[In-game voice.]

I really think it should be opt in. I don't think the immersion that would be gained by half-hearing potentially thousands of irrelevant conversations around you outweighs the additional strain on servers and connectivity. A simple GUI could be used to start a conversation by tuning into a channel and others would have to do the same. Channels could be dynamically created and invites to join various channels could be sent. Mute/ignore functionality would also be required. I have less of an issue with push to talk but having that as a default sounds like a good idea.

 

I would envision such channels to only function within line of sight unless they are extended through the use of an element or item.

 

If feel you're grossly overestimating the population density we're going to achieve in this game. Juggling channels for line-of-sight communications sounds needlessly complicated, somehow I doubt it will be a common occurrence to have so many people around that you need to filter them. Except maybe for the early days, when everyone is still milling around the arkship.

[Poll : DACs are not physical objects and cannot be stolen or dropped upon death.]

Yes, I support their decision against lootable DACs for a variety of reasons:

• I can't imagine the grief of spending money on DACs and losing all of it shortly after in-game. That's the stuff that can quickly turn players away, presumably those that are especially willing to spend a lot of money on the game.
• Safe zones, like around the arkship, are apparently planned to be rare and far between. Trade with DACs would almost certainly only be happening in those safe zones if DACs were lootable, possibly giving safe zones an enormous economic edge beyond what they already inherently are going to have anyway. I'd rather there be several big markets with player-enforced security outside the safe bubble, the prospect of all trading hubs being located in safe zones feels pretty bleh. Unlootable money and DACs make active trading hubs outside safe zones much more feasible.
• DACs are a form of currency, and RP-wise it only makes sense to me that currency would be all digital so far in the future.

The counter-argument concerning emergent gameplay feels weak to me, personally. Presumably you can still steal pretty much anything else, and there should be plenty of trade ships whizzing about moving all kinds of goods and resources, some of them bound to be very valuable, too. Looting crates of titanium and a cache of missiles makes for a better story than nicking someone's chequebook anyway.

[Afk raiding protection]

I feel this discussion isn't going anywhere. The matter of hard timers or miracle shields and how necessary they are can hardly be discussed in isolation, as so many other aspects of PvP are hinging on it. For example:

• How easy is it to destroy voxels in foreign controlled territory? How big of a hole can I make with a bunch of rockets and bombs? How expensive is the ammo? Can I even damage voxels at all, or only constructs? How easy is it for the defenders to repair the damage? Does the game memorize the blueprint so I can just bring the materials and the holes get filled up more or less automatically?
  
• How easy is it to locate the Territory Unit? Does it show up on my HUD when I'm nearby? Do I need special scanners to help me locate it? Or do I need to find it manually, eyes only? This can be a considerable effort on a 1 km² stretch of land.
  
• Can territories change owner immediately or is there a timer during which only the defenders / last owners can reclaim it?
  

These things make a big difference to base planning, sieges and general PvP.

 

Imagine for example if it was fairly difficult to destroy voxels in enemy territory. Even as a solo player I could deter most random griefers quite easily by digging a deep hole in a mountain, filling it up with thick doors and bulkheads, and plopping my Territory Unit at the very end. An attacker would need time and maybe explosives to get in there and take the territory from me.

 

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In such a scenario a magical bubble of immunity wouldn't really be necessary, imo. Instead, just a spontaneous idea, maybe instead my stuff could always be vulnerable, but broken elements could have a timer during which I can repair them at reduced cost, including the Territory Unit. Let's call this timer survivability. The amount of time granted for this could be determined by the local infrastructure.

 

Imagine if you could juice up this survivability of your elements with special elements that use up a lot of energy, say for a maximum of 24 hours (if you have a lot of them and supply them all with energy). An attacker could go straight for the Territory Unit, break and besiege it while the survivability timer is ticking, and considerably reduce the time by either breaking power plants or directly breaking our magical survivability elements (say the timer goes down to half an hour when all the supporting infrastructure is gone). When the timer runs out for each broken element, it explodes and is gone; when the Territory Unit is gone, the attackers can plop down their own, thusly claiming the territory as their own.

 

This way war would be costly: You need some manpower, you need to destroy and rebuild some valuable infrastructure (and not just the Territory Unit). Battles between equals can be long and fierce, yet powerful organizations can steamroll the little man in an hour or two (a good amount of time imo: It's long enough that they are unlikely to just gank someone's home while passing by, but short enough that there is little to no arbitrarily waiting around during an actual siege). If your neighbour doesn't play the game anymore and doesn't bother to log in, you may just break his Territory Unit and wait for the next day to claim his land.

 

If your organization is limited in its global reach (and thus in its time of the day where anyone is online) you can invest in massive infrastructure that will effectively make it impossible to take the territory without your rivals either pulling an all-nighter, or by outgunning you to a degree where you probably wouldn't have had a fighting chance anyway. Or you can try and take it back next day, or take one of their territories. Your enemies have to sleep, too.

 

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Yes, this still leaves the problem where certain timezones have an advantage over others. But I agree with HelloKitty that formally declaring war and then twiddling thumbs for a day is also a bit lame. I'd much rather have a system where you can spontaneously get into the action at any time, but random passers-bys can't just take over my homestead without at least a bit of time and effort (they can still cause damage and grief on the go if they want). That's the kind of balance I'd like to see.

 

The game probably needs a notification system telling you the names of everyone that attacked your constructs (or even just cratered the terrain in your territory), so you can repay them in kind or hire mercenaries.

[Planetary warfare]

According to the Kickstarter page, PvP on foot has even higher priority for the devs than ship vs ship. The latter may not even make it into the first release if they can't make more than their minimum funding goal; "construct versus construct" as they call it is a stretch goal.