DevisDevine

The large ship shown in the first DU images is a Daedalus class BC from Stargate, well at least modeled off of one. My icon is also the Daedalus, first in its class built by the Tauri. The Asteria is my ship, I first built it in starmade and it is a modified Daedalus hull. I have intentions to modify it further so that likely it would be its own class. And while there will be plenty of unique ships, you have to understand people have always wanted to fly the iconic starships from movies and shows. How many Enterprises do you think there will be? The story is its own, the only think taken from Stargate is the hull design itself. Well as we didnt know what system DU will have I just went with that one. If it is a continuous I would expect there to be no charge. Just a maximum speed you can sustain for the duration and maybe an initial energy burst in the beginning to enter warp. I would much prefer this as well, at least for long distance travel.

Well great, now you ruined the surprise.

I once had a Thanatos in Fed space thanks to a CCP screwup. Ill probably build something like a Nyx one day in DU. Have fun with the defense turrets. Or maybe ill let you take it so I can track it to your base.

In my opinion it will be the first of the 2 that I mentioned. Where gravity has a limited range and it is either off or on. The reason I say this is because we know they are doing what they can to keep resources of the game low. With a real world gravity system there are vastly more calculations that have to take place to determine the interactions between objects. Having an on off system is easier to implement. Of course thats my opinion and they are shooting for realistic, Newtonian physics. It would be cool to be able to put in orbiting satellites if they allowed orbital mechanics.

So I want sure if this was the best place, maybe it should be moved to the General Discussion thread, or possibly game mechanics. I decided to post a short story of a scenario I envision happening in game. I don't fully know all the mechanics that will be available but my story highlights some mechanics that I hope are available. It also sheds some light into how we operate and things we tend to implement when possible in games. Sorry that my writing sucks, I usually just focus on the story. It’s a barren world, covered in vast deserts and lakes. In a large lake on the North continent the water begins to stir. Slowly a rectangular chain wall begins to break the surface. It is a half a kilometer long and 200m wide. As the wall breaks the surface the water inside begins to rapidly drain away. As it does a large metal door is exposed and begins to slide away exposing a massive chamber. Slowly a Daedalus class BC, the Asteria, begins to rise from the chamber. It is over 400m long and covered in turrets, a bit unfinished but it was combat ready. As it emerges it slowly begins to ascend, thrusting lightly as to not damage anything below. As it clears the hangar the doors closing behind it and the walls recede allowing the water to rush back over. Once it is several hundred feet above and the water is covering the doors again I increase the thrusters to full. Angling upwards I quickly gain altitude and enter orbit. Once in orbit I set the nav point and activate FTL. It is just a short jump to a nearby asteroid belt in system. Once in FTL I activate the defensive AI and head to the hangar. The Asteria is a bit more than needed for a mining trip, but I like to take it out for whatever reason I can, besides it makes for a good guard while mining. The right hangar contains a smaller miner. Equipped with multiple laser miners and plenty of storage for the ore I mine. Once the Asteria drops out of FTL I look at the nav feed to see it is all clear, not many people are in the region so I never expect anyone. Occasionally our sensor drones pick up an explorer that comes through, and so far the neighbors that are nearby have not located our base. I send a command to open the bay door and start up Little Bite’s engines. Slowly I emerge from the hangar and begin thrusting to the Trillium asteroid 1km starboard. Slowing down on approach, I line up near a cavity in the surface. I had been here already and cleared away most of the rock around the Trillium core. I activated the miners and watch the surface of the asteroid as the matter dissolves away funneled into nanocells for storage. The power is a bit insufficient so I have to pulse the lasers, allowing the power cells to recharge. One of these days I will quit being lazy and fix that, but for now I watch as the Trillium begins to fill up my storage with a few traces of rare elements. I wonder how many more trips will be needed to finish our capital ship. Suddenly an alert pops up, one of our sensor arrays in orbit around the planet picked up something. A small vessel entering an FTL jump. It must have been a stealth ship observing the planet, shit. I quickly cut the lasers and thrust away from the asteroid. I align and burn towards the Asteria, coming in for a hard landing. As soon as I am in the hangar I send a command to close the hangar doors and begin charging the FTL as I dock Little Bite. Sprinting down the corridor I arrive at the bridge, there’s still a minute left to charge the FTL drive. I sit down and pull up the sensor logs as I wait, aligning the Asteria towards the planet. No sign of the stealth ship entering orbit, it must have traveled in and been there a while. Just as I am about to jump the sensors pick up 3 FTL signatures dropping in orbit around the planet. All quick moving destroyer class ships. I adjust my coordinates to their location and enter FTL. Just under a minute until I exit warp, all I can do is wait, all guns active. As I drop out of warp I am just 10km from the nearest destroyer. One of them is clearly a planetary bombardment design and is lining up to fire below, centered over our base. The stealth ship must have been there to determine our location. The planetary bombardment destroyer was already unloading its kinetic kill projectiles down onto the planet and the other two were firing missiles down as well. As soon as my targeting sensors had a lock I unleashed everything onto the PB destroyer, catching it by surprise and ripping through its rear shields, and penetrating deep into the hull. A lucky shot destabilized a reactor, causing an explosion that ripped the back end of the ship off crippling it. As the kinetic kill projectiles entered the atmosphere turrets on the surface were already coming to life. Pedestals were rising above the surface of the water with SAM and Flak turrets. The Kinetic kill weapons were hard to track and shoot down, but a few were broken up before impacting. The remainder were stopped mostly by the water, with no energy left by the time they hit the hangar door below. With over 2 dozen flak turrets almost all of the missiles from the first wave were taken out. But it was clear they knew the base location and were here to destroy it. On the Asteria I launched the 2 dozen fighters I had onboard and routed shield power forward. The remaining 2 destroyers quickly began turning their fire onto me. I began launching missile volleys but my laser capacitors were completely drained from the opening attack. Even without it my missiles are overpowering the shields slowly. As the fighters reached the ships they began circling it in tight orbits, not doing much damage with the shields up, but distracting the automated turrets and reducing fire on the Asteria. My shields were at 85% but slowly dropping as their missiles start leaking through my flak cannons. As my laser cannon reaches full charge I fire it just as a volley from my rail gun hits, collapsing the destroyers shields, but it remained largely intact. However the next volley began to destroy chunks out of the hull. It was quickly gutted by missiles and left crippled. About then, large explosions begin erupting on the surface below. Starting from the center and stretching out in a line nearly 3km long they begin spreading outwards to nearly a kilometer wide. The false bottom of the lake is being blown to pieces, allowing all the water above to rush in below as it does. The emergency evacuation protocol has been initiated, meaning help is on its way. As the dust and fog begin to settle there is a massive swarm of small drones released. Just small battle space drones, they allow sensor feeds of the area and also act as an overload for enemy sensors. Shortly after another loud eruption as the Radials booster engines fire, slowly lifting it clear of the opening. Upon discovery of the stealth ship, Drakyn Ral quickly began activating its systems and moving what he could from the base into the Radeal. Its hull not more than half finished, very little systems were in place and functional. It had minimal power, thrusters, shields, and FTL with very few turret placements mounted already. I wasn’t even sure if Kloydeb had gotten around to uploading the AI to them so they would function at all. And none of us were sure that it could even break orbit. It had a booster system attached as an emergency launch system, but it functioning was all theoretical. Before the Radeal could reach orbit 10 smaller 50m long frigates exited FTL in the battle space above it. They quickly targeted the remaining destroyer, and with their DPS added to mine, its shields vanished. It was quickly engulfed in missile explosions, shredding the hull. The drones were part of the emergency protocol, and when active they activated their FTL and jumped in from deep space above the solar system. The hangar below was gutted and scorched as the engines fired, but we never intended to use it again anyway. As it reached orbit the booster system was released and fell back to the ground. The ships frame stretched 2.5km long and 500m wide, at the widest constructed points thus far. With only the basic frame in place for most of it, it looked almost like a rectangular box with some buildings stacked on top towards the rear. The front end was one giant hangar, large enough to swallow the Asteria. The side hangars were only beginning to be built, with small juts sticking out from the main hull. As the Radeal broke orbit it released more battle space drones followed by another 4 dozen fighters that quickly began to disperse in the battle space. Hartomo and Kloydeb each emerge from the Radeals hangar in Raptor class cruisers. But it didn’t stick around, with its FTL charged it initiated a quick jump out of the battle space where it would charge its drives for its travel to the beta base. We stick around and ensure that the Radeal enters FTL before charging our own. The Raptors quickly charge theirs and follow as escorts, but with my capacitor banks tapped from the battle it takes even longer than usual for me to charge my drive. Just as I am about to jump into FTL, my sensors light up red. With all the battle space drones feeding sensor data I quickly get locks and accurate tracking data on over a dozen ships. There are 2 capital class ships, a carrier and dreadnaught, both more than twice my mass. 2 BS, 4 BC and an assortment of cruiser and frigate class ships. The battle space lights up with explosions as their AI begins targeting and taking out the fighters and drones in the battle space. Immediately 3 of the AI frigates vanish in explosions. Not intending to stick around, I rapidly hit the FTL as it charges to completion. Just then a massive shell strikes my nearly depleted shield, punching through and ripping a massive chunk out of my right hangar bay. What is left of Little Bite floats free into space. Thanks to redundant and dispersed systems most of my ship is functional, including the FTL drive. Before any interdiction nets could be activated I slip into FTL, clearing the battle space. Within a few minutes I exit FTL near the Radeal. It got away with minimal damage, mostly from the debris falling from above when the lakebed was blown. One of the shield emitters wasn’t fully functioning and let some debris through, impacting the hull. The Asteria’s damage was a bit more extensive, but no major systems were hit. Most of the hangar will have to be rebuilt, but there weren’t many components and systems that were destroyed. We waited around until everyone recharged their FTL drive for the first of several long jumps to the beta base. For the rest of the crew who weren’t able to respond quickly enough, they will get there a bit quicker, as out in the void here there aren’t many RNs that they can spawn at. With Alpha base destroyed, Beta base will likely be the closest.

I'm not sure about trading scripts directly, but that could be traded outside the game as well. But in the Dev blogs they did mention making a control system and selling that as a type of module. So I could design a targeting and firing system and sell the DAU for that to others. But yes, someone will have to be willing to sell their hard work, and while I know it will happen eventually I think the best of the best will have their own unique scripts that will be kept to themselves or their allies. As far as LUA, I put off learning it for MC FTB and the turtle system but I took a look at it this week and its a pretty simple language. The biggest thing is knowing the call functions available. However I am an Electrical and Computer Engineer so I know a few programing languages and most of the guys in my group do as well. I would suggest learning the basics of coding and how things work, essentially understand the logical process of it. It can be LUA specific since thats the language you will use, but any works. After that it is just seeing what functions are available to you in the environment you are in.

Maybe we can recreate Jita when the game comes out so we can all go hang out together. Bring your best Eve ship creation to show off.

Where you say months, I say weeks. My group and I excel at rapidly advancing in games like this. In all sandbox games we play we are accomplishing massive feats that take most months to complete, if they can at all, in weeks and sometimes days. In MC FTB there was a server admin who worked with the mod developers to write the code and optimize features and functions. A project that took him 6 months to complete, we had one 4 times the size within a month. Something he thought I was joking about when I told him week one that we would do it. We are really good at focusing on goals to rapidly advance. For those who play eve, how many payers have built their own motherships from harvesting the resources, freighting them, and constructing it yourself. We had a 6 man corp that ran the logistics for an entire alliance, we achieve goals that are ambitious for a large group as a small group often. And I see that the Devs often stress that some projects will be long term and take large groups to complete, I do expect some challenges. But I intend (and see it as a challenge) to advance faster than they intend. Skill training times and implementation delays aside I plan on being on the front end of things being done in the game. As far as the ship being built in the first week, I dont expect it to be. I do intend it to take a lot longer to construct. Therefore having the BP carried over from Beta wouldn't really give me an advantage. But I would like to begin the design as soon as I can. In fact it would likely be a shell for a long time until I am ready to constuct that way I would be using the latest and greatest modules available. And you are correct that the alpha and beta are for bug and feature testing. And the smaller ships I would start with would test that. But you are forgetting that the virtual creator system is part of the game and must be tested. It would help me learn the build system, figuring out what works and doesnt. And it is funny you mentioned glitching/cheating through the beta to release. A coworker and I were discussing things you could do to your ships that would give you an advantage. Not just in beta, even after release. I wont say what we are thinking, and until we know more about the mechanics it may not be possible. But if it works we would want any and everyone using our ships.

I would expect to be able to configure fully functional turrets that are controlled by LUA script. However, coding in things like priority and focus firing of the turrets to coordinate attacks will be more complicated and something only the experienced coders will be able to manage. Because of this, having things like AM and flak cannons AI controled will probably be best. I would think the AI would have better tracking and aim. But your main railgun or lasers will most likely be better off controlled by a Human. This would allow better control of target selections in a rapidly evolving battlespace and likely worth the lower accuracy. I do hope there is no hindrance on those who wish to design the more complex system and allow players to solo pilot any ship if they choose.

I've never heard of voyage century but welcome. As long as this game delivers on their promise it will defiantly be cooperative. Good or bad you will be interacting with others.

Well in my Thanatos, obelisk, or orca. Yeah. There are no brakes.

Welcome Carl. I flew with TNT years ago, they were my first null sec home. Met a few guys there and formed our own Corp. Full Bore Still good friends to this day out of game. As much as I loved Eve I am expecting DU to do what CCP failed to and give us a new generation of space games. @TheDoctorUU: NO DRAKES!!!

Well the core of us are a group that came together in Minecraft. We use to build a lot of redstone traps and mechanisms. We may use something else eventually as I have old friends from Eve and other games that intend to play.

Beyond what you mentioned Nora, I think orbital mechanics implies true gravity physics. In most space games with gravity, it just cuts off. Get within x range of a planet and you're at 1g. Beyond that 0g. Whereas kerbal has orbital mechanics, the gravity doesn't just cut off. So even in space you have to worry about the planets gravity. Usually orbiting to hold position. Has there been a decision on what DU will use?

I am with you, I really do hope that they add in symmetry planes for building. As well as multi block placement, at least for the virtual world. This is one thing Starmade did right, their advanced build feature.

The Redstone Masons, while not an alliance or coalition, is a group that will be known. 'Im sure we will be looking for an Alliance later on in the game.

I wouldnt mind a top 5 thing, but there is one thing in particular that I will be working on I would not want on the open market, at least not yet. That would be the Daedalus class BC I will be making. It may not even be finished then anyway. Maybe I could make the shell of it and let people use that, but not once its finished. But I would want to have a way to keep them to myself, the one week delay wouldnt be bad. I would gladly allow some of my more simple starter designs on the open market. Maybe we can have a check box that would 'allow for NPC markets' That way anything you think is finished enough that you want to share would be available post beta. But if all BPs were, it would be a load of junk.

I would expect anything from alpha to be lost. After all it is just a virtual simulation. As for beta I could see it going either way. I think all items and skills should be wiped. But I would like to keep blueprints of things I design. And i this all builders would. Maybe a suction would be anything from closed beta be lost, and open beta blueprints carried over. But that would still wipe a lot of peoples work. Waiting a week to release them would be a solution. Keeps you from making money off the market with them by being the only source. After all, the things I plan to be working on and designing would be in the virtual realm for now. And ment to be used later on anyway.

I was thinking that just having the ability to see alts under one account. That would help eliminate meta gaming. While someone could have multiple accounts, that would be much harder to track and stop, and I dont think it should so I wont bother with that case. But assume someone has a main and then creates an alt under an account. When I look up that alts data (maybe even in an out of game database) I should be able to see all the characters under one account. This would eliminate the majority of meta gaming, you join my corp, well I can look up and see what other corps you are a part of. And it wouldnt force him into one group, maybe I know his main is in another alliance and I am ok with that. Maybe its a trade alt or one used for safe zone mining or something. What matters to me is the meta gaming causing problems. Now the hacking and disguise stuff is very interesting and would at least bring the spying into the game. I think it would be an interesting feature.

Why be concerned with how empty space is at all. Space is empty, and there is no point in controling the majority of it. Only things like planets and asteroids are of interest as they contain valuable resources. Other than that, one empty space is like another, and even to be in proximity to a planet, theres vast amounts of empty space near by. Even in the asteroid belt, you are thousands of Km from each entity. The cassini probe flew THROUGH the rings of Saturn. While it was a thin band, the calculated risk of hitting something was so low that they just flew through it. And that is something we see as densely populated in terms of space. While I do hope theres rogue planets and hidden content you can discover through things like scanners (hmm, I havent seen any discussions on scanning yet) I dont care how empty the area in between is. What matters to me is travel time to each point. Look at EVE, most of the systems were vast emptyness, and you can get there if you cared by dropping bookmarks in warp, but theres nothing there. What mattered is how long it took to warp from point to point, gate to station to asteroid to POS. So, as long as you arent warping for hours on end to get anywhere, the area in between the jumps could be as empty as they want.

I would just build one near a popular noob/trade space that send them to a death trap. Just an area in deep space loaded with turrets to destroy them. I mean I would never do that, and havent ever done that in a game before.

This is an awesome idea. The fuel types are nothing new, but tagging them with qualities allows you to blend and refine them. It could lead to a whole industry popping up to support that market. And I would love to be able to fly into a star to scoop matter from its surface to use as fuel. It would probably take specially designed ships with heat shielding to manage it but all the better.

Personally I would love a true dial system, the way SG1 implemented it or even specific codes to access the gates, essentially creating your own private network. This would be great since they are supposed to be expensive. This way you would have one per location and not have to set up half a dozen at a hub. But either way, you are looking at an end to end system. Meaning you have to travel there first and set one up on either end for them to be useful, making them useless for an explorer. Now a fling gate would be nice. It would be one that launches you in a direction for a given distance and dumps you out with no return, but I doubt that will be the system they use. Youll have to use some other means of FTL for that. It depends on the stargate lore/technology. If it is a true wormhole, while you do have some travel time it is virtually instantaneous and no way to back out. However I hope for the warp drive or other FTL means they give us that we can drop out. I hated that in EVE you could not drop out of warp mid warp, even if you have a 2min warp ahead of you. If you can be interdicted you should be able to drop out of it.

The Devs already have a system for this. It is the Arks protection zone. Now I would like to try and figure out more on how many there will be and selection of which you spawn at initially, but thats another topic. For now, each ark has a large protection radius to help new and solo players. You can venture out to mine better resources, or just buy them on the market and keep your base inside the safe zone. Beyond that, you can devise your own system. Personally with my small group, we may ally with other corporations eventually. Until then we keep pretty well hidden with large firepower to take care of the unfortunate person who stumbles upon us. Also backup bases in other hidden locations help minimize losses. While I would be ok with some sort of offline system to help protect your base more (maybe a higher defense rating or better turret tracking or something like a bonus) I would not want to see a invulnerable period for a given number of hours. Why large groups can always have a force ready to fight at any hour, small groups and individuals tend to have restricted play times. If I want to take out your base and then have to wait 12 hrs before I can finish the job, I may not be able to log on at that time. As far as item protection I am against it. If you die what is on your body is there, either destroyed or dropped. Why should it be otherwise? And from the Dev blogs it seems that your TCU will protect others from building and accessing your area. Until it is destroyed all they can do is blow up your stuff.