Barbecue95

Pve BOSS feedback (event)
1) Announcement. Every player should know an event is happening. Notified Monday while event is on Saturday is minimal notice we should get. In game notices + social + discord
2) Boss needs to do voxel damage, event loses all the difficulty without it. Can be discussed. At min all ships MUST take element damage to encourage repair/loss.
3) Time zones : Lock down mechanics or multiple spawns (Sat/Sun) in different time zones to get all involved. More info at bottom of post
4) Rewards. I believe a community discussion should be involved as to exactly how/why but each person should feel rewarded. Not only time but for assets used
5) If rewards are quanta/physical objects an x amount of damage should be involved to get rewards to prevent people cycling through alts on a ship
6) Mega laser should swap between it ALL ammo types. This prevents people from pushing resists against the aliens main weapon.
7) PVE vs pvepvp. If the boss is spawned in pve area the difficulty needs to be higher (higher damage/health) to make it challenging. Pvp = more rewards (not exclusive rewards)
8 ) Boss shield resist should auto adjust to damage its taking to prevent the community from bringing highest dps weapon to overwhelm it 
9) If Pve enemies (like ones in instance fights) were spawned around the boss attacking ppl the battle would be A LOT more fun

Time zones are always a pain in global games, du being a very global game it's important to strike a balance. I have 2 main suggestions

1) Lock down. Example being boss spawns EU timezone Sat, this will encourage EU time zone players to go lock the core down (damage = reward so it's saved)
The next day in middle of NA time zone the lock down ends which allows NA players to come finish the boss. Both phases should offer same rewards (same mechanic as alien cores so not hard to develop?)
 
2) Multiple spawns. 1 on sat, 1 on sun, in different time zones to encourage participation without the lock down mechanic.
 
Even if the event boss was a one time thing for the event I do believe any type of pve boss enemy can easily be translated to a game loop without many steps from what we recently saw. 

Thank you for the message, here is my feedback on the experience.

Positive Aspects of the Event:
In a PVP zone, potentially transitioning from PVE to PVEVP, but much more interesting and risky than an AlienCore event. Randomly massive damage dealt by the boss, capable of destroying an L core in 3 or 4 hit. (that was our real challenge here...) A sufficiently powerful shield that requires a lot of time and ammunition, increasing the chances of player interactions. The server held up well with the entire Legion fleet present.
Negative Aspects of the Event:
Not announced by NQ or in-game through a message in the general chat or notifications in the middle of the screen. Timing too focused on Europe. (but it's hard to accommodate everyone) Randomly massive damage dealt by the boss, capable of destroying an L core in 3 or 4 hit. (... but Legion pilots are experienced and ship optimized and still died really fast, can be an issue for other players if involved) No damage on voxels, just CCS. Only a static core, random appearances of alien ships similar to PVE missions that follow a ship could have added excitement to the battle. A known coordinate in advance and therefore stations already in place, making surveillance and combat easier. No traces of the battle afterward, an Aphelia Core from the Boss in its final state could have added some interest. (instant despawn was a bit frustrating)
I remain very disappointed not to have had the chance to encounter opponents or even curious players coming to challenge us. With the boss's damage, our capital ships often had very low shields, forcing us to flee the combat to regenerate them... a perfect situation for the type of operations our adversaries like to conduct. Events like this should simply not be missed in terms of communication; that's the fundamental aspect. The more people are aware and prepared, the more there will be at stake, stories to tell, salt to sprinkle, and good moments to share among allies and enemies.

About the rewards; I maintain my opinion, even when some of my allies/mates will receive these rewards, that rewarding players with craftable items and resources/quantas is a real mistake; the economy is at a critical stage, and we really don't need that.

On the other side, offering a title is a good idea and a step in the right direction. Our only concern, I believe, is that you may not be able to reward all participants in the missions or the boss due to a lack of tools; many players have played in groups, some only as pilot, or performed other roles, and from what I see and think, they won't be traceable (no point awarded/no shoot fired...). We've been discussing this issue for a while now, not giving points/quantas to all players instead of just the one who takes the mission; please consider the game as an MMO.
In short, the missions and the boss event have had many shortcomings, but the improvements are easy to see and aim for in order to make such features interesting and fun.

Everything is and has always been in your hands, NQ; it's up to you to decide what you want to do with it.

From: Dr. Akina Eldon, Commanding Officer of the ASV Perseus, Flagship of the Janus Gate Taskforce
And: Admiral Magnus, Commanding Officer, ACV Orion (2-CVT-65)

Announcement: The Astrophage Campaign

To All Novean Mercenary Forces,

We stand today united as the guardians of Helios and the protectors of humanity. The struggle against the Astrophage is not behind us, but thanks to your unyielding bravery, the immediate threat has been contained. We've shown the enemy that we will not go quietly into the dark, we are here to stay, to grow, and to reclaim our place amongst the stars.

Rewards & Recognition

In acknowledgment of your efforts in defending the Arkship Novark and the entire Helios system, Aphelia and Command have authorized a package of rewards for the most effective combat crews. You fought not just for yourselves but for the future of all Noveans. Therefore, a substantial Quanta bonus and high-tier shield elements will be deposited directly into the inventories of deserving combat crews.

However, valor isn't only measured in victories. We saw that many of you gave your all on the battlefield, time and again, but did not achieve the same combat success as your comrades. For your sacrifices, your efforts, Command will honor you as well with a special title to recognize your role in this pivotal moment in our history. We will forward details on the new titles to be awarded in a special communication.

The Journey Ahead

Make no mistake, Noveans, this fight is far from over. But take this moment to celebrate your achievements and your survival. It's a testament to our resilience, and proof that united, we can face whatever the cosmos throws our way.

Remember, the key to our future lies in understanding the past—be it the secrets of the Janus Gate or the messages left by the Gate Builders. Our struggle is not just against the Astrophage, but also for the wisdom to navigate the perils and opportunities of Helios. Our scientists continue to delve into xenoarchaeological sites, and every bit of understanding we gain strengthens us.

Prepare for the challenges ahead, but for now, enjoy your well-deserved rewards. You've earned them. Keep your shields up and your spirits higher.

In Unity, There is Strength.
In Courage, There is Hope.
In Victory, There is Survival.

Onward, Noveans!

Join the back streets of Dual Universe - https://discord.gg/B3QSKTubpb
One of the most active unofficial discord servers (300 members)
Focused on PVP 
Public PVP events
Ships Sales
Galleries 
New Community run Killboard: https://www.du-killboard.com/
 

 

https://www.du-killboard.com

This uses the honor system, if you are making KILLS and want your org listed message me. 

I take advantage of the creation of this section to quickly resume some advice that I recently gave on another subject.
 
This is not a complete step-by-step guide. But a reminder of a set of safety rules.
=> If you want to transgress even a single point, be careful, it may be this one that will make the difference between your death or your success.

- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. 
It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.

- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a full space ship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.

- Don't bring your home with you ! Granny's porcelain dishes should stay safe at Haven.

- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.

- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.

- Do not keep your DSAT on your mining vessel. Discover the asteroid and come back with a ship without this DSAT.

- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)

- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Loot => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.

- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.

- Try not to take any "pipe" road on the way back

- Do not dig to bury and hide your ships. All construction remains visible to radar and can be destroyed. You are not Han Solo in star wars.

----------------------------------------------

If now you want to defend yourself during an attack and not use a "disposable" ship.

- The first : Arm yourself and go there with friends Don't Go PvP Alone If You're Inexperienced

- Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the radar all the time

- Use 1 ships for 1 player

- Respect the PvP meta of the game (we may have the opportunity to talk about it clearly in dedicated threads).

- Use force respawn on a resurection node to quickly return to your ship when needed.

- Use a dedicated ship to pick up the containers you will excort or separate the ores on all the ships.

---------------------------------------------------

If I think of anything else I will complete.

Rebuilding Helios will be easier with our enhanced Blueprint Deployment Tools.
 
bptoolv3.mp4  
You can omit any element, swap missing honeycomb, and soon after launch, snap blueprints to deployed cores.
 
What will you build first, Novean?

Hello,
 
I follow up on the discussions on this subject:
 
The changes in value of recent honeycombs are really appreciable.
 
The increase in the hit points of certain elements as well.
 
All of this provides a good basis for further balancing. Many of our claims in previous fis still remain up to date, such as the replacement of the cross section by a mechanic more in line with the game's DNA. Or the radar changes to increase the sight distances to adapt to the new speeds and also to prevent L weapons from continuing to destroy at max range XS / S ships.
 
Now that the reminder of the fundamentals is done. I would like to focus this topic on 1 single element :
 
Need to talk the " VENTING DURATION "

The problem right now is that we regularly see S-sized ships with L or M shields. And very rarely in S-sized.
I'm not talking about size XS shields which have practically the same use as a decorative element.

The larger size shields remain more interesting than their lower variant + a little voxel and an active use of venting.

But there is a mechanic that NQ can play on : the venting duration.

It is exactly the same duration as it is for a shield XS or a shield L. (100s in basic version)
In my opinion, it will be necessary to reduce this time for small shields.
An XS shield should be able to vent often and be vulnerable for less time than a large L shield.

 
This could lead to more regular risk-taking by fighter pilots when they think they have a safe window to recharge their shield during combat.
 
Also if they perform poorly, they risk getting hit and punished.
 
The most considerate could put a little voxel to leave room for some "error".
This will give the beginning of a "symbiosis" between the shield and the voxel armor during the combat phases which could become very rewarding for the pilot making the right choices at the right time.
 
What do you think ?

I'd add one thing that I miss a lot:

multicrew gameplay

For me it seems like it will be pretty easy to return the onboard mechanics in play, and also remove voxel-less meta:
Add shield bleed, even if it's very small percentage, it will drastically change pvp gameplay.

Hi, a new topic for resume some of our idea about PVP features in the future.

Wrecks
- add an element similar to the DSAT for them
- put them all in space
- add schematics in their storage, with a value that depends on the rarity of the wreck
This would be a cool first PVP approach for all players as well as an additional way to have content for the most experienced on the rarest wrecks

Asteroids
- delete T4 and T5 from the MUs on each planets/moons
- modify the spawn algorythm for dodge any PVP roid to spawn too close to the Safezone
- reduce their maximum spawn distance
- disable the possibility of create a station with a shield close to them
- allow imprisoning players who farm in jetpack with XS core and glass panel or give us GUNS
In order to restore the interest in asteroids and encourage people to interact with each other, whether through piracy or through group mining to protect/optimize themselves.

Alien core
- Increase the power of items requiring plasma
- Hide/protect ships docked to an alien core, or just on station, with a shield
- Less T5 in MU
- Scales the need for plasma in the schematics based on item size (example 1 for XS, 2 for S, 3 for M and 4 for L, and modify the production of plasma if needed)
This will add interest to Alien cores, preserve an important interest for asteroids by avoiding being the main source of T5
 
Piracy
- Bring back the boarding, the button feature work now, if people don't check their ship then it's their fault. (and the force field for counter boarding is so boring for dock/land)
- Rework the radar, add some range or be able to follow the signature of a ship or any other idea else than this 2SU max
- Delete the jammed zone, if people can see hauler going in space, PVP players can see pirates who hunt it or any other player who want help/warn/counter
- Need more reward for hunting mission hauler
- Go back on group missions and stop special missions (beta keys will end with the release and if you add more tool on pirates, big hauler will be hunted)
- Adds different icons/icons colors, allowing each player to set a reputation on an org or a player
- Add a right clic option on dynamic construct icon for wisp the pilot and allow players to talk (to find a deal, a ransom or a pass)

I tried to summarize some of my ideas as well as possible, if you have better or different ones do not hesitate.

Other thing could be is reworking the repair unit.
If repair unit was capable of repairing elements with scrap, not just replacing them, it would be much less tedious to repair all that decorative parts.

This is the kind of communication I was looking for. It was painful not knowing if the vision of the original game was kept and what change was in store.
Now we have a list of major short, medium and long term goals for the studio.
It's still much more fun for the whole community to be able to project themselves a little further into the future.
There's a little light at the end of the tunnel

Hello, Noveans!
 
I’m Cyrille Fontaine, Creative Director here at Novaquark. These are exciting times and I wanted to give everyone an overview of our objectives and direction for Dual Universe.
 
 
A game like Dual Universe is a never ending labor of love and ongoing development, but there is a point when you just need to assess if it is ready for a release. After close to two years of testing and numerous major additions to the game, we have decided to prepare the game for launch.
 
Development of Dual Universe continues at full speed, and we’re spending the lion’s share of our focus right now on fixing bugs, stabilizing the game, improving our back-end systems, and overall continuing to polish the game.
 
We’re close to deploying a brand new feature that we expect will be a hub for creators and merchants alike to gather and present themselves to other players. It’ll be open to anyone who wishes to participate and advertise their shop, museum, service, or any other point of interest.
 
We’re also working hard to deliver our promises to our Kickstarter backers that supported us from the beginning. We’re searching for a new shipping partner to deliver the physical rewards as well as delivering the digital rewards through the major game updates of 2022. We’re also implementing an initial web-based version of DACs.
 
  Our team continues to analyze game data and read your feedback to focus our efforts on where we can be most effective, and this means that our plans can change with developments in the game, but looking to the future, I want to share some of what we currently have planned in upcoming content updates for Dual Universe.
 
Flotillas are a new feature we’re developing that will allow players to form temporary groups of constructs. These will help in identifying friend from foe, assuming your foes haven’t already infiltrated your squad. This will improve many different aspects of group play ranging from fleet engagements, running convoys, piracy, and more.
 
Another gameplay feature we’re looking to add is recycling, which would enable players to better manage their inventories by turning parts of broken or unwanted elements back into components.
 
We want to expand PvE with the goal of helping players bring the game-world to life and improving the story in which everyone experiences the game. The mission system is one area of focus for this goal in developing more complex, interconnected, and lore-oriented objectives. 
We’re also developing a power management system. A good way to consider how energy will work is to look at how construct maximum speeds have changed. Players must decide how to specialize each ship, and similarly, must make choices on how best to distribute power across their constructs.
 
We want to increase the quantity of discovered planets and moons as well as new aspects, biomes and gameplay opportunities, and to produce planetoids the size of big asteroids, much like the Thades belt rocks, but claimable as a territory.
 
One of the most resource-intensive features that we have to tackle is planetary warfare. It brings significant change to the game and, before we can achieve it, we have to bring PvP in general to a more mature state. We know that territory warfare is an important game system to many of you, so continue to help us improve PvP by engaging in fights to generate data for us to analyze and continue to improve the system.
 
There are also many other features that we are looking to improve or introduce in the future.
 
 
Now, let’s discuss the topic of a reset.
 
We have seen your many posts across Discord, our forums and social media. We’ve heard your frustration and know that many of you are waiting for a decision about whether or not we will reset. Let me assure you that no matter what we decide, you will not be reset back to square one. Of the different options we’ve been discussing in case of a reset, we are certain that you will keep your core blueprints, including blueprints owned by an organization that you lead. We are also looking into which other important parts of your game progress could be kept if we do reset.
 
Yes, the internal discussion about a possible reset does continue, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this is the most significant decision we currently have to make for Dual Universe. We appreciate our players and your engagement with us, but I also want everyone to know that all of us here at Novaquark are eagerly awaiting the day we can share concrete news with you.
 
That is all for this message. Until next time, thank you for your attention, Noveans!
Please don't hesitate to provide your feedback here.
- Cyrille Fontaine (NQ-Kyrios)

@NQ-Admin Hi, it's important.

Can you put all the alien core in pause (production/lockdown) until PVP was fix? (Radar + Transponder + Anynewbug)

We can't fight in good conditions, we can't have fun or enjoy this content (and it's the only PVP available atm) and with the wipe no decision + all those PVP bugs, we just lost all our motivation.

Do something, don't be passiv, thx.

With the Athena update we decided to hold 3-4 alien cores, the goal being to test our ability to defend multiple cores.

The harsh reality of alien cores
In response, our enemies have put our cores in lockdown ~fifteen times, sometimes 4 on the same day, forcing us to organize ourselves well to allow everyone to come home from work, eat, take care of their family or simply rest. For having a minimum number of people at the end of each lockdown, just in case.
The ends of lockdown follow one another and still nothing on radars, the regularity required by this feature prevents us from pirating on asteroids or pipes as we did before, but the various changes have not reinforced either the interest of them, the motivation is therefore less and less perceptible and it becomes a chore to come and defend...
So we come to this evening of May 21, 4 cores are in lockdown;
Gamma, Theta, Iota and Zeta
Theta and Gamma are respectively under siege at 18:24 UTC and 18:56 UTC, knowing that it takes 20 minutes to secure a core without enemies, the timing is tight but nothing can tell at this moment that our enemies will take advantage of it...

A well thought out plan
18:36 UTC, Theta in siege but without contacts, when suddenly the announcement falls: "CONTACT ON THETA"
10 to 15 ships on radars, the fight is easily managed but a large part of our fleet is therefore in combat lock for the next 10 minutes, preventing warp, and an attack on Gamma begins to grow in our heads. Taking advantage of the combat lock to loot some of the enemy ships, meanwhile another group forms, alerted by the first attack and start moving in direction of Gamma.
18:58 UTC, Gamma in siege and the dreaded announcement drops: "24 CONTACTS ON GAMMA"
We are all surprised and at the same time excited, @here and @everyone appears on the various discords to call Legion for mobilization, we've been waiting for this moment for a long time, impossible to miss it!
We get together in voice, we regroup in the same place in game and we jump into the fray. Focus announcements follow one another, but more surprisingly, there are not 24 contacts but 50... 70... 100... (we reached 150 contacts on the radar at one point, allies and enemies). Several ships are dummys, but the enemy is really numerous, we will have to be disciplined and use our experience in PVP but also as a group.
The confrontation was complex, the previous patch broke the radars and transponders, impossible to sort the contacts on the radar and even less those who change their name like ours (our entire fleet bore the name "WONDU" on its ships), but LUA scripts save us and maintain some semblance of order in this nameless mess.
The station sees its shield descend little by little, an alt left on it allows us to follow it live, protecting the core is impossible without killing all our enemies, it must get out of the 10 minutes of combat lock to recharge its shield. It ends up being core, we manage to regain control, the core itself is not enough, we have to hold these 10 minutes. Unfortunately the timer is constantly reset, even after taking advantage of the fight; the dead ships then repaired by our enemies, the incessant comings and goings of small fast ships and those bearing our tag, it's almost mission impossible to prevent them from approaching, the fight drags on so long as we almost destroyed the entire enemy fleet.

The Liberation
"30 seconds left" (combat timer on alien core)
Announced in voicecom, still no hostile contact... When suddenly a M core appear, rushing to the alien core.
"15"
Some of our remaining forces are concentrated on him, the burst is violent but it's not enough.
"10"
He is at 80km from the core, almost dead but he still represents the last threat of these long hours of confrontation.
"OHNO OHNO OHNO HE IS SHOOTING [filtered] MY LIFE"
...
"IT'S REPAIRED"
Nerd screams, phew of relief, Legion held on but not without difficulty.

A big GG to everyone, even if the game is clearly not the most pleasant for PVP currently, it's events like this that make the game live. Bravo for the organization, the execution and the destruction of the core. We had a lot of trouble keeping our precious plasmas

Some stats about those fight
The opposing forces: Legion vs "Empire, BOO, CVA, Penrose, CYT, IC, CRN, MSI, SB Nation, UA and I think another 1 or 2, just a handful from each, think IC had the most, but mostly new to PvP"
+/- 150 ships involved
~40 Legion members at the end
More than 3 hours of fight
45+ wrecks still close to Gamma this morning
Very very little amount of stasis
Too much ammo fired
Too much kills
Not enough transponder xD
 
 

Hi, can we have different colors on dynamic construct in PVP?

By priority order:
NQ Staff > Green (like actually)

Transponder match, not a NQ Staff > Blue

Transponder didn't match BUT pilot is in friendlist/orgs and not a NQ Staff > White

Transponder didn't match, not in friendlist/orgs and not a NQ Staff > Red


It's the first MMO where I can't clearly see my ennemies/allies, I take 2 minutes for color them on GIMP, with 5 minutes you can have a nice icon for sure.

Hello there,
 
First off, thanks for the feedback. 
 
So there's a couple of different things to touch on here:
 
The internal balance of shields sizes CCS/honeycomb health vs Shield Health per mass Venting
I’ll try to address in that order but they will mesh a little since they have some obvious links.
 
First of all smaller shield sizes are at an advantage in regards to HP/mass. So something to keep in mind is that as you go up in size, as it pertains only to shields, you are losing out on the HP/mass ratio (in simpler terms, each HP weighs more on larger shields). This is an inbuilt advantage smaller sizes simply have.
However, the main and primary reason we have different shield sizes at all, is to support constructs of varying sizes and mass. This is the key center-point around which everything else mostly revolves.
 
If you are intending to make a larger, heavier construct, that is going to trend towards or go past the max mass, then the large shield becomes the obvious choice. However, should you want to make something smaller, more agile, and quicker, you may start to use shields of smaller sizes. We already see people experimenting with constructs of smaller sizes using S and M shields to take advantage of the speed, this is a great direction, as long as the pendulum does not swing too far in the favor of smaller constructs.
Now, if the weight penalties do not sufficiently affect the design of the ship, and large shields are still too mass effective even on smaller designs. That's a subject we will continue to address. We do not want to see S designs using exclusively L shields because the additional mass from larger shields doesn't matter in regards to acceleration, max speed, and rotation speed.
 
To answer your question clearly, there is no direct goal for an M shield and an equivalent 95t of voxel to be worse, equal, or better than an L shield and I’ll try to explain why as we go. You should take the shield of the size that makes sense for the design of your ship. If you have the mass available, or are willing to “spend” the mass to have a larger shield, then go for it.
 
Don't want to get into the venting subject too quickly, but using an M with a bunch of honeycomb could allow you to vent once or twice during a battle, especially on a lighter design that can also evade some damage. Maybe the balancing on that isn't perfect, but it should be an option.
At the end of the day the inbuilt advantage of an M shield over an L shield is that it's significantly lighter. You say it's always worth going to an L shield because M+HC is worse in HP, maybe this is the case (more on that later) but the point is that for that 95t you could probably build out a good part of a fully equipped construct, allowing you to have a quicker, more agile construct with a superior max speed, that's the upside.
 
Talking concretely in regards to the mass, if I made a competitive light-ish design with an M shield around 250t ( I don't have one on hand, this is probably on the lighter side after the changes). I'm going about 38-39k km/h max speed, just switching from an M shield to an L shield, I drop down to about 35k km/h. Now adding an extra 95t to a 250t design is probably going to seriously hurt my acceleration as well, so now I'm probably at least looking at redoing my engine setup, which likely adds some more mass as well.
So now the question is more along the lines of, do I prefer an extra 5mill HP from the L shield, or about 5000-6000km/h extra max speed and some extra rotation speed. Well that's a question I’d love feedback on, maybe the max speed and rotation speed isn't enough, I could see that.
 
Secondly there could be an advantage to being able to “modulate” your weight while still gaining some tankiness from honeycomb. An M shield with some honeycomb unlocks some venting on that design, while retaining some/most of the mobility.
 
In regards to your reasoning about M vs L shields. Roughly you're going from “it only makes sense to use the largest shield mass wise, so I can never vent on xs-m because I'm not going to be using voxels on anything smaller than the L”.
 
Well honestly, I don't particularly agree with that, at least not in theory. The interest of voxels is that it's scalable, and you can choose how much voxel you think you need. If you're going to use an M shield because that makes sense for your design mass wise, you don't “have” to use 95t of honeycomb. You can use 30t of a good hc over your ship. That's already going to give you a chunk of armor to help you get some venting going, and probably not endanger your cross-section too much. If that honeycomb buys you enough time for 2 vents (probably optimistic), then you’ve essentially caught up on an L shield in raw shield HP and you’re operating at more than half the mass. 
Now maybe that's not viable, maybe the honeycomb itself is too weak and even reasonable quantities of honeycomb get blown apart too quickly, that's possible and that's something we can look at. Perhaps at that point the subject is more that voxels are generally weak.
 
It's also important to note that in regards to your “real HP”, some amount of the incoming hits are also going to be hitting elements, elements that can be repaired which can give you more tankiness down the road. That means that when comparing raw HP to CCS, you have to take into account that CCS is counting every hit no matter where it's going, as opposed to your raw voxel HP which will, in effect, have additional health from elements.
 

For point 2, there's a couple things to say here. Shields are not inherently in competition with honeycomb, as mentioned we don't want them to be magnitudes apart in terms of HP because it wouldn't make sense, but fundamentally they are supposed to be complimentary.
 
Now in regards to your chart and conclusions. You didn't quite explain what “mean raw HP” is but I can guess it's the actual HP value of the deployed m3 HC multiplied by the average resistance, or at least I get close enough to your numbers using that.

Internally, in our tests using real ships CCS almost always goes first as opposed to the direct destruction of the core, I’d say in general this is situational depending on the design of the ship. In my experience, when constructs actually have a good amount of voxels, it's very difficult to dig your way to the core, and between the HC and the elements and the (occasional, hopefully fewer and fewer) lost shot, I believe that most of the time, you can count on your CCS HP being your “real” HP bar.  If that's not the case, especially on ships that have a good amount of HC, I’d love to see/hear more about it, since that would be contrary to what we’ve tested. Perhaps certain voxels are outliers.
 
My gut feeling is that in the “nano-age” during which CCS was introduced and voxels were rebalanced, people haven't been using voxels a ton in pvp. The goal is for that to change and honestly, if people start using voxels in some quantity, that's already good progress. If it does come out that cheaper voxels, or certain cheap voxels are always way better than more expensive voxels, I'll be more than happy to take a look at that (and to be honest, I’ve started already since I had to look at a bunch of stuff for this).
Lastly on this, you’ve defined that plastic is the best material on the basis of it having the most “mean HP” for the mass. That may be the case, but seeing how much effort players have put into reducing cross-section at almost any cost, I don't think 6700 m3 of plastic is always going to be the best solution.
 

For the last point in regards to venting, I feel like I’ve partly answered the question already but I’ll answer more broadly. Venting isn't something that will or needs to be used. It's a tool at your disposal and it's up to you to figure out how and when you're going to use it depending on the situation and the design of your ship. In contrast it's our job to make sure that those avenues can exist in the game.
 
In view of that, lighter ships now can try to disengage using their speed and try to get away and disengage to vent and come back, some ships may have honeycomb to tank on the CCS, some ships may not be able to reliably vent. If you design your ship in such a way that it cannot vent, then that's on you. However, if it is the case that there are NO competitive designs that allow you to vent at all, I agree that's a problem we need to change.
 
It will come down to the design of your ship, and it's possible that venting will be more usable in certain situations, and certain circumstances than others. For example, I don't expect smaller and lighter ships to have enough CCS/voxels to tank more than a couple hits (let alone all the elements that will die on a compact design) so if they can't escape the firepower using their speed/agility, they are likely dead. But who knows, it might be worth it now to dedicate some amount of HC on ships, specifically to be able to tank a handful of shots to get some shield HP back, even if you don't manage a full cycle off.
 
Essentially from my perspective, if you go no honeycomb, you are accepting that venting is going to be a tougher proposal than if you had dedicated some mass to HC protection, there's a tradeoff there. Now maybe that tradeoff isn't balanced, and there's one obvious better choice than the other, in that case we will take a look (that was sort of what was happening up to 0.29, there wasn't much point to using HC, but I think between the shield mass and health changes,  and the speed changes, HC could have merit again in at least some designs, but maybe it's not enough).
 
For an example on a relatively light design, even just 100m3 of that grade 5 titanium is going to give you around 1.2milll CCS health for 4-5~ extra tonnes. Is that enough to tank serious damage for a while? No, probably not. Is it enough to absorb a couple hits as you try to pull out of range, get your transversal speed up and start venting some HP back, probably yes. The downside is your cross-section may suffer and you'll lose some speed (honestly the speed loss won't be much, even at the most severe parts of the speed curve). Is it worth it? I’d say so yeah, in some designs and some situations, especially now that heavy L ships can’t easily rotate to keep up with smaller constructs, having a slightly larger cross-section probably isn't such a big deal in certain scenarios now.
 
To be fair in regards to that point, I agree that on lighter and more compact constructs, the damage dealt to elements will sometimes be what ends up killing you rather than CCS, or even the core being killed. If you take a nasty hit that blows up half your elements, you are essentially dead. My question is are you able to use some HC, to reduce the chances of a good hit taking you out of the fight entirely.
 
I did a quick test, put up 50m3 of grade 5 titanium and blasted it with a fully talented laser L. It took 3 shots to get through and kill the core I had placed  just behind the material. To be honest though, based on my hit chance on a totally immobile target with zero cone or range issue, I would actually expect an actual S design to take almost 0 damage from L weapons. The shield and the CCS at that point is more of an insurance policy for the occasional hit, or to fight off other smaller constructs.
 
There's also something to be said about balancing cross-section vs compactness. Not having all your elements in the same spot, even on smaller designs, means a single shot has less chance to obliterate half your elements.
 

Anyway, I'm just spitballing on a lot of things, I certainly don't have all the answers, and likely there's some things I’ve missed, or some things I've overestimated the importance of or underestimated the importance of.
 
 
Now to address your “problems to be solved” directly as a conclusion of sorts.
 
   Point 1: In regards to this point, if people start using any honeycomb at all it’ll be a good direction. Once we get to the point where we’re saying “we’re using HC and these honeycombs are all clearly better than these honeycomb”, we will be in a good place to start addressing HC internal balancing. The second thing is I do currently believe that especially on larger ships, CCS is a better representation of health than raw HP, and this is likely the opposite on smaller ships.
 
   Point 2: I‘m not totally set on this. Unplayable seems like a strong word here. I think lighter, smaller constructs have more opportunities now to disengage from fights in order to vent, or potentially exploit larger ships' slow rotation to stay out of the cone of the guns. Additionally, in my mind, some honeycomb can be a valuable addition to smaller designs, to give yourself some room to vent. However, If this isn't enough, we could explore more powerful and quicker vents for smaller shields, that's certainly a possibility.
 
   Point 3: Maybe, I’ve gotten some info by looking into it again today, and it's possible some changes can come down the line on this. In the past we’ve had the opposite issues, so it's possible we went too far.
 

I know this is a big blob, I hope my numbers were right, my brain is a little hazy, and hopefully I’ve answered most of your questions and made this a little clearer for you guys.
 
 
Thanks.
 

Full wipe please.

*cough* Utopia Station *cough*

edit: For reference, Utopia Station is about 1SU from the centre of the safezone. We've been there for over a year. It would have been great if this was a player element that could be attached to existing, long-standing, trade outposts.

I wonder :

- NQ say that there won't be a core XL for several years because it will be too expensive and that we will use XL instead of L.
What I understand is that the bigger a core unit is, the less NQ likes it because it costs more to maintain.

- Now we're going to have a pretty hard limit of X core per player. This will therefore push people to have mostly L cores to optimize large constructions.
 
So what is it really? Is the number of cores the problem or is their size?

If that's the number, you have to quickly unlock the XL cores.
If it is the size of the cores, then it must be integrated into the counter and let the player choose what he uses.
(Example: Core XS: 1 pts / Core S: 8 pts / Core M: 64 pts / Core L: 512 pts)

We need to find a compromise, it's look that NQ need to reduce the numbers of core on the server to keep decent performance. But it's still interesting to see some builder making large city
Let's add more skill like :
basic core manager : +2 core per level
uncommon core manager : +5 core per level
advanced core manager : + 10 core per level
 
with prerequisite level 5 from the lower tier talent so it's physically possible to have a large amount of organisation core, but it very expensive in talents point so player will invest so much talent point for serious project only
 
and basic player will have to limit them self that will make everyone happy
-for NQ : that will reduce the amount of core in the game
-for players : it's still possible to build lage city, large PVP fleet etc... but at a significant talent points cost

It's happen often that Alioth/Madis /Thades PVP asteroid spawn very close of the safe zone limit
In that case you have tens of ships at the safe zone limit, and players flying with their nanopack to the PVP asteroid, and come back to their ship as soon as their nanopack is full.
Is that really the gameplay NQ wants ? Those players completely avoid the risk/reward mechanics !
Can we just have a limit so that PVP asteroid never spawn so close of the safe zone (something like 30su)
 

Oh yes NQ, Move the spawn area back as requested here.
 
Or maybe surprise us with another game mechanic. Maybe like being able to shoot XS weapons at a player who is not in a ship.
 
Bring us some comfort.
 
Also think of PvE players who bothered to scan, claim, buy exotic MU and who want to sell this ore. They are in unfair competition.

The "extractions efficiency" and "calibration charge efficiency" talents don't work in VR, like missions, you don't think this will worsen the imbalance between players with one/few accounts and those who abused with 40+ alpha key or else by being able to leave his characters on site or in the mission ship?

This update is really difficult for new players, they can no longer easily use the services of other players for missions, especially in PVP where the presence of a foreigner on a ship is dangerous.
VR is like using a robot remotely, how can you not carry a simple package with them and put it in a container?

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The changes in PVP are too weak and misguided to encourage interesting gameplay. He pushes people to play alone, in a ship without voxel, as small as possible and we lose everything that made the charm of DU, the multi crew.
You have to review the functioning of the shield and the CCS, understand what your game can support the most and orient your balance around that, to allow all kinds of gameplay and not just single player gameplay.
 
Do you think that a new round table around PVP would be possible? With the different groups that are involved in it, pirates as well as hauler pilot or roid miners.

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Do you plan to leave friendlist lock that won't refresh? Because to follow allies on the move or in combat, it has become very hard.