Maxim Kammerer

Recently, we've seen a lot of cases of the old bug where parking a large ship near a small one causes the small one to dock to the large one. This happens accidentally all the time at space stations. I don't know of it happening on the ground, but that doesn't mean it can't.
 
Why do we have this bug when it otherwise requires using the maneuver tool while standing on something static to get docked? Docking is currently both useless for legitimate player (i.e. carriers) and a truly annoying exploit used by griefers. NQ, please remove docking until you can get it working reasonably.

What are you still complaining, it happened, it’s going to happen, and it will keep happening. Welcome to emergent gameplay. 

Why?

Just uh... give us something to fight over. No need for points and all that. If we have something to fight over, orgs will fight. 

Not sure if I agree on the 'have to be in an org' part. I think that's actually one of the main problems. But other than that, yeah, the skill system doesn't seem particularly well thought out, fitting, or for that matter functional. (There are skills that simply don't work. At all.)

Kind of the same reason catapults are not in the game despite having been invented many many centuries ago. 

Really it's kinda a lua game for me but, well, secondary is industry.  Lua option won't help your poll

I'm not sure what that means. Builders in a safe zone pay the same sub as pvp players and without building in safe zones there would be no pvp.

I'm not sure what that means. Builders in a safe zone pay the same sub as pvp players and without building in safe zones there would be no pvp.

Oh there is no doubt about that, its the direction development is taking that is of concern.
 
Just check the kickstarter page (if you can find it, none of the links I have found in this forum will go to it anymore).  it talks all about how solo players will be a thing.  Not only is that NOT true anymore, but even small orgs like mine can no longer compete.  Had they said, "join a giant org and be a billionaire  so you can rebuild civilization" or something along those lines, I would never have spent so much money to help fund this game. 
 
But I don't want to play "employees in space" or "space market" or "space miner".  Or whatever you want to call it.  It's not going in the direction we were promised either way. I wanted to run my own small org and set up a business. That was going rather well until we were priced out of the economy.

Don't look now, but NQ is putting 'Sustainment' on the top of the list.  I have been saying for weeks now that the PVE building community dwarfs the PVP building community.  You need to cater to them because they will pay to play.  
 
That's not how it works.  You can only bring blue prints.  This is going to boost economy not hurt it.  Having to grind to test a build is demoralizing.  Grinding to build a ship you already tested is motivating.
Space Engineers has the same set up. Never does creative take away form the survival game.  It gives goals to shoot for and farm for.
It's just blueprints, not the material...
 
This has the potential to being people back.  If only to have fun building and testing.  It's sustainability for the game.  Even if, big if here, the builders never come out of creative, they are paying for the game. Significantly more builders will be grinding to build there creations on live, so no need to worry... be happy.
Builders will get excited for this, i'm already excited for this. Hope it comes sooner, than later.

This is the biggest irony, since JC really has a PhD in AI ....
 
Relying on "player content" alone is a huge fail for the game. Player content can never "create" Aliens, monsters, beasts, interesting quests, old civ ruins, cultures, the urge to actually explore the bloody universe ... it puzzles me immensely that people (JC) don't get this.
 
I mean, for crying out loud, we just flew God knows how many billions of miles through space, spent thousands of years to finally reach a solar system with habitable worlds, a new exotic place - but there aren't even freakin INSECTS to be found on any of those planets?!
 
Where is the attractiveness to all this? Where is the need for exploration? Why would I want to explore dead, boring planets which offer nothing, absolutely nothing worth of finding or even looking at? Where is the "I wonder what I could find if I finally manage to fly to that very distant planet"? Where is the AWE and WONDER?
 
Is the definition of a "fun game" the process of producing crap, that everyone else can produce, and then sell that crap in order to make money, just for the sake of making money??
You do not need space game for that - you don't even need planets, ships, anything - you just need a bloody smartphone and can slap together a mini game where you produce crap, sell it, rinse and repeat, make money, then what? produce more crap of course ... because what else is there to do?
 
Do they even realize how BORING this is?
 
As I said - future, distant space, planets, a whole universe before you ---- where is the AWE and WONDER, where is the spirit of exploration? Where are the exotic and fascinating things to be found and seen? Where is the mystery?
 
BTW, I have talked EXTENSIVELY about ALL OF THIS in ALL of my DU videos on my channel - but since I am not a shill, or an "influencer" naturally no one watches my videos so it all falls on deaf ears.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Look, everyone is entitled to give their opinion. Even if it is one very aggressive and disconnected from reality like this one you just gave.
Then other ppl are free to disagree like I am disagreeing with you
 
So lets go in parts:
 
Look, no matter who you are, you don't have the right to call ppl "shit stain".
If you want don't want to be a "negative community member" you replace "shit stain" with "negative community member" and treat ppl properly. Or you become one of the ppl that you don't like.
 
Completely agree with you. That guy, that made a privacy breach by exposing a LinkedIn profile of an NQ employee was wrong. Not just wrong, but very wrong.
But he was not "very wrong" because of his opinion of the performance of NQ dev team. He was very wrong only on exposing private data on NQ.
In your opinion, all those ppl that bashed NQ, but did not expose private information, should LEAVE?
Who the hell do you think you are to say that someone who invested 400€ 5 years ago on the project and has been filling up bug reports ever since the bug report site went online are not welcome and should LEAVE?
 
Should I tell you that your 6 days of account and 5 posts on the forum make you someone without any informed opinion? NO.
You are a valid player. One that has the full right to have noob questions, noob ideas and zero experience on this game.
You have the right to get an answer from us and a proper argumentation when we dispute your claim or opinion.
 
BUT SO DO WE.
If we feel like there is some kind of gain to tell that NQ sucked, we have EVERY RIGHT TO DO IT.
 
Got it?

The word "toxicity" is very often abused in this day and age to silence any and all difference in opinion. No doubt a product of the terrible overly "politically correct" culture that has infested every aspect of media and social networks. I am politically incorrect to the core and will always be. People that in your opinion are "toxic" and "salty" have the right to be so if they so wish. And in my experience most of the "toxic" arguments come precisely from people who actually love the game and would want it to succeed, but are repeatedly let down by irrational decisions on the part of the developers or a complete disregard of any and all suggestions and constructive criticism which could in fact help bring the game to the right track.
 

https://www.buffed.de/Dual-Universe-Spiel-57410/Specials/6-Monate-Beta-1366842/
 
^^ source article
 
Buffed.de, mostly known for WOW articles, has written a few pieces on DU before, and have been mostly positive. However, I and a few friends saw a part in a translated version of this article that stated something that could bring a set of attention to DU that is not needed at this time, that is until NQ fix their game.
 
1st section: "the world comes alive":
 
"Although the rush was already high at the beginning of the beta phase, more and more players were added over time and slowly but surely filled the world of Dual Universe. That had several positive effects on the game. For one thing, the world feels much more alive now. We no longer only encounter strange players in the central marketplaces of Alioth, the largest of the planets, but everywhere in the universe. Even the tiny moons of smaller planets on the edge of the solar system are now well populated."
 
keep in mind this was written on 02/13/2021, and right now that 3rd sentence cannot be any more wrong, alioth is a ghost town, madis and thades are abandoned, and any other planet besides maybe ion and lacobus have basically no inhabitants. That is all because of .23 and the major screw up NQ had. i might be blowing it out of proportion, but you get the jist'.
 
2nd section: "Large organizations have grown":
 
"But it's not just the individual players that make the world come alive. Giant organizations have been set up and grown over the months. Huge factories that produce spaceships on an assembly line and are operated by dozens of players are not uncommon. Huge freight transporters fly from moon to moon with a crew of several men, buy cheap resources there and deliver them to the many thousands of players who have established their home on Alioth. There is organized trade, a flourishing industry, and the first political intrigues between the largest of the organizations."
 
"giant organizations"... what, like 100-200 active players making up 5 different major orgs? compared to the 30K ish+ we had since launch in total? (in reference to sanc moon tiles), if you go to any market in the game, even the district markets on alioth, they are all dead, no one visits them anymore.
 
3rd section: "Schematics ensure more trade"
 
"The schematics in particular are responsible for the flourishing of trade. In the alpha and at the beginning of the beta, everyone was still able to produce everything, provided they had the resources and had the appropriate industrial equipment built beforehand, is no longer possible. More complex modules, which you cannot manufacture in your personal nanocrafter, but only in industrial plants, now require a so-called schematic. This is practically a set of instructions that you can use to explain to your industrial plant which module is manufactured and how. Without a schematic, even the most sophisticated production line is just a pile of scrap metal. You can get the schematics on the marketplaces for a chunk of the in-game currency Quantas. The more complex the module, the more expensive the schematic. You also need a separate schematic for each system. Anyone who wants to manufacture silicon from quartz in ten melting systems not only needs ten systems, but also ten schematics - which can quickly turn into money in large factories."
 
Excuse me, what? Anyone who has played the game most likely quit over schematics, or permanent destruction. why? schematics are 1. expensive, 2. tedious to setup, and 3. has almost entirely killed production of any goods not tier one. when schematics came out, a 7m item (anti-gravity generator S) had a schematic required to build it worth hundreds of millions, now that schematic is worth 76m as of the time of writing this, 10x the items worth is fair, ok, but the way they implemented them was ridiculous. 
 
you can read more on the article and see for yourself, but here is something i noticed, none of that was labeled as opinion...
 
i have the feeling this was a commissioned article by NQ to Buffed.de, if it was, I read someone say that its illegal by German law to publish paid pieces, however i may be incorrect. (correction, if the article is noty labeled as a sponsored article and its found out to be then it is illegal, no where on the article does it mention sponsorship)
 
regardless of the legality, NQ needs to come clean because if this was paid that is scummy, make me feel like this game was a cash grab.
NQ I'm begging you, come clean and stop hiding that your game is dying, you still have a chance to dig out of the hole you made, please!

It has been said a million times already, but without specialization you can't really have cooperation and a long lasting game.
I ofc love that I can be a pilot, a miner, an industrialist and a builder, but it's honestly counter productive for the game longevity becouse first I only need myself, and second I can achieve everything in a relatively small amount of time (for a solo ofc). I find it weird that I can potentially have engame items this early into the game, the path from the basic speeder to an hauler capable of carrying kilotons it's really too short, to make a comparison imagine if we could make a raid of 300ppl and go naxx 1 month into wow vanilla.
We probably need more dependencies from talents (eg you can't use XL space engines until you get space engines lvl 5) and a separate tech tree with researchs for individual components, I might specialize in metallurgy and make screws and pipes, but I need you couse you are specialized in making alloys, and you need him because he knows how to refine ores, and so on.

A classic case of vision getting in the way of good game design (also known as fun). This is a post about what civilization is / can be in Dual Universe, and perhaps what went wrong. Before diving in, here are some of my assumptions:
 - JC is a scientist, not a game designer
 - JC is a micromanager
 - JC does not want to listen to his devs (some of which worked for Ubisoft and know a thing or two about good game design and mechanics)
 - Because of the assumption above, I also assume there's a degree of conflict between devs and JC
 - I assume a lot might change up to release since this is a beta, but something tells me... not really, given the track record so far of very good ideas being thrown away or not listened to (classic examples include bot market orders screwup in beta, this was talked about extensively by Blazemonger and a slew of other people in the community, was completely ignored, and the results are clear)

Lets get the whole "but it's a beta" shtick out of the way... if you can't, just pretend that you can.
 
To the point:

The game suffers from very bad game design choices. My stance is, if this game was really about civilization building, the mechanics of the game would be very different than they are now. What is civilization?
organization of individuals into social bodies due to selective pressures characteristics of civilization include: social structure and hierarchy, efficiency, work organization, supply of needs, development of more efficient technologies selective pressures that create civilization include, but are not limited to: resource shortage, non-uniform resource distribution, geography, weather, proximity to neighboring civilizations, war, dangerous environment, dangerous neighbors  
I'm sure a lot of you have seen (or were part of groups that tried to build) cities in DU. Some have actually done so. The problem is, they are completely useless and empty. They look nice, there was tremendous effort in making them, but they are completely nonfunctional because no one needs to be in a city. And that is due to the fact that there really are no selective pressures for civilization at all. There is no reason to be in a group because there is no danger. There is no scarcity of distribution of regular ore. We have safezones on all planets, and a big giant safezone around three planets. Why would anyone live in a city? There are no "white-collar" and "service" game mechanics that characterize cities.
DU has no danger element at all (even in pvp zone, if you don't fly in the pipe, you're pretty much golden) DU has no progressive tech tree DU has no progression, it has quanta gates for elements that anyone can acquire and use given they have the quanta for it I can go on, but for an analysis of "civilization" just read this discord post: https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/304455542162587649/80629454165311491
I know this is wishful thinking at this point, but DU would be much better off with actual game design:
Better Talent System: scrap the Eve talents system (some things should really not be copied), instead have a tech progression tree where you unlock technologies you can use. And have the skill grow based on your activity in the game, not a set amount of points per hour. It's gamey , it's simple, it's fun, it's very intuitive. And you can always add more tech to the tree indefinitely as the game grows. This will allow whole orgs to gravitate towards a direction in the tech tree so we actually get diversity in org playing styles. For example, one org can develop their pvp armadas with ballistics (machine guns, gattling guns, big bertha weapons), another org might focus their armada pvp tech research into laser or electonic warfare. The same can go with unlocking building technologies. The same can go for politics and leadership styles within an org. Have it all be a research tree. There are countless ways of adding diversity and different paths to a game using this mechanic instead of the Eve Talent Points system. Safe Zones: seriously.. is Sanc Moon not enough? The game lacks any danger and people just stop playing because of tedium and burn out. You won't believe how hard it is to convince people to gather into PVP events in this game because they're just too bored of it, it has zero consequence. Sanc moon is a sanctuary moon. That is its purpose. Better Consequences: This game has the wrong consequences. What seems to be happening is a bunch of nerfing to create more consequences in the game, such as talk about nerfing linked container distance, brakes, mining, this whole permadamage to elements, etc. How about actual danger, not the tedium of fixing and replacing parts? How about lowering the cost of building guns and ammo? Halfing most of the voxel HP? How about designing the game so that more people can get into pvp easier, and if they lose, the cost isn't too great that they are discouraged from ever trying it again? JC should actually listen to his devs and game designer (if he has one): lets face it, economists, mathmeticians, scientists, or whoever NQ may or may not consult about their game.. they are not playing the game. WE ARE. What we are witnessing is the result of the disconnect between how gamers play and how JC thinks a game should run. And it is our wallets that are paying. This means JC should listen to his devs. This means JC should really hire a game designer, they are a rare species and it's difficult to find a good one, but if you do, please listen to that person. JC may know stuff about robotics, but as I see it, he has no clue about human psychology, especially gamer psychology.
My rant is over. Catch me outside how bout dat.

No support on discord makes a little sense since it gets so hectic in there, but no GM in the game?!  In a subscription-based game in alpha beta?  Wow. 

i never got the DU check, make a tickit and expect the fixed date to be: never. Im waiting since day one beta with more then a few tickets on it. Maybe i should see every day as an individual bug and report it every day.
Found a new purpose

If only.  I was SO disappointed when I saw the talents system.   I'm used to working for my skills and prefer it that way.  You can speed it up if I you work harder and every chop of a tree brings you closer to GM so it's not so mind numbingly boring to tend to.  With this system you have to wait, no matter what you do or how much you mine.  Its just a time sink and IMO the lazy way to do it. 

Tried it on a whim and I managed to log in, much to my surprise.
Unfortunately, I last logged out looking at an unfinished ship prototype, and the thought of not being able to put any work into it any time soon (without having to mine my life away or having to become an in-game corporate employee) took the wind right out of my sails, so I shut it down pretty quick.  
 
It still boggles the mind how, with the plethora of choices that can drive human interaction in an online game to chose from, someone actually thought the best way to get people to work together was to emulate the worst aspect of daily life: working for the man!
 
Go figure.

I love this Reddit post. A few comments still have too few upvotes.

That would result in players accepting NPC missions only and JC wondering once more why they don't use the system as expected.

We know that the Mining Efficiency +5% ore extracted talent isn't working properly. Other threads have reported this, and NQ have said via twitter that they changed the talent. However they didn't say what they changed the talent to, even after persistent asking. Could it be +1% or +0.5% per talent level? It still says +5% in game, which is quite unfair to players who choose to train this, and who are unaware that it doesn't work.
 
In another thread in these forums, there were many wild ideas about what the talent did. So after rolling my eyes at this, @Billy_Boolaand I decided to do the obvious:
Scan a hex and record the ore value. Call this S (in kilo-litres). Mine a known amount of ore. Call this m. Re-scan the hex and see how much ore remains. Call this s. Repeat until bored.  
The data we recorded is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kIquhrbSAllViRFlCqtxtfS0SJCq76FWpgiyt1u6jr8/edit#gid=0
Yes we got bored fairly quickly. (Mining boring?!)
 
The talent as written says that
(S-s)(1+xT) = m where T is the talent level (0-5), and x is the (for the purposes of this experiment) unknown +x% level of ore added per talent level. 0.01=1%.
 
If the above is correct then we can estimate x via:
x=(m/(S-s)-1)/T  for any talent level >0.  
The data in the above spreadsheet does this for n=30 datapoints. The results are:
Sample mean = -0.0011 (4 d.p.) Sample standard deviation = 0.0060 95% confidence interval for the true value of x = (-0.0033, 0.0012)  
Conclusion: The Mining Efficiency talent most likely adds ZERO ore per talent level.
 
Notes:
There is some noise (rounding) in the data as scans report ore in KL to 2 d.p. and only more when the ore amount is low. I'm too lazy to attempt to account for this. We have no idea if the territory scan amount accurately represents the amount in the hex I didn't attempt to see if there were any variations via planet, ore tier, player(!) or a different +x% amount per tier level.

That would result in players accepting NPC missions only and JC wondering once more why they don't use the system as expected.

I haven't seen any signs of life from NQ or their CMs regarding anything in that thread for aeons... I've stopped reading and contributing.
I don't even have enough interest left at this point to even theorycraft anymore.

The cynic in me says they look at ideas and players' deepest interests and desires in there and JC uses those hints to design ways to impede players' progress in those areas, since interest in a game leads to playing, which leads to progress, which leads to fervent players doing stuff faster than JC wants, which leads to nerfs.
Thus JC looks there first to determine what NOT to introduce.