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Dinkledash

Alpha Tester
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Everything posted by Dinkledash

  1. Dunning-Kruger was inspired by a study about a bank robber who thought that lemon juice would make his face invisible to security cameras because it's used as invisible ink. To go straight to the Dunning-Kruger effect is to assume that this guy is in the bottom quarter of the general population IQ-wise, which seems a bit much. It is true that nobody here knows your education and experience in gaming and game development. Would you care to provide us with your credentials? I'm a software engineer with 17 years on the job and in my opinion, while realistic collisions would certainly make for better cinematics, there's a lot more to calculate than a simple bounce when two collision meshes intersect, and based on my experience in big data cloud environments (medical IT, not gaming), nobody can know what the server load would be unless we actually simulated 100,000 simultaneous collisions. And the amount of coding to get there would delay a lot of other deliverables, so it would be a considerable risk. The developers also said they don't want people creating ramming ships that are kamikaze'd into exquisitely engineered, well designed constructs because they think that would make the game a lot less fun, and that would make people stop paying for subscriptions, so in that regard, this is as much a business decision as it is a matter of judgement in design. Even if characters didn't resurrect, there would still be a problem where players would create new characters who's reason for existence is to drive an iron brick with an engine and a cockpit into another ship while yelling "Leroy Jenkins!" This is a management-level decision as much as a design decision, and I really don't think this hill is worth dying on. Collision damage would be fun, but so would weather, planetary rotation, agriculture, animals, alien biospheres, a survival system, a FPS aimed combat system and a hell of a lot of other things we're probably not going to get until later, if at all. I'm not saying collision damage would be bad, or it couldn't be made to work, but computer science is partly the art of giving up something you want in order to get something else you want more. Is collision damage the most important thing to you?
  2. I mean, even if it isn't readable, I think you could read it during execution with reflector.
  3. Ah I was asking about this sort of thing, because it seems to me that 20% of the coders will wind up doing 80% of the work, which is to be expected, but there won't be any way of getting fair compensation for your work. Most of the scripters will be getting code out of the wiki or github or buying the gadget then just taking the script and duplicating it before adding it to their blueprint. There's going to be a lot more systems integration work going on than original development. It's also dangerous if we have connections to databases where we store our economic information embedded in the scripts. If someone steals a market terminal, they'll not only have access to the inventory of the terminal, they'll have the connection string to the database... we'll need to have some pretty serious information security procedures if we have shared connections in our organizations. And physical security of course; if someone attacks your planet and gets the code from your economic systems... smart organizations will work to minimize surface area.
  4. I think the LuaSocket library does db connections. And if we're going to manage our own economies, how else would we build exchanges? A script would lose any information it was storing in arrays when the host computer goes offline. But yeah, say you have a mech and you've mapped the control keys the way you want; if you don't have a way of persistently storing your preferences, you'd have to remap the controls every time (or maybe you'd have to modify a code file directly which you probably can't do while the script is executing.) Even if it's just flatfiles, there has to be some way of storing data.
  5. Folks, Will there be a security system for script code that's enforced by game elements, like having scripts be sealed classes (if that's possible) or will people be free to modify and copy the code of any gadget they purchase? While stealing spaceships and all is something that could be tracked easily enough in-game by a law enforcement body (i.e. the ship is registered and has a serial number engraved on the hull in Kiberium) locking code held in scripts that have to have permission to run on the owner's computer might be problematic. And easy enough to crack with Reflector anyway. If there's no way to even make it difficult to open up the code, I don't think it would be possible to prove that someone has infringed copyright law. I understand that code written in the game will be community property as part of the EULA, is that right? So no actual real world legal issues could ensue. Hmmm... are we being tricked into writing free software for robotics development? >run conspiracytheory.exe
  6. I read in the basic documentation that it functions as a rudimentary weapon. Can I build a block ten feet above someone and drop it on them? Can I have blueprints for a pair of handcuffs and build them on my target?
  7. After reading up on DPUs and LUA Scripting, it looks like we'll have something similar, just not to as granular a level as I was thinking.
  8. I mean, it would be really cool, but it's not exactly low hanging fruit. It would be great to have different compositions of atmosphere, hydrosphere, different gravity, unique biomes, etc. But that sort of thing will probably have to wait until DU 2.0 when they have millions to drop on R&D and hardware.
  9. I read that they have no plans for doing weather. To much work to render weather in 4 dimensions. We can't even do good climate science on one planet with supercomputers.
  10. So 53K euros to go on the kickstarter with 5 days left... does this figure include the withdrawals of these pledges?
  11. Actually it just says that there will be different types of weapons that will have different counters, which is pretty much what one would expect. I suppose to would be something like: lasers are stopped by paint, sand or mirrors, projectiles (and plasmas?) are stopped by electromagnetic shielding, missiles are stopped by point defense lasers or countermissiles, and armor stops everything but it really slows down your ship. I figure we'll start with lasers in alpha and they may add new weapon types when the game stopping bugs that we'll find in alpha have been dealt with. This is sort of a "wouldn't this be neat" conversation at this point. I'm sure the devs are making their objects extensible so that a laser can be turned into a projectile weapon or a plasma gun easily enough. Missiles would be an entirely different mechanic, of course; basically they'd be tiny ships that explode on collision. Of course, collision damage is not going to be part of the game, not with billions of collisions that have to be evaluated throughout the universe every second, but missiles could have a OnCollision() method that causes damage to any objects in a certain range (for example a nuke could damage anything within several kilometers while a basic explosive warhead might just damage stuff within a few meters.) The OnCollision() method of ships will basically be to bounce away from whatever they collide with.
  12. Anyone else here ever play GDW's Traveler: High Guard? At certain tech levels and tonnages, capital ships are permitted to mount, or rather be built around, a "spinal mount" weapons system. This is generally a plasma or fusion gun, and at the top level I think it was a meson gun. The ships would have arrays of other smaller weapons usually in turrets, including pulse and beam lasers, conventional and nuclear missiles, railguns, and I'm sure we could add EMP and microwave weapons, X-ray lasers and even more exotic weapons considering that the Resurrection Nodes use quantum physics to warp reality. Small arms would be projectile weapons, lasers, and at high tech levels, plasma and fusion guns (though typically those would have to be in conjunction with powered armor.) There should also be blades, clubs, etc. Personal armor would also be a consideration, and could start at cloth armor, leather, metal mesh, duraplastic, reflec armor (good v. lasers worthless against other weapons), combat plate (like our Interceptor body armor), and different types of powered armor at high tech levels. Personal shields could be available at very high tech levels.
  13. The Starship Yamato's Wave Motion Gun.
  14. A space elevator would be worth it if the fuel needed to lift cargo from the ground to orbit cost more than running the elevator. It would also be worth it if operating smaller, atmosphere-capable ships was more expensive because atmospheric control surface requirements result in small cargo spaces. Maybe even the best cargo shuttle can only carry 1 ton of cargo for every 6 tons of ship. It comes down to game physics and economics. But it'd be a thing of beauty.
  15. I'm new and my understanding of the existing system is limited to watching the videos, so maybe I need to do some more reading around the forums, articles and such. But if there is more to a mark 3 engine than researching the mark 3 engine and collecting the raw materials, that would be great. But say you wanted to make engines; one player could specialize in injectors, another in combustion chambers, a third in vectored nozzles, and perhaps you buy the other subcomponents on the market because you aren't big enough to have a full-scale R&D department. And maybe nobody is willing to sell their best blueprints. I wouldn't. Heck it could be a crime to sell a blueprint to a competing state or corporation. Industrial espionage, bribery, skullduggery... selling parts that have scripts hidden in them that allow them to be disabled, or even explode if a receiver built into it receives a code word. Yeah I'm pretty jazzed about this game.
  16. So The color of the laser could effect the way it works in certain mediums. For example, a red laser has less powerful photons, but there are more of them per watt of power. It may be easier to stop these with a sandcaster, for example, while blue lasers may not work well in atmosphere. A green laser may split the difference. Specific coatings would work better against different color lasers: blue photons would be reflected more efficiently by blue paint, so matching your lasers to your paint jobs would reduce damage by friendly fire. Mirror surfaces would work well against all colors, but maintenance would be a pain, it would be expensive, and would be quickly degraded in battle due to carbon scoring, or if hit by a missile or projectile. Deflector shields would be electromagnetic fields that repel projectiles and missiles. Armor would be heavy plating that could absorb all kinds of damage.
  17. Guys, when you dig a hole in the ground, it fills up with water pretty quick unless you're in a desert or you pump it out. And that would make lakes, and lakes are pretty.
  18. Sorry, I get confused what quote button to hit. OK, imagine that the basic engine is 2 tons and has a 3-1 thrust ratio, producing 6 tons of thrust. That's enough to push a 6 ton ship at 1G or a 3 ton ship at 2G. You can combine three of them on a 9 ton ship producing 18 tons of thrust for 2G performance. You have a research track into aerospace design that lets you build a single 6 ton engine with a 10% bonus thrust, giving you 3 x 6.6 = 19.8 tons of thrust. This is due to higher efficiency by eliminating redundant subcomponents, Your ship now has 2.2G performance. You have a research track into metallurgy that lets you build your engine with a lower-weight, higher heat-resistant alloy, giving you a 10% bonus. You also have a research track into fuel science that lets you burn fuel more efficiently for another 10% bonus. Put all three advances together, you can build a 6 ton engine with 24.17 tons of thrust, which would power your 9 ton ship at 2.7G. You'd need to build the engine in a bigger facility to be able to make a 6 ton engine, using rarer alloys and more highly refined fuel, so you'd be dependent on a supply of the right kind of ores being refined using a level 2 technology to build the engine, and the fuel being refined by a level 2 technology in order to fuel that engine. And of course I'd like to combine that with the subcomponent idea, so on the metallurgy track a fuel injector made with Duralumin might be able to survive more battle damage and be lighter than one made of stainless steel, while one made of titanium would be very durable and resistant to higher temperatures but would be much more expensive to manufacture. In aerospace design, your injectors could be made to be designed to require less frequent maintenance, and you'd need advanced injectors to be able to handle higher temperature burns from advanced fuels (or suffer higher rates of failure.) I mean, if it isn't complex enough, it'll be boring and if it's too complex it'll be tedious, I suppose. But now that I think about it, this actually is rocket science.
  19. how I delete a post? I wound up replying to myself.
  20. We should have to capture, breed and domesticate wild animals we find on the various worlds, then we can export them to other planets. Perhaps we should start with the basic domesticated animals which can be purchased at the arkship, generated from DNA stored in the ship, but to make the universe alien, there should be exotic beasts. I know there are going to be pets, so there is an animal template of some sort. Perhaps we can develop biotech that will allow us to create customized lifeforms. I'd be very interested in this myself. Not that I want to bioengineer my little ponies or anything. <.< >.> Yeah, OK, I want to bioengineer my little ponies. And mount lasers on the unicorn's foreheads because I can.
  21. In my opinion, there shouldn't be any game-mechanic penalties for murder, however there should be a chance of losing skills when dying so RNs aren't used as teleporters and folks don't Leroy Jenkins all the time. Crime and punishment are typically handled by governments. The issue is different than real life as people come back and can sometimes identify their killer; however there should be a game mechanic that allows the killer to be identified through analysis of the crime scene. Perhaps the RN stores a video of the moments before someone is killed, but there's a chance that the image gets corrupted that increases the further the distance between the death and the RN. There could also be black market tech that increases the odds that the image will be scrambled. Of course if the person who gets killed got a look at the killer before the resurrect, then they can report them to the cops or put out a bounty on their own, but if we're responsible for building the civilization, it's basically the wild west until we get players who are willing to be the government and law enforcement. Government and law is what make civilization possible... say you kill someone in the Lunar Republic and you hop over the border to the Solar Empire. Is there an extradition treaty? Will Lunar authorities raid across the border to grab the criminal? Will they hire a bounty hunter? Will the victim hire a bounty hunter, or perhaps register a grievance and seek to settle the score personally (and legally according to the law of the Lunar Republic?)
  22. Assuming that this is object oriented design, the implementation wouldn't be that difficult, as a spaceship is already made of components. This would just make those components made of subcomponents; it's just adding another layer of inheritance. The hard work would be the art and the component management interface.
  23. Thanks for the support. I agree that it would have to be something that's in the initial release, but maybe not in alpha. If we said that R&D was boring because it was too simplified, we could get them to allocate resources to designing a deeper R&D (and component interaction) system. Imagine if your post on the starship is in engineering and you have to monitor the power plant. It sounds extremely tedious, doesn't it? Basically you're waiting around until there's some combat damage to the component and then you hit the repair button. If instead you had a station that displayed all the subcomponents of a major system and there was actual stuff to do that could impact the power output, like changing the fuel mix, tweaking the pressure in the #2 fuel valve, examining the fuel tank for leaks from micrometeor impacts, then that becomes an actual job. When the engine takes a hit and one of the fuel injectors goes off line, you have to check to see if the injector has taken direct damage or if it's a problem with the electronics, and hope you brought spares. Or have time to fabricate a replacement. It wouldn't just be an improvement in R&D, it would make running a starship much more fun. For small ships, it may make sense to use unitary components simply because you only have one set of eyes. Perhaps it could be added later by leaving the unitary components in place and making the complex component systems more efficient and powerful, and allowing skills to be transferred to the complex component system. That way people who don't want to have a screen full of nerd knobs at their station won't have to deal with it and their investment won't be wasted, but there will be an incentive to upgrade.
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