Kurock

I like immersion.  DU's asthetic is supposed to be scifi but more on the side of realism.  The glowing rocks simply arn't realistic.  Now there are certain rocks that do glow under certain lights but not nearly to the extent depicted in DU 
 

 
Idea: These rocks should look like normal rocks except when you have the harvest tool equipped then it they look like this.  This makes them easy to find when you want to harvest but doesnt look terrible when you don't.
 
What say you?

I like immersion.  DU's asthetic is supposed to be scifi but more on the side of realism.  The glowing rocks simply arn't realistic.  Now there are certain rocks that do glow under certain lights but not nearly to the extent depicted in DU 
 

 
Idea: These rocks should look like normal rocks except when you have the harvest tool equipped then it they look like this.  This makes them easy to find when you want to harvest but doesnt look terrible when you don't.
 
What say you?

The day the planets ran dry
Memoir of a miner
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315311321…>
 
Ahem. This thing on? Good. I’ve been mining since… Bah. Delete the recording before this. Damn technology, anticipating needs I don’t have. Just do as I say and not...
 
<Recording ended.>
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315313512…>
 
I've been mining since the day I stepped off the Arkship. It was boring but I never got bored. That’s an old mining joke. Along with the one where we are all old enough to drink at bars. With the bad jokes out of the way I can get down and dirty.
 
Back on Earth we were lucky to have a jackhammer or a sonic destabilizer, but right off the Arkship we were giving nanoformers. Amazing bits of technology, able to detect nearby concentration of ores, vaporize the ground to get to the ore and pack the ores neatly into a container. The abuse of nano-fields and Calabi-Yau space at its finest.
 
Then came the territory scanners. Able to scan a square kilometer and give a read out of the ores in the ground. They were prospecting made easy. The big business scanner-heads went out in their tri-scanner ships and deployed arrays of tri-scanners to be able to prospect on upwards of twenty-four square kilometers at the same time. But before all that it was just me and my trusty ship with a territory scanner bolted to its side. That's all a miner really needed. 
 
Then Aphelia, the Arkships AI, made the Arkship fire its big beam deep into the planet. That can’t be good for the planet.  The Novark spat small ore rocks all over the planet's surface. Must have done it to all the planets and moons of the Helios system, because the rocks were everywhere. But no self respecting miner would waste time picking those up. The yields were simply too small, compared to the expansive nodes in the ground. And then there were the motherloads: the mega-nodes. Where one ore node held thousands of liters of ore, the mega-nodes held millions. I personally found and cleared out more mega-nodes than you can shake a stick of carbon at. Those were good times.
 
But just because a territory scanner said there was ore in the ground, it didn’t say where it was. It was still an art to find those elusive ore nodes, even the megas. My preferred method was walking the compass. Find your level, walk north or south whichever makes the blip get closer. Then east west. Once the blip gets no closer, you know the ore is right above or below you. But never dig straight up or down. How are they gonna get back up?  What if there is a giant desert scorpion or worse… ecologists.  But some did dig straight down. The well-diggers or shafters as I called them, wanted to get down to where the ore was quickly. And they didn’t waste time digging back to the surface either. Instead they would just kill themselves, trusting their resurrection nodes on the surface wouldn’t malfunction. But sometimes they did. That’s why the shafters were either desperate or psychopaths.
 
The proper way of mining was always just the miner and their trusty tool. No floating mining chairs, auto-mappers or follow-me container bots. Just you and the dark. And occasionally a miner would be treated to the midnight sun: the hallucinations of sunlight seemingly streaming through the surrounding rocks to illuminate the tunnels or caverns they were traversing. A beautiful sight but also a warning you might have been mining for too long. Maybe all miners were a little touched in the head.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed I kept saying “was”. Aphelia predicted it would take decades to empty the planets of a fraction of their precious ores, but it’s been a single year and they are all gone. We dug them all out. The purer ores anyway. But humanity always needs more resources. So Aphelia made mining units available, each capable of extracting the diffuse ores from the ground. She gave molecular quantum tunneling or some such nonsense as the reason. But I think it's something else: Nanites.

A high energy beam is used to inject nanites deep into the ground. They suffuse the surrounding rock and gravel through Brownian motion. Each nanite is specially calibrated to search for a specific group of molecules and, once found, they construct nanotubes to pipe their payload towards where they are densest, eventually up the beam. The demonstrations that show diminishing yields within 48 hours seems to collaborate this theory.
 
Either way, the side effect of preparing the ground is the liquification of the rocks that then fill in most of the caves and tunnels already dug. Some might think it’s like turning the rock to magma but there is no heat involved. Just a dark grey sludge that quickly settles back into natural rock again. The mining shafts will be the first to go. Followed by the engulfing of any underground structures. You would think that a solid box of iron would prevent the rock from flowing in. No. This ‘quantum’ rock that flows right through everything contained only by the gravity of the planets. And moons. The moons will be receiving the same treatment.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
Us Noveans that have served for years as extraction experts have been relegated to asteroid harvesting duty. But Bert, they say to me, Bert, Mining is mining, right? No, I say. Besides micro-gravity leaching of muscle and bone, Asteroids are the turds of the Helios system, attracting pirates like the flies they are. Asteroids just don’t have the same, heh, gravitas of planets. 
What if this is how the dinosaur fossils were made: Subterranean creatures caught in a planetwide rock liquefaction event. Heh. That’s a thought.
 
<Warning. Warning. Approaching anomaly.>
 
Ah. Here comes the grey ooze...
 
<Recording ended.> 
            - Contents of databank found 6km below the surface of an icy planet.
 
 
Want more? www.spaceshipdrama.com

The day the planets ran dry
Memoir of a miner
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315311321…>
 
Ahem. This thing on? Good. I’ve been mining since… Bah. Delete the recording before this. Damn technology, anticipating needs I don’t have. Just do as I say and not...
 
<Recording ended.>
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315313512…>
 
I've been mining since the day I stepped off the Arkship. It was boring but I never got bored. That’s an old mining joke. Along with the one where we are all old enough to drink at bars. With the bad jokes out of the way I can get down and dirty.
 
Back on Earth we were lucky to have a jackhammer or a sonic destabilizer, but right off the Arkship we were giving nanoformers. Amazing bits of technology, able to detect nearby concentration of ores, vaporize the ground to get to the ore and pack the ores neatly into a container. The abuse of nano-fields and Calabi-Yau space at its finest.
 
Then came the territory scanners. Able to scan a square kilometer and give a read out of the ores in the ground. They were prospecting made easy. The big business scanner-heads went out in their tri-scanner ships and deployed arrays of tri-scanners to be able to prospect on upwards of twenty-four square kilometers at the same time. But before all that it was just me and my trusty ship with a territory scanner bolted to its side. That's all a miner really needed. 
 
Then Aphelia, the Arkships AI, made the Arkship fire its big beam deep into the planet. That can’t be good for the planet.  The Novark spat small ore rocks all over the planet's surface. Must have done it to all the planets and moons of the Helios system, because the rocks were everywhere. But no self respecting miner would waste time picking those up. The yields were simply too small, compared to the expansive nodes in the ground. And then there were the motherloads: the mega-nodes. Where one ore node held thousands of liters of ore, the mega-nodes held millions. I personally found and cleared out more mega-nodes than you can shake a stick of carbon at. Those were good times.
 
But just because a territory scanner said there was ore in the ground, it didn’t say where it was. It was still an art to find those elusive ore nodes, even the megas. My preferred method was walking the compass. Find your level, walk north or south whichever makes the blip get closer. Then east west. Once the blip gets no closer, you know the ore is right above or below you. But never dig straight up or down. How are they gonna get back up?  What if there is a giant desert scorpion or worse… ecologists.  But some did dig straight down. The well-diggers or shafters as I called them, wanted to get down to where the ore was quickly. And they didn’t waste time digging back to the surface either. Instead they would just kill themselves, trusting their resurrection nodes on the surface wouldn’t malfunction. But sometimes they did. That’s why the shafters were either desperate or psychopaths.
 
The proper way of mining was always just the miner and their trusty tool. No floating mining chairs, auto-mappers or follow-me container bots. Just you and the dark. And occasionally a miner would be treated to the midnight sun: the hallucinations of sunlight seemingly streaming through the surrounding rocks to illuminate the tunnels or caverns they were traversing. A beautiful sight but also a warning you might have been mining for too long. Maybe all miners were a little touched in the head.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed I kept saying “was”. Aphelia predicted it would take decades to empty the planets of a fraction of their precious ores, but it’s been a single year and they are all gone. We dug them all out. The purer ores anyway. But humanity always needs more resources. So Aphelia made mining units available, each capable of extracting the diffuse ores from the ground. She gave molecular quantum tunneling or some such nonsense as the reason. But I think it's something else: Nanites.

A high energy beam is used to inject nanites deep into the ground. They suffuse the surrounding rock and gravel through Brownian motion. Each nanite is specially calibrated to search for a specific group of molecules and, once found, they construct nanotubes to pipe their payload towards where they are densest, eventually up the beam. The demonstrations that show diminishing yields within 48 hours seems to collaborate this theory.
 
Either way, the side effect of preparing the ground is the liquification of the rocks that then fill in most of the caves and tunnels already dug. Some might think it’s like turning the rock to magma but there is no heat involved. Just a dark grey sludge that quickly settles back into natural rock again. The mining shafts will be the first to go. Followed by the engulfing of any underground structures. You would think that a solid box of iron would prevent the rock from flowing in. No. This ‘quantum’ rock that flows right through everything contained only by the gravity of the planets. And moons. The moons will be receiving the same treatment.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
Us Noveans that have served for years as extraction experts have been relegated to asteroid harvesting duty. But Bert, they say to me, Bert, Mining is mining, right? No, I say. Besides micro-gravity leaching of muscle and bone, Asteroids are the turds of the Helios system, attracting pirates like the flies they are. Asteroids just don’t have the same, heh, gravitas of planets. 
What if this is how the dinosaur fossils were made: Subterranean creatures caught in a planetwide rock liquefaction event. Heh. That’s a thought.
 
<Warning. Warning. Approaching anomaly.>
 
Ah. Here comes the grey ooze...
 
<Recording ended.> 
            - Contents of databank found 6km below the surface of an icy planet.
 
 
Want more? www.spaceshipdrama.com

The Demeter (0.27) update is fast-approaching, bringing with it lots of great stuff such as territory upkeep and weapon balance changes. But, perhaps one of the best new features of all is the debut of mining units. 

With mining units on the scene, you’ll now be able to dig by choice, not by necessity. No more toiling beneath the soil to harvest ore, these babies do all the digging for you while you’re off doing bigger and better things. Terraforming and tunneling to build the constructs of your dreams are still possible, but will not yield ore.  

There are two important things to note in regard to this change. First, since mining-related talents will become obsolete, those points will be refunded and can be used elsewhere. Secondly, the spaghetti-like serpentines of tunnels across Helios will be automagically filled in when Demeter launches. This means that any underground constructs will still be where they are, exactly as you placed them, but will require “digging out”. 

You have a couple of choices. You can either dig them out yourself or you can request assistance from NQ Support reps to use the excavation tool, as demonstrated in this video, to instantly ‘erase’ all that dirt. Bear in mind, however, that Support’s ‘magic eraser’ only removes the dirt, it won’t cover up the construct. You’ll need to do that yourself. 

For those who chose to go the ‘magic eraser’ route, please read this article for more information about the process. Please note that you will need to fill out and submit the request form mentioned in that article before Demeter launches. Excavation will be done on a first-come, first-served basis. Due to the number of requests, you may find it faster and easier to do the excavation yourself. 

Questions, comments, and corny dad jokes can be shared here. 
 

Dear Noveans,
 
Earlier this year, we announced that JC was transitioning to a new role as a board member and board advisor and that Nicolas Granatino, a long-standing backer of Novaquark via Andurance Venture, had been appointed chairman of the board. 
 
We’re happy to share with you today that Nouredine Abboud has joined the company as CEO of Novaquark. Nouredine has more than 15 years of experience in the industry and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise with an impressive catalog of work that includes Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon games. 
 
As CEO, his primary focus is on the business side of things, so you probably won’t see him participating on the forums much. As we reach the final stretch leading to the launch of the game, the team already in place will continue to work on improving Dual Universe with NQ-Kyrios continuing his work as creative director.
 
We can’t wait to share with you the exciting things that are cooking for the game and for the company in 2022. Stay tuned!

Welcome thread is here if you'd like to say hello to Nouredine. 
 

Q: Will the taxation per hex be reduced to an acceptable amount? (Suggested: 1 mil per month not per week) It feels like the price is set with purely auto-mining in mind while the territories are used for other things: like racetracks, train-lines, bases and works of art  (voxel or dirt works).
Is the plan to force players to move back to sanctuary or space?

Q: Will the taxation per hex be reduced to an acceptable amount? (Suggested: 1 mil per month not per week) It feels like the price is set with purely auto-mining in mind while the territories are used for other things: like racetracks, train-lines, bases and works of art  (voxel or dirt works).
Is the plan to force players to move back to sanctuary or space?

I am loving the changes so far (especially the ability to play your most recent emote), but I would like to mention:
I don't think you should be taxed for the first tile you place on a planet, just like how the first tile was free pre-demeter, so that you can safely have your house on a tile without it being evicted if you leave too long. Not doing this will leave most planets empty as many people will migrate to space. IK you guys are taxing for mining but I think its a bit unfair if you don't want to - e.g. you sell ships and money can be few and far between, so could you guys maybe consider changing this? Perhaps you could add an option to your tiles where you don't get taxed, but can't mine either? I'm usually pretty stoic about changes you make, but the new brake system really struck a nerve. these things are too flat and large to fit on the outside of sleek / detailed ships. can we see some changes so that we don't have to scatter them around our constructs like plate armour? maybe xl brakes? thanks! -Shaman ?

The L/hr seem too low even with talent and adjacency bonus for the 1 mil/week tax. Either the rate needs to go up or the tax drastically reduced. The brake change is horrible. I know the current implementation was temporary, but requiring the entire brake to be exposed is going to usher in the golden age of freaking ugly ships. Please change the requirement to be only the front surface to be exposed.

The three-part devblog series we published in April, “The Future of Dual Universe”, addressed the cost of doing business and our plans for the ramp-up to launch. We took the first steps in delivering on those changes in May with the incremental 0.25 updates, adding more gameplay content and improving both performance and visuals.
 
Our 0.25 updates brought players:  
Voxel compression  Constructs LOD  Hauling Missions The Job Forum The first of a series of Challenges The integration of PopcornFX for visual effects And, of course, many bug fixes and additional improvements  
If you haven’t had time yet to check out these changes, we released some videos showcasing them. Watch this video for a closer look and missions and challenges and this first look at the new visual effects. 
 
About the latter, It was fun to watch the real-time reactions from our Twitch streamer community as they saw the changes for the first time. 
 
Now that 0.25 is wrapped up, development is underway for our next big milestone. Codenamed Apollo, the update centers around the first phase of a major mining revamp. The addition of asteroids will provide rare and precious ore, which in turn will create opportunities for conflict as the hunters become the hunted. To that end, PVP will receive a first wave of balancing changes and the introduction of shields. Keep an eye out for devblogs on these topics! 
 
In the meanwhile, we’d like to invite you to post your follow-up questions about the changes we introduced in 0.25 in this thread. In turn, we’ll take the best questions for an upcoming Q&A. Your insights and constructive feedback go a long way not only in helping us identify any lingering issues that should be addressed but are also helpful in how we can make things better in future updates. 
 

Constant communication to answer players burning questions is a monumental task that is required at any time during the release cycle, even if that answer is reiterating “We [NQ] don’t know yet”.  So keep up the great comms @NQ-Naerais !
 
On another note, if the dreaded schematics arn’t banished back to the pits of hell that spawned them, players should be able to create them... though science!

Constant communication to answer players burning questions is a monumental task that is required at any time during the release cycle, even if that answer is reiterating “We [NQ] don’t know yet”.  So keep up the great comms @NQ-Naerais !
 
On another note, if the dreaded schematics arn’t banished back to the pits of hell that spawned them, players should be able to create them... though science!

Constant communication to answer players burning questions is a monumental task that is required at any time during the release cycle, even if that answer is reiterating “We [NQ] don’t know yet”.  So keep up the great comms @NQ-Naerais !
 
On another note, if the dreaded schematics arn’t banished back to the pits of hell that spawned them, players should be able to create them... though science!

Constant communication to answer players burning questions is a monumental task that is required at any time during the release cycle, even if that answer is reiterating “We [NQ] don’t know yet”.  So keep up the great comms @NQ-Naerais !
 
On another note, if the dreaded schematics arn’t banished back to the pits of hell that spawned them, players should be able to create them... though science!

Constant communication to answer players burning questions is a monumental task that is required at any time during the release cycle, even if that answer is reiterating “We [NQ] don’t know yet”.  So keep up the great comms @NQ-Naerais !
 
On another note, if the dreaded schematics arn’t banished back to the pits of hell that spawned them, players should be able to create them... though science!

THE FUTURE OF DU
We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback following the release of our devblog series on the future of DU. We’re  thankful to our community for the great feedback and encouragement. We’ve collected what seem to be the most burning questions following the publication of the blogs and wanted to do a follow-up to address them the best we can. Not all questions have an answer at this point, and we’ll try to fill in the gaps as we’re able in future communications. 
 
Are you going to launch the game in 2021? 
Realistically speaking, we have too much to do with the time that’s left  this year to get to a state where we feel the game is ready for launch. Our current plan is “at some point in 2022”, and we’re targeting mid-year. That projection is tentative, depending largely on our progress and  the feedback we get from our community, so please don’t hold this as a commitment. It could be sooner, it could be a bit later. The state of the game will dictate the date.
 
Why is the game not working on Shadow (cloud gaming platform) and do you plan to support it?
We believe cloud gaming platforms are a great way to enjoy DU if you want to play the game but don’t meet the proper PC specs or want to benefit from the latest hardware improvements without investing in upgrades for your gaming rig; however, we need to clarify that we are not yet officially supporting cloud gaming platforms, including Shadow. Our releases are not tested on these platforms or Windows emulations on Mac and Linux, and we can’t guarantee compatibility at this point. The game is still in beta, and we are focusing our efforts on native Windows PC support.
 
We plan to officially support these platforms at some point, and would like to ensure that when we do we are able to offer ongoing compatibility with adequate testing and collaboration with the platform holders to make a long-term commitment. 
 
We recently started working with a cloud gaming platform in an official manner, and we are hopeful to announce our official support of that platform soon. In the meantime, compatibility with cloud gaming platforms can’t be guaranteed. We log bugs and look at potential quick wins, but we can’t commit to a timeframe for fixing them. Please also note that there is a waiting list of one year to have access to one of the machines of Shadow, which makes debugging all the more difficult.
 
Will there be an updated roadmap?
At the moment, there is no plan to release an official roadmap with dates. We tried to explain why in the three devblogs. We’re changing many things in the way we develop DU, and it’s hard right now to have a clear idea of our future velocity. We don’t want to give you dates that we might not hold. We think it’s more important to have the freedom to adapt to your feedback rather than trying to hit the dates on a public roadmap. We hope you will see this as a sign that things are changing for the better and that we’re being more realistic in our approach.
 
Why don’t we have more frequent releases?
Dual Universe is an extremely complex game to develop. Many of the systems we have already in place are interdependent, and changing or adding a feature has ripple effects on other features and systems both in terms of code and in terms of feature design. For example, RDMS has to be carefully considered in many things we do, as does  the role of organizations in the introduction of new features, etc. Most of the tech we use is custom and not off-the-shelf. It’s one of the secret sauces of the game, and it also makes features much more difficult to work on because we develop the tech AND the features at the same time.
 
Now, with the introduction of the PTS, we hope to make more frequent releases, including releases of prototypes, such as the Lua technology for screen units. How frequently will depend on what goes in these releases and how much work needs to be done after we receive feedback from the PTS. We estimate that you can expect three to four additional major releases in 2021, and smaller releases in-between, but that’s only a ballpark estimate for now.
 
What’s going on with long-standing beta bugs? Are you going to fix them?
Yes we will fix them as quickly as possible although we aren’t able to pinpoint an exact date. Some bugs are easier to squash than others, and some even require a rework of an entire complete backend system to resolve. These processes need to be scheduled accordingly, also taking into account that we want to avoid reworking the same thing multiple times if we suspect that the development of an upcoming feature will force us to rework the same system again. The more critical the bug, the higher the priority. When we’re focused on fixing bugs,  that means we’re not working on the plan we presented to you, so it’s a balancing act. We wish we could give you a list of bugs and a timeframe for each one, but that would be highly unrealistic. These bugs are not being forgotten, that’s the best we can tell you right now.
 
Can we expect a more frequent communication from Novaquark?
We’d love to, just understand that the frequency of our communications really depends on the cadence of the game releases. The way it works is that as soon as the content of a new release is established (at least a content draft), we sit down and make a plan for how and when we’re going to talk about these features/this content. Often we have to wait until a feature is stable enough in terms of game design and/or coding to be able to talk about it or show it, as a feature can evolve a lot along the development process and the unfolding of our sprints. We simply want to ensure that the information we give you isn't misleading, as early communication means the end result may differ significantly once development is complete and the feature is released.
So between releases, there is indeed a communication gap. 
 
There are different general topics we could discuss between releases, but they wouldn’t really bring anything concrete to the table and that communication could be seen as shallow and vague. It’s actually an interesting topic we’d like to explore with you: what is it exactly that you expect in terms of communication? How can we balance having meaningful content to present with what seems to be the need of our players to see ongoing communication? Based on reactions we’ve seen in the past, we  believe that communicating simply for the sake of it when we have nothing really new to talk about is never well-received.
 
What about PvE? Are you planning to add PvE features to make the game more varied?
Our current focus is on enabling emergent content between players. PvE is not one of our priorities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that it won’t ever come to the game, but it is not going to be added before the official release of the game. That said, one could potentially consider the challenges that we’re currently working on as some form of PvE, though not in the sense that you’ll be shooting NPCs or wildlife.
 
Will we see a return of NQ employee Interviews and AMAs?
We would love to do things like livestreams and AMAs again when the time is right. We feel like these formats are better suited when there is a clearly defined topic to focus the discussion, such as a major release for instance. It is duly noted that these interactions with the community are appreciated, and we will include them whenever possible.
 
You mentioned the changes in the industry gameplay, but it wasn’t clear if schematics will stay or go?
The honest answer is that we don’t know yet. When we introduced schematics, it was a major disturbance in the forc… in the economy of the game.  We don’t want to rush into more changes after that, especially given that players invested a lot of hard-earned quanta in buying them. Removing schematics is ONE of the options we’re looking at, as well as changing their prices or adding more recipes. Reverting to the way it was before the introduction of schematics is also on the table. We know we want to do something with the current state of the industry to add back some of the fun that was taken away with 0.23, but how exactly we’ll do it is yet to be decided.  
 
Is there going to be a wipe?
We see that the debate on the topic has been pretty hot in the community for a while, and it’s about the same at Novaquark. We’re uncertain if the changes we are planning to introduce will require a wipe or not, and we’ve started (intense) internal discussions on the topic. Our priority is to try to preserve the time and effort that our players have put in the game since the beta started. Once we’ve got a better idea of how much the changes we discussed in the third  “Future of DU” devblog will impact the game’s economy, we’ll make a decision. If there is a wipe (and it’s a big IF), it may be a partial one only affecting certain aspects of the universe. Our  priority will be to mitigate the impact for long-time players.

Join us in our feedback thread here!
 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

PART TWO: UNDER THE HOOD 

In our previous blog, we spoke about improvements we’re making to our processes in order to get more efficient use of our resources and deliver the best game possible. Today, we’re taking a look at operation costs and how we’re working to make improvements in that area, too. 

THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS 
The server and database architecture behind Dual Universe is new and quite complex. As we had about the game itself,  we had made assumptions about how much running a game like DU was going to cost in various areas. What we found was that our estimations proved to be far too conservative. We had to confront the actual cost of scaling up operating costs for a larger, global player base. And that’s okay. We have a plan. 
 
After reevaluation, we determined that some of our design decisions have had a major impact on our operational costs (i.e. what it costs to run the servers). In particular, databases are a major part of these costs. For example, because the world can be entirely edited and every edit needs to be stored in a database then communicated between the server and the clients, it eats a lot of our I/O allocations, which in turn increases our database costs. 
 
THE IMPACT ON UPDATES
The consequence is that, in the upcoming months, we will be rolling out significant backend improvements in order to optimize these operational costs. We made the conscious decision to keep pricing low in order to make the game more accessible for people who want to play, but that means that we need to keep operational costs in check. Developing these optimizations is time-consuming, but it is fundamental if we want to have a viable game as the playerbase continues to grow. 
 
It’s important to make players aware of this because some of our upcoming releases may not seem like much to you. While they won’t appear to include much in the way of new features, they will be updates to deploy these fundamental under-the-hood changes. For instance, the upcoming 0.25 release will be primarily focused on introducing a “game-changing” incremental storage mechanism for edits to the game world that will have a major positive impact on our database costs. The good news is that we think that some of these modifications will improve performance for the players.
 
Speaking of performance: that’s another area where we’ve been doing a lot of work, using the in-game telemetry to optimize areas where performance was dropping. There are several projects in the works to address performance. Although these may not seem particularly sexy when you read about them in the patch notes, the difference in how much better the game runs and feels while you’re playing should convince you it was worth the time and effort we spent on them. 
 
One example is the in-game screens. They ended up being quite popular among players, but the use of HTML for screen customization has proven to be quite a performance bottleneck in areas where there are a lot of screens. We recently started testing a new system using simple Lua draw commands instead of HTML to achieve the goal of screen customization. This change should seriously alleviate performance issues in areas with a lot of screens while providing the added benefit of unifying customization languages in a more user-friendly way.
 
There are other optimizations like this in our pipeline, and they will be presented in due time. 

MORE IN STORE
Tomorrow, in the third and final part of this series, we’ll talk about DU gameplay, and the challenges of maintaining a delicate balance between staying true to the original vision while taking player feedback into consideration. 
 
Discuss today's blog here!

Schematics should be upgradeable. Start with base schematic and put into research element. Takes energy/time/resources to upgrade schematics time/material/production efficiency. Then also let us sell these on the market. Would add some much needed depth to the schematic gameplay. 
 
Could add Scientist Skill trees to compliment this branch of research. 
 
(obviously assuming energy will be added soon) ? 

I am new to the game.
I saw some videos on youtube berfore, read this forum (with all the hates after the patch) and decided to check out the game and payed for 3 month.
Now after 7 days i clearly see this game is beta in the very early phase... it is playable, content for many hours inside, alot to learn and a great community mostly respectful.
 
From my side i can say: this game needs a wipe. A fresh start after the change. It would show clearly the iron core of the community and who understood that this isn't the released version of a game.
Fresh start after EACH bigger update with new mechanics or change of old ones. The developer get a better understanding and focus on the problems with it and a fresh start is also good for new players. I, as a new player, get slayed by the dimensions of some structures, freightend how much ships/vehicles laying arround like dead bodys and that everyone can build into the landing zones, i can't believe this was in mind of the developers.
The game is missing rules, badly. In some zones it shouldn't be possible to build structures, landing and parking zones blocking should end up in move to a legal zone...
 
And people needs to understand that this game isn't finish. I payed to be a part of this process, not to be a troll, thinking i can do better...
 
How it would be possible to do better ?
 
1. Let's be respectful to each other
2. Take a break, take a kitcat if things go wrong and let the devs do their work. Read point 1.
3. The devs should communicate more with the community. Respectful talks should be possible at any time.
4. Bring in your ideas and concepts. The devs loves brilliant ideas to make the game more interesting, but you need to understand: not all is possible and some need alot of time. Chill and wait.
5. The most important for a good feeling for everyone is: Point 1
 
Such projects needs time and ideas and !! alot of coffee. Coffee is important to keep your brain running and if you calculate just one programmer needs 2 coffee per hour, this are 5280 coffees, sugar, milk, cookies, sandwiches, .... alot of MONEY ! if i pay 80 Euros a year and help finding bugs, i can't pay one of them alone. And to make sure they not drinking the bad stuff, i calculate the price of a Starbucks coffee, cause this guys are Stars for me. I guess you got my point.
You all need to give them whats they deserve and that is: Ivan is serve the coffee, SirJohn85 does the brain massage, Yamamoto serves the food, GraXXor brings the cigars, and everyone else make feel them comfortable in all ways ?
 
Everyone who feels frustrated, should also be able to speak about it and others should read it with respect, bring him/her coffee, cigars, massage ... not every day is a pink unicorn day !
Peace
Homer from germany