bastanold

For all the infinite space of Dual Universe, one has to reflect on mmo player activity. The reason many people play MMO's is to play with others especially in groups. Even among those not within groups the allure of a market dictates distance of operation. Some may very well head out as explorers, but given the need for content--and in variety at that--most players will find it advantageous to be reasonably close to everybody else. 
 
If it does turn out that Dual Universe is 'infinite' I'll be very excited to see how the ebb and flow of player residency in that universe shifts. Will we find 'ghost towns' from a decade ago? Will membership be wide enough that some groups become widely separated? What will this do to each player culture in terms of political, economical and military? Interesting stuff to be sure.
 
 

I was remembering the old paper and pencil RPG games and how some of them had mechanics for researching technology and inventions. There was a difficulty level that had to be determined from the rulebook's outline and what followed was a series of rolls over a set amount of time. The tech or device would be completed after all the rolls had been successful through all the steps.
 
How could that work in DU? Well, Novaquark would have a team/person who would evaluate player proposals for research or invention. Interesting(and possible) submissions would be reviewed by the Novaquark team in terms of code and game impact. If the item could be added with an existing class/object and the idea added to gameplay in an interesting way, the proposal would be approved and the player would be given the requirements to successfully research the tech/device. That player would own the recipe as well which could end up being quite lucrative in-game.
 
Granted, this means of open ended research in the game might be a rare occurrence, but knowing that there were things out there that could be player-designed would add to the whole voxel-building theme.

Any player can institute a DU religion. They're great to add justification to just about any policy including murder and mayhem. I want to destroy all life in the galaxy? Found an org based on a DU religion! Works every time.

Alts are real people too, guys.
 
#altlivesmatter

I guess the main thing to take away is;
Dont take it personal.
 
Thats not to say you have to take things too far. But we are all here to play DU. Some people create, other people destroy and a whole bunch of people are in the middle enjoying their own little story.
 
Safe is boring.
Just think about that time you got frustrated on that level and used cheat codes. The first 5 minutes its a lot of fun but then it all starts to feel pretty pointless.
 
I suspect DU wont be as "cruel" as EVE. Same rules apply though; dont use what you cant afford to loose.

Playing solo does not mean avoiding all human interaction. It just means you want to play by yourself. You would treat the other players as NPCs, get the materials you need from the market and make money by acepting player made contracts (deliver this, get us that, kill them). Sometimes you will have to take the bullet and hire a protection team when going through a nasty area of space or work off some debt by helping the navy take out some pirates, but it is very easy to play solo. Also, safety is overrated, you just need a plan B when all hell breaks loose. 

The way I see it, we won't see massive capital ship fights often....if ever.
There are no orgs (even those Top5) right now who could build a huge ship within a reasonable time (despite the resource problem, manpower, blueprint, detailed plan of the whole thing, and so on). Maybe once the orgs get into thousands and after 1 to 2 years the first capital ships will emerge but I don't see them being deployed. The first ones will have a big, shiny mark on their head that says "PLEASE KILL ME, I'M THE FIRST"
As you said, those assets are a huge investment, take time to build and are prone to .... social failure. So let's take a closer look:
 
Investment:
The price for some capital may sound astronomical high in the first years, but could be pocketchange in the future. The first Titan in EVE was build 2 years after launch and for many years there weren't many around. Nowadays they get thrown into every major fight.
500 Billion Quanta may seem a huge number in the first 5 years but when markets develop and more people join DU this could be the average earning of a smart trader per month. So investment may only be an argument at the first glance.
 
Building time:
To me this is the major factor why we possibly won't see many capital fights. You need time to build a capital in eve too (~2 months) but that's an automated process: dump in materials, get the blueprints, start building, wait 2 months, done. In DU you actually have to build that ship YOURSELF. The major problems I see here are:
- You need a foolproof, rock solid, easy to build design. Otherwise your welding crews will be confused and won't properly build that thing
- Possible need for real plans of those ships (created in acad) and people who really know how to oversee such a construction
- VERY good management of the crews working on that ship. One guy can ruin the work of a week
- If not built in a safezone, you'd need protection 24/7
If those things aren't done properly, that ship will never lift off the ground and you burned your money, your people and your reputation.
 
Social Failure:
Once you have built the ship you need a crew to man it. Lots of crewmembers (I talk about 50+ people here). Besides the problem of timezones, training in different fields of operation on that ship (softskills player wise!), multiple crews because of timezones and every other social problem that arises when dealing with such numbers on ONE ship (communication, ranks, duties,...) you have one huge problem: spies. One member of your crew that was carefully selected could be pissed, be a mole, could have taken money or whatever or simply hate you because you're a bad captain and could decide to kill the core unit of that vessel....Or send word to enemies about the location. Or deactivate the shields in a critical situation. You get the idea.
 
The problem with the first huge constructs is fame. Fame for killing it, one way or the other.
The problem with all following huge constructs is building time, social failures and maybe the meta of DU
 
Everything above can be said too about stations, bases and buildings and heavily depend on game mechanics (shields, timers, ...).
 
post script:
I'm one of those reavers, sometimes. I'm used to making money with an alt and just not caring about anything else then fun with my main. There will be loopholes to put that money in a safe place so there is nothing someone can do to me.
But I'm no evil man - I'm a content creator for myself and everyone else. I make sure your life in DU is hilarious, dangerous and full of excitement (maybe I attack you. Maybe I don't. Depends on shits and giggles ).

Heh, I certainly don't think Reavers will be a bad thing for Dual Universe. That's some serious content by players for players. Given what's at stake, it'll have more impact than it does in EVE. That's saying something too. In DU if the Reavers get you the only thing you'll have left is what resurrects in an RN and whatever you stowed away behind an arkshield. It will be brutal at times ... and epic. DU is going to redefine the space MMO. Some days it'll be Space Engineer meets DayZ, other days Minecraft on solo. You'll never know what you're going to get on a given day.
 
It's going to redefine tears and what it means to be a pirate and reaver and on the flip side, an alliance and coalition. I suspect an  alliance/coalition in DU could see a lot more activity and develop a more 'benign' relationship between the wolves and the carebears given that everything out there will have to be built by players. Less of the warbands of EVE and more the Roman Legion with it's daily construction of a fort and consistent concern for fortification and structures.

In Dual Universe, just about anything players use will have been designed and constructed by players. Aside from the Arkship and the odd ‘relic’ if it’s something players use, it’s also something players made from scratch. Literally. No magic box for placing materials in then pressing a button and Poof! a hovercraft sits before you. Making stuff in Dual Universe will take time, more than a few people, materials and a bit of focus on the tasks at hand. Not to mention the design work needed to figure what needs building and the best way to go about it. For new designs this may result in the development of prototypes for testing and refinement. It all results in significant effort  and thought for creating the items and equipment and structures we intend on using.
  In time, and after experiencing sufficient loss, the things players go to lengths to create will take on a value beyond their utility. A person will think twice before doing away with an item, given what it took to bring the item into existence. This will only increase, likely exponentially, for larger structures like buildings, stations and large vehicles. The investment deepens as an organization grows and prospers through those creations.   That value will translate into wars as well. Organizations will seek to oust the owners of a given property rather than destroy it. Wars of ownership will be more prevalent than wars of destruction. Wars can even resolve with a treaty following a form of payment to the ousted owners in exchange for a transfer of ownership. The alternative would be complete destruction of said property, so cutting one's losses would likely take precedence. Only in the most prejudiced wars would annihilation be uniformly on the agenda.   That brings me to those players we have seen who only want to watch the world burn. This type of player will certainly get to do that in Dual Universe, a place where everything out there is built by players and therefore is vulnerable. I’m pretty sure they will be a minority, but of that percentage those players will have absolutely nothing to lose. Stations and ships will have their uses for them but only as a means to an ends. Once their usefulness is ended, these world burners will destroy it. Because of that they will be unlike the vast majority of players in Dual Universe who see the enduring value of what is made.   For the sake of this discussion I’ll call these world burners ‘Reavers,’ using Firefly terminology. I suspect if the Reavers in Dual Universe become too numerous that there will be wars against them and they’ll be pretty hard fought struggles. At stake will be literally everything out there not behind a perma-shield. That could actually become a historically significant event in Dual Universe. It could also turn cyclical.    In any case it’s something to think about.  

I've long had an interest in nomadic life, have read a fair number of books on nomads throughout history and even stayed in Mongolia for a month in '93. The most interesting fact about Mongolia for me was that no one owns the land. People can rent a patch of land to pitch their ger(Mongolian felt tent) on if they live in a township, but outside of that no one owns property per se. Among the Mongolians that still follow their herds what they own is seasonal and has to do with rights to pasture and water. In winter this also applies to shelter where extra hay is stored for the herds.
 
Here on earth nomads basically follow their herds to pasturage dependent on season and geography. This results in cyclical patterns of movement as the pasture is depleted and the herds move on to other pasturage. Nomads may alter these routes when other locales prove ideal for an upcoming season, but by and large these patterns take on a proprietary nature for a group of nomads. The routes of pasturage were often the cause of wars between nomadic peoples as droughts altered the geography. 
 
The sedentary peoples were often viewed with contempt by nomads. For one, they ate 'grass' like the herds due to farming for their food. Then they took up so much of the land as to deny space to move. In fact, sedentary people put claim on the land itself. Sedentary people were like vast herds of humans, stuck in the same pasture year round. A nomad found this extremely disgusting, even distressing to conceive. It was inhuman to consider such a life of filth and misery.
 
Now, how would this be translated into Dual Universe? I can see space-faring nomads here primarily because of the voxel-creation process. In Dual Universe, if you think of it you may very well be able to build it. Even ISS Wandering Mountain is on to this idea with a mobile station of sorts. Space-faring nomads will need 'pasturage' that can likely be found in asteroid belts, rather than planets, for easy access. Planets will have their uses for resources but asteroid belts will be far more accessible and less compromising in terms of combat(and maybe the gravity well will be a concern too). Asteroid belts may also vary in terms of what sort of ores and resources can be harvested. Maybe gas giants can be 'skimmed' for compounds in volume by nomadic skimmerships.
 
With space-faring nomads there is no limit other than finding resources for whatever you need. You can go where you please without concern of a logistics tether. There are many ways to envision such a group. One can consider the mothership idea that ISS Wandering Mountain aspires to but a series of smaller clan-ships might provide more flexibility as well as more tactical and operational options.
 

Hey, folks, just realized I'm still getting offers from orgs out there. Many thanks to you all! I have found an org, Objective Driveyards. It's pretty much what I was looking for, a good group. See you all out there, somewhere!

Or the Factional Warfare overview that sets corp/alliance and factional relationship over sec status. Lots of pirates in FW.

Anyone who has played KSP knows how important these are to building a stable craft.
Since DU claims to have realistic physics, these would very useful in the design process. The adjustor elements will probably help make up for off center thrust to a large degree, however many designers will want to make their ships as efficient as possible without relying on them for stabilization.

I'm sure there have been previous posts about PvE, but I want to share some of my ideas as to how PvE could work in Dual Universe. 
 
So in one of the early Dev Blogs, JC mentions NPCs in this quote: "
At this stage, it is not clear if we will have enough time until the alpha to implement NPC animals to come and bother you during the night, as well as serve as hunting preys. But that’s the idea, because you will need to feed yourself, and the nanoformer cannot make wood-based lunch for you!"
So based on this, it's clear that JC plans on the game to have a survival aspect to the game at some point, where hostile creatures will bother you in the night, like in Minecraft. I thought about how the PvE system would work if it was the same as it is in Minecraft, but the system of monsters spawning anywhere the light level is low wouldn't fit well with Dual Universe at all. Having monsters spawn in your skyscraper just because it's a little dark would be a huge annoyance, and would ruin the immersion that Dual Universe creates. 
 
So instead, I was thinking that hostile creatures could instead only be spawned in certain locations where a specific monster spawning block is generated. For example, this could be a giant nest that spawns a wasp-like creature that attacks players if they get too close to the nest. I think it would be interesting if these creatures behavior varied based on the species. For example you could have creatures that are extremely territorial, but are neutral otherwise. For other creatures, they could roam in packs like wolves, and attack anything they find. 
 
I think hostile creatures could become pretty important in various aspects of the game. For example, it creates an incentive to build shelters to survive the night, to build cities with walls protecting it, to create turrets to defend from monsters. It could also create a whole new profession, monster hunters. Maybe the game could spawn a nest of hostile monsters every couple weeks that creates a problem for a vulnerable settlement. These settlers don't have a group of powerful soldiers to eradicate the monster nest, so they hire a group to hunt these monsters and destroy them. (It could also create situations where you find abandoned towns due to monster infestation, which I think is pretty cool.) Also monster nests could be used as a rare material that's desirable, so monster hunter groups could also just hunt monster nests for the sake of getting the rare resource from it. (And of course the monster themselves could drop something somewhat useful, like food to help sustain the hunt.)
 
Of course, many issues arise from this system. For example, there needs to be a system that prevents a planet from being covered in monster-spawning nests, so maybe it could be limited to spawning within a certain radius of players. Maybe the higher the density of players in an area, the more powerful of a monster spawn-nest is created. Another issue is making sure there isn't too many monsters, so you obviously don't want the monster nest to continually spawn monsters that flood up the game, so as long as the monsters despawn when players aren't around, it should be fine.  
 
So what are your guys thought? Assuming there will be monsters eventually, what kind of system for monsters do you want Dual Universe to have? Also, what kind of hostile creatures do you want to see that would fit well with the lore of Dual Universe?

Usually in most games, you move items from an inventory to another easily, because they're not physically in the world. What I would like to see in DU, is a mix of "virtual items" and "real items". Examples:
 
-You have 1 kg of iron that you want to move into your ship cargo. You can store in in your personal inventory, move to the ship, and click-drag the iron into the cargo inventory (like in most games). 
 
-You have 10 ton of iron that you want to move into your ship cargo. Since your personal inventory is limited, you're likely going to use some kind of conveyor system
 
-You want to recharge your ship batteries. Usually would work like that: there's a physical element fixed into your ship called "battery", and a virtual item called "battery _%"; the battery element doesn't move, you would need to charge the virtual item using another element in your base, and then move it into your ship element "battery" by using your virtual inventory. 
What if instead we are able to move directly the "battery" element? Like if the nanoformer is able to detach an element from a grid, and let you replace it into another grid, mantaining all its specifics like energy amount % (battery), items stored (cargo), and so on. 
This would greatly improve the gameplay aspects, and the depth. This would create gameplay for:
-ship mantainance
-ship loading infrastructure
-physical cargo (imagine you want to sell like 100 already built batteries)
-ship design (ease to access to battery slots or other)
-combat (if a pirate is fighting vs a cargo with physical elements, he has to be careful to not break his loot)
-more
 
Why someone would want to move an already built battery instead of building a new one: building time, recharge time, etc... it just need to be more convenient, anything can be balanced. 
I'm not saying that anything has to be a physical item that exists in the gameworld, but just a few elements.

With Lua and 6 directions for thrust values, it could just as easily be something NQ decide the players are left to do. Maybe the market ends up with several options for controlling ships. You  could have TCS(Twerk Control System), RPC(Ripper Pilot Configuration) and KMP(Kuritho Maneuver Procedure) that each do more or less the same thing but using different key/mouse commands. Some may have specific commands for things like multi-planar rotations while other systems focus on simpler rotational solutions to accomplish the same end position. This in turn could influence ship designs and the type and strength of various thrusters on it, taking advantage of CoM to allow for faster maneuvering. It could get pretty complicated. Sounds like a market!

The other variable to this equation would be thrust itself. With 6 directions to work with it might be good to have a setting that lets the ship figure out orientation while you the player determine vector(direction/thrust).

Did a search to see if this had been discussed before. I'm all for 6DoF. I liked how EVE 'programmed' modes of flight with commands that allowed for orbits of specific radii or maintaining a specific distance from a target. Going manual might be a case of point and click then let the thrusters do their best to align along that vector as quickly as possible. Joystick flying might make sense in atmo/liquid  due to the aerodynamic/hydrodynamic forces and gravity and/or bouyancy minimizing the problem of thrust, but other than that mouse may be the best manual option. Or keys, if you need precise control over each DoF.

The point where it diverges from EVE is so long as I keep my comms off that frequency and remain cloaked in a ship of small enough mass, I'm not on anybody's radar, regardless of system. If there's a gate maybe I light up on ingress and egress but anywhere in between no one would have a clue unless I literally run into them or uncloak or initiate comms on an array's frequency.

I think this is a fantastic idea and a great addition to the academic fabric of our community. 

Hey great idea ! Good luck

This gets my seal of approval. +1

This is a grand idea! 
I bid you good luck sir!

Good stuff +1

I really think more academic organisations like yours should come out but its a specific niche and not everyone is interested in it, but you are doing awesome work and I definitely will be a subscriber if it comes to fruition