KlatuSatori
-
Posts
331 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by KlatuSatori
-
-
not necessarily instantaneous, but yes.
like a star trek warp drive for example.
You asked what freeform travel is, i gave you an answer.
That's not really an answer.
-
Please, no
There no better kill than friendly kill 
Beside this, absence of friendly fire make combat more tactical - 'cause if your friends are immune to your damage, what stop you from nuke whole battlefield from orbit?Of course some kind of friend-foe recognition can be use in automatic guarding system like turrets or barriers, but option to kill/injury anyone, regardless association, must stay!
Well what I mean is accidental friendly fire. There shouldn't be anything stopping you from locking your buddy and shooting him down.
Nothing's been said about area of effect weapons. There was a thread about space-ground bombardment and NQ said that it would not be possible at first, maybe in the long term. Found it: https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/388-few-questions-on-ship-and-ground-mecheanics/?hl=bombard#entry1933
-
I still cross my fingers on a TERA lock-on system. Still a lock-on, but not on a focus mode all the time. You still have to maintain the lock to deal damage, not fire and forget.
That's what I'm hoping for too. Or anything that has some kind of basic aiming requirement. I'm also hoping for some kind of friendly fire mechanism but that may be more difficult.
-
The combat system is still under development and there is very limited information on it so far. What we do know is that FPS style gameplay will not be possible because this game aims to make it possible for thousands of players to participate in a single battle simultaneously. To make this possible, some kind of target locking mechanism is required to minimise the strain on the server. This goes for any kind of combat whether it is in space, in the air, on the ground, in vehicles or not.Two posts, two different opinions. Can I ask someone (maybe from Alpha Team) for clarification?
Beyond that we can only give ideas, and wait for more information from the devs.
- nietoperek and Pantydraco
-
2
-
not necessarily instantaneous, but yes.
like a star trek warp drive for example.
Well Star Trek warp drives are completely different to what I was describing.
Do you mean any kind of travel between solar systems that does not require stargates?
-
Can someone please define "freeform" travel? Are you talking about how capital ships move between solar systems in Eve? I.e instantaneous travel without the use of stargates?
-
I suggest this system to prevent griefers from taking their nanoformers and just deconstructing your stuff. You and only you have rights to build (and deconstruct) your stuff. If there is no way to take stuff apart (not destroy) without build rights, then salvaging would be impossible. A claim system would be able to grant those rights to someone who is actually going to use that construct.
Also I did give an example of "stop me if you can"...
So your idea is designed around an assumption that deconstruction of constructs that are in use will be a problem? If so then you're speculating a bridge too far. We have no idea if that will be a problem, and it would be far better to design the system such that it is theoretically possible, but not a problem than to artificially prevent it with patch up mechanics.
That was not an example of "stop me if you can", it was an example of spamming a claim button. Here are some examples of "stop me if you can".
- threaten me with your faster, stronger vehicle or affiliations
- shoot at me
- ram me
- destroy the salvage
- negotiate a deal
- get to it first
- have a friend who gets to it first
- be otherwise inventive
- ???
These things do not require a claim button.
-
Duplicate (sorry!)
-
So, pretty much, a faction has its own currency. Let's say I create the Lollipop Confedarate and I make my currency be the Lollipop Dollar. Then I set prices for your goods and thhrough much war and many conquests, I set up a larger empire with a larger market for players to trade, making my currency have value for other players. It's all emergent. That is, if the Devs allow us to make our own currency, with possibly a tab tracking the amount of said currency in circulation, along with other currencies, so we could keep track of inflation as well. I mean, it's another thing to say 100 USD and another to say 100 Canadian Dollar.
I made a suggestion like this way back. It's on the first page of the market economy devblog thread https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/21-devblog-from-barter-to-market-economy/?hl=economy
Got this response:
Currently, there is no plan to enable players to create their own currency, for several reasons:
- Risk of imbalance: If there is something that needs to be stable for a sandbox game, this is the in-game economy.
- Development priority: Many features are quite long to develop (even the basic ones). And as this type of game mechanics implies a complex game design behind it in order to work well, it would cost a lot of development time. And for now, it's far from being in priorities
- Fun to play: We are not entirely convinced that enabling players to create their own money would be fun on the long run, nor really very easy to understand and master for most of the players (look how the economy in real life is complexified just by that). While we don't want to go "mainstream" in the game design of Dual Universe, we don't want either to go for a game that will only appeal to a very small population of players. We also need numbers to create a MMORPG full of player-driven stories!
- Anaximander and Halo381
-
2
-
So here is my suggestion. Whoever wishes to salvage the wreckage will have to "claim" it. The wreckage will remain in a "claiming" state for X amount of time. After that, all rights within the wreckage will transfer to the claiming player. Should another player interrupt the claim with a competing claim, the countdown will restart with a new claim in the name of the interrupting player. The amount of time X would depend on the amount of voxels in the construct: bigger constructs take longer to claim.
This shouldn't be limited to wreckage. An abandoned, but functional construct should be a valid target for a claiming system. It's a naval tradition. You found it first, crew's gone or dead, so it's yours.
This would allow for interesting interactions. Either the two opposing players could sit next to the wreckage, claiming it back and forth until one player loses patience and abandons the wreck. One player could initiate combat to either scare away or kill the other player.
I don't see the need for such an artificial claiming system. Salvage should just be fair game. If you don't want me to take it, stop me, however you can, if you can. That allows for far more interesting and numerous interactions than two players standing next to each other spamming a "claim item" button.
While on the topic of wreckage, wrecks tend to be adrift. So what about some sort of tractor beam device and/or a magnetic harpoon which would allow wreckage to be towed out of dangerous areas. Other things could be towed too, like mostly intact ships with missing thrusters, or a modular piece of construction for a space station. A towing mechanism would go hand in hand with the role of a salvage yard.
The ability to tow is a good idea. Whether on a planet or in space players should be able to design and build constructs designed to carry or tow salvage.
There's also the issue of servers and load. A huge wreck after a big battle might leave wrecks and pieces floating everywhere, so after a certain time, the server should delete them. It should be a fairly long timer to allow players to recover/salvage what's left.
But this presents the problem of what is a wreckage and what isn't? It might be easy to say as a human, but not so much for a server. An abandoned or unpowered ship might simply be awaiting repairs in the shipyard. Or a strangely shaped construct might be doing what it was intended to do. Or a base might just be so simple that it has no elements to speak of. A completely functional ship could be treated as garbage if the owner decided to quit playing the game and leave it floating in space.
Yes, that is definitely a can of worms waiting to be opened. I guess anything that has some element still functioning shouldn't be removed, but constructs designed without any functioning element would have to remain regardless. They could also throw in a manual "abandon construct" button, which flags that it is a valid target for removal from the server.
Ideally, only wreckage would be removed from the server and abandoned constructs would remain. Not sure if that's realistic.
-
You see it as a strawman arguement because you are only seeing from your PoV since you think it is a good idea and I see it from my PoV.
If you like a person's post and thinks he should be rewarded financially, send him an forum email and PayPal him. Let's NOT make the forum a source of revenue for players, like what YouTube/Stream sites has become.
Game time is hardly revenue. That's like saying making in-game credits in order to purchase a PLEX is generating revenue.
-
I don't really get the naysaying here. You have to pay to give out the stars so you're only going to give them to quality posts. Spam posts are not likely to get you any gold. I imagine good gameplay guides and suggestions are most likely to get gold.
-
The problem is not with freeform travel, but with fast travel. The style is not important. Population density of regions of a virtually unlimited game universe is dependent on what volume of space is accessible in a given time frame, how easy it is to detect the presence of other players, and the value and caring capacity of various pockets of space.And how will allowing for "freeform" travel accommodate the immersion of having worlds feel alive, if everyone can just immediately fly off into deep space without ever needing to interact with another player? If everyone can just have their own planet without any real effort, there won't be any of that immersion.
Edit: "freeform" travel doesn't have to be a solo experience. It can be a rich multiplayer experience, especially for long journeys. If there are survival, maintenance, discovery and other issues to deal with a long interstellar journey could be an awesome multiplayer experience.
-
I'd personally scrap the freeform jumpdrive.
Stargates get you to your destination, with or without arrival gate (a lot harder without, though).
"Jumpdrives" (if available) can get you /to/ an already existing jumpgate without needing its (explicit) cooperation.
So you can get /to/ systems in range of a jumpgate with any kind of ship, from the smallest to the largest ones.
Getting back is harder because you either have to build a jumpgate on the other end or take a jumpdrive with you.
would allow relatively easy exploration while limiting the population spread and concentrating traffic to established hubs.
Also encouraging cooperation because gates will be expensive and the only way to get anywhere and getting back needs another gate or a jumpdrive enabled carrier
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "scrap the freeform jumpdrive". I didn't think anyone had suggested that... but then you go on to suggest a semi-freeform jumpdrive, unless I've misunderstood you. I'm not really sure how you came to your conclusion of it helping keep people concentrated either.
All I will say is that when it comes to travel, exploration is not the only consideration. Easy travel is the bane of strategic warfare.
-
Exploration will still take the same amount of time whether you use a stargate seed ship or a crewed exploration vessel. They still have to use some sort of slow, continuous FTL travel to get to where they want to go. The only difference is that once explored, the stargates allow immediate traversal to the furthest reaches of explored space.
It sounds like stargates do a better job of keeping a community connected rather than splitting it up. No matter where you are, the stargate can take you straight back to Alioth or nearby. Back to civilization. Back to a central trading hub.
Exploration will take roughly the same amount of time whether using a probe or a crewed vessel, unless the crewed vessel has reasons to stop along the way. A crewed vessel, once at their destination can then build a stargate, so that's not really a difference. The real difference is that crewed vessels make for exciting gameplay, whereas probes are afk. You send it on its way and do something else until it gets to its destination.
-
The game universe had been described as "virtually limitless". And a single planet has literally trillions of voxels. If you can travel multiple light years per hour it would be easy to find a remote place where no one will ever find you by spending a few days traveling into the distance. Make it a couple of weeks of travel if you really really want to be sure you'll never be found. Then build your base on an insignificant planet underground. Chances are no one will ever visit your system, let alone find you.That will never happen. Players will keep exploring and colonizing for quite a while at good speed, like 2-3 years from release. Even if a pve player could manage to get there first, someone is gonna find him soon. To avoid players the ony option is to constantly escape.
After a few years, the colonizing aspect of the game could slow down, because the game could reach hsi top population, and there'll be enough planets for everyone. In this case a pve player could try to setup a base in a unpopulated system, someone will still find him, but maybe in a year.
Look at elite dangerous. Travel a couple of thousand light years out and virtually every system you come across had never been visited before.
-
But the point is light years vs light hours which are on the order of 10,000 times smaller. This is where the whole problem lies. Interplanetary distances are thousands of times smaller than interstellar distances.
-
I got 4.25LY from Wikipedia for Proxima Centauri. Just checked NASA's site and it says Proxima Centauri is 4.22LY and Alpha Centauri A and B are about 4.35LY.
-
To my shame i have to say that i got my numbers wrong, its 5.4 light hours and a factor 7000 xD
Well Pluto has a highly elliptical orbit so it actually ranges between 4.1 light-hours and 6.8 light hours. However Pluto's not actually a planet. The furthest planet is Neptune, which is about 4.2 light hours from the sun. Proxima Centauri about 4.25 light years from earth.
Anyway that's all kind of irrelevant because the order of magnitude was correct which is the only thing that matters for the purpose of illustrating your point. You seemed to want accurate numbers though so I helped
-
To your first paragraph, that's not really gameplay, it's not much different from a probe.Let's suppose that when a player log off, the character disappear. You're moving only if you're online. That would take way more than a probe automatically moving 24h/24. So you'd need some sort of "bed" so that you have the option, to mantain your character ingame, even when you're offline. In that case, you could setup some sort of autopilot. This means that you could check that character once a day, while traveling for 1-2 months, while still playing on another character, doing whatever you want in the meantime. This would reduce the boring aspect of exploration.
Still, a big part of the time required, could be just about getting closer to the outer orbit of the star of your system, so you'd dock on those, and in this way you'd have something to do (acquiring resources, informations, equipment, ....) (you may even sign a transport contract to move something to some planet on the edge of the system, and then you could modify your ship for a couple of days, and then start the trip). That could be the contents you're asking for. Then, not every system should be 2 months of travel away, it depends on the size of the system, that depends on the size of the star. Some may be just 2 weeks away. You'd need a better ship, equipment and technologies to travel for longer periods.
Ofc stuff like "having to stop the ship and dispatch your solar panel to recharge some energy", "being able to design stuff in the virtual simulator, that you can reach from your ship", "having the chance to find precious materials in some asteroids in the deep space" or stuff like that, could give the player something to do in the meanwhile
But the rest of your post has good suggestions. I mean I think the journey to the outer solar system is really only a fraction of the total journey time, but still this kind of preparation could be interesting.
Your last paragraph is more what I'm thinking of. Running the ship, maintaining and improving survival aspects, building in the simulator and finding rogue planets and asteroid belts. Even better would be if they are significant enough that you can actually settle right there in deep space. In this way you could have various strategies for exploring deep space - living off the "land" vs taking everything but the kitchen sink and a large multi-timezone population, etc.
And yes, I totally agree that journeys could be of variable length and longer journeys would require a better strategy. If there are rogue planets some journeys could be really short - say just a couple of days or even hours - if you get lucky and find one not too far away. Obviously that wouldn't be as grand a prize as a whole solar system, but it is a stepping stone towards that goal.
-
Anyway, for a system like this to work, scanning needs to be relatively easy and affordable, avoid being scanned, needs to be hard. If there's always a way to hide some stuff, or if to scan it properly requires a ridicolous effort (like scanning manually), a defensive system around a city would never work. it would not be reliable enough to be worth it.
Yes I understand that which is why I was thinking that the system of protecting yourself from scans should be very difficult. If the mass and size of material required to shield a 1 sq m item from a cargo scanner doubles the size and mass of a 1-5 man vehicle, and you need to keep yourself small to remain hidden from view, and moving fast to limit exposure in order to keep your operation secret and status with the owning faction friendly, then it will be very difficult to run this kind of operation en masse.
Then there may also be a way to have sensors report that a friendly vehicle was spotted at a certain location. If this happens regularly then someone may get suspicious and go to investigate.
-
Cargo scanners could have a limited range, so you'd need to place them properly around the perimeter without leaving any "hole". Then, they may be expensive in terms of energy consumption, so you'd create less, on a few entrances, and the perimeter would be closed by a wall (you'd need to cover the roof of your base too, for a perfect, closed system). With a good system in place like this, you shouldn't be able to hide anything, because is what happens IRL (you can hide stuff, but with a good system in place, you can't. In an airport they would even check inside your body for drugs, if they think there's need to).
So this would require building skills, to create, and ofc would influence the design of the city (you don't just build crazy stuff with no funcionality, but only because they're cool).
Another thing that could be added, is that with a fast enough ship, you could be able to avoid being scanned. in this case, with some LUA scripting, should be possible to set an alarm, if you enter inside without being scanned. Then what? The automated defenses start shooting. So, you may find a blind spot, to avoid the bullets (and even here, this would mean that designing a good defensive system isn't just placing turrets randomly) or in alternative, you just know you have a limited time. Since this is an MMO, your ship doesn't necessarily get destroyed that fast, so you could drop a container for an accomplice, and leaev before getting destroyed (more multiplayer activities). A simple game design choice, could benefit different parts of the gameplay. And all I said isn't hard to add to the game.
I like the ideas here.
What would you think about also making cargo scanners limited in terms of penetration. So a certain thickness of certain heavy materials cannot be scanned through, but they make your vehicle slow and cumbersome. The only thing that can then detect what's behind the curtain is a manual check by a player.
Could you just bypass all guns in this case? Well it depends. Maybe defender turrets are set up to fire on all players without a friend tag. So you'd need to already be friendly to make this kind of smuggling operation work.
Just another thought/option.
-
@Cavadus
I can sympathise with your position but without stargates it will be hard not to have a divided player base. Either you make interstellar travel fast, and then players spread out to hundreds of systems, or you make it really slow, and people rarely travel between systems.
If you have really slow initial travel to new star systems, but then some means of connecting those systems for fast travel, then you have the beginnings of a solution to that problem.
Then you need to solve the problem of that initial slow travel to new systems. Personally I would prefer to make interstellar space filled with content so that there's a reason to be in between systems. That way it can still take weeks or months to get to a new system without making the journey empty.
I think if you limit stargate capabilities and range, and also make them destructible then it's not such a big problem.
-
Example planet (30km radius): https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/296-devblog-territory-control/
Voxel and planet size: https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/14-voxel-tools-pre-alpha-game-design/
So it seems the largest planets will be made up of around 4E15 voxels, each of which can be split into 64 pieces for building purposes. That is a lot! NQ have said that there will be a limit to how deep you can go in a planet though, so many will be inaccessible. Even so, the top, surface layer alone will have around 1E11 voxels on the largest planets. That is still a crazy number.Hi Kiklix!
You're totally right. The smaller the voxels are, the more performance issues you have.
We had to make some tough choices, and we think we have come to a good compromise:
- Voxels on any planet will have a size around 100 centimeters.
- Constructs made by players will be composed with 25 centimeters Voxels permitting better precision.
Granted, this is still bigger than Landmark, but in exchange you have mobile constructs
And for the planets, well, you will have some up to 100 km radius (which means a bit more than 125 000 km2 !)
Feel free to check my numbers and tell me I'm wrong...
Am I alone in thinking that Stargate Probes are a bad idea?
in The Gameplay Mechanics Assembly
Posted
I then asked for clarification, "Do you mean any form of interstellar travel that does not require stargates?" and for some reason you refused to simply say "Yes."