norab7

Yes you can, and yes you can. Underground is confirmed some where, all you need to do is dig enough to fit the buildings such underground, there was a few posts on it a while ago about what people would do or what they would build. As my time is limited on the forums I cannot link them And yes to a incredible size construct if constructs are as infinite as predicted then you can build whatever size deathstar/starkiller base you like, you'll just have to get both the man-power to build it and the resources required. However, I must note that it has also been confirmed that there will be no super-weapons that are capable of destroying planets. Again can't link because of time .. But think of it this way, if there was a weapon like that then how would you balance it when there are countless territories on each planet, and even more territories that could be orbiting said planet?. It would be a cluster-**** to work with an create a acceptable outcome if a guild had that kind of power, not including what would happen if you tried the super-weapon on a arkified site. nora,

I'm going to steal this definition for my own use, it is exactly what I think of the differences are. Crowdfunding being the basis of generating funds to create the game and assist in testing out all the bugs where game play may be more frustrating than enjoyable (at least in the early stages). Early Access being a 'near-completion' access to the game with less bugs and not really requiring testing anymore to play/work. I think many people do early access very very wrong on steam, there have been several games I've refunded simply because it's unplayable or contentless. Early Access is "Early" access not "Testing" access, i do understand some bugs but some people just don't care and release things into EA that are just not ready for it and get down voted to hell. Glad DU isn't taking the 'ship to Early Access A.S.A.P' route ...... Would still fund though... nora,

Integration with steam has its uses for coop and normal multiplayer games, but aside from the marketing value of it showing up in the steam library, I'm not sure the benefits are worth going through the extra effort of putting it on steam. Steam has the options for steam servers for multiplayer, which DU won't use as it's a single shard MMO, steam also has joining steam friends games, which it won't need. As I expect DU to have its own launcher there won't be any steam overlay integration as that would be applied to the launcher not the game. Friends list wouldn't be needed either as it's MMO, along with no need for the workshop as there isn't really going to be mods. The only reason I would like DU on steam is for greedy personal reasons that it's easier to buy/launch from a single platform but not really that much easier. Also, how would steam work with ingame purchases that DU plan in the long run, would steam take a cut or allow it? I like steam, but I can't think of a substantial benefit to using it that is big enough to warrant the work integrating DU with Steam now. Nice to have, but unneeded for me. Nora,

The first playable alpha has been said to be available early 2017 along with crowdfunding. Not sure of the exact times for either, but I assume we dont know them yet as it's still a ways away I hope this info is still accurate, I feel I need to lurk again ><. Nora,

I played Ark for a good long while when it was new, it came to the point that i had multiple of each dinosaur and a building so complex you'd get lost in it for days. I'd been to every corner of the map on the back of a 'dactyl and further. My impressions of Ark after completing all this was, "Its different". Crafting system wasn't really new, Building system was more of less 'Rust', Combat was poor. It just had dinosaurs that you could tame and ride. Looking back at my gameplay of Ark it was the novelty of the dinosaurs that kept me playing, once you had a couple of them, if you didn't play PvP Aggressive, there was nothing left for you to do and it became boring very quick. DU on the other hand has a superior building system through voxels and it's potentially infinite planets alongside it being a single shard MMO with Lua coding. It is as far from Ark in potential enjoyability as it can get, ark was all 'novelty' where DU is pure 'gameplay' yes it's similar to other games with voxels but those other games were not Infinite persistent MMO based and in space. If Ark was MMO and on a spherical planet not just a single map i would have enjoyed it better but they are not able to do it or it's to late for Ark. I have no fear that DU will best Ark 100x over and i have zero fear that it will just become a sci-fi ark. Spaceships, players and infinite planets, what can go wrong nora,

Well what do you expect when the parent company is Activision.... The people who bring you CoD, explains itself there.

EDIT: I missed the word "Skins" the first time that clarifies your post. Importing things is a no for now. Later on in the game and design process it could change, but from what i've seen the community and dev opinion on importing items is that they don't like it. I'm not sure what you mean by 'adding items'. Do you mean items that you create in-game with the tools available or do you mean 'pre-designed elements' like thrusters and such? Voxel Constructs will be tradable as a blueprint so that anything you create in the game is allowed to be traded from player to player regardless of the tech level of the players (I think). However the most we know about the elements are that they are 100% dev created, I don't know if in the long run if we will be able to 'submit' our own designs for elements or not, but i hope that there is no need to do it. If there is a need then i hope that there is a thorough testing process or creation process as it could lead to balance issues, given that they are player created. But thinking about it, why would you need to have more elements added to the game later on, this is the time to offer up suggestions for elements now, not when the players are at the max tech level as they are still designing them as we speak . But yeah, Voxel Constructs (made of Voxels, elements and lua script) will be tradable from player to player if made by the player (the pre-designed ones we don't know about yet). Elements are currently made by the devs and look to stay that way. Hope this helps, I've been out the forums for a few days so i don't know if more information has been posted on the things i've mentioned or not . nora,

I don't know if any of the following blog posts have any more information about territory control, but that is the quote from the DevBlog stating that there will be ways to claim territory in space, maybe through the use of bubbles, we just don't know anything other than that nora,

Why would 5 be to little ? You have to remember that this is not the profit hungry Blizzard or others of the top end game developing companies that look only for profit. True that NQ will be looking to cover itself and create money from the game, but i don't see why they would be required to stick to the 'norm' of 10-15. I would say that many only follow that suit because that is what WoW started off at and it's been able to grow into what it is now. Of course I wouldn't know a thing about running a games development business so i'm only speculating, but if they could reduce the sub cost to below the average for a MMO then they will attract a few more people than if the price was similar to others. At least i think so, if they can do it or not is another matter. It's not like i'm going to sub regardless nora,

Welcome to the Forums of DU, nice to see a person who's thinking about classic ships not the space ships variety To answer your question, the size of each place-able voxel block in DU will be 25cm^3 minimum, the maximum place-able block size has not been confirmed, although the maximum size of ship is potentially infinite. For elements obviously the size is not restricted to anything as they are pre-designed by the Devs and, as far as we know, uneditable. Hope this helps, and i hope you enjoy your stay in the forums nora,

I feel like a open Q&A would be dangerous for me... I still have a plethora of questions I could ask that haven't been seen on the forums yet .. Sadly no Internet and just using phoned limits a person's posting abilities, so till then I'm useless ....... or am I ? *Evil Laugh* Nora,

Hi, nice list of questions you have there, as I'm on my phone I'll just be quick and give a simple answer to the best of my knowledge, others may need to fill the gaps or correct me 1) As big as you like,there has been no mention of a maximum ship/station size and its been mentioned that it is potentially totally infinite, given you can make it ect. 2) we don't know, would be nice to have, multistage rockets come to mind also detachable warheads and such, I think with the benefits decoupling could bring they'd be crazy to leave it out. But maybe connecting two separate constructs might be to much we don't know, at least I haven't seen any confirmations on this. 3) Simple answer, yes. It's been said that currently you could make a lua script so complex that you can develop a self replicating robot, so I don't seen any limitations at the moment that would stop you making a out of lua coded robots. 4) No, only AI we know of it aboard the starter arkship, other than that it's either wait for kickstarter to see if they add it as a stretch goal like mentioned or if they decided to add it in anyway, but im sure Nyz has said there are no current plans to incorporate AI outside the arksite. 5) We don't know, there are threads dedicated to asking and speculating, but the actual mechanics I don't think we have a confirmation on. Orbits would be good, but then there are a list of extra things required to make it work above stationary planets and such. However with there being a infinite universe, I don't see how they could not do it and still have solar systems and such, it would just be points to go to not planets. I hope for orbits ect. 6) Liquid water, yes. Physics behind it. We dont know and Nyz has commented saying it's too early to mention anything g about it sadly. So it's a wait and see on this one. 7) To be honest, I don't know. One of the things don't think I've seen anything g official from at all. Will check and come back to you. 8) Yes, on point damage, if you shoot at a position the planet will be destroyed/damaged at that location. You could dig with explosives. 9) ERM, there was a response to this but I cant remember of it was official or not. But we don't think is will be possible, think of the calculations needed if every planet was moveable. I started a post on this topic somewhere you can find it, it has some more information for it. (On phone so can't link) 10) Depends what you apply the code to, but I'm assuming not human like as voxels are 25cm^2 and they will be the things to hold and lua scripted constructs you make. 11) Don't think so, see reply 4. Again we only know of the arkship AI. I hope I helped you at least a little bit. If not, well I'm sure there will be bothered to come and help you out Nora,

We don't know the specifics of the planets that will be in DU, but we do know there there will be different planets and different biomes, as well as all the planets being procedural. This gives a good chance for there to be a planet out there that is unreal or hostile, and since gravity doesn't affect planets (when you mine a floating chunk of mountain) i don't see why there can't be floating islands. It has been stated that if you dig out a chunk of planet that no longer has any ties to the planet itself it will float, so since the code to support it is already there DU devs would just need to add it into procedural creation part so that some planets are created like that nora

You just got me thinking of a language pack based on the FireFly serious, where a lot of the words are translated into Japanese or something. Was a nice touch to the serious and i wouldn't mind seeing something like that in the game, but i know that it's probably not going to be like that as NPC will be next to none and the only chatting we know about is either the scripted AI when you start or your conversations between players. Not really a place for the FireFly package i was thinking about, but translating to pirates and Elvin could be good, slightly confusing too if you don't follow them

That would be a good idea, but then you would still need to police what the community creates as the translation, otherwise you will get some people out there that translate it incorrectly on purpose just for fun. Maybe you could do it as a average return translation over a large group of (allowed) people, where if certain translations come back higher than other ones then they can get chosen as the translation to be used. But again would would still require checking what's been translated. Good idea, i think that (depending on how the games put together) there could be modders out there that will end up translating it anyway if the devs don't do it themselves, like i've seen in a few games now. nora,