Phroshy

I don't consider this to be a premature discussion, because they brought up the premium cosmetic shop within the context of Alpha and Beta players. They mentioned that as an outlet for those players to continue to support the game, without charging Alpha and Beta players a subscription. It is their intent to make cosmetics available at a very early stage, hence my bringing it up.

Besides, think of mental scarring.
 
Perhaps this can help some reconsider a potential nuclear war with total annihilation:
 
 
 

 
No thanks.
 
 
 

I'd prefer to see crashed arkships as ruins only. Maybe with some schematics or something inside. But without any chance of powering it up and turning it into a safezone. It would be a construct just like any other. Still very rare and very valuable in a sentimental way.

Construct v construct will definitely come. Only question is when. If we make the stretchgoal: On release. If not: Shortly after, because this might be the most demanded feature

My brother AccuNut and I will be running a market once the game is released and have been thinking about how market owners will make their money.
 
We have come up with a few ideas on how this should work, as their has been nothing mentioned as of yet on this subject.
 
Here they are:
Market owner (MO) takes a percentage of the sales. (ex. Item sells for $10. MO takes 1%. Seller gets $9.90.) -- thanks ATMLVE MO is paid per each listing by the seller. (ex. $10 to post one item for sale, $10 to post 1,200 items.) MO is paid per each item listed by the seller. (ex. $10 to sell one item, $20 to sell two, $30 for three, etc.) MO is paid based on cubic units of storage space taken by the items sold. (ex. at $10 per cubic unit, a listing occupying five cubic units of market storage would cost the seller $50 to post for sale.) MO establishes listing "types" (raw resources, ship parts, blueprints, etc.). seller is charged using any of the above methods based on item "type". (ex. raw resource listings charged using method #1 cost 1% of sale, while blueprint listings cost 5%.) --This option allows the most freedom to the Market Owner as they could use different charge methods for each listing "type". (ex. MO uses method #2 for raw resource listings and method #1 for blueprints.) What are your thoughts on these methods? We'd love to hear your own ideas on how markets should make a profit as well.
Let us know what you think!
 
 -Don't forget to "like" the post!
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​Thanks for reading,
​Starkontrast

Why do you think you can just put your constructs back into your inventory?
 
Its highly unlikely that you'll be able to just suck your stuff back into your inventory.
 
Especially with bigger constructs.

Voice chat could be a premium feature for subscribers only. VoIP takes a not inconsiderable amount of server resources, so it makes sense from economic POV, too.

I'm still not sure I understand how DACs being lootable turn DACs into less of a pay-to-win mechanic than when they are purely digital.
 
Even more importantly, after three pages of discussion, actually I still don't see how DACs are pay-to-win either way. If I butcher my piggy bank to buy lots of game money I still can't just conjure up an uber weapon of mass destruction.
 
If I want to buy the biggest and baddest battlecruiser ever to gank noobz with my rich parents' money, someone still has to construct that battlecruiser first. Presumably someone who already is at least as powerful as I am as a newcomer with a golden goose next to my computer.
 
And the money I spend isn't just disappearing either. If I pay a million spacebucks to the ship vendor, now the vendor has a million spacebucks. On top of how he probably was already pretty well-off in the first place if he is in the place to sell expensive spaceships.
 
 
I guess my point is, so many people here are acting as if the devs allowed rich people to produce uber weapons out of thin air. But I have a hard time seeing how a newcomer with too much money to spare could just usurp the powers to be and become the next kingpin. Every time they spend money, people around them will profit. And you can still loot, capture or destroy whatever they bought if they don't know what they're doing with it. If they bought expensive materials, you can attack them and snatch all of it. If they buy a big battleship, you can gather your boys to zerg them and show everyone what you think of rich people privilege. And so on.
 
 
It's getting late here in Yurop, sorry if my ramblings are becoming a little incoherent.

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.

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.

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.

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.