Maxim Kammerer

External servers have the same downsides and the customer pays for it. That makes sense in short-term (because it saves the initial investment) but not in the long-term (because the owners of the harware want to make profit). In the long-term the game should be based on in-house servers and external servers should be rented for exceptional high traffic only.

It would be nice if we could build harvesters for surface ore.

It is actually quite easy to detect terrain dug outs for base construction. Just don't touch caves with constructs inside (maybe with a reasonable safety margin around the building grid) and underground facilities would ba safe.

How about implementing new ways to inject cash into the game other than removing ore by market bots? That would stop the excessive mining grind.

The world is empty because NQ nerfed the industry to force player interactions. Fixing it with another big nerf to force player interactions doesn't sound like a good idea. I agree to joystick control. But turning DU into just another shooter with WWII dogfight mechanics would be quite unoriginal. NQ at least tried to implement half-way realistic space combat. The problem is not going straight and shoot 400kms away but JC's lack of sense for fun gameply. It wouldn't get better with someting like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.

That depends on the quality of the code. If it can be turned into something profitable in short-term they will go with B otherwise with C. Anyway, the developement of the DU we are waiting for will be cancelled or at least put on hold until return of investment.

Indeed! I got the impression that JC the CEO was pretty much non-existent and JC the visionary pushed his idas with brute force, not considering what is possible with the available time, budget and technology and what the players are willing to accept. The new CEO now needs to catch up on everything that JC failed to do. He needs to analyse what has been done and what can be done and how to use it to save as much of the investment as possible. This is actually the good part. Canceling the project would mean that the investment is gone. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are parts of the game that work quite well (e.g. building, industry or lua-scripting) and many problems can easily be fixed (e.g. littered markets). Putting the available pices together and turning them into a game that can be marketed in short-term could at least save a part of the money. That will not be the DU we dream of or maybe not even DU at all. But it could still be fun and give JC the chance to gain the experience he needs for the next attempt to make his vision reality.

The major flaw reather seems to be the lack of game-play loops. The only working part of DU was building pretty constructs and complex industries, but even that has been ruined with 0.23. Now there is nothing left but mining. For the matter of civilization building - how was that supposed to work without corresponding game mechanics? There is nothing in DU that encourages this kind of cooperation. It is just about big fishes growing at the expense of the small ones. That works in the real world (as long as the small fishes don't get too angry) but not in a game.

No, but a whipe makes sense after fixing the core issues. Otherwise the final game would inherit the problems resulting from the current issues. Of course it's a pain to start from scratch once a gain and many players might prefer starting with a different game instead. However, that's not much of a problem considering that after fixing the core issues DU will be a different game as well.

I read it again and didn't found it. There is just a lot of pseudoscience about thermodynamics, something about T5 in nullsec and T1 and T2 in safe zones and finally whining about T3+ beeing made deeper and slow to mine. I just give up trying to understand how that is supposed to answer my question.

Where is the part about the markets?

With other words, replace pointless mining by pointless pvp? This is not how DU is intended to work. There shouldn't be mining just for the sake of mining or pvp just for the sake of pvp. The vision of the game is civilisation building (and it is quite obvious that JC is not going to change that - even at the risk of losing the entire player base). In a game like DU pvp should result from player interactions and not be forced by bots. If everything works as intended players with conflicting interests (e.g. mining the same spot of rare resources) would communicate and either come to an agreement and cooperate or fight each other. Of course that can't work without the required mechanics. The lack of such mechanics has been mentioned often enough. I don't need to stress that again. I just say that we don't solve this problem by asking for mechanics that would push the game even further away from the original vision.

I have no idea what you are trying to tell me. Does that even refer to my question?

What I am trying to say is that it is currently even worse. "mine, refine, produce, sell/use" has been the only working gameplay loop before 0.23. Now it is reduced to "mine, sell".

The game loop "mine, refine, produce, sell/use" wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that "mine, sell" is more profitable due to overpriced bot buy orders for ores. Additional over- or underpriced bot orders don't fix that problem. None of these markets are in pvp zone. The surface of planets are safe zones with the possibility for a local economy. The OP is asking for something completely different. The very idea of a market in pvp zone makes no sense.

Why should T5 be obtainable at markets in pvp zones only? That makes no sense.

Of course not. But with bots buying and selling at prices that make no sense it will have no economy at all. That's pretty much what you are asking for. Your suggestion only works with bots that buy at high prices and sell at low prices in pvp zones. In a realistic economy it would be the other way around because there is neither supply nor demand in pvp zones. Even you idea of invulnerable market places doesn't fit inito a game where everything works with the same mechanics. I see two major reasons for the lack of pvp in DU: 1. there is no proper pvp mechanics and 2. artificial save zones have been implemented to compensate for 1. In order to have more pvp, 1. and 2. need to be fixed (in this order). Instead you are asking for additional artifical placeholder mechanics just to have pvp for the sake of pvp. That would make it even harder to turn DU into something that fits to the original vision.

Once again, such bots already are a major problem for the economy. You shouldn't ask for more of them.

I asked where this profit comes from. I can't see how that works and as you didn't answer this question it seems you don't know it either.

How are such trade routes going to be profitable? There can't be industry in pvp zones and even mining would be suicide without a fleet of escort ships. Thus, no player would be stupid enough to sell at low prices or to buy at high prices in such places. In order to make you idea working, there would need to be market bots buying and selling at fancy prices. Such bots already are a major problem for the economy. It doesn't sound like a good idea to ask for even more of them.

Such as a player with expired sub shouldn't have access to the game? There are a lot of should-haves in DU.

It was kind of fun until 0.23. Now it's mainly grinding for schematics to make the factories running. It would have been OK if there would be some challenging gameplay behind it. But selling ores to and buying schematics from bots is one of the most boring gameplay ever.

Mining and terraforming is the only PVE you can expect in DU. But there is as much of it as you want.

I was playing with friends but everybody else left after 0.23. Now I log in once per day just to grab the daily reward, check my talent tree and sometimes have a look at the markets.

I don't know if CIG is the best example for developers having a list of priorities that they are focusing on first. However, they can get away with some degree of feature creep because they have a growing player base and in the last years an exponentially growing budget. Sometimes they even listen to the community. At least from an economic point of view they got everything right and if they don't mess up with SQ42 that will continue for many years. NQ on the other hand - well, they reather have a growing list of features that will never be implemented.