KlatuSatori
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Posts posted by KlatuSatori
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I wonder if Lua scripting will come into play with piloting, especially with larger ships. From simple scripts that change the attitude of the ship to fit the requirement of a course change, to more complicated ones that adjust ship settings and perform pre-programmed manoeuvres.
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Doesn't that tactic come straight out of Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War?
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based on what i have read there will be players on the ground and in space and it is all on the same server.
Well, it is all on a single continuous instance or shard, i.e. one single, seemless game world.
Say there is someone on the ground in some city they have built, how will the mechanic of players on the ground and players on ships work? Will players in the ships be able to unload heavy ordinance onto a ground based target? Or will there be a mechanic to protect ground based players that are just getting their feet wet?I'm not sure if NQ have ever explicitly announced that there will be space-ground and ground-space interaction in battles but I think it is fair to assume that it is their aim to include it. Hopefully Nyz will make a statement about it in this thread at some point.
So assuming that spacecraft/orbital platforms will be able to bombard ground targets with heavy ordnance, there will undoubtedly be counter measures that ground positions can fire into space at those ships/platforms. From an early devblog, "the game design should also be very careful to always add a counter-power to every power you grant in the game." Nyz has also said that rock/paper/scissors is something they plan for the game.
Something else that is planned for the game which you can read about here, here and here is that you will be able to set up automated defenses. So for example you might have a huge plasma gun deployed in the centre of your city that automatically fires on any ships or stations in space that come within a certain range and don't have the right permissions to be there. In the case of spaceships who do have the right permissions turning on you and firing without warning, you could also program those defenses to fire on anything in space that is firing on or around it.
There's also the arkship secure zone which stops all forms of violence within its sphere of influence and the possibility for players to set up similar secure zones (see here and here). This type of defense will not be widely available though.
Something to note is that the combat mechanics have not yet been set in stone and we don't have a lot of information about it yet. But it's safe to say that no matter how powerful certain tactics or abilities may be, there will be sufficient counters to them.
- Atmosph3rik and Goemoe
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In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out the devblogs if you haven't already. You'll get a good sense of what is trying to be achieved here and all of the entries are interesting reads. And if you're anything like me and others who participate on this forum, you'll be hooked.
Welcome to Dual Universe.
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I started a thread that discusses war and battles and has a section on weaponry here https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/281-diversity-of-battles-and-wars/.
Nyz's comments on the topic:
NQ-Nyzaltar, on 03 Jun 2015 - 4:42 PM, said:
We are thinking about weapon families, with each type of weapon very efficient in some cases and not very efficient in others. Right now we plan to have at least 4 different types of damage, but it might still change in the future.
@Semigod I also talk about friendly fire in that thread and get a response from Nyz if you're interested.
Anyway, I'm glad you started this thread, because it's good to put ideas out. My opinion is that the more types of damage and types of weaponry there are, the better.
Damage Types
My ideas for damage types are:
Kinetic - objects with mass and velocity colliding with you;
Thermal-heatThermal-cold?
Radiative - radioactivity, this might be from a radioactive source, or a weapon that fires a particle beam of gamma rays, or a radioactive chain reaction (I.e. a nuclear explosion)
Explosive - any kind of explosive force
Electromagnetic - affecting electronic equipment and power sources onlyWeapon Families
Chemically Propelled Projectiles (i.e. "normal" guns)
Main advantages: relatively small, you can fit a lot on your vehicle; doesn't require a power source; can run right through energy shielding; space to ground potential? If so, highly inaccurate
Main disadvantages: poor performance all around; needs ammo; comparatively limited range
Hard counter: ArmourEM Propelled Projectiles (i.e. railguns, note these wouldn't do EM damage)
Main advantages: powerful; energy shielding can't stop them; space to ground as above
Main disadvantages: needs a lot of energy; needs a lot of ammo
Hard counter: Heavy armourMissiles (i.e. guided explosives)
Main advantages: Chase down their targets (aiming not an issue); can break armour and not stopped by shielding; no energy source needed;
Main disadvantages: Relatively slow rate of fire; needs ammo; space missiles and in atmosphere missiles separate
Hard counter: point defense systemsParticle beams (e.g. lasers, phasors, particle cannons)
Main advantages: no ammo, continuous beam; high concentrated damage; very accurate, can pinpoint target systems; excellent range; space to ground and ground to space capabilities
Main disadvantages: needs energy source
Hard counter: energy shieldingPlasma Weapons
Main advantages: Very high damage potential, can go through energy shielding and armour quite quickly; good range; space to ground and ground to space capabilities
Main disadvantages: needs ammo, needs a lot of energy, very big, needs a lot of space
Hard counter: none, but if you're mounting these on your vehicle then it will have some glaring vulnerabilitiesBombs (3 kinds: droppable, plantable timed, plantable remote)
Main advantages: good damage potential; can go through point defense, armour and shielding; can explode inside a target, space to ground capability
Main disadvantages: droppable difficult to aim, plantable needs infiltration and can be diffused
Hard counter: none but the disadvantages should be enoughMines (essentially plantable bombs that are proximity triggered)
Main advantages: same as bombs but also difficult to detect
Main disadvantages: static, once planted can't be moved;
Hard counter: mine sweepers; anything that can sweep mines should have virtually no offensive or defensive capabilityCloaking devices: not a damage dealing weapon but still a weapon nonetheless. If your ship mounts one of these then it would have had to sacrifice virtually all other forms of defense; I.e cloaked ship = glass cannon. Only work in space, maybe
Hard counter: scanners; as the antithesis of cloaking devices, vehicles that mount these will have had to sacrifice virtually all of their offensive capabilityElectromagnetic pulse (EMP)
Main advantages: damages electronic equipment and energy sources within a limited radius, fires through energy shielding and armour
Main disadvantages: knocks out your own electronic equipment too; useless against non-electronic equipment
Hard counter: heavy metal encasementsEach of the headings above would be a family of weapons, and each would possibly have a family of ammo if ammo is required.
Regarding damage types, which Nyzaltar mentions there, I think they should be very careful about allowing weapon families to have variations that include any damage type. So my opinion is that all missiles, bombs and mines should be around 80% explosive damage, the other 20% can vary depending on the missiles you have loaded. All projectiles should do around 90% kinetic damage. Plasma weapons should do a combination of thermal and kinetic damage. And particle beam weapons should only be able to do thermal and radiative damage. My reasoning here is to keep the hard counters to these weapons consistent while also avoiding a situation where all weapons become essentially the same. If you have these kinds of strict limitations on damage types that can be dealt by each weapon family, and damage types that can be blocked by defenses, then there are always counters, there is always rock/paper/scissors and tough decisions to be made. If you have an extremely powerful armada of spaceships with nothing but shields and projectile weapons, you will be totally owned by a smaller force that did its homework and built ships with armour and missiles.
So a quick addendum on defenses:
Armour: absorbs mainly kinetic damage, plus a little explosive
Energy Shields: absorbs thermal and radiative damage
Point defense: shoots down missiles
Cloaking device: renders its bearer invisible
Scanners: can detect cloaked vehicles
Mine sweepers: can detect and diffuse minesOh and by the way I love the ramming idea. I was watching The Expanse the other day and a ship fired a small pots hard into an enemy ship, embedding itself into the hull. The pod was packed with a boarding crew. Pretty sure they would all have been crushed by the impact but, well, you know, science fiction and stuff.
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Sounds like all you need is a second Death Star with nothing but fuel in it to move the thing. I could live with that
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Here's a quick explanation about how we are planning to monetize the game:
We assume we will have two global types of players:
1) Those who have a lot of available time to play the game but not necessarily a lot of money to spend in games (example: students)
2) Those who haven't a lot of available time to play the game but have a bigger budget to spend in games (example: people already working and having a family)
Let's say category 1 players like the game gather a lot of in-game money... but they have a problem: the cost of the monthly subscription.
Let's say category 2 players like the game and pay the monthly subscription... but they have a problem: they haven't enough time to play to gather the amount of in-game money they need to enjoy their favorite activities.
There is type of player that is missed out in this analysis. Players who don't have a large disposable income and don't have a lot of spare time either. There are a lot of people that fall into this category. A median or lower salary, a spouse and two kids covers a lot of people. In my opinion these people are locked out by this system.
Let me say again: I support strongly a P2P model, and having means to convert between in-game currency and game time, but something new and more inclusive would be most welcome.
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@Hylios, it's not selfish. You represent a demographic of potential customers who can and do put in a lot of hours of gaming. Likewise I represent a demographic who don't have that much spare time.
30-40 hours of gameplay is the minimum I would expect from a game that cost ?40/?50/$60 at launch but those are also flexible hours. I can play those hours in two days, or in two years depending on the time I have available, and I can always revisit the game whenever I like at any time in the future.
Paying ?20/?25/$28 a month for a game that you only get to play for about 20 hours is not justifiable when you're on a tight budget and have to balance work, family and personal time.
And yet, it probably is a very fair price for someone like Hylios who plays nearly 200 hours a month.
So the more I think about it the more I think tariffs are the way to go. Here's an example pricing model.
?20/?25/$28 - 1 month unlimited access
?10/?12.50/$14 - 1 month access up to 50 hours playing time
?5/?6.25/$7 - 1 month access up to 20 hours playing time
Playing time top ups at ?0.50/?0.63/$0.70 per hour for if you run out before the end of the month.
You could argue that you may find you get more customers this way as people who would not or could not subscribe at ?20/month for whatever reason - be it time or money availability or a combination of both - may subscribe at ?5/month.
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I am for P2P too but at ?10/month max. New games tend to cost ?40 flat fee so more than ?10/month is excessive, especially for people that are only able to play 20-30 hours a month due to life. Which leads to a thought - paying by the hour instead of the month. Say 100 hours of game time for ?40 for example (off the top of my head). Though there are all sorts of potential issues that could crop up with that, I'm sure.
Or you could combine monthly subscription with actual usage kind of like with phone tariffs. For example ?5 a month allows you to play 20 hours a month, ?30/month is unlimited, and more options in between, with options to top up your monthly allowance if you overused this month.
@BatGojko the paying with in-game currency idea comes from Eve Online and wouldn't lose the developer any money. The way it works is that players can buy game time from the dev for real money, which they can then either add to their account, or convert to an in-game item that represents game time (in Eve it is an item called a Pilot's Licence Extension or PLEX). You then put this item up on the in-game market for sale. So basically some players pay for other players' game time in exchange for in game currency.
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Welcome to the family
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Welcome, mere semigod. Glad to have you.
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It's always exciting to see another devblog! It looks like you're putting together a powerful and versatile set of tools.
Are any of the three types of safe zones confirmed? Is the virtual simulator essentially a creative mode where you have access to all standard parts or perhaps all unlocked or discovered parts, which you can use to create your own blueprint? Then build it in the real world by gathering the required materials, etc? If so I think it's a great idea. The others are also great ideas if done right, but I've already given my ideas on that elsewhere.
Are the elements fixed and unmodifiable? Or will it be possible to change their shape, size, color, material, etc? Will players be able to create their own versions of these elements?
EDIT: BTW I think it's a very smart move to implement constructive gameplay elements before destructive ones.
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honestly, i'd rather have archaeologists find damaged items of any kind, which can be processed by scientists to learn the blueprint of some parts of that item, leading to slightly more efficient parts to build stuff with, improved capacitors etc. Or they can find new alloys, a "new old" combination of materials to create certain items which would improve the overall structure etc.
Maybe rarely still functioning items, but honestly, the chance to find still functional high tech items in ruins is not very feasable.
Point taken and I like your ideas. I see no reason why all of these types of finds along with other similar ideas can't be included in the game.
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I've only just got around to reading all five parts of the short story, and I wanted to say that it sounds excellent. Plus, it's a great and original way to reveal gameplay elements and features.
* The reward stated in the short story should be taken with a pinch of salt:- We are still in early conceptualization phase for the "rewards" players will get from this kind of interaction.- We still need to discuss internally what the possible rewards could be while pondering it with consistency and balance concerns.- For these reasons, rewards from the mysterious civilization can change drastically as game development progress.Here are some points we raise internally and we would like to know your opinion on this:- While there could be some hidden reasons, do you consider the fact to find blueprints by this manner ok? or do you find it a bit "too convenient" (lore-wise)?- For the time being, items made in kyrium are meant to be indestructible. Is it fine from your point of view? or do you think this could be an issue?- We want to make rewards earned this way very special and unique (not something that you can mine or buy to a NPC). Do you have some other ideas on the subject?Also, a few things that are not consistency issues in the Lore (consider it "works as intended"
):- Kyrium is a strange matter from which arkships are partly made of.- How to make Kyrium is a complete mystery: No colonist have any memory about the fabrication process of this material.- Kyrium is obviously found on Alioth and there's no way humans were here before the Arkship landing.Best regards,Nyzaltar.Lore-wise, perhaps it is a little convenient, but I can suspend disbelief if this is the type of reward you decide to give.
I think there are serious potential issues with providing people with a source of indestructible units, and those issues are not solved by making those materials rare and random. Just some of the issues I can think of off the top of my head:
- the rewards for hitting the jackpot while exploring will skew the popularity of that profession
- the lucky few who get these indestructible units/materials blueprints will have something of a monopoly on that unit which detracts from competitiveness in the free market which is a major aspect of the game
- nothing anyone else can design will be as good as an indestructible unit so there will be little point trying to compete in that field of construction/design
- new lucky discoveries of this kind has the potential to change the course of even large scale wars if sprung at critical moments - this is not a good thing in this type of game which should reward planning, strategy and tactics rather than luck
I actually had some vague ideas for archaeology and discovery of alien artifacts a few weeks ago that I never got around to sharing. Rather than having a completed blueprint handed to you, have the discovery of alien items. These items will be found alone - a single item at a time. Now this item will have amazing stats in one or two areas, average stats in other areas, and poor stats in a couple of other areas, but overall will have a higher number of stat points than normal. In an extremely simplified example, let's say a proton gun is a typical energy weapon with stats like so:
Damage: 7
Rate of fire: 2s
Mass: 5
Hitpoints: 4
Heat limit: 50
Ammo per load: 10
An alien proton gun might have stats like this:
Damage: 15
Rate of fire: 0.2s
Mass: 6
Hitpoints: 3
Heat limit: 35
Ammo per load: 100
Like I said, an extremely simplified example but hopefully it illustrates what I'm getting at.
Now, archaeologists who make these discoveries have a choice. They can use these items for themselves, sell them on the open market, or use them to design and/or build improved blueprints/units. This process, however, is destructive, and the rewards to the stats of the unit you're designing are much less pronounced than in the weapon itself. In the example above, if you try to make a better proton gun using the alien gun, you might end up building a gun that improves damage to 10 and rate of fire to 1.5s. So you can have a single, unique, awesome unit, or you can destroy it in exchange for the ability to build slightly better than normal units in any quantity you have the capacity for.
I see these artifacts as being randomly generated. What needs to be randomly generated? First the unit type, then the unit size, then which stat(s) are improved, then the amount of improvement of that stat, then the stat(s) that are deteriorated, then the level of deterioration of that stat (which should always be less than the level of improvement), and finally the name of the unit. So the permutations are for all intents and purposes unlimited. And some artifacts will be far more useful than others.
Obviously this needs to fit in with the building and designing process that you guys are working on, so my exact implementation is undoubtedly not right, but perhaps you can adapt the general idea if you like it. Lore-wise there's clearly no longer any problem.
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The Skill system won't block your character in one or two specialization. Basically, there will be nothing to prevent your character to be a "Jack of All Trades". Most skills will be easy to learn, but hard to master. It will all depend how much time you want to allocate to train in a specific skill. If you know the EvE Online skill system, then you should have a pretty good idea about what we are planning
From the multiplayer ship crew thread. Bear in mind that was almost a year ago, pretty early in development so who knows if it will change.
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I'm with Ellegos on this. Having alts that specialise in different things is one thing, but having them online at the same time, helping each other out defeats the purpose. Basically, I'm strongly against multiboxing in all shapes and forms. If a task can be done more efficiently with two or three toons than with one that should necessarily mean you need two or three players in order to gain that efficiency. I'd love to see a response from Nyz on this topic.
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I'm an Elite player, when I get the chance. DU will be a very different beast to anything that's out there, I think. Welcome to the family
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Timey-wimey. I see what you did there @Klatu.
A cosmic speed limit would certainly either limit the distance between planets or significantly increase travel time between, that is, if you want to stay true to speed- distance-time relationship. A few light-years away and already you're at one or two years of travel time.
However, I also understand the wish to observe the laws of physics, so probably if you want systems and galaxies the size of Elite's, timey-wimey or FTL is the way to go. We should also question the flight abilities of the Arkship...is that FTL or capable of warping, or did it just depend purely on cryo-freezing to get the colonists to Alioth?
I was actually thinking that "normal" travel would be as I described, but that you'd also have a different kind of engine (call it warp, FTL, Alcubierre, whatever) which can effectively break the speed limit for all practical purposes.
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newtonian? pls, we are in space and can build objects as big as planets (theoretically), we need relativity
Funny you say that I've been thinking about this lately. Maybe not the timey-wimey stuff, that's just too trippy, but the cosmic speed limit. So instead of F=ma, use E=mc^2/(sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2)). i.e. as speed increases and gets closer to c it's gets harder and harder to increase speed more. This is all nicely self balancing and doesn't require weird speed limits like in Eve and Elite. Also, just imagine massive space battles if you've got engines good enough to propel little fighters up to 80% of c, hundreds of them zooming around the solar system...
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Seriously though, I was hoping for a system that was semi universal. Like we use the same currency, but the "auction houses" are not linked. Exploration would be encouraged if you learned the best X was made by a player on planet Y.
That's what I'm hoping for as well and it seems that something like that is what is planned. OP quotes the devblog on "Information Units" which are used to see what prices are in different markets from a distance. I would like to see the range of Information Units to be quite limited, but really we don't know anything about how they work yet.
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Central Trade Hub - While this topic may be a little pre-mature, I am hoping as we get more information in the future anything we discuss on this can begin to be fleshed out. Eve Online has a many trade hubs, but THE trade hub is known as Jita. Anything and everything can be found there. While DU will be a different game in its own right, should we as the first players look in to trying to create a centralized trade hub int he early stages of the game? By a collective effort from the community, we could easily create said market. Or, we could let things happen naturally. The latter will happen either way, and throughout different regions. What are your thoughts?
It will be really interesting to see how this goes down. It makes sense to have a centralised trading hub where a significant percentage of the entire game's trading takes place. It is mainly a convenience issue, like supermarkets.
In Eve, Jita is so damn huge because it is a high sec system where piracy is not always profitable and has consequences, because goods in stations are perfectly safe, and because it is easily accessible.
In DU, things will be a little different and perhaps a little more complicated. A central trade hub will have to be in the/an ASA or in an arkified territory (if they happen), in order to keep goods safe. However, Jita is convenient for most because it's reachable from anywhere on the map in less than an hour, but it sounds like DU will be a lot bigger than Eve. Once players start living on different planets, it seems unlikely that that same trading hub on planet A will still be the convenient place to go to do your shopping. So then perhaps you'll have big hubs on a per planet basis, with the size of the hub related to how many people actually live on the planet.
And then there is off-worlders. People who live in space and for whom travelling down to a planet is an inconvenience or a once every now and then affair. These players will prefer trading hubs that are IN SPACE. We don't know if there will be any way to make space stations perfectly safe, yet space stations will undoubtedly be the most convenient place to have a trading hub for many players once the game reaches a certain stage in its evolution.
There will obviously still be a "largest trading hub in the game", but I think it will contain a much smaller percentage of the game's total trade volume than Jita does in Eve. And I think it will be far more interesting to have hubs of different kinds that meet different people's needs and in different areas of the galaxy with comparable volumes being traded.
Piloting
in Idea Box
Posted
Assuming we're right on the flexibility of assigning buttons and lever to complex lua scripts, there are some very interesting possibilities available. On large ships you can have lua scripts that allow the main controls to be overriden by support controls in another section of the ship - security against boarding parties!