NQ-Nyota

Here you go everyone! This is the thread to discuss the Reset Edition of Ask Aphelia as well as the FAQ included in the same post.

Could you give me some extra suggestions/examples of what you mean by support the players who build race tracks and hold the events please? Thanks!

I predict there will be a livestream. (Hoping many of you will be watching it too!)

Hello Noveans! Thank you all for your many questions about the reset through the Ask Aphelia form. Our special Ask Aphelia episode answering your questions about the reset as well as a written FAQ, will be available on Monday, August 15th. We are going to answer many of your questions concerning the reset announcement which includes subscriptions and backer packs, blueprints, reset gameplay questions and many more. In the meantime, if you have not yet sent in your questions for the special reset announcement episode of Ask Aphelia, this means you have an extra weekend to submit them. Please use the Ask Aphelia question form and select “Reset Announcement Questions” from the list. Thank you! We appreciate your patience and understanding as well as all of the questions!

Hey Kurosawa! We are gathering up the questions on here as well as those being sent through the Ask Aphelia form and we'll do our best to answer as many as we can. We appreciate your patience, our many thanks!

Greetings Noveans! We're hosting a livestream event on Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 at 14:00 (2:00 PM) UTC for a major announcement on the future of Dual Universe! You can join us at twitch.tv/dualuniverse We look forward to seeing you there!

Dear Noveans, This is Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios) again. I’m writing to follow up on our announcement video released earlier today. I’d encourage you to watch it if you haven’t already as it presents our decision to reset Dual Universe when we launch. In this letter, I want to walk you through some of our reasons and give you precise answers on what you will keep after the server reset, as well as how we plan to reward Beta players for their investment in the game. Deciding whether to reset the server of a persistent, single-shard game like Dual Universe is an enormous and challenging decision. It impacts many departments in the company, such as game design, server, live operations, production, community management, and well, pretty much everyone. But most importantly, it impacts our players. Players who have dedicated time, money, and passion to the game during beta. But before we go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room: we started sharing information about the reset before we had solid answers because we wanted to give you clarity on our internal dialogues. Though this gave rise to many fantastic protest constructs, such as Vampskull’s intricate toilet paper ship, it also caused uncertainty for our community. I want to extend to you all a truly heartfelt apology for that and to thank you for your patience. I’ll go through some of the factors we had to weigh below, but what lay at the heart of the decision for us was how we would reward the efforts, support, and contributions of our players during beta while still allowing new players the same opportunity to experience a fresh new solar system to settle at launch. With that, let’s get into the details. WHY RESET? THE ECONOMY Betas tend to have bugs and exploits, and Dual Universe has had its share of those. We’ve dealt with issues from item duplication and system exploits to our own missteps. We have improved our monitoring systems throughout the beta, but in order to balance our player-run economy for launch, we have to reset it. PERFORMANCE It’s a technical necessity for us. The game has an extreme quantity of leftover and unused constructs. With changes to maximum construct slots and the Inactive Asset Requisition (IAR) system, the situation has improved, but a full reset will allow us to manage the data load well from the start without the burden of abandoned legacy constructs. With the new systems that we added during beta, data load should not become an issue again. BALANCE The game’s launch will be a fresh start with every player on the same starting line. We want to give every player, whether a veteran or new, the same opportunity to experience the thrill of colonizing Helios during the first days and weeks after launch. NEW WORLDS It’s also an opportunity to improve our planetary bodies in Helios. We want to give planets more identity, to implement what we didn’t have time to do when we launched the beta. We cannot do that while players are building and terraforming the planets. We also want to experiment with new types of planetary bodies, and a reset allows us to achieve these goals. More information on that will follow soon. WHAT WILL WE RESET? Almost the whole game, with a few exceptions that I’ll cover below. This means that everything from planets and territories to items and constructs will be reset. The game’s economy and player progression will also be reset, but we will give beta players back some of their talent points and other items through the Pioneer Packs detailed below. WHAT WILL PLAYERS KEEP? As beta players, you will keep your name and contact list on the new server. You’ll also keep your Core Blueprints after reset. Whether in a container aboard one of your constructs or inside a package, all of your Core Blueprints will be transferred to your nanopack. However, we’d recommend that you organize your Core Blueprints in your nanopack and create Core Blueprints of constructs that you would like to keep ready for the reset at launch. You’ll also keep your organizations. Membership will be reset, but the superlegate will remain as the leader to carry the organization into launch with its name, logo, and manifesto intact. However, organizations belonging to other organizations will be erased. Core Blueprints belonging to organizations, including those housed in containers and packages belonging to the organization will be transferred to the superlegate. Your Two-Factor Authentication rewards will be reallocated to you after the reset. Your Recruit-a-Friend rewards will also be reallocated, with the exception of any game time rewards that you’ve already consumed. PIONEER PACK REWARDS We’ve also put together three tiers of Pioneer Packs to reward our beta players and give them back some progression, such as a portion of their talent points. They are a thank you from all of us here at Novaquark for the support you’ve shown us during the beta and the time you invested in the game. We’ll deliver these packages during our six-month launch event in a way that preserves balance at launch and allows new players the same opportunity to compete in the game’s economy. At the start, beta veterans will be in almost the same position as new players, but by the end of these six months, beta players and backers will have one of the three packages outlined below. PIONEER PACK - ADVANCED This package is available to players who have purchased up to three months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Up to 40,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event. 6 monthly payments of 100,000 quanta. 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S Tier 1 Rare Item - 1 Whirlpool collectible statue 1 exclusive decorative item: Deco potted plant white PIONEER PACK - RARE This package is available to players who have purchased up to twelve months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify. This package is also available to Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Contributor backers from our crowdfunding packages. Up to 46,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event. 6 monthly payments of 200,000 quanta. 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M Tier 2 Rare Item - 1 Triangulum collectible statue 2 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet PIONEER PACK - EXOTIC This package is available to players who have purchased at least thirteen months of subscription for the Dual Universe beta. Please note that it’s not necessary to have used the game time by this date to qualify for this bracket. This package is also available to our Gold backers and above from our crowdfunding campaigns, as well as Sponsors and Patrons. Up to 52,992,000 extra talent points, including the server-wide accelerator event and the beta talent point awards, by the end of the 6-month launch event. 6 monthly payments of 400,000 quanta. 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit S 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit M 5 Schematic copies of Dynamic Core Unit L Tier 3 Rare Item - 1 Circinus collectible statue 3 exclusive decorative items: Deco potted plant white | Deco carpet | Deco potted plant black To receive your Pioneer Packs, you’ll need an active subscription. Item rewards are also only available in the first month after release, and you’ll need to log into the game during this time to receive them. We’ll share more information soon on the server-wide talent point accelerator event, and the extra talent point awards for beta players and backers will be delivered on the last day of each month. I want to thank all of you again for bearing with us while we resolved the reset question. We hope that the opportunity to relive the thrill of settling Helios is appealing to you. From the new first-time user experience to a whole canvas ready to be recalled to life, Dual Universe is waiting for you. We ask that you please use this thread for discussion about this reset announcement. We’re also creating a special episode of Ask Aphelia about the reset. If you have questions from our announcement video or this letter, please send them to us here. Stay tuned for more news on the future of Dual Universe, and look for our next major announcement very soon. Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios)

Noveans, it’s finally time. We have answers about whether there will be a reset of Dual Universe at launch. In this video, NQ-Entropy and NQ-Deckard, hosted by NQ-Nyota, present the details of our decision. NQ-Kyrios will also soon present the details in a letter to the community, so that you have them in writing. Please share your thoughts and feedback with us in this forum thread. We’ll also have a special edition of Ask Aphelia, where we will answer your questions about the reset. You can submit your questions for that episode here. We’re excited to share this news with you, Noveans. Thank you all for your patience.

Please use this thread to discuss the Reset News Announcement. Thanks!

Have you had a chance to listen Ask Aphelia Episode #12? Here's the discussion thread for it.

Ask Aphelia Episode #12 Welcome to Ask Aphelia episode #12, a Novaquark Q&A where we answer your gameplay questions about Dual Universe! This week we discuss protecting Lua, ore distribution, repair units, and much more! To watch or listen to Ask Aphelia #12 please click this link. If you have any Dual Universe questions, or follow-up questions about what was discussed in this episode, please use our form. You can share your thoughts about Ask Aphelia Q&A #12 in this thread. Thanks!

Hello, Noveans, This is NQ-Entropy here to talk about our upcoming honeycomb HP and mass rebalance. We know that our current system doesn’t serve the game well and we want to improve it. We are changing the way that honeycomb masses work, specifically, we are detaching them from their base material mass and unifying honeycomb masses into categories. We will also change how honeycomb HP is calculated and rebalance resistances across the board. We also want to invite your thoughts on the proposed changes. The honeycomb mass and hp system impacts almost every area of Dual Universe, from shipbuilding to piloting and PvP. There’ll be an image at the end outlining the details of our proposed changes and a feedback thread where we want to hear your thoughts. Now, let’s dive into the details. SEPARATING HONEYCOMB MASS FROM ITS BASE MATERIAL In the past, our baseline for the weight of our honeycomb materials was directly based on their base pure and product materials. While a calculation was made to transform it into “honeycomb mass”, it was a straight transformation. For example: currently, the unit mass for a liter of Pure aluminum is 2.7kg, making its honeycomb mass 27kg for 1m3 (1000L). If a material weighs 2.2kg, its honeycomb mass would be 22kg/1m3. This will no longer be the case, and we will take some liberties when transforming pure and product materials into honeycomb. This will allow us a wider range of weights, with a better distribution of weights at all tiers. While we are taking precautions, this will have an effect on existing constructs. There are certain materials that will relatively drastically change in weight, and that could have an effect on existing constructs. We are actively trying to match the new and old masses as closely as possible, but there will be some outliers. It's worth noting that some materials will also benefit from weight reductions. UNIFYING HONEYCOMB MASSES To summarize, each pure honeycomb tier can access four mass classes: very light, light, heavy, and very heavy. Each existing pure material will take one of these 4 mass slots per tier. Each product honeycomb will have 2 weight classes: light and heavy, with the addition of a special very light honeycomb at tier 1 for plastic. Similarly, each existing product honeycomb will take a light or heavy slot per tier. Finally, we will have building materials such as Concrete, Brick, Wood, Carbon-Fiber, Marble, and Luminescent. These will have exceptionally light weights and are designed to be used explicitly for building with minimal mass. Currently, our proposed values go as low as 2-3kg/m3 for the lightest building honeycomb and up to 100kg/m3 for Very Heavy Pures, which are now the heaviest honeycomb in the game. HEALTHPOINT CALCULATIONS Pre-combat core stress and pre-Shields, we had linear honeycomb HP based on mass. At that time, the meta was huge blocks of indestructible gold capable of absorbing massive amounts of punishment. This was possible in high part due to our poor initial voxel balancing, which specifically made gold a significant outlier. In an effort to curb that strategy, we made a number of changes to voxel health, firstly drastically reducing honeycomb HP and eventually introducing CCS. By the time that was done, Shields had taken over, and voxels were sparsely used on PvP constructs. Additionally, we now also have to consider the new speed limitations in the mass vs HP choice when it comes to honeycomb. Now, with unified masses that we can better control and with CCS to control the extreme upper end, we are bringing back linear calculation of honeycomb HP based on mass. Simply put, a multiplier is applied to the voxel mass, which defines the HP of that material. This will allow players to select light and heavy materials without feeling like there is a bad tradeoff in regards to their mass and their HP. Currently, the mass to HP multiplier is set to 45. For the aforementioned very heavy materials of 100kg/L, that will give you 4500 raw HP. REBALANCING RESISTANCE We are not fundamentally changing how resistances work but are adjusting their values across the board. Resistances are generally increasing to provide better absorption and superior effective HP compared to previous iterations. Resistances will still go up on a tier-by-tier basis, with building materials having the lowest resistances, then pures, and finally, high-tier products, which will have the best resistances. We paid attention to two numbers in particular: Effective Healthpoints and Effective Healthpoints per unit of mass. First, we wanted effective health points to make sense. We wanted honeycomb bulkheads to be capable of absorbing real firepower, and we wanted honeycomb to be good enough to protect elements inside a construct. While the final values and balancing may not be perfect, this is currently something that is starting to work. We’ve run tests with honeycomb bulkheads about a meter thick, roughly representing the armor on a medium-sized ship, and it was more than capable of absorbing multiple hits from max talented L weapons and protecting the elements we had placed behind them. Only after a good amount of shots did holes appear and elements behind start being vulnerable. We ran multiple tests and generally found that they aligned with our expectations. Lower EHP materials were relevant vs xs and s weaponry but rapidly fell to larger weapons, medium EHP honeycomb was relevant versus medium-sized weapons, while high EHP honeycomb was capable of taking hits from large weapons. Secondly, we wanted an EHP/mass curve that made sense as you progress up the material tiers. As of right now, going up a tier of a pure or a product guarantees a superior EHP/mass ratio with high-tier products having the best ratio on offer. This should ensure that going up a tier and upgrading your construct to a superior material is never a bad choice. Finally, a small note on Core Combat Stress. It is currently unchanged as the tests we made noted the new honeycomb values lined up well with the old CCS settings. In view of that it is also a case of not wanting to change too many parameters at once so that in case of further iterations, it is easier to identify issues for tweaking. FEEDBACK It’s important to us that we get this rebalance right. Honeycomb’s role in PvP has impacted players significantly from the beta’s start. These changes will also impact many other areas of gameplay such as shipbuilding by altering honeycomb mass. Before implementing these changes, we want to invite your thoughts, especially on the numbers. If you have opinions on how we’re rebalancing honeycomb, please share them with us in this forum thread. Here is the full breakdown of the proposed changes: We look forward to hearing from you, Noveans. Until next time, thank you for your attention. - NQ Entropy

Here is the discussion thread for the Planned Honeycomb Changes. Thank you in advance for all the feedback!

Here is the discussion thread about Ask Aphelia Episode #11.

Ask Aphelia Q&A #11 Welcome to our Ask Aphelia episode #11, a Novaquark Q&A where we answer your gameplay questions about Dual Universe! In this week's episode of Ask Aphelia, we discuss Lua, territory abandonment, megafactories, and more! Please use this link to watch and/or listen to episode #11. We hope you enjoy it! If you have any Dual Universe gameplay questions, or follow-up questions to what was discussed in this episode, please send them in via our form. You can share your thoughts about Ask Aphelia Q&A #11 here.

As it says in the announcement post, there will be subtitles over the weekend. It is just delayed. Sorry about that!

Have you had a chance to listen to Ask Aphelia Episode #10? Well here is the thread to discuss all about it.

Welcome to Ask Aphelia episode #10, a Novaquark Q&A where we answer your gameplay questions about Dual Universe! This week we answer your schematic follow-up questions, Lua, events, and more. To watch and/or listen to Ask Aphelia #10 please click here. Just a quick note that subtitles are auto-generated and should be available over the weekend, sorry for the delay! If you have any Dual Universe gameplay questions, or follow-up questions on what has been discussed in this episode, we ask that you please use this form. We look forward to hearing from you! You can share your feedback about Ask Aphelia Q&A #10 in this forum thread. Thank you!

Hey folks, we're going to go ahead and close this thread to clean it up as it has derailed several times. It'll be open again soon. Edit: The thread is now open again for comments. We ask that you please keep this thread about the Ask Aphelia episode answering your questions about schematics. Thank you.

We hope you enjoy this Ask Aphelia #9 this week all about schematics. Please let us know in this thread. Thanks!

Welcome to Ask Aphelia episode #9, a Novaquark Q&A where we answer your gameplay questions about Dual Universe! This week in Ask Aphelia it is all about the schematics changes that were announced earlier this week! To watch and/or listen to Ask Aphelia #9 please click here. If you have any Dual Universe gameplay questions, or follow-up questions to what has been discussed in this episode, we ask that you please use this form. We look forward to hearing from you! You can share your thoughts about Ask Aphelia Q&A #9 in this thread. Thank you!

The photo ops were meant to look like old style postcards, so yes, you are accurate for the style. For those who are in the "postcards" if they would like a copy of the non-postcard feel and just the original version, please let me know and I'll see what can be arranged. It was really a fun time!

And even a few more.

And here are some more!

Here's some photos of the event!