Frank2

HUNT FOR THE GOLDEN GOOBER

Upon the briny, vast and deep,
The Golden Goober’s secrets sleep,
"All that glitters is gold," they say,
Let’s embark on this treasure hunt today.

Pirates scheme, their hearts aflame,
A cat in gold glitters more, a game!
With cutlass honed and wind-filled sails,
We’ll chase our dreams, catch the tales.

The universe is vast, but we won’t fret,
For we’ve got courage, you can bet.
To find this treasure, we won’t delay,
In this grand adventure, we’ll make our way.

Hunt them down, both near and far,
Betwixt a planet or a shooting star.
With laughter and joy, we’ll persist,
In the Golden Goober’s hunt, we enlist!
 
 
💬Stay tuned for the first clues that will appear next week! 🔍🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♀️

The scroll has revealed the first clue and the Hunt for the Golden Goober begins! Good luck Noveans!


 
 

Hello there, Noveans!
 
Today I'd like to present you with two online tools (possibly more coming soon) I've been recently working on, that aim to make the Dual Universe life easier!
 
Item Database Explorer
Link: https://dual.wolfe.science/tools/item-database-explorer
An online database containing useful information related to DU items and their recipes.
It has a search bar where you can search for any item or resource, and by selecting one from the list you can see the following set of information:
Basic  data such as ID, category, tier, volume, mass and density; All available crafting recipes for that item, including when it is a by-product of something else; All recipes that use that item as an ingredient; All honeycomb types that can be produced using it; All resources, parts and items where that resource is required as part of the chain (except when it's part of a Catalyst);  
As a starting example, you can check out Pure Iron and see how many parts and items use it
 
There's also a new section in the works that will list all planets, moons and moonlets where a certain resource can be found, but it's still a WIP, due to some divergence I found when comparing in-game ore lists with the Atlas file.
 
Celestial Body Calculator
Link: https://dual.wolfe.science/tools/calculators
This one is more like a general-purpose visualization of the Atlas, but also supports few calculations on things based on altitude. At the moment it offers:
Gravity information, including the altitude where gravity is 0.01g; Atmosphere information, including the altitude where atmosphere density is 10%; Surface minimum, average and maximum altitudes; Construct build limit altitude; Total surface area and number of territories; Calculation of gravity, atmospheric density and total circumference length at desired altitude;  
I hope that information is somehow helpful for the community and I'm completely open to suggestions on what could be improved or added!

This ^
 
They'd be better off just abandoning the PVP aspect, doubling down on the builders and heavy lean into the PVE aspects.  They really can't do both at this point with the amount of money they have coming in and the state of the game.  The PVP aspect is just a hinderence to player growth if not done correctly it just becomes a griefer paradise.

IF NQ had implemented their original concept for factories, as presented in Kickstarter... it'd be a singular item that is fed resources and output a finished construct. (See Empyrioin) That would not have created the server load like the MMO version of satisfactory we got did. 
 
At peak my mega factory had 14,000 elements, with at least half of that running full tilt during my peak ship production. I'm sure it created server load .. it definitely ate bandwidth just standing next too and sometimes took 10 minutes to fully load in. 
 
Still sad that DU has a much smaller playspace, and that I can't make the same sort of factories to output finished ship kits without a ton more work/hassle. That was fun for me, and it's largely gone. As a solo player I could spend an hour a week picking up my ore, dump it into my factory, and output ships for a week with minimal hassle... took a lot to get to that point, but in the live game... its much more tedious, ore rates are heavily limited now, and while it was possible with one account in Beta to do what I wanted, not possible in live... with a higher sub cost. 
 
I miss DU, but I miss the DU from beta when we had in ground mining AND mining units AND asteroids... and factories could be largely automated... ya know, when it was easier to obtain resources and spend more time creating cool stuff... without worrying about land taxes, construct slots, and sub time running out and loosing what is created.
 
I can see what players warned NQ about has come to pass, many said going back on their promise of no wipes, raising the price, and reducing game content... might see a spike of hype but will fade... and looking at steam, game is pretty dead looking, with the top comment recommending another dead game, Starbase lol. 
 
Biggest issue... is DU is more punishing that any other MMO I have played if you take a break... you could loose a lot of your built up stuff that you grinded for... meaning that those that leave the game are even less likely to comeback as their personal investment in the game essentially gets deleted. This one reason alone is why I'll never come back, and why DU will likely never recover... I doubt this issue is even on NQ's radar. 
 
Maybe a couple years of solid development... but development feels  non Existent in 2023. 
 
So glad I got to play that version of the game, sad it doesn't exist anymore. Good times, thanks for all the fish NQ. To all the NQ staff I've interacted with, besides one, thank you. I hope your next endeavor is better! 

So for me, there were all sorts of small failures along the way (many in beta, some since) but they are all really just details next to the central problem.  One of the key features of the design for DU was that players would provide *all of the content*.  That meant that the game just needed to provide the mechanics and frameworks and literally everything else would be player driven.
 
Now players did actually try to do this.  There were people who created puzzles, etc for people to solve, created factions who fought each other, tried to build whole cities and many other interesting things.  The game and its developers seem to fight against content creators at every turn - recent examples being ship builders being put off because the stacked element checker means they have no way to know whether or not they are selling ships which will error 6 months later and warring factions being put off because nobody can shoot each other in battles.
 
Putting that aside though, I think that the one thing this game has proved beyond all doubt is that a game with solely player built content does not work.  You need to have some other content created by the game itself first in order to create gameplay loops that players can do when they aren't doing any group content.  A player needs to be able to just log in, play for 1/2 an hour, enjoy that time and profit from it.

So the one thing I would have done right away is add some background life to the game.  Put creatures in that might attack the player, make some basic challenges on the ground and in space, give players something to shoot at and reasons for doing so (protect base, get resources, whatever).  That would also give them a reason to team up, live in walled villages or space stations with a large shield, etc.  Some of this was in the original game design videos which were put out.  Then I would have built on it by adding more of a survival element to the game, adding PvE and NPCs to allow players to make their spaces more interesting.  I can build a huge space station but it has nobody in it at the moment, let me make it more interesting, make a bar where NPCs come and players I let in might be able to get missions from those NPCs.  I think that would have given players much more of a sense of shared purpose and struggle and a reason to come together into groups and play together.
 
As it is the game is, frankly, boring.  It's a game relying on player created content which literally deletes player created content on a regular basis made by a company which has no problem with breaking existing content and blaming that on the players trying to create it.  The world itself, and the constructs the game allows you to create, are fairly static and uninteresting too and it is difficult to come up with actual functions for many of the rooms in a construct.  I can add a bed but it has no use.  A lot of the cool stuff I see is just huge empty shell buildings with one or two rooms because people made them to look pretty rather than because they needed the space for things.

Dear Noveans,
 
Update 1.3 is on its way! As we finalize the Maintenance Unit and prepare for its public test session (more on that below), we are excited to share the details of update 1.3 with all of you.

We also want to thank you for your patience as we work towards bringing you a new PvE system in Dual Universe. Our development team is working hard to create an exciting and enjoyable feature that provides the best gaming experience for everyone. We are prioritizing PvE and are working to bring it to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can still look forward to other new features (like the ones below), with more details coming on our Social Media and teaser livestreams on Twitch.

With that, let’s look at update 1.3!
 
THE MAINTENANCE UNIT

We’re replacing Repair Units with Maintenance Units, giving players more flexibility in maintaining their constructs by allowing repair and disassembly.

Repair:
You can choose to repair damaged elements, honeycomb, or both Use scrap to repair damaged elements or replace them Choose what happens to extra elements: If damaged elements are not part of the original snapshot, they can either be recycled or repaired with scrap and recovered. They will be recovered if they are undamaged but not part of the original construct snapshot. Destroyed extra elements (those with no remaining repair counts) will be recycled.  
Repairing honeycomb structures requires the exact amount of honeycomb missing, and elements still need the same amount of scrap to fix.

Disassembly:
You can remove all honeycomb and elements on a construct, including the core. The maintenance unit will use its linked container to retrieve all items instead of using it to repair. Damaged elements can be repaired with scrap before recovery or recycled. Destroyed elements (those with no remaining repairs) will always be recycled.  

 
THE CONSTRUCT SCHEMATIC CONTAINER

Following popular demand by our community members who grew tired of manually inserting schematics into industries, we’ve now added the option to designate a single container on a construct to act as the schematic provider for all industry units on the construct.
This feature is accessible by simply right-clicking on a container and selecting “Set as schematic container” from the context menu.
 
UEF SHOP EXPANSION

Looking to buy ships from Aphelia? We’ve grown the UEF shop with new floors and a Blueprint Basement that sells copies of all outposts and speeders. Before launch, we ran the ‘Build Your Legacy’ contest, giving DU builders a chance to be woven into the game by building speeders and outposts for new players. We’ve added the winners to our First Time User Experience and into the Blueprint Basement of UEF stores. We’ve also added four bonus speeders and an extra outpost!
 

 
INTRODUCING EASYANTICHEAT (EAC)

Accessing and manipulating game files is critical to many disreputable players who want to cheat by automating actions or gaining hidden data, for example. To combat this, we shortlisted EQU8 and EasyAntiCheat (EAC) when implementing our original solution for Dual Universe. With the sale of EQU8 to 1047 Games and the closure of their service to third-party customers, we will switch to EAC.
We want to thank EQU8 for their amazing service and responsive support and are excited to transition into EAC. The only change that should be visible to our players is seeing EAC instead of EQU8 as the anti-cheat system in Dual Universe.
 
UPCOMING PTS SESSION

Many of you have requested a PTS testing session, and our goal is to open the PTS to the public between Friday, February 10th, at 10:00 UTC and Monday, February 13th, at 10:00 UTC.
The PTS will allow you to test all features of Update 1.3 and help us with information and feedback on the PTS Forum thread to tune the features.
Your involvement has been invaluable in helping us shape the future of Dual Universe. As we progress with development, we want to thank you for your continued support and engagement and invite you to share your feedback. We’re working hard to give you all an enjoyable and immersive gaming experience and look forward to introducing more upcoming features.

Thanks for playing, Noveans!

I think people should lose their starting tile too.  Right now there are a ton of them and no good locations for actual new players, but nobody really uses them.  Pack up the player's stuff into magic BPs, give away their tile and when they resub they pick a new starter tile and get their BPs back.
 
Make Sanctuary tiles the only permanent ones and sell STUs in a cash shop.
 
IMO.

That's...an interesting theory of game design.
 
The challenge with motivating gameplay "by virtue of necessity" is that in general, players dislike being "forced". 
 
Consider a classic game like Mario, because it's often used as an example of quality game design.
 
You can complete the level as quickly as you want or barely finish within the time limit...you can care about points or power-ups or ignore them. The only thing you're "forced" to do is complete the level without dying. 
 
This is what creates engagement -- if you were forced to stop and eat every now and then, it might "give you something to do", but in the same way as busy work. It isn't something you want to do, it's something you have to do. 
 
Having gameplay or activities doesn't automatically mean those activities are engaging, which is the core goal of good design...not fidelity to real life. 
 
There's an infinite number of ways to create feature depth and engagement without having to force people to eat or starve.
 
It's easy to brainstorm about all the little things they could add "if only food were a thing", but this would be a huge undertaking for a studio with very limited resources that has shown very little willingness to introduce new features in general...
 
You can list some of the same integration points with something like energy production -- how it could encourage x/y/z dependencies between players and create new markets or promote "civilization" if done in x/y/z way....but no matter how you boil it down, it's a pipe dream because NQ doesn't want to make new features. 

There is only one solution to this. Items that are marked for deletion are dropped in space as temporary containers.  There are many times during combat that you need to move resources from one container to another (IE moving ammo from a main hub to an ammo box, or moving fuel from a container to a fuel tank, moving scrap from a container to your nano, Even moving fuel ammo and scrap from one ship to another).  There are even times when you dump  your load, not to prevent attackers from getting the loot, but to increase your speed to get away. Limiting any of these legit reasons would be worse than leaving it how it currently is. 

Ita nice to see Novaquark finally listen to the cries of their community. I hope it's not too little too late.
 
I remember Deckard saying to ke directly that adding NPC PvE was never gonna happen due to the conflicting ideals for the game being player driven... I am glad they're realizing how badly it's needed. I may come back for a bit when this gets added.
 
Side note, jettesoning cargo is something you'd see if a real pirate was on your @SS. Instead of stopping players from doing it, with items being deleted.... drop the items as a lootable container behind the ship to be used as a decoy/dropping weight. Pirates can then double back for the package. Add more gameplay, don't restrict it further... I am so tired of yall restricting gameplay, so much I could / did in Beta can no longer do on the launch game because of that mentality. 
 
Apart from that, you didn't address the largest complaint right now on Steam reviews, and that is the game is a second job to play. It still needs some heavy balancing, and nothing in this post about the future has even hinted at that.  You can try to stifle players, but whales are still running alt mission running/field mining... with the solo player left to eat crumbs..  
 
All that I see left in terms of players are mostly hard-core PVP holdouts. Most of the PvE crowd beyond pure builders have already left... and a lot of them feel pushed out by PVP, and how BAD the pvp actually is. If you don't improve the overall combat experience...  will just end up with meh PvE, and lackluster PvP. 

I start building lots of things and hardly ever finish.
 
I'm a leaf on the wind.

I start building lots of things and hardly ever finish.
 
I'm a leaf on the wind.

I start building lots of things and hardly ever finish.
 
I'm a leaf on the wind.

Let me answer you again ^^

Multiple reports of over a 1000 scans being needed to find T2+...
- When the game was launched, I scanned several planets.
I did about 50 scans on each (about 4h of scans). I stop after finding 3 flowers of T2 and 2 flowers of T3.
There is a technique to learn to scan effectively.
=> Now it's easier: go next to a player's flower and scan next to it: you will find T2.

Safe zone Roids being mobbed by 26+ ships with 75 minutes left before being "Discovered" (during the weekday, weekends must be worse)
- They are safe zone asteroids: low risk = low reward

High risk of being ganked if you try an mine other Roids with just a couple of people and no PVP protection pilots.
- It's an MMO, with 2 or 3 players you can effectively defend yourself against a single pirate.
Of course bad luck if you're on the same asteroids as an entire organization. But this scenario is very rare.
The pirates are often all alone and in rare cases with 2. More people makes the hunt not profitable at all.

Shields that don't protect you, just reduce the damage taken (? based on description ? Rather unclear about that)
- Shields don't make you immortal.
They can take a certain amount of damage and then deactivate.
M shields have 5M HP, L shields 10M. You must also be present to correctly set the resistances according to the weapons that your opponent uses on you.
To be invulnerable you would need to land a station and use a station shield. But be careful, enemies can come and besiege your construct and this will create a window of vulnerability.

Mass based speed limits that guarantee a ganker can close on a loaded hauler. 
- You need a mining ship and an escort.
Or distribute the mining over several ships.

Seems like we are forced to have someone man guns to fend off lone raiders, and hope that we can sting raiding packs before they inevitably kill us.
- Arming yourself is indeed the best defense against a lone raider.
Go out with your friends and with multiple ships, someone keeps an eye on the radar. If a threat arrives that you cannot fight: separate.
They can't kill everyone.

Wondering if there is a Universe Patrol org that focuses on hunting down raiders and killing them, repeatedly???
- These people need to be funded by PvE players if they want to be protected.
Legion (full PvP aliancy) was created because the totally PvE organizations of the old Ascendancy alliance did not wish to participate in the financing of the protection of their armed forces.

If so, what do their ships look like?  e.g.  Is there a difference between a ganker ship and a anti-ganker ship?
- PvP ships are almost all alike. You can come to the "SNS main Base" to see what a fleet looks like.
Quickly: 6 S cannons, 4 L freight engines and the rest of the basic elements of a ship.
Oh also we sell PvP Meta ship BPs in our showroom; VR: " SNS Showroom Public DSAT "
https://du-creators.org/makers/SNS Sentinels/ship/Sabre

and who is going to be left to build ship parts for the PVPers after they force us from the game for not being like them?
- As a PvP group we have +500 mining units and we regularly farm on PvP asteroids.
We have a very large industry from T1 to T4 which covers all of our needs.
Large stocks of combat-ready ships, resources, ammunition and fuel. Even if we completely stopped mining and crafting, we would continue to be a threat in the PvP space for many months.
The remaining PvP players will play against other PvP players who enjoy playing the game using all of the gameplay mechanics available to us.

Have a nice day

NQ Logic: You used those skills, profited from the early game bot orders... and mining units are still viable with the game changes.
 
Also, NQ reps have said if you don't like it, and the game, don't play... when people have voiced their deep concerns. And arguably there are less and less players playing due to their attitude towards the community... so some are taking the hint. 
 
I know most of my friend group from beta keep being astounded by what more NQ can and do to squeeze life out of their game.... all while hoping they'll still change it around, we all love the idea of DU and have thousands of hours playing invested... 
 
Even falling player numbers are apparently not enough for NQ to realize that their direction is driving people away, like you can see a definitive drop with the annoucement via steam stats... its pretty clear.
 
And what happens when there is even a lower population of active players without bots? How will a new player be able to join the game and mine/make enough  to even buy parts.... from bots/market when they die off? Guess they'll just pull the lever and turn the bot orders back on? 
 
Most all games have more than one 1-2 ways to make fresh currency In game... with many games, and most MMO's rewarding players for everything to keep the endorphins kicking and players inventories full of shinies. Kill a monster? Here is some currency. Sell an item to a vendor in game? Here is some currency. Oh, you got top leader board for that arena? Here is some currency. Ah, you logged in and did your daily crafting quest? Here is some currency. Oh, you completed a quest? Here is some currency.  
 
We have... missions... and vr challenges that are different types of missions that you can only do once a day. Oh, and login bonus. 
 
Anyways done beating a dead horse. Myself and others have tried, and maybe the only thing NQ will listen to at this point is the sound of players quiting. 
 
I really hope they can make the game fun/more playable, and that by doing so creates a game with a positive churn rate. 
 
 

Hi everyone!
 
We wanted to inform you that over the past week, many accounts have been banned for involvement with Real Money Trading (RMT) and exploits.
We have stated previously that RMT transactions and exploiting are strictly forbidden in Dual Universe.
We take this topic very seriously and the penalties for this kind of behavior are of the highest level.
 
Best regards,
The Novaquark team.

Last night I took one last slow walk around my complex on Sanctuary. I symbolically shut down the factory, flipped the switch on the mining units, deactivated the DSAT and sat in the chair on my rooftop observatory and took in the view one last time. The silence was deafening. 
 
I felt a little emotional as the time I'd spent working on all this had been one of the most difficult parts of my life. Every time things had been difficult, I'd found myself retreating into this game as a form of therapy to help me through the events going on around many of us for the past few years. I think in a world that feels totally out of control at times, its amazing that we have the technology to be able to immerse yourself into being somewhere else like this.
 
Out of the probable thousands of games I've played since being a youngling I can say proudly that Dual Universe is one of the very few that has made it into my upper echelon of games that I love and have spent a significant amount of time with.
 
So I just wanted to write this positive thread to say thanks to NQ for the development of this game. It's not a perfect game by any means, there's still glaring omissions in features as well as bugs galore but its a special game to me nonetheless. I sincerely hope it manages to ride the storm over the coming weeks, months and hopefully years to reach its full potential as I feel it deserves it. I've played all the other similar and inspired games such as Elite Dangerous, No Mans Sky, Space Engineers, Starbase, Star Citizen, Empyrion, and Eve Online but this one holds my interest in a way the others didn't. 
 
I took one final screenshot from the observatory before descending the lift one final time to the habitat area that I never got around to working on. The enormous empty room contained a solitary bed and a bonsai tree. I made one more cursory check of my Nanopack to make sure all the blueprints I would need for the coming journey were there before laying down on the bed and stared at the slightly janky ceiling voxels.
 
Lets see whats out there...

If you would like to see all of the entries that have been reviewed and confirmed to meet the requirements, please head over to the display pad near The Exchange located here:  ::pos{0,2,24.7408,98.9652,211.5700}

If you do not see your entry on display, it is possible that we have not reviewed it yet, but please make sure to review the requirements listed above and make the changes needed to be eligible. Thank you!

Hey there! 

1. Yes, that's the plan.
2. You can enter as many times as you wish, but please make sure you meet the requirements and that the information you submit is correct.
3. Yes! If for example, you realize that after you submitted your entry you made a mistake, you're welcome to make modifications on it. We will be reviewing all entries that didn't meet requirements to see if any changes have been made. If you feel you made an error with your entry form (name of your speeder for example), then please submit it again just to make sure we have the correct info. 
3a. This part is on the player to make sure their entry meets requirements, so check it twice or even thrice before submitting your entry.

Good luck!

Better buckle up.

No.  Can't compact the speeder if it has a container.

Basically DU is a grinding game. You invest your time to achieve progression. NQ promised that under all circumstances that investment would be persistent. That's why most of us invested so much time in it.
By breaking that promise, i lost my trust and probably won't do that investment of my time again. I don't even know how many thousand hours i spent to progress.
The reasons they state for this being a must, are weak. Honestly, i don't care if any "exploited" stuff that people gained stays in the game or not. there will always be a lot of players with more Quanta or other possessions in the game. In the end that is NQ's problem. If they did not act with a small rollback after accidentally giving away Warp Beacon Schematics for a way too low price.
And if people used lots of alt accounts to make money with the missions, i would say. clever.. they invested their time into that game mechanic when it was possible and made a fortune.
I personally did not benefit from any of those Exploits and have never been a mission runner. So why should all players be punished for that? Just because there is too much quanta or elements in the game? Come on NQ there are enough possibilities to resolve that.
The way they are doing the reset, is in my opion just a desperate attempt to make money with new player subscriptions,by giving the max "bonus" to anyone who now invests fresh money into  the game. And by doing that they accept the risk that a majority of senior players will just quit.(financially not a huge loss for NQ with available  DACs for a lot of those senior players.)

If they want to give new players a fairer chance for fast progression without having to compare themselves to senior players.. Just create a 2nd system, make it extremely expensive (energy or time consuming)  to transport mass there and have a new different currency there. problem solved without breaking promises. New players could spawn there if they want and build up that system.
Senior Players could travel there accepting the price and knowing that their Quanta would be more or less worthless there.


 

Cool. May those who remain have lots of fun. Bye!
 
If anyone has gotten the 25 fonts I have made. I highly recommend you make your own core blueprints from them. It will be the only way to have them in the future. They are DRM-free, so it should be pretty a pretty simple thing to do.
 
And yes, <whomever it may concern>, you can have my stuff.