Lord_Davy

Do the Honeybadger Dance!!! 
 
*Disclaimer: NSFW lyrics. It's all meant in good fun

Realises just how little orgs have more than 50 members xD

I think I speak for everyone when I say we really appreciate NQ's transparency and willingness to answer questions. It is refreshing, and really builds confidence. 

We're finally rolling out our Shirt design for 2017, and a few of us have already received our boobalicious apparel.
 

 

 

 
In gaming news, we've hung Conan up for a while as we explore Empyrion. It's been a big hit with us so far playing on the RennTech server, and here in the next week plan to start putting out eviction notices to some local residences. Here's a few snapshots of our growing fleet...
 
Bob is always watching...
 

 
The fleet...
 

 
 
 
Thats it for now, hop on our Discord if you want to join us - https://discord.gg/mhAaKmA
 
Thanks,
Cybrex

BOO IS ACTIVELY RECRUITING PLAYERS AND ORGANIZATIONS
 
BOO WEBSITE LINK
 
BAND OF OUTLAWS COMMUNITY PORTAL LINK
 
A WORD FROM OUR FANS (LINK)
 
Discord: https://discord.gg/mhAaKmA
 
________________________________________________________________________   WHO ARE WE?  
Band of Outlaws is a growing community of gamer's within Dual Universe. Our goal when the game launches is to provide a community environment for all play styles. While our theme and preference leans towards the renegades and outlaws, we are also happy to accept traders, builders, and anything else in between. We want to encourage everyone in Dual Universe who has a heart for a sense of community and gaming to join us, whether as individuals or with your own group. Either way, we have a growing support network that anyone can benefit from.
 
We understand games can be hard to commit to, and acknowledge the fact that people have lives outside of the internet. We won't force you to do anything, the only thing we want you to do is to have fun and play the game your way, hopefully with us among friends. 
 
 
________________________________________________________________________
 
THE PLAN:
 
Band of Outlaws wants to create a community for those who wish to play out their inner rebel, whether that be through pirating, smuggling, being a mercenary, a bounty hunter, and everything else in between. That is just a small portion of what our community is going to accomplish, as we have been steadily growing in several other games such as Battlefield 1, Conan Exiles, and several more. We want members to join a family of fellow, like minded internet nerds than just some faction in a singular game.
 
That said, we certainly plan to have Dual Universe as our focus when the game launches, and we have several projects in our development pipeline for our community to participate in when the time comes. I'll list an example of such below.
 
• Project Tortuga: Band of Outlaws plans to accomplish many tasks within Dual Universe with the help of volunteers within our community. We want to create a safe haven for outlaws like you and I, and are planning to construct a free port away from prying organizations who seek to control everything. Dubbed "Project Tortuga", our free port will be available for anyone to use, not just the Band of Outlaws. This project has also been extended to the greater Dual Universe community, and with the help of the Band of Outlaws, we can all have a place to call home.
 
_________________________________________________________
 
 
THE OVERVIEW:
 
 
• Primary language: English primarily.   • Time zone: We accept anyone from around the globe.   • Goal:  To create a support network for players in DU, providing benefits for mercenaries, bounty hunters, you name it. We plan to have several internal services established to let you play out your character in DU. Also, blow things up and make money.      _________________________________________________________   WHAT CAN BAND OF OUTLAWS PROVIDE FOR YOU?
 
• Security in numbers: Our safety network will you keep you and your assets safe.   • Community: We have a vast network of players with a wide array of goals in the game, we all support each other in and outside of the game world.   • Trade: We plan to have a vast trade network, where you can get the best deals by being in Band of Outlaws.   • PVP: BOO will need to protect its assets, and we plan to be very aggressive. We will teach you how to fight, and provide you with the ships to do so.   • PVE: We're not sure how PVE will be in the game, but we certainly plan to be apart of it as we know many players may not want to do PVP.   • Exploring: There is a big galaxy out there, so of course we're going to explore it!     _________________________________________________________  
WHAT OTHER SERVICES DO BAND OF OUTLAWS PROVIDE?
 
• A discord server that is managed 24/7 with hundreds of members playing various games. 
 
• Website/Forums to hang out with other BOO members. (WIP)
 
• An actual gaming community of internet nerds, with the number one focus being fun. This family is open to all. 
 
• A chance to help create something unique and inspiring. Come make history with us!
 
_________________________________________________________
 
HOW DO WE OPERATE?
 
Band of Outlaws is not out to be the next mega corporation with an umbrella controlling every sub-organization within our community. We operate under a general community management system with our Managers and Moderators doing all of the admin work so everyone else can enjoy whatever game we are playing.
 
Within the context of Dual Universe, right now our management for this game is open ended until the game launches and we can see where we need certain positions filled. 
 
_________________________________________________________
 
DBAD CLAUSE - RULE:
 
Band of Outlaws will not drag you down with rule after rule. To sum up how we expect members to behave - don’t be a dick. We’re all here to have fun, and there is no reason to be rude to each other. This includes flaming, hate speech, starting drama etc. Let’s act like grown men and women. This also extends to how members are expected to act towards other organizations/communities. Be respectful, regardless of affiliations.
 
 
_________________________________________________________
 
INTERESTED?
 
We are always looking to recruit new players, or organizations within the Band of Outlaws. If living the outlaw life is for you, then this is the best alliance to be apart of. We encourage you to apply immediately, and be apart of the greatest organization made for rebels and outlaws like you. Below will list minor details to help you when you apply to Band of Outlaws.
 
• Applying by yourself as a player? Simply head on over to our community portal and submit an application. Your application will be reviewed, and a voice interview with yourself before we finalize your enrollment. This is simply to make sure we can maintain some sense of security within Band of Outlaws, and that we can both get to know each other and be sure that not only you would be a good fit for us, but that we would be a good fit for you. If you are interested, just apply on our community portal - Band of Outlaws Portal Link
 
• Applying as an organization? We are always looking for other player organizations to join the Band of Outlaws alliance. Being a member of our alliance has benefits that are listed in this post above. Among those, you will benefit mainly from a wide market audience and support network. Band of Outlaws members and organizations are forbidden from openly attacking each other. We are all allies here with the same idea, and we want you to be apart of that. Simply send a private message to Cybrex, and negotiations will be made. 
 
If you have any questions regarding Band of Outlaws, please contact Cybrex.
 
 
 
 
BAND OF OUTLAWS COMMUNITY PORTAL LINK

I know, real hacking is way, WAY more headache than whatever Quantum Processor smartphone them Watchdogs use. Believe it or not, actual hacking has more common themes with sudoku rather than anything else. In Discrete Math (the science of binary logic systems) teachers and instructors always say "if you want to get good at this, start solving sudoku". And they were right, cross-referrential of base value variants is getting easier the more sudoku you get used into solving.
 
 
I know of what you mean, the EVE system is similar to this, only you don't trigger worms but "mines". Although the arguement can be made that the skill training path can allow for a sort of trojan horse training, that provides a buffer of time before the worm is activated and Skill Training like "Subroutines" providing a bonus to the fortification method, but that's something for later on in this post on what Ripper siad.
 
It's why I said "I get EVE vibes". EVE's hacking minigames can be...err., impossible. There's one that has a breaking wheel design that's impossible to figure out how to solve through it. And if you fail twice the thing you try to hack explodes. It can kill you :|
 
But, here's where the real jackpot is of a comment :
 
 
 
That's actually a great idea. Thing is, the difference between White and Black Hat, comes to taxation. One's a legit hacker, that gets paid and taxed for his work, the others are avoiding taxation. That's basically it. Don't buy the hype, the White Hat guys are the same Bot-net setting, worm infesting, virus-spreading people who will use your PC as a proxy for a DDoS attack to breach a server's defenses. They'll just sell the upgrade to a system on a company (the same they hacked or a rival one) afterwards and be taxed on it. Black Hats will just sell it to [insert Country That Contracted The Black Hat Hacker To Carry Out a Black Ops Mission in the Cyberwebs]. I know, it's terrifying, moving on. 
 
What if we had skills trained so the hacking minigame work like this, following a sort of "White Hat" and "Black Hat" use of the same skills, like :
 
1) You have Hacking 5 trained up. You also have Control Units manufacturing trained up to 5 
Now you can put on a "lock" that's of Difficulty 5, that dictates the LENGHT or SIZE of the "puzzle board" so to speak.
 
2) Another skill from hacking trained up to 5, let's call it Subroutines 5, you have the ability to add "fortifications" in the nodes genrated in the puzzle in the "Deux Ex / EVE" Hacking minigame that anyone will come across trying to hack the Control Unit.
 
3) Then you get a skill called "Frequency Range Overclock 5" that increases the speed of the worm Astrophil suggested.
 
So, now, the aspiring hacker, has to face, a Size 5 puzzle board, with fortified nodes, and a faster worm that comes after them.
But the same skills going into breaking the "lock" on the Control Unit.
 
Hacking 5 and Control Units 5, gives you the ability to have a "buffer" before the defense worms activate.
 
"Frequency Range Overclock 5" trained? Good, now you can BOOST your speed while in the hacking minigame, BUT, the more you usei t ,the more the chance of spawning ANOTHER worm is.
 
And I believe it follows a good design. You know how to build it? You should know how to hack through it as well. And it can also makie for specialisations. And yes, I do believe it should have SOME equipment going with it, like a Codebreaker, that allows you to hack the device you go for with Codebreakers requiring Engineering and Hacking to make them of a better quality and "strength" (the aforementioned HP of a hacking attempt in EVE).
 
In fact, let's reinforce the CSD Wizard culture and just have the hacker oriented gear be common-day clothes with "hidden" bonuses to virus / hack strength. Is that a hipster or is he a hacker? Is that an edgelord wearing a leather duster or is he a hacker? Who knows.
 
And yes, it means a person can be a dedicated hacker, learning how to hack everything by focusing training on learning the vagueness of Control Units, Containers and any other RDMS tagged Element in-game, and be a master hacker-thief. You learned how to Shield Generators function? Just get to it by being sneaky and turn it off.
 
The enemy can't get into fortification mode, if their shield is offline when the assault happens.
 
But that's just my opinion. It's not a fact, or NQ's plan in any way shape or form, for all we know, NQ may plan a Shenzhen I/O gameplay for hacking. Who knows. 

Since your body is still there when you 'die' (you don't really, but a body is left behind), people would be able to loot your implant (you know, the thing used to define to RDMS who you are and what you 'know' skills wise).
 
With this looted implant, you could retrieve the bit that broadcasts your signature, along with RDMS data. A quick reverse engineer later would allow you to have (maybe temporarily) the ability to impersonate the implant's last owner (i.e. the guy you salvaged it from), at least from a computer's perspective.
 
How the impersonation would be limited is that it would only last for a limited amount of time once activated, due to the degrading remnants of the implant. It would also not change your appearance, so other people would recognise you as an impostor (unless you have that field covered). It would also not change your DNA, so a DNA test (like at a high security bank) would not work, instantly throwing up red flags whilst that guard next to you pulls out his gun on you (this is, unless you can fool that too, Mr Bond).
 
Are you Yay or Nay? Did I miss anything? Any other suggestions? Well then, get to it!

"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads!"

I have “transcribed” the Q&A from the video of the conference that was held on February 28th. This is not a direct transcription; I have cut out general conversation, anything that was repeated, and just put in an overall format change to make the discussion that occurred more appropriate for reading. The idea was to isolate information. It was often difficult to hear exactly what was being said, so this was further reason not to quote the conference verbatim. I have not added anything that was not said (there were times when I was tempted to add in some of the things I know about the game, but I didn’t!). If you feel that anything is left out, or that something should be changed, then please let me know!
 
Something else that I have added in is ‘extra info’. This is stuff which was not directly asked about, but which came up in discussion and I thought appropriate to add.
 
This documentation begins around the 30 minute mark of the video (which can currently be found on their Facebook page), when the Q&A started.
 
 
How in depth will the mechanics of refining resources and creating alloys be?
There will be some pretty deep recipe networks, which will make building complex or high-end elements quite complicated, to the point where the specializations required will be so varied that some of the components will most likely have to be purchased from the market. There will be different alloys which can be created by combining different resources and materials, which can be used to create interesting materials and properties. Alloys may be something that the player can research, to allow for them to find new ways of combining different resources to achieve different properties.
 
Can you transport hover vehicles inside of larger ships; in other words, transport small ships inside of larger ships?
Definitely yes, this is the whole architecture of the game. The technology of the servers are all made for that, so yes.
 
How is in-game currency generated? Do you do missions, sell stuff, buy orders?
It is unlikely there will be missions, but this is not completely ruled out. They may be added later, but the main source will be from NPCs/bots on the market, where you can spend your money or sell your stuff. One of the issues with bots however is that they have to be designed such that they do not disrupt the economy; the economy is intended to be shaped by players. The intent is that market bots will amplify or emulate transactions that are occurring between players.
 
Will market bots be permanent, or will they come and go away after a while?
The idea is that, if there is a lot of activity by players, they should go away, but this is not final. They may be used later in the game's life to make changes to the amount of money in circulation to regulate the economy. The main thing is that the amount of money in the game should be proportional to the number of players, as well as the type of activity taking place and the amount of the respective activity.
 
Extra Info:
The name of the currency in the game will be quanta. Quanta, the plural of quantum, is a unit of energy; since the currency will sort of be the “energy” of a lot of the game, the name quanta is appropriate.
 
Does having things in your inventory increase your mass, and does that influence construct physics?
Definitely yes. If a player has a lot of things in their inventory, and they step into a ship, they might push the ship down. A ship with lots of containers may fly well with no cargo, but if the containers are filled up then the ship may not be able to fly anymore.
 
Will there be chat systems? Global, regional, planetary?
There will be some sort of local regional chat. However, regional is not easily defined in the game; for example, a planet could have hundreds of thousands of people on it, so regional is not something that is precisely defined yet. But there needs to be something at least that allows players to talk to other nearby players.
 
Will there be such a thing as ship linking; will there be docking ports?
Small ships docking inside of larger ships is definitely a planned feature. However, docking two ships of the same size together gets a little bit more messy. With that feature, large layers and chains of ships could be created. At this point, which player is controlling the physics?
 
How will construct repair work?  Will there be repair units, or will it all have to be done by hand?
It will always be possible to repair by hand, but there will be repair units that will be able to restore a ship back to what it initially was before it was damaged, provided the unit has the required resources, energy, and time. The repair unit will know what the construct it is a part of is supposed to look like, and it will have the capability of restoring a construct back to that original image if the construct is damaged.
 
How does the production of ships from blueprints work? Is it an instantaneous process, does it happen after a specific time, part by part?
It is not going to be instantaneous, it is going to take time. It will take resources and energy, and probably if it is significant then it will need to be defended in some way, unless it’s happening in the safe zone. The required time will be proportional to the size of what is being built, so mass producing battle cruisers is not something that will be able to be done overnight.
 
What happens to a flying ship when I destroy its engine in space? Does it just come to a stop or does it continue at the last known speed?
Engines are physical. So if there are two engines, one on each side of a ship, and one of the engines is destroyed, then the ship is going to spin. The core idea is that engines are physical, so if they are destroyed then that can impact how the ship moves. There is a very good chance that, given that there is no friction in space, a ship will continue to move if its engines are shut off. However, if a player were to be in a moving ship, log off, and come back three weeks later, they would find themselves in the middle of nowhere; this is not desirable.
 
Will there be cloaking?
There will be cloaking. It will probably not be around at release, but it is one of the features that seems obvious for a game like Dual Universe. This is desirable for a player than may want to log off for a while; they can cloak and lock a ship to keep it safe.
 
What methods will be available to detect constructs, and to avoid being detected?
There needs to be a way to detect others in the game. There will be ways to scan for players, whether on or below ground; and similarly there will be something like a distortion field that allows you to be hidden from sensors. But, there should never be a totally foolproof way to hide without some weakness. It will also be possible to put trackers on ships, and a corresponding countermeasure to that.
 
Extra info:
The nanoformer will be able to 3D print basic and fundamental parts and components for the player to use.
Ships can be stolen and reverse engineered; Lua scripts can be read by those who steal a ship with a script on it.
 
How are scripts shared between players; a script runs client side, but is it shared with players?
Scripts are always running on the players machine, but the text of the script is synchronized, so everybody can see it. So if there are different control units with different scripts in them, one player can start one of them and another can start the other script, and they will run in parallel. Similarly, whatever the scripts do is synchronized by the server for all players. Scripts are run on the clients computer, but several players can be simultaneously running and using different scripts which are all made by a single player (and thus running on that players computer), and all players can see the effects of the scripts. One exception is that you cannot have two players controlling the same element at the same time.
 
Can scripts be hacked?
Hacking will be a skill within the game which will allow a player to bypass RDMS systems. It will require time, and is a planned feature, but may not be present at release.
 
Extra Info:
Locations are something that can be itemized; as an example, the coordinates of a vein of ore within a planet can be “itemized” whereby it can be sold on the market.
Reputation will be a mechanic within the game, but exactly how it will work is not completely finalized.
 
Will armors for players be modular (i.e. heavy armor chestpiece type-A with legpiece type- B ), or are we looking forward to a single-piece type of armor, and in an extent, will weapons be a part of an armor or are they separate customizable entities?
Armor will be separate; that is for sure. It is likely, certainly at release and at least for a while, that player armor mechanics will remain simplified, but the concept has potential to expand.
 
Can a solo player fly a warship with many weapons, or does each weapon need a player?
There needs to be a player for every weapon; that is the requirement. This is for several reasons, one being that the game is an MMO intended to have players working together, another that it doesn’t make sense for one person to single-handedly control a huge warship.
 
Have you considered how you are going to do the updates?
There will be expansions every ~6-12 months. Updates with new features will come out at regular intervals.
 
If you claim two territories next to each other, do they fuse together as one big one?
There will be ways to link territory units. Players will also have the option of having lots of little territory units, or one big territory unit that links everything. This gives the option of having one large easily defended tile which covers a huge area, or lots of distributed and less easily defendable tiles which only allow access to the local territory. One mechanic which may be present is that a claimed territory tile cannot be attacked if it is surrounded by other claimed territory tiles, provided they all have the same owner.
 
Will players ever need food?
The question of food is linked to survival gameplay. There probably will not be survival gameplay at the beginning, because it requires so much work to be functional, but it is something that has the potential to be added later.
 
Extra Info:
A bowl of rice is 8 dollars in San Francisco.

I mean, I'm not trying to judge or anything here ... but doesn't it make a bit more sense to recruit the ministers from within the Terran Union rather than just looking for anyone who happens to pass by on the forums? 
 
You have over 400 members, aren't there any qualified people there that could be promoted?

I propose Battle Royale. Somebody/Some-people make a giant stadium, and every org send somebody in to fight. Everybody watching gets Space-Popcorn.

There could always be an addiction level to any kind of medicine to treat the trauma meaning that if you were to die often and keep using the medicine to reduce/remove the effects then you would end up with a longer lasting harder to remove debuff as a withdrawal from the medicine used to treat the battle fatigue, this could help because it would mean that the player would have to decide whether to wait the original debuff out or to get it sorted by a doctor and risk getting addicted. I think this would still be relevant later in the game aswell because once organisations are built up more then most would be able to remove the battle fatigue quite easily and so by having the possibility for an addiction would still allow both the trauma and hospitals to exist and allow for further emerging gameplay.
 
As always just an idea.

There could always be an addiction level to any kind of medicine to treat the trauma meaning that if you were to die often and keep using the medicine to reduce/remove the effects then you would end up with a longer lasting harder to remove debuff as a withdrawal from the medicine used to treat the battle fatigue, this could help because it would mean that the player would have to decide whether to wait the original debuff out or to get it sorted by a doctor and risk getting addicted. I think this would still be relevant later in the game aswell because once organisations are built up more then most would be able to remove the battle fatigue quite easily and so by having the possibility for an addiction would still allow both the trauma and hospitals to exist and allow for further emerging gameplay.
 
As always just an idea.

I have been gving this some thought. If the engine exhaust does damage to the block behind it. You could easily set up an escape pod. Get a couple engines keymapped to a button with some blocks supporting the cockpit under them. You lose the ship, save yourself, and make it much harder to commandeer a ship with no cockpit.  It will probably work best with utility ships like haulers or miners.
 
So, I guess, I would like an engine block that you can build right up to and causes damage. if you block the inlet the engine will pull O2 from reserves, similar to the UK's SABRE hybrid turbine/rocket engine