wizardoftrash

DANG, I am one huge red dot on the forum map! dang! Looks like I've got a swarm of people who are just connected to me, compared to Twek who seems to be connected to more inter-connected folks.

Scanning will end up being such a backbone mechanic of the game, that it will end up being an entire skill discipline. To have such an element that can 100% successfully locate everything, a necessary caveat would be that it would only be usable by someone with a maximum or very very high scanning skill, or else it would defeat the purpose of that skill in a way that isn't present for the other skills. For example, if it did not have a high scanning skill requirement to use, Then an org could simply slap that puppy on all of their ships and never need to recruit anyone with a high scanning, thus making the scanning skill useless. There isn't a way to "buy" your way out of needing the gunnery skill, or a flight skill, or a refining skill, so why should there be a way to bypass the scanning skill? Given that scanning is such an important feature (and supposedly will be one of the more fun parts of mining), why cut that whole process out by adding an element that does it for you?

Uuuuhhmmmm there aren't aliens in this game. I think you might have it confused with No Man's Sky??

Its also not just about specialization here, its about coordination. So what if 1 guy has the metrics to beat you 1 on 1 consistently (and yeah, MMO's revolve around metrics. Sometimes math just crushes you) with no chance for you to survive a direct confrontation. Avoid direct confrontation, and don't go 1 on 1 lol. With a game that conceptually revolves around teamwork, turns out the math will favor more players over a single over-powered character/ship. This becomes abundantly clear in other sandbox games (Rust, and Especially in Starmade and Space Engineers). A capital ship with triple the mass, armor, and weapons basically always loses to 2 identical ships even though from a metrics perspective, the capital ship has the advantage (and that is *not* factoring in specialization here). If you have a pair of specialized ships (like a tackle-ship and a destroyer, or a scan-down ship and a missile-spammer), that capital ship is getting murdered. Specialization though will be immensely important. Even an org with fewer players will be better off if they are able to cover every-base skill-wise for their org's profession.

So from what we know about the scanning and mining mechanics that NQ has already discussed, there will be *some* degree of actual environmental risk during Mining in the form of magma pockets. Players will have to be careful while mining deep underground or they would risk being killed. However apart from that, and pilot error (like running out of fuel while in space), There isn't much E in PVE that has been confirmed for launch. I do agree though that based on JC's background, we will eventually see actual enemy NPC activity in the game, but I have a hunch it'll be in the form of robotic AI rather than Aliens based on the game's lore. That, or the threat will be associated with the other Ark ships. For the most part though, the bulk of opposing force a player will be up against will be other players, even in such a time as Hostile NPC's are implemented. Even games like Rust has some PVE elements to them, but by far the biggest threat to a Rust player's existence is the dozens of other players that will kill them on-site or attempt to enslave.

Once the game is in full-swing, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see some kind of seasonal events, however I have a hunch it would be more of a matter of tying-in new content to seasonal themes. For example, they might add some new world-gen features to ice biomes during December, or add procedural generated derelict ships (aka ghost ships) during October, etc.

Except a risk-free unlimited resource way of producing blueprints decreases the material cost and infrastucture to 0, every joe-shmo can build a blueprint for a stealth bomber or high performance fighter, and with so many blueprints on the market, they become worth nothing.

Not to mention if creating a blueprint for a construct requires little to no actual material investment, then the market would be loaded with blueprints especially saturated with bad ones. This would devalue blueprints sharply, and therefor devalue R&D as an activity. Not a fan

In what dev diary did they discuss PVE? or in what Kickstarter update post did they talk about it? Is there a page on their site talking about PVE plans? no? I see. Now based on the lore however, one might assume that in an expansion we could see Hostile AI. JC is an AI specialist after all. But to talk about people getting into the game day 1 as a solo player who is ready for some PVE, there are going to be some real dissapointed folks. This kinda false hype is in-part how No Man's Sky happened. (EDIT what i mean here by hostile AI is that there might eventually be PVE in the form of an in-game hostile AI based on the lore, since its part of the lore's background that AI was a threat on-earth and that they were banned).

EXACTLY. a voluntary way to visually show a credential, so that a player can look at you and know instantly that you can do what they need. It would allow players to form a crew quickly and easily in-person without opening windows and sifting through text.

ERRM, no, more like what I'm suggesting at the start of the topic: A cosmetic stamp you can wear, that you gain access to by actually having the skill at a high enough level (or I guess by spoofing it with a hacking skill. I'm in-favor of that sorta thing, sorta like an ID strambler or ID spoofer). Plus hey, it would be confined to their avatar, so its not like it would clutter people's display.

I imagine it would be sorta like looking at someone's Character Sheet (to use a traditional RPG term there) and that's great if you are taking a nice long time to pick people out in a text window or something. What I was suggesting was more walking to walking around with a sign or billboard saying "MiningLV3" so that a nearby player might spontaneously ask you to join up for a trip, and bingo, quick and simple cooperation.

if it ends up being exploitable, then it would become a measure that people wouldn't pay much attention to. That doesn't mean its useless, that means it could be less useful. Plus if you limit it to max +1 per user, you'd have to basically beg people to +1 you. To add a little icing to it, you could set it up so that only people who are subbing (no free trails) can +1 somebody, so that way if someone is running alts to +1, they are paying for each of them.

Again, last I heard was that EVE and DU were different games. Just replying with "this other game doesn't have that" isn't really an argument that something is a bad idea lol.

I mean, pretty much going to take a stab at making the Magic Schoolbus here pretty soon during a test.

Last I heard, DU and eve were different games. And yeah, DU doesn't have classes, and these aren't class icons, they are skill icons. You could simply choose not to equip them if you don't want an enemy using that info against you in-combat. My suggestion had nothing to do with combat, and everything to do with showing friendly players your qualifications or job in a specific run. Mainly what I'm suggesting is a way for a player to look at a crowd, and know which players are looking for a mining job, or a scanning job, without relying on them being truthful about their skill numbers or looking at their stats. Or a way for a player to put on a skill cosmetic for the role they want to play on a mission so that the people around them know "dang, that guy is a gunner".

Sounds like you'll have no trouble fining a home. Every org will want miners and surveyors, and resource management will be the backbone of just about every org. From what NQ has stated publicly, it looks like most constructs won't require any scripting at all to function. I bet you'll find that once the game is out, people will be sharing some of their custom scripts on the forums, wiki, and on Youtube to show off, and there would be no shame in copy-pasting a script that you like.

To add to this idea, there could even be a construct-element that can project a skill-based icon as a hologram, or display it on a screen. That way when I get into my ship, it would display which skill roll I represent either on the ship's hull, or floating above my ship. This would make it easy to visually identify your teammates when they aren't out walking around especially if everyone is flying the same ship design. Another thought would be to have an upper-tier of cosmetic item for the really high skill ranks. For example, someone who reaches a very high rank in Engineering might be able to equip a Helmate that resembles a hard-hat, or a character that reaches a high-rank hacking skill unlocks a helmate that resembles a tri-corn pirate hat. It would add a little bit of brag/swag to the system.

I think calling it a cutthroat adventure game might be a bit of a stretch. Sure based on how the people talk about the game on the forums it might sound like this game will be the next RUST (where people are killing each other all the time, and the whole game revolves around raiding), but I suspect that there will be a good mix of stable and unstable areas in the game world. Just how in EVE, most PVP occurs in effectively "lawless space", there will be enough protections in DU that it won't be a murder-fest everywhere. The main thing that would threaten highly developed areas would be all-out war between large orgs, and with war its less about being better at killing individual players, and more about overpowering your opponent with economic and infrastructure advantages. An org with 10 fighters will not be able to launch an effective and sustained attack a huge city with a well-rounded militia for example. It'll depend on exactly how action-based the PVP is, but it is entirely possible that Avatar vs Avatar combat would be something you would struggle with personally. It is possible though that some aspects of PVP would be just fine even with poor ping. You would be well suited for a combat engineer role on a ship for example, so long as you would get a stable feed of what is being damaged in a ship and where. You would probably also do just fine on the development side of a PVP based org, mining resources and building ships to use in combat even if you aren't piloting them. There will also be plenty of opportunity to do piloting missions where the goal is to avoid combat, such as transporting goods in a frigate, or transporting other players in a shuttlecraft.

IDEA: A way to visually identify what players are proficient in key skills, and inversely, a way to show the players around you what your specializations are. Concept: Characters could have cosmetic items, or skins for their suit/tools, that are unlocked by reaching skill benchmarks in specific areas. Fleshing it out: Each skill category (Piloting, guns, scanning, mining, refining, engineering, etc) could have a skill icon associated with said skill. At a certain benchmark, you unlock the ability to wear that icon on your character's suit, or on an article of clothing. This would tell the players around me at least one set of skills I'm proficient in for the purposes of forming loose teams, and also inform them at what level of proficiency I am in that skill. The Engineering skill for example might have a Wrench icon associated with it. A soon as a player becomes proficient in Basic Engineering, they get access to the Wrench Icon as an accessory for their space suit, which would place it on your character's back and on the upper left-hand side of your chest. As a player progresses to Engineering Rank 2, that wrench icon changes to have a #2 incorporated in it, or a wrench with a stripe across it or something, showing the players around you that you have Rank 2 proficiency in the engineering skill. A character could only have 1 skill icon equipped at a time, but they could switch between them. This would be useful for ORGS because they could use it to display who a ranking member is within an org. The Cheif Engineer for example might be the only player permitted to equip "Engineering Rank 4" because an org could decide to use that insignia to show who the ranking officer is at any given tame, same for military roles. I see this as being especially useful though with players who are meeting each other for the first time in-game, and are divvying up tasks for a play session. If I volunteered to be our crew's scanner, I'd equip my Scanning rank insignia, the miner would equip mining, engineer would equip engineering etc. That way we know by looking at each other which one of us is supposed to do what, and players that want to join would know what skillsets we might be missing, or might be able to show us that they are better at scanning than I am for example by equipping their higher rank insignia. It might make cooperating on-the-fly more efficient.

There are already 3 threads about topics similar to this one, including a thread that was originally titled "offline creative mode". Please be sure to use the search function to find discussions of a similar topic before starting repetitive suggestion threads.

Errrmmm no. There will be no "E" for PVE style gameplay here. At the start there will be a merchant NPC that will be carefully controlled and toggled on/off to inject in-game currency (quanta) into the market, but that's it. You are in the wrong game buddy, there is PVP here and peaceful building and not much else. They did mention possibly in a future expansion adding some kind of PVE style content if it is something the community really wanted, but I don't see this happending for a nice long while. But for real though don't hold your breath here, PVE is not a planned feature, so there will be no accommodating a "pve style player" in the foreseeable future, and it is a long long road to release.

First of all, account-sharing is against the rules. that should discourage account sharing. More importantly though, one of the ways to encourage cooperative play and emergent societies is through specialization, which is strongest when there are activities that are literally impossible without a specialized character. Now players will be able to do a bit of everything without any specialization, that's already been discussed. However what limiters will permit is professions. For example, right out of the gate we are both level 1 and can do base activities at a low level. We can both scan for a limited selection of resources (like Iron) and refine them. As a group, we would be at an advantage though if I trained in Scanning and you trained in Refining, since then I would be able to locate a wider range of elements, and you would be able to refine them into more advanced polimers. Suddenly a team of 2 is able to build tougher constructs than if 2 people each stayed more generalized. Sure both players in the group could each train in scanning AND refining, but a group that specializes is making more advanced polymers at an earlier stage of the game. A group of 6 or 7 would be able to optimally perform every task in building a construct going from 0 to complete product, and an individual player who is dabbling in each of those skills would be performing several tiers lower *in addition to* having 1/7th of the actual manpower. And that's exactly it. By implementing a limitation-based skill system, you are encouraging cooperative play and specialization by rewarding groups where each member picks a job. This is sort of how civilizations are formed, and this style of play aligns with the game's slogan "Rebuilding Civilization Together"

That and I despise some of the idiotic behaviors that "use-based skill systems" create. Jumping and running literally everywhere to increase athletics. Yeah who really literally jumps up and down when going from place to place, that breaks the heck outta immersion. Building a hyper-fuel efficient minimalist slow as heck ship so that you can maximize your flight time to increase piloting skill and... not actually fly anywhere for any purpose to grind your skill. That's just silly. Digging random holes to boost mining skill. way to ensure every inch of every planet is ugly Oh and don't get me started on crafting. In skyrim, having to grind iron daggers and dwarven bows nonstop to improve smithing was ridiculous. I don't want to be making nothing but steel doors and bonsai trees to improve manufacturing, or making tons and tons of concrete to improve refining.

We signed up because this was also an MMORPG. Skill progression prevents people from leaping over hurdles and aquiring a lot of potentially very destructive power very early, and it also limits people's ability to use alts as a weapon. For example, with no skill system to act as a limiter, and my main character had tons of bounties on him making it unsafe to fly in most areas... I could just make an ORG, set all my possesions to "share with ORG" and invite no-one to the org but my alt. Log on as my alt and tada! I've still got all my stuff, but none of my bounties or bad rep. See the problem? Plus skill systems do more than just serve as limiters, they augment. My scanning would not be directly tied to what equipment I was using if my *skill* in scanning improved it. This allows there to be some micro-variation in ore-types and polymers without making more types of equipment or refineries to accommodate for those micro-variations.