Dinkledash

without power management, ship design is bound to be shallow.  
 

Here's what we need for pvp to be better.
 
* A progressive way to work up to large cores and large weapons. There needs to be more reasons to use small and medium ships.
* NPC targets to practice on, or a mission to fight them. The current missions are a joke.
* A better weapons interface. The cockpit should be reworked so that we can use it in small pvp ships.
 
What we don't need:
 
* Overpriced weapons and ammo (this is more because we don't have a healthy economy or large player bases)
* desync issues
* 2 SU limited radar
* 5 km atmo radar
* Years of talents to master a weapon.
* Stacked element ships 
 
 
 

without power management, ship design is bound to be shallow.  
 

Shields, are nice... But should have a capacitor draw.  Right now you can just slap one on any ship it can physically fit on.  It is not fixing anything.

Hello Noveans, 
 
At this stage it’s hard to ignore that the “Market Heist” has definitely caused a stir of dialogue and reactions both in our community and on the internet.
 
We have taken some time to look at the situation in more detail: the actions of these players are not ok, not condoned, and will not be tolerated. We stand by our decision, and we’d like to better explain it. 
 
Most of what Novaquark builds within the game world, such as markets, institutes or the Arkship is not a player-owned construct. It is a part of the game play designed to serve all players. There are exceptions, like shipwrecks, which are designed for salvaging, and clearly communicated as such. 
 
We did, indeed, state to players that if RDMS is not properly set on a construct, and it results in theft, it’s part of the game and we won’t act upon it. This is to acknowledge that treason can happen in an organization, for instance, and is part of the emergent gameplay we’re trying to promote. 
 
Now, this does obviously not apply to NQ-built constructs, which are designed to serve a specific purpose in the game. It is obvious that these constructs, owned by NQ accounts or Aphelia, are not meant to be interacted with in the same manner as player constructs. Besides, they may contain some highly overpowered and unbalanced elements which were never meant to fall in the hands of players. So the situation with the market is clearly covered by section 5.2 of the EULA: “You must refrain from engaging in any behaviour that could harm NOVAQUARK’s image and/or reputation, that could harm one or more other Users or have a negative impact on their gaming experience, or that is detrimental to the proper functioning of the Game.”
 
Finally, and for the record, the issue with the market did not result in a wrongly-set RDMS, but rather in a duplication bug. Part of what we use is the same tools as players to build constructs. We create one district, then duplicate it. Something went wrong in the duplication process of one of the markets, which resulted in players being able to edit it.
 
Were we harsh? Yes. But we had previously communicated that we would no longer tolerate abuses of bugs and issues. We do realize that perhaps this started innocently enough in that someone pressed “B” while standing on a market. But it went beyond this, and that shows intention. The players involved indicated that they reported the issue, and after further investigation, one did, though not by following the proper feedback channel: they pinged a staff account on Discord in the middle of the night. We’ve clearly stated that staff do not respond to pings on Discord, and that the reporting method for exploits and bugs of this nature is either via our ticket system, or via a community manager on the forums. 
 
Even a proper attempt to inform us about an exploit doesn’t mean that it’s OK to go on and abuse it. Communicating an exploit to the NQ staff doesn’t serve as a way to absolve the players, it’s only meant to ensure that we fix the issue - it’s not a free pass to use an exploit. The banned players destroyed a player market by dismantling it, and the fact that they communicated with us via Reddit with a request not to be banned shows that they knew what they were doing was wrong. They posted on Reddit, proud of their ‘achievement’ and of the destruction. 
 
In the end, repairing the damage cost us hours of manpower across multiple departments, which could have been invested into further progressing the game. 
 
That is why we take this seriously. 
 
Here are a couple of things that we’d like to reiterate:
We are in beta.  Things aren’t always going to work as intended. But we have a persistent, single-shard universe, and altering its foundations impacts all players. Bug Fixes aren’t instant. They take manpower time to find, investigate, fix, test and roll out. We try to make sure that fixing a bug doesn’t introduce a dozen more. As beta players, we count on you to help us and report bugs, not abuse them. We believe that this is fairly standard for most games.   We genuinely hope this brings some clarity to the situation, and ask you all to remember this is a communal effort. We’re in this together.
 
Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 
 

Man guys, be real. They didnt expose a bug. They broke down a market including its link to the market system which was never intended to be deleted. They never reported, they only intended to break and remove. 

Hilarious would've been leave it intact but add something funny to it like a meme.

Hello everyone. Just wanted to let you know that we are actively invetigating this situation. Thank you for everyone who sent us a report about this.

This could be our first glimpse of how player markets could work. Can a market terminal have its properties edited or interface with lua somehow to set what market it is tied to?

Wonder if I could buy an, ahem, liberated terminal from the deconstructors.

I have the same problem.  When applications were sent through the website, we were allowed to reply to them to ask a question or two.   We can no longer do that.  So I have to accept people blind if they don't go to my website or discord as asked.

Now I "have" been using that as a screening process thus far, but I should not have to deny every player who didn't see that I need to talk to them first.  That's going to end up costing us some otherwise good members to our org.


 

I'd say you have a fairly effective natural selection for people who read.

I've got about 60 people who applied to SLI in the game but haven't come to our Discord. Our policy is that you need to interview on Discord before joining the game in the org. Unfortunately, there is no way to communicate with the applicants and send them our link unless their names happen to match between Discord and DU, except to add them as contacts in DU. But as far as I know, there's no way to remove a contact - you can remove them from your list but you're still on theirs as far as I can tell, and can therefore lock on to you. I know I keep getting notifications about people I've removed. I wish I could add a message when I reject an application.
 
Does anyone have a solution to this issue? Any ideas? I don't want to just mass-reject people without a hearing. Thanks.

https://www.dualthegame.com/en/news/2018/03/07/supporter-rewards-for-founder-backers/

If they aren't going to give us wheeled vehicles and ships to move bulk materials around with, they're going to have to either reduce mass or massively increase engine power and torque tolerance for us to be able to move anything.  I mean yeah, there's a reason we use trucks, trains and especially ships for moving lots of heavy stuff, but if they don't give us the option, they're going to have to do something.

And now we have cross-section.  Which means that efficient atmospheric ships will be flying pencils.  I wish that wings gave lift, ailerons roll and pitch, rudders yaw, tails and canards stability, and flaps acted as brakes in atmosphere.  And adjusters only work at low altitude and low speed (for hovers) or in space.  But that's probably just me.  I also post on necro threads.

If they aren't going to give us wheeled vehicles and ships to move bulk materials around with, they're going to have to either reduce mass or massively increase engine power and torque tolerance for us to be able to move anything.  I mean yeah, there's a reason we use trucks, trains and especially ships for moving lots of heavy stuff, but if they don't give us the option, they're going to have to do something.

If they aren't going to give us wheeled vehicles and ships to move bulk materials around with, they're going to have to either reduce mass or massively increase engine power and torque tolerance for us to be able to move anything.  I mean yeah, there's a reason we use trucks, trains and especially ships for moving lots of heavy stuff, but if they don't give us the option, they're going to have to do something.

If they aren't going to give us wheeled vehicles and ships to move bulk materials around with, they're going to have to either reduce mass or massively increase engine power and torque tolerance for us to be able to move anything.  I mean yeah, there's a reason we use trucks, trains and especially ships for moving lots of heavy stuff, but if they don't give us the option, they're going to have to do something.

If they aren't going to give us wheeled vehicles and ships to move bulk materials around with, they're going to have to either reduce mass or massively increase engine power and torque tolerance for us to be able to move anything.  I mean yeah, there's a reason we use trucks, trains and especially ships for moving lots of heavy stuff, but if they don't give us the option, they're going to have to do something.

Awesome that you reduced the nanopack but kept mining times the same, this really makes all containers relevant...awesome job!

So a large container still holds the same volume, but what about mass? Does iron still mass 8kg per liter when it's in the container, i.e. L container full of iron masses 1024 tons? If so, I don't see how this solves the cargo problem unless you can make more with the same amount of mined material.
 
Someone said on discord that mass is reduced by a factor of 16, but I don't see that in the devblog.

We will be mining long before we are flying so I'll be doing something like the traveller RPG.  

I've given this some thought too.  In space, the most efficient design is what maximized space since there is no air to deal with.  So boxy and ugly will be more efficient.  I fear space in this game will eventually look like it was overrun by the borg.  

Form follows function.  Unless I'm selling a ship I don't see the point of sexing it up.  If wings don't matter, I'm not going to use them.  If they improve performance in atmosphere, I will use them.

The most important ships to build in the beginning will be prospectors designed for the home planet.  I don't know if we'll be able to mount scanners directly on ships or if we'll have to get out of the ships in order to scan.  The design of the ship will depend on the range of the scanners if they are ship mounted.  We may also be able to build drone-mounted scanners so you get to a location then you deploy your drones and they run a pattern around your ship and draw a map for you... a lot will come down to the instrumentation we can build, the capabilities of the elements and so forth.  I know that mining itself is going to be a human-only activity as they don't want to allow ships or drones do it since that would result in planet-wide devestation.  
 
If we have the option of refining ore using a ship-borne refinery, we may have a prospector-refinery design so we don't want to fill our inventory with unrefined resources.  I know that we store resources in our nanopacks but I don't know what the inventory capacity will be.  Maybe we'll have room for a whole day's mining on our back.  Maybe your inventory fills up after half an hour and you need to head back, in which case having cargo capacity on your prospector ship will be very valuable.
 
I've read that there will be different scanners for different materials.  If these can be mounted shipboard, it may be convenient to have the full array of scanners available in the ship.  It may be that a crew of prospectors need to work together, one on each type of scanner, which would result in a much larger ship.  Or maybe we'll be able to script the scanners together so they fire in sequence and we can build a scanner map showing different kinds of resources.  We may want a ship to run the scans then land and send out vehicles with their own cargo capacities that the miners drive to their targets while the ship moves to scan the next hex.  
 
It all comes down to the business rules are for scanning for, mining, refining (if needed) and storing resources, and what elements are available.  Will we know the depth of the resources when we detect them?  Will there be deep resources that we have to dig down to even be able to scan for?  Will we have to have ships that can drop off a mining camp with basic defensive systems, then run back to base to fill up with security forces, then return with a load of ore... so the ship may not be specialized at all.
 
Basically I'm saying what's important in my philosophy as a designer and scripter will be building vehicles that respond to rules, conditions, economic realities and the military situation.  I think it's important to consider what will be possible and come up with some basic ideas for a variety of conditions so that as we discover the rules, capabilities and conditions, we'll be in a position to come up with efficient and cost-effective designs.  I'm going to want to be able to quote a Return on Investment for the equipment I design, for example, so that people will know what they're buying. 

The last one is a really cool idea, although I bet it sucks during a storm