Azraeil

AEONIAN FEDERATION
 
 
The Aeonian Federation is an intergalactic umbrella organization comprising both sovereign Member Organizations and Individual Citizens who share a common vested interest in progress and prosperity. But what is it, really?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
•••Too Long, Didn't Read•••
 
 
 
 
 
Enrollment: Accepting citizens and organizations - enjoy the privileges of Aeoniancitizenship.
 
 
 
 
 
Timezones: Global
 
 
 
 
 
Primary language: English
 
 
 
 
 
Focus: To promote progress and prosperity among our members.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
•••The Pillars of the Federation•••
 
 
 
 
 
A Military Alliance
 
 
The universe is a treacherous place. We at the Federation hold the belief that military strength and solidarity are critical to our members’ interests in the face of those who seek to violate them. Our Non-Aggression Pact and military cooperation are only part of Aeonian’s firm dedication to security.
 
 
 
 
 
An Economic Syndicate
 
 
Operating an advanced and wide-reaching network of markets across the universe, the Aeonian Federation is a key player in the galactic economy. With additional banking and investment options available to members, the Federation unlocks the path to prosperity and financial security.
 
 
 
 
 
A Visionary Pioneer
 
 
As a progressive, forward-thinking organization, the Aeonian Federation is always striving to do what has never been done before. We challenge the traditional “guild alliance” paradigm and emphasize the importance of member and organization sovereignty. We push the technical limits of what Dual Universe represents, undertaking bold enterprises such as Project Emberstone. Rest assured: there’s no such thing as “boring” at the Federation.
 
 
 
 
 
A Community and Family
 
 
The Federation isn’t the typical dictatorship guild. Although we may appear large, we’re also a tight-knit family dedicated to player cohesion. With our revolutionary Nexus hubs (the ultimate social network) and frequent game nights, the Aeonian Federation offers the best of both worlds: the friendship of a small community and the security of a large, established organization.
 
 
 
 
 
•••The Administration•••
 
 
 
 
 
In order to keep AFED running smoothly and its members happy and safe, the Syndicate employs a variety of structural techniques and facilities to ensure the integrity and continued existence of the Federation. These make up the Administration of the Aeonian Federation. Take a look below:
 
 
 
 
 
Directorate
 
 
The legates of the Federation, there to maintain the integrity of the entire system.
 
 
 
 
 
Magistratum
 
 
The legislative and judicial division, there to resolve internal conflicts/disputes, create internal policy, and oversee diplomatic relations.
 
 
 
 
 
Grand Assembly
 
 
The collective assembly of the Aeonian Federation. Composed of representatives from each member organization as well as individual citizens, the Grand Assembly is a place of discussion between the members of the Federation, where actions and resolutions can be diplomatically discussed.
 
 
 
 
 
Administration
 
 
All of the various other departments necessary to make the Federation function. Many valuable teams and departments are part of the Administration, including our Development Department, design teams, Defense Department, and Communications Department.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
•••The Verdict•••
 
 
 
 
 
Aeonian is a choice. Your choice.
 
 
Let your dreams take flight.
 

There are a few ways you can go about this.
 
For ship docking for example, you could have a priority system that automatically shuts down flight controls for every connected ship or fragment that isn't the mothership of the fleet (for a larger ship and smaller docked ships). In Starmade that is by default how docking works, and in Space Engineers a docked ship can use thrusters to violently un-dock (does not recommend).
 
In the case OP is describing here, the detachable components don't actually appear to be fully functional ships. OP is talking about un-powered connected containers that can be disconnected to reduce the ship's mass (to improve thrust). As long as the containers don't have thrust or any component system, there is no battle for control: only the ship has any claim to control there, so there should be no conflict between the docked parts and the main ship.
 
It'll all come down to a few mechanics as to whether or not it'll be possible. Depending on how they set up landing a ship onto another ship, you might be able to create container "ships" that land onto your barge (if landing gears are magnetic and can lock). The troulbe is without any controls on the container "ships", you can't actually tell them to un-dock from the barge.
 
On the flip side if you can use landing gears on the barge to connect to a container ship or ships, you might be able to tow them. This could be a problem too, as ships that have landed might lose their flight functions, so "landing" onto a cargo unit to tow it might shut down the barge and prevent takeoff.
 
Best case scenario would be the ability to destroy/delete/disconnect ship components mid-flight, even if the only way to restore the disconnected parts would be to "repair/restore" the ship (basically to replace the detached components). A break-away block (like the rotors and connectors in Space Engineers, or docking components in Starmade) that you can control from the barge that would allow you to purge everything connected to it would be the way to go. You could even probably set up a script to automatically disconnect the cargo bay if your shields drop for example.
 
If there is no such block at launch, a clunky but possible solution would be to set up an explosive charge in-between the cargo unit and the barge that would destroy the hull connecting the two, but not damage key systems, thus relieving you of all of the mass of the cargo when detonated. We don't know yet if damaged hull actually disappears, nor do we know if you can "cut" portions of a ship off as a result of damage. The devs mentioned damage to constructs warping/damaging voxels, however we don't know if that can actually cause systems to break off of a ship (of if the whole ship would "explode" before that type of damage would occur). So that might not be possible at all.
 
We can expect AT SOME POINT in the future for there to be some kind of connector block that would make this possible, but if the above two solutions aren't present at launch, you might just have to go down with your ship.

Do all of the winners get the - Unique in-game title: "Famous Writer" - or only the community winner? It kind of makes sense to me that they all should get the title as well?
 
Thanks,
Temerian

(Posted Friday 8th of July 2016 on the DevBlog) 
 

 
We are extremely happy and excited to release today the first iteration of our community website: http://community.dualthegame.com
 
In this site, you will be able to create a simple profile, that you will keep with you up to the Alpha and beyond, and also create organizations, post updates about what is going on, recruit, create stories, and start to shape your vision of the game roleplay. Let’s have a look at the feature we have for this first iteration of the site and what could come after.
 
The community website is a way to get you into roleplaying as soon as possible, and to centralize - in the future - all relevant information about existing characters and organizations in the game. We have seen that several people in the community have already started dedicated websites to advertise their corporation or guild, which is absolutely great! There is however no central hub to record all existing organizations, to have an idea of who is doing what or simply apply to join. That’s the goal of this community website, which will most likely not replace the existing dedicated organization websites, but could be the place where all organizations can interact with each other.
 
The “character” creation so far is very simple: you can write a text to describe your character, and upload an image to represent him/her. The most important aspect of the community website is more about “organizations”, which is the name for a generalization of “guild” or “corporation” in Dual Universe (check the previous devblog post on organizations for more). Once you have created your character, you can either create or join an organization.
 
Important note: if you have already a forum account, you can use it to log in on the Community Portal (you don't have to create a new account).
 
We cannot yet implement the full complexity of the organization gameplay inside the website (even if ultimately, we would like it to be a perfect mirror of what will be in-game). We have just expressed two central notions: members and legates. If you create an organization, you are de facto the first and only legate. From this position, you can accept the request of other players to join the organization, and eventually promote them to legate status. Be careful of who you give with that privilege to, because for the moment, we have not yet implemented a way to demote a legate back to a member status. The reason why this is not yet done is that it implies a lot of feature on vote management to be able to make this properly. So, for the time being, a legate is forever! And it’s an important promotion because, as a legate, you will have the privilege of being able to accept new members, ban members, and post on the public wall of your organization. On the contrary, members can only post on the private wall (visible to all members).
 
The wall of an organization, divided into a public and private section, is a simplified facebook-like post system that allows to create posts containing text, images or videos, and allows people to comment on it, like it, etc. It’s a great way to start discussions topics in the private area, or to advertize important news to the world in the public area. We are working on a way to have private forums also, and a poll system. Your suggestions on what could be really useful at the organization level is most welcome, feel free to discuss your ideas on the forum.
 
Finally, players registered on the site will have access to a local email-like message system to start private discussions with each other, or be notified of pending applications for a given organization.
 
This community website is just a start, there still much work to do. But it is already your playground, a place to start to recruit, promote your ideas, start a grand project or vision. We can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with it, and what incredible organizations and stories you will invent!
 
 
JC Baillie,
Project Lead.

(Posted Friday 20th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)
 
 

 
One of the ambitious and new aspects of Dual Universe is that traditional organizations that are found in other video games, like guilds, nations or corporations, should actually emerge in the game. This means that we have to design a generic structure to represent the union of several players, without biasing it towards one particular type of organization or another. The term we use to designate this structure is "organization". A state, a city, a guild, a nation, a group of pirates, an alliance, etc, are all organizations in the game. They differ in the particular way they specialize the generic definition, and in doing so they specify political orientations and implicit organizational goals. Let’s have a look at how it works.

To start with, organizations are divided into legates and members. All legates are not necessarily members, and vice-versa. The legates literally own the organization, which is divided into several shares that are distributed to the legates. Members don’t own the organization, but they have what we call “roles”. Roles are defined by a set of rights, duties and privileges that apply to members. A member can have one or several roles (and, as an legate can also be a member, there can also be roles for legates, but not always), and a role can be fulfilled by one or several members. Roles can be organized hierarchically, so that sub-roles inherit their default set of rights/duties/privileges from their parent.

One could say that legates are making decisions regarding the organization structure, while members are more in charge of running the organization. The mechanism by which legates make decisions is voting, with a weight based on the number of shares owned by the legate. A delegation system enables certain legates to gather the voting rights of other legates. This delegation can be limited in time or not, and can be for every vote or for certain types of votes only. Note that the wording used here, “vote”, induces a notion of democracy, but this is not necessarily the case. In an organization where all legates have permanently delegated all their voting rights to one single legate, you have a de-facto dictatorship. Intermediary cases involve a parliamentary system, where a subgroup of legates concentrate the voting rights of all the others, but none of them can rule alone. All nuances are possible.

There are several types of votes that legates can cast, but one crucial type is about creating roles and assigning/revoking members in those roles. Other types of votes involve approving new legates or revoking them, deciding whether organization shares are tradable or not, and many subtles details on the voting system which are meant to prevent obstruction situations.

Roles, as we said, are about rights, duties and privileges. Rights are defining what a member can do with the organization properties. Can you open containers? What type of containers? Can you access the bank account? Can you delegate your rights to other members? Can you fly ships owned by the organization? Can you control the organization territory system? Can you create subroles? Can you hire/fire members? etc. Duties are things like paying taxes on your in-game revenues or when using certain organization property, obligation to deliver a certain amount of certain assets per month to the organization, etc. And finally, privileges are things like salaries, insurances in case of death, protection in case of aggression, and other practical in-game benefits.

And last but not least : legates and members can be organizations themselves. As such, organizations can be hierarchical, like an alliance, a federation of alliances, or any kind of union.

Now, what can you do with this? Let’s try to build a corporation: you have a board of shareholders, representing all legates through delegation. They elect a CEO, who is a member with a special role that grants him/her the right to create subroles (head of marketing, head of RH, etc) and who will run the company. Each member gets a salary, and the profit of the company is shared among the legates with a dividend mechanism (voted by the legates). This is pretty close to how a real company works. Now, can we imagine creating a democratic nation? In that case, every legate has only one share of the organization and is also a member. Voting can happen through parliament representatives through the delegation mechanism by the legates/members (same thing here). Member roles’ duties include paying taxes, and privileges include possibly a minimal wage (sort of “salary”). A president role can be created and granted subrole delegation powers and full access to the nation’s assets. This president can create roles for prime minister, ministers, etc.

We will provide default templates for typical organizations, but it’s easy to figure out how you could create an interplanetary alliance of planetary organizations, themselves organized in a hierarchy of nations, cities, etc. Corporations can be members of nations, with specific roles separating them from regular citizens. And you can also structure corporations in a hierarchy of conglomerate, trusts, etc. Now, can you imagine how you would like to create your own organization, your own political system, your own subdivision between legates and members? We hope to see pretty amazing things emerge from this, let us know what you think!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead

(Posted Friday 10th of October 2014 on the DevBlog)
 

 
When a player dies in Dual Universe, the "respawn" mechanism is articulated around the notion of Resurrection Nodes. We have already described in a previous post the quantum mechanical principle behind these incredible devices, and today I would like to discuss a bit more about the gameplay aspect. Resurrection Nodes are probably one of the most important element of the game, let's see what it means for all players.

One important thing to understand is that Resurrection Nodes (or RN) are expensive. Very. Whether you buy it or you collect the materials to craft it, this will be a considerable investment. You can't just put one on the way, just in case, without thinking too much about it. It will almost always be an investment, a careful choice made for a good reason.

That being said, when the game starts, you will be given two RN from the start: one preset inside the Arkship, and one free RN inside your inventory. Typically, you will set this second one wherever you decide to install your personal base. Beyond that, building additional RN will be something most players will not be able to afford before a certain amount of game time, and it will most likely be within a powerful organization like a state or a large company.

The way it works is simple: you first need to set up the node, except the one of the Arkship, which is always ready to use. A Resurrection Node is a power hungry machine (remember, the beast is twisting the fabric of the quantum multiverse space-time topology, in order to affect its probability distribution and save your ass). You need to power it and make sure it is fully charged, and the time it takes for a full charge will depend on the type of power source you can afford to use. This can range from a few minutes to a few days.

You can of course set up several nodes in different places at the same time. When you die, the closest RN will be used to respawn you inside its pod. It will lose its charge in the process, so it cannot be reused on the spot. The fact that you cannot choose which of your currently running RN will be used, and the closest one is taken instead, is crucial to avoid transforming the RN into a teleportation device.

Another important aspect: when you benefit from a RN, you respawn but your inventory will be randomly losing most items, as it is impossible to insure that the particular branch of the universe where you are now has the same past history as the one you come from. Beyond the inventory, you have also crucially lost your geographical position. You might have been teleported millions of kilometers away from where you died. And that might be very bad.

Imagine what it means in the context of a military situation. Your planet is suddenly attacked by a fleet of warships surrounding you. This is in the Orkras Empire, a very remote planetary system known for its aggressive gameplay. It is remote, so they must have travelled a long time before arriving here. Somewhere within the fleet, there must be a resurrection ship where all the players that are members of this expedition will respawn during the fight. Identifying this ship and destroying it becomes the most important war priority, as it will ensure that every death will send the attacking players back to their system, which is far away. Or, wait... maybe the RN are spread among all the ships? Or maybe there is a hidden resurrection ship on a not-too-distant moon? Or maybe the Orkrassian have secretly set up a RN base on your planet itself, long before the invasion, somewhere underground? The possibilities are endless.

And the counter attacks are also very rich: you have a spy in the Orkras Empire, and she has identified the threat of this attack for a long time already. You are ready. In particular, you know where the RN base has been secretly set up by the attacker on your planet. You have not destroyed it, instead, you have planted tons of explosives below it, ready to neutralize it when their fleet will arrive. It will be too late for them, and they will suffer heavy loss and destruction without being able to defend themselves for long. Or... maybe the Orkras actually know about your spy, and maybe the information about the RN base is false. And they had a backup somewhere else. This is emergent gameplay at its best: I can’t even start to imagine all the possibilities that you, the players, are going to invent! In any case, one thing is sure: the resurrection nodes are going to be a central element of gameplay and emergent strategies/counter-strategies between opposing factions. And we need to benchmark the mechanism during the alpha to make sure that it is well balanced. Everything exposed here remains - of course - subject to changes and revision with the feedback we’ll receive from the community!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead
 

Hi ChipPatton and welcome to our forum.   There has been indeed a few people on the Kickstarter saying DAC was a "Pay to Win" feature. We also replied to why it wasn't and why we went for this feature.  We also agreed that it probably wasn't a perfect model, but it was the best we found until now.    This was our official reply:    
The DAC/PLEX/CREDD system isn't at fault there. The problem is elsewhere because without this system, the problem remains: it's just hidden. And it's not because something is hidden that it doesn't exist.   The people we got in contact with (probably your officers) turn a complete blind eye on our point of view. They didn't try to understand our position or even suggest an alternative. It's always easy to blame or criticize something without trying to come with a better option.   In this situation, how could the discussion go anywhere? Threatening to cancel the pledges (and doing so) won't change the situation either if there no dialog and just threats. We want to listen to feedbacks from all people interested in our game and take them into account, but without constructive feedback helping to find a good compromise for both sides, it's not possible. Also, while we want to satisfy as much players as possible, We are also aware that we can't satisfy everybody.    In any case, we remain open to discussion if you have more to say on this topic.   Best regards, Nyzaltar.