NPCs you can fight with would be a great addition to the game. Even the most basic type like in space engrneers where they simply spawn a group of ships that flies forward and shoot back at everyone that attacks them.
Idea to add npc enemies, they can be static (abadoned base) or move on routes between planets. Visually it can be abadoned stations, or "AI" controlled enemies.
Actually they don't need to be actually maneuring during fight, just start to attack player on some range + extra range if player trying to escape,. Also damage model can be simplified for perfomance requirements (no need to force server actually calculate damage to modules) just calculate damage to CCS, and destroy modules(random ones, optionally) after npc beign killed.
+ you can place loot in containers, recipes and so on (it's fun to open it)
+ additional chances to lost ship and add option for other player to scavenge it. Also damage to modules will require to produce new one (forces economic)
+ you need to spend ammo more often (boost economics)
+ additional way to earn money
+ people can easy learn how to fight (basic idea), and find a fight
+ additional place for people to conflict and fight not only with npc but also between players. Also you can vary areas with different enemies and profit size you can create area for solo players and solo fights. Right now big asteroids forces only big fights.
I grind ore fuel and elements for the sole reason to be able to PVP in Dual Universe.
Sadly due activity is being low these days there is no one to fight on an Asteroid or an Alien core.
- I suggest for NQ to make a Dreadnought that patrols the pipes and fires at anything that comes close to it 2 su with maybe 8 seats of firepower and 90 mil of ccs. When dead in the containers to find random advance rare and exotic shematics.
-If a large org wants to abuse this by sending more ships the Dreadnought spawns more dangerous drones equivalent to the numbers of ships present with in 2 su.
The Dreadnought spawns at random times and goes for an example from Jago pvp border to Sanctuary moon PvP border and despawns
Archeage had a similar gameplay with the Kraken that spawned on certain times I borrow this idea from there.
First of all, thank you again for answering in such a complete way on these precise subjects.
Even if we did not necessarily have the same desires, knowing the motivation and orientation of the modifications and additions you make to the game will allow us to be more relevant in our remarks.
I will therefore try to dig into the subject now that I have taken a few days back, and that we have seen the fleets forming and more in-game testing as well.
The objective of this post is not to contradict your vision of the game, but to help you make the necessary changes to make it happen.
Here is the feedback I can give you on the subjects for which you have requested comments.
I would have liked to detail 3 subjects but I did not have time so I will focus on 2 points only.
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Here is a chart for the speed we need to achieve when spinning around an in-game target to avoid targeting.
It is the calculation of the rope resulting from the angle (tracking of the weapon) and the distance where the target is. I arbitrarily retained 4 values:
- 50km
- 100km
- 200 km (1su)
- 400 km (2su)
The tracking being in deg/s I transformed the distance obtained in m into km/h to make it more meaningful.
- The first line is an example for a tracking of 1deg/s
- The second is the value I have on a siege guner with my character (talent at 4)
- The third line is the value of the biggest weapon in the game that should hypothetically have the most difficulty aiming at a target and it is the talentless value to symbolize the worst case.
- The last line is a spin test with an M railgun battleship. In 10 seconds I have time to do a 360 + stabilize my aim on a target.
Remember that the rate of fire of an M railgun is 13 seconds without talent, which leaves a comfortable margin of maneuver to align its target between 2 shots.
Here is also the visual of the rail gun firing cone.
30° cone radius in optimal + 30° cone in fallof.
The further away your target is, the more area you cover to be able to hit it.
Here is a table to symbolize the distances covered by a railgun without the ship needing to move :
With the talents on a weapon we reach a fairly huge coverage, almost 90° without fall off and almost 180° with him and that on a basic weapon without cone bonus and talents not max at lvl5.
(The choice of railgun as an example is arbitrary, this is valid for all weapons, not take this for a nerf/up request.)
Here are the issues raised (in my sole opinion) :
- The penalty linked to the tracking of weapons is valid at very short range.
- Tracking is possible if your opponent is not moving or at low speed
- If you are attacked by an opponent further away than the one you are moving arround, you will not benefit from your speed bonus to avoid shots
- Desynchronization has a strong impact on your positioning and that of your opponent, it opens or closes shooting windows independently of the players' game.
- We still have M or L size combat ships that can do 360° in less than 10 seconds, which still allows near-hand tracking using the adjusters.
If your opponent is far from you, the more easily he can kill you.
That's why we think going for the shield is always better. It protects you against several hazards over which your speed has no control.
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From the first returns, we can see a very large majority of small ships (but based on M or L cores rather than S or XS).
Especially a lot of small ships with an L size shield.
Here is a comparison of what we find in game compared to the possibility offered :
On the previous meta we were with ships which for the biggest approached 5% of the total construction surface that a builder had the leisure to use.
We went to Athena and now we have M ships that hardly exceed 3% of the cumulative surface of the usable box.
There is certainly a lever to exploit on this subject at the level of the nature of the game. The voxel and the voxel construction seems to remain a main pillar of dual universe. We necessarily need small vessels and large vessels. But shouldn't the small ships be on an XS and S core category, and the larger ones on the much more massive M and L cores? (category of vessel damaged from the voxel massive nerve).
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Just quickly on this subject.
I started looking to make a ship with spacing between different elements so as not to lose everything on the first try.
The areas of effect and the damage are so important compared to the current resistance of the voxels that even using a full block (so no interior in your ship).
The surface needed to just spread the weapons apart does not compensate (or very little) for the increased chance of hitting given by the cross section.
Since the voxel gives you a weight penalty, we always come back in the case where we seek to maximize the cross section.
I think you can try without too much risk to improve the defensive aspect of the voxels a little.
You still implanted a triple nerve:
- Significant reduction in voxel HP
- Added CSS
- Weapon DPS buff
In my opinion the CSS has a good balance, it will be necessary to look more on the side of the damage of weapons and voxels.
For the voxels maybe not the HP pool, but why not look into the resistor values.
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I will end with a question.
Would you like to have the help of the community for all things HP of the elements?
There are a number of elements in play currently with quite unbalanced health points.
I know that for the Dev team it must be tedious to review everything and that you certainly have better things to do.
Can we help on this subject?
I already have a few examples in mind. Like decoration plants having more points than weapons.
Or very heavy armored doors but with less hit points than hatches.
100%. So with Athena update I did think 'Well we will need siege ships' mainly for attacking Alien cores but the result of that would be any defenders who are more mobile, easier to turn would eat that L core up fast because CCS is still poor and even voxel HP overall is still poor. What I thought with their 'fix announced' on the calculations that CCS/HP would perhaps be tweaked so voxel is more effective especially considering weapons damage overall has drastically increased with previous updates. I think I envisioned even in a fleet fight there would be 'tanks/capitol ships', then the rest. It is still lending itself to even smaller ships than M cores now for speed but equally they can still do a reasonable amount of DPS.
Point i'm making is you should be rewarded for using Voxel armour not hindered by weight CCS etc'
