mrjacobean

Well, there is a reason Pirate ships look like they just strapped pieces of metal to a damaged ship.

I am going to throw my two cents in quickly before Twerkmotor spontaneously combusts. I agree there should be a way to effectively "Scorched Earth" your ship, either through self destruct or EMP pulse that fries every computer system making the ship worthless. Scrap can still be collected, but the ship cannot be used (can't add more blocks on to it? I also agree on the fact that you should be able to stop the process when you are attacking, where my favourite skill 'Hacking' (maybe have it as a skill group? Have things like forgery, systems access, cyber-warfare etc.) comes into play. You hack the ship to stop it from exploding/EMPing itself and by doing so, disable the ship. This means that if you activate the self destruct, and the attacker stops it, you become a sitting duck due to your ship being shut down (maybe have it rebooting? so on a timer?). I am completely fine with people self destructing, just so long as there is a way to stop it (hacking minigame against the clock?) and that larger ships take longer to explode. In terms of respawn debuffs, this sounds like a good idea and it would allow for many more professions. Maybe have different healing techniques, so for physical skill damage you have a doctor, for mental skill damage you might go to a bar, maybe have different methods for each skill group. You might also be able to get buffs from these activites. With this, you could make the timers last quite a while, and it would mean that a capital ship will have a sickbay, mess hall, quarters etc. to help get respawned crew members back on their feet quicker.

Well, I imagine the system will get tweaked when the world gets wiped in the transition to beta and release. We have 3 chances to get it right, so I think it will be fine either way.

Excerpt from a video script I am writing that explains the problem much better : "...the economy can't be entirely kickstarted off of this one thing. By doing so, you create an economy that will inflate like mad or at least be very unstable. Why?, because when it is more profitable to sell to NPCs, everyone will sell to them. That creates a shortage of supplies for the higher tiers of items as they are not going to the economy, they are disappearing into the void. This drives the amount of money in the economy up, but it also drives prices up due to shortages in resources. At some point later, selling to NPCs will no longer be the best deal for anyone, so the amount of money in the economy stops increasing. It just becomes a downward spiral, repeating again and again." In addition, the influx of cash will only happen at the arkship, so everywhere else becomes a backwater due to it being unprofitable to stay there when you can stay at the arkship and sell everything there. It is a pulling factor that is at spawn. As for the buying things from the bots, well done, you have made non-renewable resources renewable. If you only get the bots to sell what they buy, well done again, you have just created a middleman that drains money from the economy (buy price has to be bigger than sell price) instead of a way to add money into it. P.S. I apologise if that sounded rude or uncalled for

That may be so, but the thing that needs to be there are NPC jobs on those boards that do not require you to take anything away from the economy (like selling iron), otherwise they would just be streamlining the player interaction (which is good, but it does not solve the biggest problem with the economy, which is starting it). My current understanding is that all the jobs on the board (that the devs have said) are player driven, so the reward is payed for by a player. My main point is we need a direct time -> money method, otherwise the economy will collapse/not grow.

Thank you for this, I now have a video to make on the subject (don't have time right now to explain my idea fully, stay tuned for more)

So, similar to the way that Star Wars Galaxies had money enter the economy. This could work, but since PvE does not exist (as far as we know), the only mission types would be courier, crafting (like courier, but you craft the items from the components given to you on the way) and exploration (go to place, head back). The amount of money made through this method was determined by distance to the objective in SWG, which would have been abused in SWG if you could place them yourself due to fast travel stations (put them next to fast travel stations and at oposing corners of the map), but won't in DU because fast travel doesn't exist. I think this is the way to go for getting money into the economy, it just needs to be balanced with the NPC market. Actually, with this you won't need an NPC market at all. It won't inflate the economy because it determines the economy, as whatever reward equation you make will include a constant that is multiplied by distance to equal money output (maybe decrease the amount of money you can get from them as time goes on due to the player influence expanding). As long as the items transported are worth nothing, it won't be exploited. However, it may not match with the lore as it is supposed to be a player run economy, and the mission terminals suggest another group is at play (the ship AI?)

#1 If you are transporting a construct, have someone taxi you to it and fly/ride it yourself, no need for something big (unless its a ground base, in which case you can't move it) #2 I think you can (read: should) have a hybrid setup, but you won't beat ships that are air/space only in speed/load #3 Only useful if you want to move an atmospheric ship from planet to planet, in which case you could ask to rent space on a carrier headed that way that has enough hangar space (if you are in a larger org, they would have a carrier anyway) #4 This is something that I could see, but how it would work is still a question. It would probably have too many moving parts, so just a simple landing pad/hangar bay would be fine. In the case of an underground base, a hidden access point to a massive cave would be the solution (moving parts = lag)

I would say that all ships are locked for those who do not have permission, but people can use a skill (like hacking) to open it without permission. The larger/more complicated the construct, the longer it takes, with higher skill levels decreasing the time taken. Also might require a special tool so you have to use it constantly, meaning your back is not covered when, say, the owner gets back. Maybe have some things be impossible to hack until you have a high enough skill level. Or a disposable hacking module that you place on the ship to hack it for you, but using your skill level (or the skill level of the one who made it).

I was going to add something about avatar camouflage in my post, but it wan't a fully fleshed out idea (now it is though) What about regular camouflage? Having a ghillie suit or camo patterns? I don't think such things will effect combat as you will see them as lockable signatures when you might not be able to see them yourself (without the UI). Would there be a way to solve for this?

You should make it so you can look at what orgs someone belongs to when they area part of your org (set their rank to some probation rank which does not give them access to anything). If you see an org that you don't like, you can do as you will with that information, be it kick them, ask them to leave it or whatever. If they then join another org, that you don't like, then you can do what you will (kick, ask to leave other org, etc.). This does mean you have to check, but this does make it fairer (i.e. officers need to do their job). As someone earlier said, you could also train in a skill (hacking) that would allow you to hide one or more of your org memberships (rank dependant) from everyone but that org and whitelisted others (such as allies). The officer in the recruiting org can then also do a hacking check to see if they have any hidden orgs (does not tell you how well you did, just says which orgs they are a part of or "you could not find any additional information"). Helpful for recruiters, not hindering spys (it is up to you to secure your org, not the devs).

In space you have optical camouflage, heat sinking and radar masking as cloaking techniques. Heat sinking would just need heat sinks in your ship, but it would boil your crew alive. Optical can work fine, just needs a special kind of armour plating that drains energy. And radar masking would require something to provide interference so the enemy can't lock on, like a debris field or decoys. All of these would reduce the enemy's ability to pick you up or track you, but they cannot be on indefinably (except radar masking, the enemy knows you are there but can't pinpoint you exactly). Whilst for radar masking it would be hard to adjust sensors to get a read, the others would still allow you to see the enemy, but would limit your actions if you don't want to break concealment. Having both optical and heat sinks plus running silently means you will be completely undetectable, and you can still pick up radar contacts, but you won't be able to target them using your guns as they would need to emit a signal to range-find (like a laser).

I would say that instead of chance to hit changing, change the range at which you can target them (i.e. they don't show up on when searching for targets, similar to if you use silent running in elite: dangerous). This would mean that in pitch black, you have no clue they are there instead of knowing they are there but being unable to hit them.

People seem to forget that player made safezones are not safe. They are force fields that can be collapsed when consuming damage, and will need to be powered by something expensive to run. If you have such an item impossible to make renewable (such as hydrogen for a fusion reactor), then they will still need to interact to keep their retirement home safe. Not to mention that a place full of expensive equipment is a very juicy target for pillaging.

I know this question may be early, but will it be possible for Alpha/beta testers to also test the expansions before they release (such as Construct vs construct and the Stargates), similar with how Elite: Dangerous tests it's new game mechanics?

Mining lasers with limited range would be good, the limited range will stop people from insta-gibbing an area with a massive barge containing hundreds of lasers, if you are online, you will see it coming. Alternatively, you could have it so you have to own the land in order to mass-mine it (using massive drills and the like, you can still regularly mine in wilderness areas).

After the Space Elevator is built, the next step is to construct a Torus around the planet. We could use the Elevator/Torus as the capital city, having the base of the elevator at the Arkship. Whilst the elevator is under construction, we could use the interior as a massive tower block, full of factories and apartments. Also, the Elevator is useful as it means you do not need ships with hybrid engines to get cargo off/on the planet. Any Alpha testers can start the planning and construction, then, once the server is wiped for Beta, we will have learned some lessons and have more manpower. Do this again when the game goes to release and we should have a pretty good plan for building it. I think a octagonal shape for the tower would be easier to do as circles using blocks can look a bit iffy and squares don't look cool. Anyway, those are my thoughts