wizardoftrash

I don't agree with that argument as we are not discussing 2017 reality. I mean.. how long are Noveans in stasis on the arkship again and where is the tech that would agree with that being possible? Applying RL logic to a fantasy environment in a game is nonsense.. I mean materializing aluminium blocks from a small box on your wrist is as much pressing the iwin button as anything else, let's just get real here for a moment.
 
In the EVE lore the cloaking mechanic is very much viable and where cloaking and warp exists, Einstein nor Newton apply since there is no time.
 
Everything seen in SF world games is relating to enormous amounts of energy being available and applicable, whether it is warpdrive, cloaking or a molecular materializer (basically a slap on transporter) worn on your wrist. It's been long shown by applying math that most of these would be very much possible _IF_ we would be able to generate the amount of energy needed. trying to apply real world physics or laws is IMO just silly.
 
You only need to go back in time 100 years and you will be locked up as a nutcase if you try and convince people of the technology available today. Who are we to claim that in 23K years we have not been able to break Einstein's law or that some alien entity has provided us with 'magical' technology.. I mean some people believe that today's tech was in fact given to us by aliens in Roswell..

A person hit by a ship missile or a discintegration cannon should not need to be double-tapped.

I'm familiar with KO mechanics, in-general I'm a fan of them. Something to keep in mind though...
 
In similar games that have a KO mechanic, you drop literally everything on death. When you are KO'ed, attackers tan loot your body, take your weapons, etc. The KO mechanic allows you to disable someone instead of killing them by confiscating anything that can deal damage.
 
The problem is that "full lootable" KO only makes sense in a game where you drop everything on death. So far, its slated that you will lose *some* of your items, but not all if your character dies. This would mean that robbers would KO people, rob them, and then probably kill them anyways (or not to avoid breaking laws and acquiring bounties).
 
Having "full lootable" KO here just doesn't make sense. "but I want the ability to disable them, i should at least be able to take their weapon" yeah if anything that would be the way to go, KO would allow you to take weapons from a downed player, and then by-default if you die, you drop any weapons you were carrying plus some of your resorces. Instead of making weapons lootable by default though, *ammunition* could be lootable by default, or give attackers a "disarm" option that sets a nice fat long cooldown timer on a down'ed players weapons.
 
Another thing to consider here too is that there would need to be "outright kill" situations where there is simply no KO step, and this would probably come from a CVC weapon hitting a player, or a PVC weapon hitting a player. Missiles, very high calibur guns, high intensity lasers, there is a host of things that should go right on ahead and skip the KO step.
 
Allowing a character to force respawn from a KO is also a must, otherwise repeatedly KO-ing a player would become exploitable as a form of griefing. Also, no handcuffs. 90% of the players that want a handcuff style mechanic want to use it to capture and torment innocent players, not to capture criminals alive.
 
 

Allow me to quote myself:
 

I understand people's hesitation with this, NMS really burned people hard, and with how buggy games like Space Engineers are, people look at DU and just roll their eyes at yet another over-selling sandbox space game.
 
We know better, but we are a wise few.

I could see Cybrex and his alts running around at 0:58

I could see Cybrex and his alts running around at 0:58

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.

Besides, JC's example might have also been assuming that people are doing nothing but removing voxels at the fastest rate possible (basically picking up dirt). Mining for resources however will be much more involved than clicking on funky colored dirt for hours. Scanning will eat some of that time, travelling to where the resources are will take some time, tunneling to those resources, or shaping a mine in such a way that you can fit, or that your cargo vehicle can fit will take time. Transporting those resources when your inventory is full will take time, having them refined will take time.
 
The accessory activities involved in mining will have a huge impact on how long the starting planet remains a viable place to gather resources. The trick I think will be trying to collect resources outside the safe zone, and navigating around the claims where mining is not permitted due to TU's.

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?

From what I've heard is that pvp will be a hybrid system, where there are elements that behave like tab-targeting, however you can acquire your targets via cursor/crosshairs. It will not be an FPS in that there is projectile tracking or hitscan based on your redicle, but instead, it'll use where your aiming to determine what construct or character your are "tabbed" to for targeting purposes. You'll need to be pointing in roughly the right direction, and in a situation where there are a ton of targets in a tight area, precision might matter.
 
But then it usses accuracy stats of the character and weapon against the evasiveness stats of the target factoring in distance to determine hit/miss, metrics for damage, its right back to a typical MMO when it comes to actually firing there. The main difference is that you'll be "aiming" for whatever target you are trying to "tab" to attack, instead of selecting your target with the press of a button. Also, this is might only be the case for some weapons.
 
There will likely be weapon systems that won't require an aim-target, but instead purely use a tab-target. This would be a construct-mounted weapon, and it would be the difference between a turret-mounted weapon system and a hull-forward mounted weapon system. There will be a tradeoff where you can have a higher damage weapon that you must aim-target, or a lower damage weapon that will auto-track target so that you won't have to be facing of flying towards your intended target.
 
As far as automated defenses go, there will be basically very little in the way of auto-turret defenses and the like. NQ is trying REALLY HARD to make sure that this game doesn't boil down to who has the most turrets (Space Engineers) or the biggest ship (Starmade), and that means a 1-player 1-gun rule. As far as AFK defenses go, it'll probably be something more like a combination of stealth and shield systems rather than an anti-ship array. We might actually get some anti-personal guns that will shoot at invading characters, but nothing that can hit ships without being manned by a player.
 
The best defenses will be Territory Unit-based defenses, laws, and other players. Settling in a city with a dedicated militia will be immensely helpful, in addition to having a system for setting and collecting bounties. Anti-ship defense turrets could be built as long as they can be manned, so even a small-ish city can defend itself reasonably well if there are even 1 or 2 people around to defend it. Apart from that, avoiding detection will be the best way to go.

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.  

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.

Here is my in-depth review of the pre-alpha
 

Given that there may be a premium cosmetic item shop, we might see more alternate armor designs come up, but so far no reason to indicate anything other than humanoid shape. But hey, if enough people would buy alt race character meshes, who knows right?

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.

Critics claimed "it occured" and "it is a game"

I'm not sure I like this concept - the gameplay is supposed to be emergent and immersive based on player interaction.  If we can just go 'whomp' there's my starship from a blueprint we design offline, the emergent factor is removed - example:  if I am designing something at my base and a band of pirates comes by to shoot up the place, then I have to drop what I'm doing and defend my base and protect my resources and construct that I'm working on...  thats emergent gameplay.  If I can otherwise sit in a protected offline environ ALL the time and design design design its less likely I'm going to be IN WORLD because I'll be busy elsewhere... 

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

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

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.

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.

I would like an arm patch or something that goes onto your suit, something cosmetic that isn't overly flashy but is pretty easily identified once you're standing next to someone with one on. If they had patches or something, I would want them to be extremely difficult to get. The kind of thing you'd get when you finish training a skill that has a ton of pre-requisites and takes weeks or months to finish training up. 
 
If there's an analogy to this kind of system in Eve Online, it would be the skill certificates system:




Something purely cosmetic that players see when they check your profile, something that indicates that you are capable of doing XYZ without having to dig through all of your skills individually. 
 

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.

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.