you already have penalties and bonuses to your hits probs and that should remain.

NOW you would say: "BUT Metsys, that would just mean people build 800x800x800 voxel boxes!" to which I say that you'd add quite some weight at that point, even if you choose relatively light voxel, but that you are kinda correct. Also those stats aren't set in stone, I was just giving example numbers. But the build zone would still be a lot smaller than the full core and should, to a degree, still affect the chances of getting hit. But just large enough to allow some creative freedom to fashion something that is more than just a box.


A similar idea that was given here before that I think might overall be a better way to prevent the "box" is a calculation on volume. I would still maintain a sort of deminishing return on effectiveness, but calculate the threshold with the VOLUME of the ship. In fact, this might be an even better idea.

Let's do an example:
Let's take the M core numbers I gave and go 400x400x400 vs a rough estimation of a "stick-like" ship like the one shown by OP, 180x600x560 (this would be small frontal, but a long ship so the other 2 would be bigger). The result: 400x400x400 = 64.000.000m³ vs 180x600x560 = 60.480.000m³ 
If you go by volume then, the sticky ship would look better, be within the "volume threshold" for deminishing return and even be a bit under it, so you could even add a bit onto the ship. We'd just need a method to see the volume of the ship too, to be able to build ships to remain inside the volume threshold on purpose.

TL;DR: I suggest an effectiveness threshold into a deminishing return for hit probs on small cross section, but that alone might still result in boxes. So I also suggest doing this threshold calculation on volume instead of surface orientation, giving some made-up example numbers.

Completely remove the visual design of the ship from the equation and balance it using what was put into it instead. This leaves players with a free range of visual designs but still allows for balancing acts both from NQs side were they can add/remove points from elements that affects hit probability etc, and also allows the designer of the ship to balance  offense and defense points as well as maneuverability and other ship properties.
 

I agree we need shield bleed fast to counter this

It would be super fun if we could get mega nodes on asteroids. Make them rare but possible. The game loop of exploring for a mega was a super fun loop. Players really want the possibility to hit a huge score it keeps them engaged longer. Mega nodes where that in DU and some fun went with them. Mining a mega node over the week the asteroids is in game would bring this lost fun back. 

--- Declaration of Conformity ---
 
About Wipe - for the devs eyes and not only .
 
I personally dont think a full server wipe is really needed at all.
Unless an fatal error persists on game server loading all player's assets at the time of the release their is no need to wipe.
There is no software change that demands that wipe and so player's assets can remain as is. But you should know better that ofc.
At this time the "partially" wipe was : the meganodes , the scans, the geometry reset , the market clean up and ofc the core count .
Now as of fair gameplay and the chance for new players to procced to the game , I dont think there is much of a gap there at all .
If there is a wipe there is a lot of players who subbed and supported the game for  so long and deserve to get what they already have and if the wipe happens you make a player who is paying for years for subs the same thing with someone who will sub for a month or for how long we dont know -  and that is not fair . And with no reason . A new player can proceed very fast to what wants to accomplish in the game with or without the use of alts. 
We are getting into a situation of : " I wanna play now , you wanna play later" and so on...
As of exploits that people got extra money ingame I am sure you can find the formula about it and make the correct decision.
And I think you should make that specific decision and wipe that illegal money out of the game once and for all.

I shall revel in this succulent win, for I- have bested you NQ... I have destroyed your Fools Defense.  Also have video if this win is challenged  I stayed up all night for this, having planned to load my ship up at 2am locally when the PTS was supposed to go live.. had planned to go to bed... to login 4 hours later for the event... but due to server troubles... didn't happen... and... well, no sleep confirmed. So I'm hibernating after this post, can't get me on April fools day if I sleep through it!

TIL: Naming my ship "Not JC Ballie" and "Not NQ Pann" in honor of leadership past.... lead to fleets attacking me... I had thought this designator of "Not" would suffice in letting people know I am NOT JC Ballie and NOT NQ Pann.... but alas, for I was attacked mercilessly by those I was trying to help in battle!

Upon changing my ships name, and getting back in to the field after a shield recharge I was able to land the killing blows against NQ's citadel station while Empire's Lovoda carried out his vendetta against the leadership of Serenity in their new... war or whatever it is.... Lovoda proceeded to take a proud selfie with Serenity's partially blown up ship to celebrate the cementing of their new relationship. I approve; you two are adorable together ❤️ 

Shout out to Legion: zergs gonna zerg. Also shout out to Habitant, we both got the final blow... we both?! won!?!!! but imma highlander you when they add AVA, so I can and absorb your kill sharing powers. I'd like to also thank the academy, and apologize to Chris Tucker for the slap he never endured at the 1997 Emmy's when Jackie Chan couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. Oh and thank you J.C. Ballie for that one time he liked a tweet of my ship..... *hey why is the mic getting softer and music playing?!*


Happy April Fools  #stilltruetho


 

Welcome to DU !

Can you hear that low rumble tumbling across the sky? It’s the goddess of war and wisdom, and she’s bringing the heat.
 
Slated for the end of Spring, the Dual Universe Athena update heralds a new tidal wave of conflict that will set Helios ablaze.
 
For peace-loving Noveans uninterested in warfare, Athena also includes a completely overhauled First Time User Experience (FTUE), a Space Market, and a variety of visual upgrades to the game.
 

 
 
WHAT’S IN IT
 
Space warfare hits a new stratosphere with the introduction of alien core units that will spawn in PvP zones. Think of them as resource-generating facilities, like space mining points. Players and organizations can claim these points to accumulate resources. But nothing comes free or easy in space. Alien core units must be defended. Do you have the mettle to get this metal?
 
These alien core units also serve additional purposes. The first is to provide fresh new PvP challenges for fighter types, and the second is to reduce the pressure on players who wish to avoid PvP side of DU but still find themselves ambushed by pirates when they step out of the safe zone.
 
To better balance PvP, we are adding stasis weapons and altering the behavior around a constructs’ maximum speed. With these sweet guns, big armored ships with powerful space engines will no longer have an advantage that allowed them to escape more agile smaller designs.
 
Last but not least on the topic of PvP, our voxel team has improved the performances near combat-related explosions, especially the destruction of voxels. We aren’t losing focus on keeping improving our players’ experience in Helios!
 
Shifting gears away from the pew pew pew features in Athena, we have also revamped the FTUE to provide a better, more easily comprehensible starting experience for new players. We want to give new players all the information they need to settle into DU with a solid foundation.
 
Among other features, you can look forward to the following:
New space map New skybox and stars rendering improvements Improved water visuals Improved flashlight visuals  Mining Units Lua API Space market Element stacking exploit fix  
The best news of all is that we plan to release a smaller update between now and Athena release to introduce some quality of life improvements.
 
WHAT’S NEXT
 
As usual, we’ll publish a series of devblogs to provide deeper insight into the new Athena features. We hope that you’ll like what you see!
 
Thanks to your constructive feedback, we have fine-tuned and balanced the content of Panacea with overall good results. We hope to see more of the same, so we encourage you to continue engaging with us as you read the upcoming articles. Your ideas and feedback are what will make Dual Universe better.
 
Head over to this thread and let’s chat!
 

the Vertex Precision Tool is amazing hats off to the team for making it possible, its made DU the most creative game every made and cant wait to see what other people and myself do with it

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.
 
 

@NQ-Deckard Great update. 10/10. Talents are for those that want to invest and specialize in a certain direction and builders need lots of cores to be a builder. Or have massive space ports or showrooms or puzzles or have a huge junkyard of defeated enemy ships to show off.
 
This system still allows those fresh off the arkship to ban together and put down a decent number of cores (I still disagree with the gated core size placement talents but that is a different discussion)
 
Panacea update is looking more and more like its namesake rather than a Burst Pancreas.
 
 
Edit: For those worried about players leaving orgs in the lurch on core counts: there will be other players that will sell their core slots temporarily to keep the org afloat without losing anything. If there is a market, there will be those that fill that market.

GREAT ! 200 CORES