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Dan-Dak

Alpha Tester
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  1. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to yamamushi in Random Info I Learned From PAX   
    I feel like a broken record going over these things over and over, so instead, I thought I'd just write up some of the more interesting things I learned at PAX this week. 
     
    Now, I certainly am not at liberty to discuss everything I learned from PAX. It's also worth pointing out that many of these things are likely subject to change:
     
    Ships have 3rd person view (at least in pre-alpha).  We may see more complex forms of linking elements, aside from Lua/power/fuel (no promises, and not going into details, but fingers crossed regardless) "One Week" means "One Week"   The number of TCU's we get in pre-alpha will probably be limited to 3-4, or thereabouts. Much smaller than the several thousand available to players at PAX. Ship combat will not be automated. If you see a ship with 30 cannons on it, it's likely there are 30 people onboard manning those cannons.  Avatar combat may have some automation in the form of simple base defenses that fire on people who aren't allowed in your territory. The game will be roughly a 10gb download, and those with pre-alpha will likely get a day or so to pre-download it. Flying in the first-person mode is much easier to get used to rather than 3rd person mode.  Celestial bodies like Asteroids cannot be moved, which is to say that attaching several rocket boosters to an asteroid won't just make it start moving. Asteroids will be in pre-alpha The scroll wheel is currently used as a speed throttle in ships, which takes a little bit to get used to. Fingers crossed that this changes, as it's a bit weird. Atmospheric and Space thrusters are two separate items. Just because a ship can fly in the atmosphere doesn't mean it can fly in space.  In the same vein, Atmos and Space fuel are two separate things.  Star probes will not be physical things flying through space, so no tracking them down to destroy them as they fly through space.  A question came up about how far they are along with the skill system, the answer is "almost zero". They're just not at that point in development yet, which is understandable. Digging to the center of a planet should result in players bouncing around like a spring around the absolute core. However, we'll have to test this to see if it actually works.  Of course the closer you dig the center, the harder it will be to reach because of the way that territories stretch all the way to the core.  Planets were not rotating in the PAX Demo, unclear if this will change in pre-alpha on the 30th or if that's planned for Alpha instead. Coming up with crafting recipes is difficult because of the balancing required for them.  Making ships is not going to be easy, people are seriously underestimating just how difficult it's going to be to get into space. Even in creative mode people had a very hard time doing it.  Water is extremely difficult to get right. The water in the pre-alpha is just a placeholder texture for now, and their plans for water sound awesome, it's just not an easy task at all.  
     
    I'm sure I'll have more info to add to this thread as I remember it over the course of the day.
     
    As for my thoughts on how the pre-alpha played at PAX....
     
    Many people who didn't know anything about Dual Universe sat down to play it and were kind of left dumbfounded as to what to do. The open world aspect of it without any tutorial was a bit overwhelming, and people were left clicking random buttons and walking away confused. Those that did understand Dual Universe, however, seemed to have a blast playing around in the world. Despite complaints I've seen to the contrary, I didn't find the UI to be overly complex or confusing. Just looking at screenshots is pretty self-explanatory. It takes a few minutes to get the hang of things, and there are certainly some terms you should be aware of, but it certainly wasn't this monstrously complex thing that warranted the complaints I've seen. On the topic of building ships. Many people sat down expecting to just have their hands held building a ship. It's not easy at all, which I think is a good thing. If it was such a simple process that any random person could do it in 5 minutes, it would be a whole lot less impressive to actually build one that works. I am happy with the way this works out. Not everyone is going to be able to build a space ship. The game played rather fluidly. There were some trivial bugs here and there, but nothing that brought down the server (which is the key point here).  Again, building a ship is not a process that someone can just explain to you in 5 minutes. If you're expecting to just jump into the pre-alpha right away and be flying off the planet in a few minutes the first time, it's not going to happen.   
     
    Overall I was very pleased with what I saw at PAX, I think that anyone coming into pre-alpha with leveled expectations (not a complete game) will be very happy with how far they've come. It's going to be a very fun time for all of us. The game has a learning curve, even at this point in creative mode, so if you're expecting something where your hand is held and everything is as simple as WoW or No Man's Sky, you're going to be disappointed. I know others will disagree with me, but I found it just as easy as learning to play Everquest Landmark.
     
     
  2. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to AcedBit in Pre-Aplha, who is hyped :D   
    Who else here is pumped for the Pre-Alpha test coming this sept 30'th?
    I know that I am, and I will test, provide feedback and respect the no share on social media etc policy.
    It is fully understandable why sucha policy is made.

    I am fully aware of that the build won't be 100% stable, trust me, I know what a pre-alpha is.
    My computer should be able to run this game at least near perfect in terms of performance once the full optimized game is out.

    Knowing that JC had the game running on a slow labtop computer in a Youtube video, is good to know, considering my rig is able to run demanding games.
    Following is what type of base I will be building.

  3. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Sir_Rat in A Massive Project   
    Hello, all!
    I am proposing a project for a rather massive structure, gargantuan in scale, design, and function. This project, at its core, is to complete a large, multipurpose space station designed for public utility and financial success. It is, on a higher level, more than a structure, as it is intended to be a realistic effort at achieving a realization of our ideas and projects for grand structures in DU.
     
    In keeping with the same spirit of fairness that is displayed by Novaquark with the game itself, the decisions of this space station's purpose/function, as well as its economic produce, will lie in the hands of those who brought it to being: Its builders and investors (hereafter referred to as shareholders). The net profit of the entire station after its completion will be split among its shareholders, either equally or according to merit, with percentages depending on the number of people who end up getting involved, whilst allocating away 10% of the net profit to leave room for future investors and expansions of the station.
     
    In regards to the station's architecture: the aesthetic design of the station will be ultimately decided by a consensus of its shareholders, as ideas in this area are not lacking. Certain aspects, such as material availability, cost, and architectural practicality, however, may prevent some design proposals from being possible.
     
    Financially, the station will survive on taxes, rent, payments, and/or fees. None of these are requirements, the only requirement being the profit needed for the station's upkeep and the profit desired by its shareholders. The station will allocate 40% gross profit towards physical security (shields, ships, etc), 5% gross profit towards maintenance/repair, and 10% gross profit towards salaries for those who run, guard, and maintain the station, with the remaining 45% being net profit. (These numbers are not final; they only reflect the general idea: security first, then dish out the rest)
     
    While the ultimate goals of this station are to be left up to its shareholders, a few key principles accompany this proposal, namely:
     - The Station must remain politically independent
     - The Station must not act as a military factory for any one organization
     - The Station must not provide refuge for trolls or griefers
    A few important distinctions: Political independence is not neutrality, the station can not side with any one org in a conflict but very well may militarily aid multiple orgs. A difference has been assumed between pirates and troll/griefers. Whether the station will be unconditionally neutral or politically active, aid many orgs militarily (through manufacturing, supply, and hangar space) or aid none, or provide political sanctuary with no questions asked, is, of course, left up to the consensus of the shareholders. 
     
    The name of this station has also been left undecided, as this really is a project for everyone. The decision for naming will be put to a vote.
     
    Of course, everyone has many ideas for grand things they want to see in the game. Therein lies the problem: it is very unlikely we will all get opportunities to have our own huge stations and ideas realized and even more unlikely that we will get them exactly as we want. Ultimately, I too want to see some very beautiful and magnificent creations in DU, and I hope that each person or organization who climbs aboard this project can contribute a few of his/her best and most passionate ideas and we can create something that, out of compromise of personal opinion of perfection and mutual contribution of effort, will make future DU players gape at in awe and behold with wonder. I hope we can impress NQ, inspire the rest of the DU community, and fulfill some of our craziest personal space nerd dreams.
     
    My role in this project will be to facilitate the discussion (should anyone take interest) and guide the consensus toward practical options if necessary, as well as manage the upkeep of the physical structure upon completion. This project may be my idea, but the idea of this project is to realize ideas from everyone. The economic and political control of the station will remain with the shareholders.
     
    The blueprint for the station will (hopefully) be completed before release and I plan to take full advantage of the god mode building in pre-alpha as I'm sure some of you do as well.
     
    Let me know what you think of the idea and if you potentially would like to help make it happen! 
     
    Thanks for reading it all
     - Sir_Rat
     
     
    Outside of the proposal, I personally would love to see the station to serve multiple purposes including, but not limited to, manufacturing, refuge from space pirates for newbies, personal material and ship storage, residential/luxury housing, trading and market hubs, refueling, and hangar space for imperial class vessels, military fleets, and industrial haulers and freighters.
     
  4. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to NQ-Nyzaltar in Organization management & Exceptional NQ Interventions   
    Hi everyone.
     
    Until now, we couldn’t manually manage (remove/promote) Legates in an organization easily on the administration side.
    Since Yesterday, we are able to use a feature simplifying considerably the process. 
     
    As we already mentioned many times in the past, we (Novaquark) don’t want to involve ourselves in the management of organizations created by players. However, we are also aware that the current (and temporary) state of the management system contains obvious flaws. You know it. We know it. As this is still “work in progress”, we hoped that organizations creators will be reasonable enough to avoid abusing the well-known flaws of the system and would wait that all the rules are implemented before trying to sabotage other organizations. 
     
    So we are going to state the obvious here:
    It’s ok to “play a bad guy” and use dirty tricks once all the rules are implemented. However, it’s absolutely not ok to start exploiting the flaws of a work in progress system: this is not “playing a bad guy”, this is just toxic behavior and trying to gain an advantage while not playing by the rules.
     
    That’s why - despite our will of non-involvement - we will make exceptions until the full implementation of the RDMS (Rights & Duties Management System) for the Organizations.
     
    Why did we decide to intervene? 
    Two reasons:
    1) In the current state, a Legate has much more power than in the final system, due to the minimalistic mechanisms temporarily in place. If in the current system, any Legate has the right to promote a member to Legate status by himself alone, in the final system the default rights will be completely different: promoting a legate will be done only with a vote by majority rule, or the right to promote someone will be given to specific persons and not every Legate.
    2) In the current state, a Legate cannot be demoted by any mean (even by the creator of an organization). In the final system, default configurations will allow to demote a Legate with a vote by majority rule. A Legate could also be demoted by specific persons who have been given the right (most probably by the Organization founder) to do so.
     
    How is this going to work?
    Each organization is going to have one "wild card": if there is a problem with the Legates in an Organization, you can contact the support team at support@novaquark. However, keep in mind we (Novaquark) reserve the right to intervene (or not) on a case by case basis. 
     
    Example of a case where we will intervene:
    Some Legate using the flaw of the current temporary system to vandalize (or generate troubles in) an organization.
     
    Example of a case where we won’t intervene:
    Two organizations have merged in one, and now both creators of previous organizations want to mutually exclude each other from the organization. In this kind of case, we won’t remove anyone. We won’t favorize one creator above another. However, we will do our best to help finding a satisfying solution for both parties.
     
    As a global reminder:
    If someone finds a loophole in the rules in place (that may happen), and this loophole is used to generate trouble and spread a toxic behavior, we won’t stay idle watching the situation deteriorating. 
     
    Best Regards,
    Nyzaltar.
  5. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Morand in €725 000 pledged   
    We did it finally : €725,983 pledged so far, by 9,501 backers 8 days before the end !
    What a community support !
  6. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Warden in DU - Gamescom content anywhere?   
    That's a rough or big advantage of the intended setup: They don't have to spend so much time with world and story-building compared to other games. That's a general "advantage" (has pros and cons, or rather, is subjective) of that type of sandbox genre though: The players have more power in building the world, literally, at that.
     
    But time will tell.
     
    On another note ... I guess that counts as "DU gamescom content" ?
     

  7. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Sharknoon in Gamescom insights   
    I had the pleasure to talk to JC for about one hour at gamescom. Here are some hopefully new informations I can remember:
    JC dont know when the Alpha is ready but it is going to happen in 2018 The Market-Feature is going to be implemented in the first update for the alpha (some weeks after the alpha launch) They havent done much yet to prevent hackers To prevent glitching when standing on moving objects (like space engineers or GTA) they give every construct their own relative coordinate system, called Local-Frame, which the player is bounded to. To detect which Frame is the right one (e.g. jumping from a ship to a planet) they send a ray downwards and the ray detects the Frame underneath the player. Right now only the skybox is rotating, but planet rotation is planned for the future On Tuesday, August 22, Novaquark has implemented a sitting function for the couch (not a joke!) They are hiring several new people starting in september, including a webdeveloper, who is going to work for the first 4 month on the community portal full-time JC itself has written the LUA-Scripting, flight-mechanics, logical-gates and the HTML/SVG Screenunit The Community Managers are really happy seeing such a growing community and that much interest in the game Most of the people at novaquark are playing the game mosty at work, not very often at home You can freely reskin the entire UI of the game, the whole UI is made up of HTML and CSS, NQ wont prevent making changes to the ui Right now, you can embed any HTML-content, except for Javascripts, in the Screen-Unit, e.g. embedding a Youtube-Video works right now, they arent sure, if they continue to allow that The client and the server are written in C++. The client needs C++ for the performance, the server is also written in C++ due to the high amount of the same code with the client. They wished, they could make it in a safer language like Java, but htey simply doesnt have the time to write a lot of code twice. Traveling to other planets takes in average 2 days, to other solar systems 2 weeks When the player has a limited internet-connection, they lower the refresh-rate of constructs and players When the player has a slow computer, they are limiting the viewing distance and also lowering the refresh-rate of constructs and players The goal is to reach 30fps on every mid-sized pc Thats all for now, sorry for my bad english and some typing errors
  8. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to CyberCrunch in Gamescom insights   
    The DU gameplay at Gamescom was really amazing. I learned so many new things from talking to JC and actually playing the game that I would like to share them with you.
    I’m very surprised no one else started a topic about the Gamescom jet, as there were people who spend much more time at the NQ booth then me…
     
    Disclamer: None of this information is official! It’s just my interpretation of the conversation I had with JC. Also none of the features are final! I got the impression that a lot of details are not fully thought out and will be changed during development.

    I hope we can freely discuss features “as seen in the Gamescom” without violating any pre-alpha NDA… I just think this will be interesting for those who were not there.
     
    Orbital mechanics:
    In space there are actual physics calculations like in Kerbal Space Program! I managed to catapult my ship into orbit with atmospheric engines, but it was pulled back in a parabolic curve by the gravity.
    JC said that atmospheric engines are actually a bit overpowered, as you could reach escape velocity with them and fly straight into space… without any control… because the engines only work in atmosphere… xD
    I have to say that I really liked the atmospheric flight mechanics; they felt very realistic just like a real airplane.
     
    Damaging system:
    Functional parts get damaged on impact and are supposed to lose their function until they get repaired by hand. (currently tweaked as it’s a little bugy)
     
    Lua Scripting:
    We already know about the minigames you can create in DU, but what about the multiplayer capabilities? Interestingly enough it’s already possible to connect multiple programming units together by just using global variables, which are shared inside one core unit.
    Thereby multiple sup-components on a big ship can be interconnected and exchange information between each other.
    In theory it could also be possible to communicate to another construct using the same mechanic, but with a growing distance the update rate of the data would be decrease…
    They are thinking about creating a component that can be accessed “globally” by any programming unit in range… but the whole topic about distributed systems will be another milestone that has not been considered jet.
    Another thing I asked was if we could use an external IDE for programming, as the ingame one was kind of limited… JC said in theory you could import an external library in the ingame interface, which should access the Lua scripts directly from your PCs hard drive.(not sure about the Lua limitations inside DU though)
    Or you just copy the code over to the game for testing.
    The Lua development is also tied to the ingame IDE as each connected component actually provides predefined event-function-blocks that are triggered by certain events (e.g. a switch has an on, and an off block) and you have to place Lua code in the corresponding function blocks.
    I’m sure in the long run NQ will develop a fully fledged IDE for the game, so this will become no issue at all….
    The breakout minigame was also simply some code executed in the “start” function that was able to receive keyboard inputs and generated svgs that were displayed on the screen-unit.
     
    Rendering/Performance:
    Ok, the game is not the prettiest rendering wise.
    All vegetation and functional components get only rendered up to a certain distance (few 100 meters) than they get de-spawned. Also all lighting and shadows are only active up to this distance.
    Further away voxels also get simplified a lot… I honestly don’t care about the visuals that much, but I’ll admit the space station looked kind of squashed from far away.  But JC said they are working hard on improving the rendering.
    On the flip side flying around was very smooth! In god-mode I flew to the moon of Alioth in 2 seconds without any noticeable frame drops!
     
     
    So, that’s all that was new/interesting about the game for me. Maybe most of this was already known, but it wouldn’t hurt to share it here…
    I actually did not have enough time to cover all my questions. But others are probably able to share a lot more insights from Gamescom, so feel free to post them to the rest of the community!
  9. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Soro in Alpha Postponed. Thoughts:   
    lol, no although when I first read the article I thought about it... My kids are grown, making them perfect for indentured labor
  10. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Shockeray in Alpha Postponed. Thoughts:   
    Did they take into account that some people would do that willingly?
  11. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Lethys in Alpha Postponed. Thoughts:   
    Well a NDA is a serious contract and I really do hope they enforce it properly. 
    People get excited now and even more once the game starts, so there may be leaks of a very buggy game which is bad PR in these times because people are idiots. 
     
    To me this post from nomad sounded like they felt obliged to trust us with an NDA and the alpha because they didn't want to postpone it again, not because they want to test DU. It sounded like they fear bad press more than everything else (quite understandable) so I really do hope they enforce that NDA by all means. Bad press is the worst thing that can happen now, as DU needs to bind consumers for a long time (subscription) and in orser to do that they need all the positive feedback and press they can get. Some idiots ranting on youtube aren't exactly helping. Only because we long term members, who witness the work of NQ every day and their openness with the community, know that DU will work and that it'll be a great game, doesn't mean everyone gets that after seeing a buggy video or screens from an alpha
     
    Anyway, I hope this community isn't a letdown in this regard and values the (possible) NDA as highly as NQ trusts us.
     
  12. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to devu in Sharing   
    Hi Folks,
     
    I had some time on my hands to do my hobby. And I have to say this, it is fist time in my life I decided to share with you some tunes I've created being inspired by this game. Even created account on soundcloud, yay!.
     
    I really like the music behind this project but I was trying to add more diversity. You know... some faction related stuff
     
    Here it is, faction anthem.
     
    Hope one day all my friends from Organisation will fly to it together
    https://soundcloud.com/daniel-wasilewski-4/homeless-march-of-giants
     
    And this piece.. I would imagine yourself in deep space, out of oxygen, resources, energy but...
    https://soundcloud.com/daniel-wasilewski-4/homeless-never-give-up
     
    Apologies for some glitches, levels out of balance etc... This is very rough material, still trying to figure out how to record this properly from my moXF6. 
     
    And if you got inspired, created some music, art, please share it with us!
     
    Here is the link to entire collection I occasionally updating with new song:
    https://soundcloud.com/daniel-wasilewski-4/tracks
  13. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to yamamushi in Impatient Dual Universe Fans Be Like   
  14. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to TheBlender in Hi all   
    Welcome, its always good to see more DU-ers

    Its quite the investment but for these guys, I think its worth it
  15. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to ShinyMagnemite in Hi all   
    Heyo!

    Glad to see a variety of ages here, cya around the forums and maybe even in-game.
  16. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Hotwingz in The Outpost called Zebra   
    Hello beautiful people I just published a new article on Outpost Zebra. This week I decided to demonstrate my work flow for concepting a space ship. 
     
    I go over some useful tools and a few tips. And I hope it might be of use to someone. ?
     
    From concept to final model, designing a space ship.
  17. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Anaximander in Americans VS. Everybody else (See: Imperial VS. Metric)   
    Let's all measure speed in Laden Swallow airspeeds.


    "How fast is your battlecruiser going?"

    "About 150000 Laden Swallows."

    "African or European?"
  18. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to The_War_Doctor in Hi all   
    WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TOM.....wait nvm. welcome to the DU forums  join us in discord sometime
  19. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Kurock in Hi all   
    Greetings and welcome. Have a look around and don't be afraid to ask questions.
  20. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Cybrex in Hi all   
    Welcome.
  21. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Lord_Void in Hi all   
    Welcome to the community! 
  22. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to Lethys in Hi all   
    Welcome to the community
     
    A zimmer is a room in german xD
  23. Like
    Dan-Dak reacted to ATMLVE in Hi all   
    Welcome to the forums Dan! (Or do you prefer Dak?) How did you find out about Dual Universe?
     
    Also, what the heck is a Zimmer?
  24. Like
    Dan-Dak got a reaction from ATMLVE in Hi all   
    Thanks for the welcome
     
     
    DD or Dan is fine.
    A Zimmer Frame is a walking aid
     
    DD
     
  25. Like
    Dan-Dak got a reaction from Vyz Ejstu in Hi all   
    Thanks for the welcome
     
     
    DD or Dan is fine.
    A Zimmer Frame is a walking aid
     
    DD
     
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