SandoMutt

My two cents on this topic:
 
As we do not know how the voxel system interacts with game engine is nigh to impossible to estimate the overhead that collision coordinate computation (first step to implement any collision damage) adds. We know that the engine computes voxel collisions, but there are algorithms that do that and do not compute the intersecting coordinates. That said, if the engine computes by itself that coordinates, implementing a simple damage model in the line of weapon damage is only moderately difficult (in terms of overhead) and completely doable.
 
Regarding all the fuss about the pertinence or not of allowing collision damage, I am all in the wagon of its pertinence. Because without collision damage flying near structures has near to no significance. And too many immersion is lost without them. For the issues given against this mechanic:
Griefing is natural to MMOs. We can think about that what we want, but because most griefing conducts are not absolutes one action that will be considered to some griefing, others will see it as permitted (even if esteemed unfair) play. Ramming will be very difficult if Newtonian physics are implemented in flight. IF IT IS the case, I expect that most ships will have enough thrust to accelerate to at least to 1G (otherwise, flight can become something very very boring), and some Km/s relative speeds will be common in most combats. Combat ranges will be in this case in the order of hundreds of kilometres, if not in the few thousands. Even if you are able to achieve a low relative speed to your target to make feasible to start a ramming maneuver, in the majority of cases target will be able to avoid you, or will have enough time to pour a hell of fire on your ship. I think that most of you are underestimating the total costs of building anything greater than a few tens of meters. A ramming ship big enough to do any sizeable damage (with maneuvering and flight capabilities that will make ramming something achievable) is going to be no more cheaper than a combat ship of the same tonnage. Mostly because hull cost in big ships are going to be a big part of the final cost. Add this to the above point, and ramming will be only the last maneuver of an already dying ship to try take someone with him to the tomb.

They will probably go some route like that, except probably different tier bricks would use different tier resources.
 
To build said brick, you would need a miner that has specialized in mining to gather tier 3 metals. You would need someone who has specialized in processing to combine those metals into a tier 3 alloy/polimer. Then you would need tier 3 building to actually construct something out of that tier 3 alloy/polimer.
 
Then tier 3 piloting to fly it, and all-in-all it'll take about 1.5 years of levelling up for a solo player to do it..... 

Yes, people are absolutely want to know what they're buying before they buy it. I'm not disputing that at all. But a simple list of statistics isn't going to work.
 
The two main suggestions that have come up that are workable are a VR environment to test-fly a ship in before you buy it, and the emergent gameplay of trusted reviewers. Both have pros and cons, as expected. 
 
A try-before-you-buy VR environment would give you a very good idea of what you're paying for, whether you like how it handles, and so forth. On the other hand, it means you don't really have a clue what you're getting into before you buy, requires more work for NQ, and doesn't really allow any sort of objective ranking.
 
Trusted reviewers (presumably doing Youtube videos or something) would allow for somewhat more of an actual ratings system, and be able to give you a far better idea of what you're buying in advance, letting you actually plan to buy a specific type of ship. On the down side, they're only realistically going to be able to review mass-produced ships, it's not going to be worth their time to review small runs and unique models.
 
That said, that's realistic, to be honest. I suspect that what we'll see is more along the reviewer lines, as I'd be surprised if we had VR test functionality at launch. That would encourage mass production and a certain amount of standardisation, as in real life. If you want a custom ship, you'd then have to either build it yourself or work closely with a shipbuilder, paying extra money for the privilege of getting exactly what you want. There, your guarantee of quality would be the shipbuilder staking their reputation on your satisfaction - if you're not happy, you spread that fact around, and the shipbuilder doesn't get any more commissions.
 
We might even see an organisation of high-end custom ship builders spring up, the equivalent of Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, and the like, who specialise in one-off custom orders for very rich customers. Owning a Quasar-brand ship (for example) might become a status symbol, a sign of wealth and status. That could be very cool.
 
One way or another, the community will work out a means of making sure that ships can be bought and sold with some understanding of what you're getting. It won't be a simple list of statistics on the market page, though. I suspect it's more likely to be a manufacturer's description which is trusted to be honest, because the manufacturer lives by their reputation.
 
Hell, the game is all about emergent gameplay and player-driven politics. Maybe whatever nation-orgs become dominant will institute an Office of Trading Standards that you can complain to if a seller rips you off, and they can force compensation.

So you have 5 engines. If they're pointing in different directions, adding the total thrust together doesn't tell you anything useful. But there could be perfectly valid reasons to build it like that - well-scripted, it might use different engines in response to different commands to make it more maneuverable.
 
It may not seem like much of a stretch to you, but it's actually not possible. Not just difficult, not possible.

We will probably see youtube channels shoot up to demonstrate how different ship designs perform, possibly even with standardized obstacle courses or ways to test a ship's characteristics. There are youtubers that do this for Space Engineers creations, and they usually have their own rating scales for different aspects of each ship.
 
If you can't find a good review of a ship, then it'll be a gable as to whether or not to buy it. If you are a ship builder and you want your ship to sell, you'll want a youtuber to review it. Heck, it might be worth it for someone to create an org that exists to create reviews of ships. If each ship builder needs to send a copy of the ship to the Bureau of Space Vehicles to get their official ratings, that is the kind of emergent gameplay people would like to see.

It would be best if we were able to engineer components out of subcomponents each of which have particular properties, methods and interfaces. For example, a rocket engine could consist of a fuel tank, fuel pumps, high pressure piping, fuel injectors, a combustion chamber, an afterburner assembly, a nozzle and control actuators. Without each of these sub components, you can't build an engine. But if you developed a superior fuel injector, you'd have a superior rocket engine, perhaps one which is more fuel efficient, while a superior nozzle could improve manuverability, a superior combustion chamber could improve acceleration, superior tanks and pumps could increase the pressure at which you store fuel and that increases range, and superior piping could reduce weight. That way you'd have more than the Mark 1, Mark 2 and Mark 3 engines. You could have a company that makes rocket engines that are lightweight and high maneuverability for combat craft while another company makes engines that are fuel efficient and reliable for long haul cargo ships. The new Zykos-V fighter is equipped with a Motokrafwerks F-300 rocket motor with the highest vector-thrust capability of any commercially available engine! Subcomponents for major components could greatly enhance the individuality of the designs produced by players. It wouldn't be the coolest looking starship is the best, it would be deeper than that.

Explain how will you force a player into slavery.



Drugs, meh, not really, it's not a game driven by NPC lore and logic. Smugglers will simply be black market FedEx, delivering weapons to griefers' factions that can'\t go near major trading hubs because they will be blown to bits within seconds.