Shaman

well, I have some good and some bad news here. good news is that this feature is already in the game. the time it takes to lock down an xs core is about 40 seconds. bad news is that value is negligible because of quick wired radars and talents. this would work however if the radar lock range was smaller, for example by this feature removed by nq

Thanks NQ! If I could just ask a question though, is all of this done manually by the mods, or automatically? and if it is done manually, will it be done automatically in the future?

I agree. Its basically impossible to balance a linear pvp system like this, as there is no variation and so is basically just a matter of stats. thats why im all for this whole rock-paper-scissors system between cores, as I think for PvP to work there needs to be more roles in combat, not only by adding the feature I just mentioned back in, but also by IMO differentiating the different guns that you can put on those constructs more in the first place, other than just 'this gun is faster' or 'that gun uses more capacity' or 'these guns have a higher range' e.g. rails could penetrate a ships hull, and lasers could weaken the resistances for shields.

I know NQ isn't going to listen to me, and i've said this a BILLION times already, but i'm going to say this anyway. smaller core sizes need more perks. There is nothing stopping you from strapping a xs sized ship onto an L core, and getting all of the benefits from that core size. The only 'benefits' you get from smaller core sizes is a slower identification speed (negligible with skills) and a faster repair time (negligible with shields), which, to be frank, is terrible. it didn't used to be so bad either. before 0.23, radars had a nerf where they could only lock certain core sizes from certain ranges, (eg L radars were only able to lock xs cores from about 40km away), which is a perfect fix to this problem since it removes the issue of small ships being unable to get into the firing range of L cores before being shot at/ destroyed, as well as making the meta much more diverse as the best counter for xs cores would be other xs/s cores (think rock paper scissors, but with cores from xs→s→m→l→xs). I mean seriously, WHY was this removed? imagine the metagame with something like this, its such a simple fix that would make pvp 10x more fun. my only guess is that NQ came up with this nerf when xs cores could still use L guns, which i guess is a fair fix at the time, but makes absolutely no sense if you remove the ability for those xs ships to use L guns in the first place. my second alternate solution would be to give core sizes different max speeds, which i have seen many people request (including me) and IMO seems like a very good idea. it could finally give people the chance to escape/catch up with their enemies, with the downside of dealing less damage/ being weaker. if NQ cant/wont do the radar fix then I would be very happy with this change as well. I've contacted the devs about this radar a month or so ago, but they never got back to me about what happened to my suggestion. thoughts?

...isn't that exactly what asteroids are adding though?

even then, i still think its balanced. it takes 3 times the manpower to outdamage an L core, which is a lot.

i just want to remind you that with the same amount of people in an L core would do 27 times more damage, the range is tiny on xs ships so its impossible to get close, and that L cores only cost like 2 mil, so you could just strap an L core on a tiny ship and fight. i think it should be the opposite, lots of small ships would shake up the meta a lot more. making L cores able to be killed by xs ships would shake up the meta a lot more and help diversify the battlefield. also, there is a big misunderstanding here, its not a 3x damage difference from xs to L cores, its a 3x damage difference from M to L cores. so 4 M cores can destroy an L core, which is still a lot imo.

looks like some great changes, but i would like to point out that there is still not really a point to using non L cores. even if you wanted to use xs guns it would be much more worthwhile to put those xs guns on an L core. I am also worried that there will be many ships which will look like giant pins, having a really small cross section and an L shield to mitigate as much damage as possible. I think if you added some sort of benefit with smaller cores that you cannot replicate in an L core, like having a higher max speed or a hit probability bonus would help to see more xs cores on the battlefield, because as I said there is nothing stopping you from just putting an xs sized ship in an L core to take advantage of the higher dps. I am also kinda unhappy that engineering/repairing gameplay has been thrown out the window. perhaps adding something else to do like a shield controller which could be connected to a shield and controlled to assist with shield protection would help. I also have a problem with burying seats in the center of ships. having the need for windows for pilots etc would lead to some really creative ship designs imo. and another thing; this might be controversial, but I think that you should be unable to solo pilot ships with non xs guns by using a remote control and a gunner chair simultainously. solo piloting should be a niche that only xs guns can take advantage of, not S,M and L guns as well.

just FYI there is an empty bullet point typo just under 'Choices', you might want to fix that ?

with 0.26 coming out, players will now be able to mine asteroids, which will be another source for quanta; so now the main ways to get money are these: Surface Mining Scanning Trading Hauling + Missions Pirating Building Industry and Asteroid Mining. I'm very glad that NQ are working on more and more ways to make money, (a HUGE improvement from the start of beta) but as good as these are, one problem remains; There are not enough late game activities to do to keep most people interested after the first 3 or so months. After you get your first AGG there is basically nothing to do. The only late game activities that you can do (and what I do) is building and PvP, and although I greatly, greatly appreciate the love its been getting recently (big thanks NQ), it is inevitable that a large portion of the playerbase will find the act of doing it too risky/hard/not their playstyle and never try it, no matter how much good it gets. There needs to be an alternative which is both fun and repeatable, to make sure that everyone can enjoy DU for the longest amount of time, so i'm asking the playerbase what they would do as a late game activity.

they did this already with parcel containers, you could buy them a month or so before they came out

whaddaya think? damage multiplier between constructs has been nerfed (2x to 1.85x) honeycomb has been nerfed greatly, including gold shields have been added the warp timer delay after getting shot has increased from 2 to 10 minutes dps difference now gets exponentially higher the higher the size laser dps: xs 11000 / 7 = 1571.42857143 s 20350 / 9.45 = 2153.43915344 m 37647 / 12.7575 = 2950.97001764 l 69648 / 17.222625=4043.98284234

It would be great if NQ could upload some more soundtracks on their yt channel, as the alpha soundtrack only has a few of them. For example, this video has music in it which cannot be found elsewhere. Doing this would be great for content creators.

planet wide weather systems. imagine an asteroid rain on madis, or a blizzard on ion, or thunderstorms on jago, each giving their own advantages and disadvantages. a crafting unit which acts and crafts like the nanocrafter does, but can be put on constructs instead (including dynamic constructs) and not need blueprints the ability to make space/kergon fuel using said crafter.

not to mention the surface ores. don't forget the surface ores

It might be quite a struggle trying to make planets larger, though. even if everyone's constructs were compacted, megacities and large constructs would all have to endure the extremely annoying process of placing down all of your constructs again, BP by BP. Not to mention the chaos that would ensue with everyone trying to reclaim everything as quickly as possible, and griefing bases by claiming them first. I think it would be a better idea for NQ to manually move the territories themselves, or to use a script to do so. also, can you send me some pics of those underwater trees XD. perhaps they are just veeeeerrry thirsty.

well, we actually already know the answer to some of these questions. 2) The asteroids around thades need space cores to build on them, because although they are technically moons they have no territories, so you can probably assume the same rules apply to the asteroids that will be deep in space. 3) yes, not just on asteroids but on any construct in general. You can test this out in game if you place gunner chairs and weapons onto a space territory. they can lock onto targets and everything. (although, there isn't much of a point in doing this anyway since dynamic cores do the same thing with the huge advantage of being able to move)

schematics definitely were implemented poorley, but that doesn't mean they weren't needed. I still think that people need a way to compete with mega corporations making absolutely everything. I do agree that we need less slow travel. The speed limit should be much slower, (like 5k-10k or something) to make pvp more balanced, but then add something like a pulse drive from NMS which takes a few seconds to warm up but can make you accelerate to super duper fast speeds but can be intercepted. The whole 'leave it up to the players' thing should stay. I think what shouldn't stay (and has probably been thrown out after JC left), is the mindset that players have the tools (and content) to do so already .

yes, in fact it will be beneficial. with the way hit probability works now , when you hit a target, the algorithm picks a random part of your ship to fire a perfect shot at, so if you spread your cross section out you are less likely to be hit in important areas

I know that NQ were struggling to make dynamic L cores work probably, so it might take a while before XL dynamic constructs get implemented, but what about XL space and dynamic cores? I mean, every market has one and seems to work fine, so what's the problem with giving players access to them as well? even if its super unstable, NQ could at least put it on the PTS so we can try it out and test it. getting reaaaal sick of every large construct needing like 30 L cores to work, it really clutters your radar.

I think that making shields block 100 percent of damage will lead to many pvp ships just being stacks of elements with powerful shields on them, arguably worse than the current gold blocks we have now. I propose that shields should block something more like 80-90% of damage instead so that you still need honeycomb for pvp ships to make that even better, you could make it so that shields only block a certain damage type, or are better at blocking some damage types than others, as well as being less effective the larger the size (xs = 95% resistance l = 50% resistance)

can you please elaborate on what you mean by "pvp balance changes"? will you be improving combat with smaller cores/ stopping cube designs etc, or just adding shields?

Currently, there is no real way to freeze your ship in space, flying with an agg, or in a place with no land like the ocean. The only method I know of is to activate your emergency controller and then fly away until it automatically freezes, which is very jarring, tedious and unreliable. This can pose a problem as it makes parked AGG ships more likely to fall out of the sky, space only docking very difficult (even with the new features), or simply just making your ship risk falling to its demise when you temporarily leave, without constructs or terrain to stand on I propose this: The anchor unit Comes in 4 sizes; each restricted to its relative core size Has two states: on or off, and can be activated by pressing E, lua, or using buttons. You can also use lua to check if the ship is anchored or not as well. when activated: If the construct the anchor unit is attached to under 5 km/h, not controlled by a control unit, and has no engines that are active, the ship freezes after 5 seconds. Otherwise, nothing happens until these conditions are true. Brakes and adjustors can still activate during this time. The anchor unit plays a sound indicating that it is done. If someone activates a control unit on the ship again, the anchor unit deactivates and the freeze is removed.

personally yes; as I think pvp is too much about who has the better armour and stats and not about skilful ship design, but what are your thoughts?

What would you do if you became CEO of NQ, and what would you do with DU? Just for the sake of simplicity, features not put on the PTS/live server yet haven't started development when you gain control. Personally, I would (and I know that I have said this a million times already) : add different max speeds for construct sizes add xl engines, xs space tanks, etc add different lock ranges for construct sizes back nerf the damage L ships deal reduce the speed of ships that are in pvp make repair units able to repair the lives of elements not destroyed yet (>0 lives left) add alt-repair that allows you to salvage broken elements for parts/ materials/ (and rarely) schematics make completely destroyed elements invisible remove the need for schematics for components that are already available in the crafting menu add a planet with loads of t4+t5, extreme gravity, reduced pvp range and no safezones, markets or territories just for the lols