SGCamera_Beta

I personally don't have a problem with cube shaped ships, but being able to mount large railguns and radar on a tiny cube and then shoot freight ships 160km away that cant even see them is a bit ridiculous. I totally get the minimalist approach to building, i totally get that people want to be able to take out larger ships with smaller fighters, but the range and mechanics of the current cube meta are ridiculously lopsided. if you are in an actual hauler, and you happen to run across one of these cubes, which is currently fairly rare, there's not much you can do. You cant outrun them, you can't even see them to shoot back with the ranges involved... I mean if they at LEAST made it so that firing larger weapons or hitting someone with weapons made you visible on radar for a few seconds, it would give the guy that's just trying to play the game and get materials back to their base a chance to do SOMETHING... I totally get that people want to pvp in such a way that they minimize self risk and maximize kill potential... but being able to set up a complete checkmate to basically grief someone without them having a chance in hell to do anything about it is pretty dumb. A lot of players in this game like it because it is a building exploration game. Yes there are risks, and they can accept that, but it really throws mud in their eye when the game mechanics are such that "well if you run into one of these meta cube guys you're just gonna lose the last 8 hours of work gathering materials, and your ship and there's nothing you can do about it" I'm not a fan of no-win scenarios. I mean if I'm an idiot and dont even put weapons on my ship and I get killed by someone that did, fair, that was my fault. If its impossible for me to defend myself when I take precautions? Time to find a new game.
 
My basic point is, pvp? YES i want it. Do I want some guy with a very cheap (well thought out) ship to completely checkmate me when I'm in anything other than a meta cube? NO. Some people want to only "pvp" all day and do very little else, and some people want to try out all aspects of the game. Stacking all the cards in the pvp'ers hand and spitting on the people that actually want to do the other half of the game (build/explore) is going to kill this game if it is not dealt with at some point somehow. Completely one sided engagements are only fun for the people that are automatically going to win, and even then its barely fun for them after 3-4 times because they didn't have much risk. Next thing you know all the players left in the game are sitting in their little cubes looking for haulers, but there aren't any cuz they all quit playing.
 
This is the choosing point that most game developers nowadays have to decide on. If I were the developer, I would make choices that encourage more people to play and build a thriving community, make a lot of money. Choose to allow a few players to ruin the game for the majority, and this great game with great potential will sink into obscurity.

Dear HQ-Team,
 
today i found out there was a interview that happend on twitch:  Source (start 1h 33min)

Good thing i have a few ingame friends who have ears open to find out about such things.
Because i can forget to look up the twitter or even the forum which should be one of the major connection points between player-base and the Game-Team.

But there is no information in the forum what was talked about in the interview (Summary or minutes of meeting)  or that is even happend!
A summary would be very importent as we would have actuall facts about what is going on where is the journey taking us it would also help a lot of people who dont have the time to watch it or are unable to do so( slow internet, being in puplic, language difficulty or having hearing problems).
 
kind regards,
 
Helrym
 
 
 

I don't agree with you on many of these. The ship show had way more ships than the market and ran smooth -except for certain ships that had lua scripts - those did not run well at all. This suggests that the engine does fine - the scripting side is a mess though. NQ has stated that they are tasking a dev specifically with working on the LUA implementation.
 
I can't defend the PvP as it is. The implementation was flawed on paper. It should never have made it into a single line of code as it stands. Targeting speed and lockon distance being core based was - shortsighted to put it nicely.
 
NQ's communication is abysmal. I cannot defend it. Why do I find out more about what JC says about DU from 3rd party sources than from the main site/discord/foum? https://massivelyop.com/2020/10/17/some-assembly-required-the-future-of-dual-universes-puzzle-events-and-development/ WHY am I reading this on this site? Why do I have to go out of my way to find communication about the game I kickstarted!?
 
They HAVE fixed plenty of bugs and exploits. I can't defend that they often broke stuff to do so - but that neither here nor there - they are fixing exploits.
 
I agree that rule enforcement is nonexistance and their threats have been toothless. Whatever happened to the dupers? Nothing.
 
RDMS is extremely powerful and extremely complicated and extremely clunky. I have mixed feelings about it - I think it has tremendous potential once the bugs are sorted out. I don't think it's fair to NQ to say that they can't make it work - they just are trying to do too much with an abysmal clunky and unintuitive UI. The idea behind the system is solid, the implementation is not.
 
The subscription system is terrible yes. It's what I expect to see from 1 man indie projects.
 
 

Been thinking about posting this for a while but thought NQ would have done something already.
 
Going to post this as politely as I can but the support giveaways are a COMPLETE JOKE.  50% of people are lying, this is obvious because they say things like:

"I crashed when coming into atmosphere, logged back in and my ship was destroyed" - bullshit, you crash your ships stops what they actually means is "I have a really heavy ship, I crashed the game coming into atmosphere because i couldnt slow down, logged back in with zero momentum and my massively overweight ship fell like a rock"

"I just died on XXXXX insert planet and have magically teleported to Ailoth, can you port me back" = I was mining and tried to use the force respawn to cheese back to my ship, but didnt check my node before I used this soft exploit
 
This is causing a LOAD of problems, firstly you are completely shielding these new players from any survival elements of the game, experienced players know to fly with good scrap and extra fuel.  New players arent learning these lessons because when they make mistakes (and most ARE player mistakes) they get freebies.

The worst part about all this is that they are making a huge section of gameplay / career paths completely redundant.  In alpha there were loads of players planning to set up as repair / refuel crew or taxi services, I have reached out to several of these to see how business is and there ISNT ANY.  The game has limited career paths as it is (without really knowing the game) these are some of the more obvious ones and you are making them irrelevant.  The longer this goes on the worse it will get.

My solution - send out an email saying that the daily quanta is being continued but it is being called BETA SUPPORT INCOME, it is paid to ensure players have funds in case of emergency.  You then reach out to verified support services orgs and bring them into support via some additional channel, where you can send people who need there services.
 
This needs to be done soon, as you are making a massive rod for your own back by giving this crutch to new players (although seen several vets abusing it too).

Well, what he is saying makes very little sense and it seems he really does not know much about this at all as he is clearly guessing. He does not know emotes are in, he even says he is "theorizing" and "heard where it is being used" so he has no actual information.. Hence making it up as he goes along
 
He seems to have "talking points" prepared or given but his responses are really of the mark overall and make little sense.
 
I'd say it's potentially dangerous to let a level design lead guess in public on game mechanics which may have a big impact.

Seriously though, they need to get lots of other features sorted first.
 
I really hate how they worded territory pvp item as well.
 
"- Final safe-zone definition" is listed as a line item for it - I hate that. It should be defined already.
 
Asteroid mining is needed because frankly the mole man mechanic is tiresome and is burning people out.
 
Energy managment needs to come before territory pvp.
 
pvp rebalancing should come as part of that
 
Then all the voxel tools and graphics
 
Then avatar pvp AND atmo pvp
 
Then once all that crap is working and balanced, you can turn on territory warfare.
 
PvP needs to be well balanced and thought out before it become a major part of the game and it's going to be a major task - lots of other things can and should be done first.
 

There are a lot of practical benefits when it comes to ship aesthetics. Well...sort of practical. 
 
Your fleet ought to be recognizable. Everyone knows a Federation ship when they see it -- if you attack it, you'd best be ready for war with the entire faction. 
 
They design ships to look pretty and consistent -- sure, they could pump out a bunch of war ships, but the design is a reflection of their values as an organization.
 
If a Federation ship shows up to answer your distress call, you probably trust them more than a stranger. Even if you aren't familiar with their org, they don't look like warships. You wouldn't invest in pretty ships if your only concern is piracy/war. 
 
Cohesive ship design helps build the organization's reputation across the galaxy -- and this reputation helps each individual ship stay safer...or be more feared, or whatever values you want to reflect.  
 
For those of us that want to play a civilization sandbox, these sorts of things will hopefully be important. 
 
My hope is that generic cube ships (if they remain in meta) get treated as "pirates" on sight by more organized fleets -- e.g. if your ship looks like it is a generic cube built only for combat that doesn't belong to any faction...maybe you get treated like the dirty space rat you are by more civilization-focused orgs.  

PVP needs to be rebalanced from the ground up.
 
Hit chance needs to be entirely based on the profile of the ship from the angle it's being shot at - not the core size.
 
Vector differences must play a much larger role. 
 
L weapons should have tracking that is pitiful. An L missile should simply be unable to effectively hit a small ship that is changing it's vector.
 
HP of voxels need to be rebalanced from the ground up and not just be weight based. More complicated to make voxels should have benefits over simple to make voxels.
 
A power system needs to be added to further cripple xs ships mounting L weapons - it should be viable to mount upsized guns, but it should come with some serious downsides - IE having to have a ton of capacitors that get drained fully just from a single shot and need time to recharge etc.
 
 
I disagree that building good looking ships for pvp is pointless. It doesn't matter if your cube is shot up or your pretty pirate ship. You're likley going to be scrapping them both and redeploying from BP anyway because fixing voxels currently is too much of a hassle. Easier to scrap and redeploy.
 
The only reason people are doing cubes currently is that there is an advantage for filling the build grid but no penalties.
 
Ultimately a pvp ship that doesn't get hit due to a small profile is better than one that gets hit a bunch but lives - you don't have to fix the ship that never got hit.

I've got four considerations to add:
 
1. Someone who is changing the course of his whole life from robotic science stuff towards making a game and launches a kickstarter campaign to look for people to back his idea, then creates a company, hires people, sets up hardware and offices on a global scale, already invested 4 years building the product while dealing with a whole planet's internet crowd of which a good part didn't even believe it's possible to do... I don't think that someone like that would do anything that puts his dream in jeopardy by "banning people on a whim" or "kicking players out of their territory just for fun". Especially since just recently I heard this person on an interview saying that the Alioth revamp probably isn't gonna happen after all, because many players already put so much effort into it which they don't want to touch. (Sorry, bit off topic: I don't agree with the last part, because: what about players like me, who based their decision to not yet get a tile on Alioth because of the expected wipe and changes in terrain? Now I'm kinda late to the party. I was really looking forward to the revamped Alioth, but it's ok.. just a minor disappointment. And completely beside the point here, sorry again.)
 
I trust NQ and especially JC (NQ-Sophon, the person that the above paragraph is about) the same way as a customer buying a car trusts that the inventor of that vehicle wouldn't implement anything that will steer it into a wall once it reaches 200kmh. If that inventor drives his own car too, to me that just adds more trust - even if he removes the constraints from the engine's ECU that would void my own warranty if I did it. I know this is not the perfect analogy, but still.
 
2. Since as far as I can remember back JC was talking about "Ready Player One" and the huge impact it had on the vision. Even in that interview Lacobus and DU secrets are mentioned at 33:25 and it takes JC like 58 seconds to jump to "that was straight out of Ready Player One", so I presume it's still big on his mind, being a repetitive pattern. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, I suggest to do that to get an idea of what he's talking about. Minor spoiler alert: Ready Player One is about a virtual world where the creator hid eastereggs all around and players hunt for them to reach some ultimate goal - during this hunt the creator appears like a godlike figure with ultimate wisdom or something (sorry I'm probably not very precise here). So if I'd have to guess what kind of in-game stuff JC does with his power, my bets are on: a) looking around what people do in this sandbox, hoping to find things he didn't expect to come out from his seed of basic tools and elements and b) create that hidden treasure hunt for us to figure out. B only actually matters to those "few" who pursue solving the riddle, while a huge portion of the playerbase couldn't care less and just enjoy DU the way they DU.
 
Btw: I think that castle shown in that interview might be located on these 37 tiles you care about. So if you listen to that you might get an impression about what he uses it for - but that's just some wild guess by me  
 
3. I've played other games where GMs and special people received or built something out of the ordinary. Some kickstarter pledges contained the priviledge to help develop a DU secret - and IIRC one of them even let the backer design his very own secret. There's lore in DU as well and Aphelia owns huge portions of land and structures that just popped into appearance and contain elements that we don't have access to. That's exactly the same "godlike influence" way out of the scope of any player as the thing complained about here. The only difference is the name on the door - Aphelia is not an active character running around, but if you're scared that the name "NQ-Sophon" might influence the game world, you should just as well be concerned about JC (who is the same guy as NQ-Sophon) inventing a story where Aphelia starts to expand and yank people off their territory. The name on the door doesn't change the fact that this will always be in their power - as devs they could even decide to blow up the whole Alioth system if they think they want to get rid of old tech in 2027. I assume you trust they won't use Aphelia for that - an AI going rogue, eliminating a whole system? So why would the same people act vicious or untrustworthy when they're even more exposed by running around with their name above their head  
 
DU is more than a sandbox. It is not limited to only emergent gameplay where everything in existence is build and owned by players and only players. Arkship, Markets, Shuttles, Arkshops, Artifacts, Market-Bots and GMs are evidence for that. I'm saying this because I'm under the impression that you try to nail DU down to the floor of being exclusively player driven, but this is not the case, has never been the case and probably will never be the case, because NQ needs to make adjustments and continue development so we can all enjoy this game for years to come. As said above I've played games where GMs and even "special players" owned things nobody else could dream to achieve or had access to locations that nobody else had. Examples include Ultima Online, where GMs build really nice things in their spare time using their enhanced abilities. I considered those always a nice place to visit and draw inspiration from or just chill out. Or Elite Dangerous which I believe to have systems that are exclusive to some founders, if I remember this correct?
 
I've been teleported to GM places and seen what they do in other games. When they compensate a player's losses - aren't they using their power to influence the game world and it's balance? Maybe one could say "Yes, but only if there has been a bug!", but then we'd argue about those who experienced the same bug and just sucked it up, not getting compensated, so helping only some players creates an imbalance and we should abolish all in-game support...? Naaaah  I'm just fooling around.
 
4. As has been said here already: the "NQ-" prefix in front of the character's name makes it clear that this is (at least) a GM account and not a normal player, so I think your whole argument about "playing as a player with more power" falls to pieces. It only hinges on the opinion about the question if a GM should be allowed to build or own anything in the game or not. If you think it's an issue they claim territory and reduce the available space for the "actual players" - just consider that they have the power to add more territory just as well.
 
In my opinion the rules that apply to GMs (that are employees of the service provider) can be more refined than just by 1 and 0. If owning a tile and building a support shop on it helps them to do their job helping players, then that's fine by me and would not automatically exclude other rules that forbid them to influence in-game politics etc. If we can agree on this basic concept we could further argue about the question if these tiles should be on some kind of "GM-Planet". Pro: that would be outside the regular player driven world and have no impact whatsoever. Contra: apart from devs having to develop this first it would mean regular players can't visit those places for sight-seeing (something I enjoyed doing in UO as said above).
 
So we can continue to argue about how we feel about it, but I think it's pretty clear that many people in this thread either don't care at all, or trust NQ enough to agree to whatever they like to do without fear of being at a disadvantage, influenced too much or even opressed. So sure, I always like to see NQ giving an official statement and if they decide to do it on this topic, I'll be happy to read their thoughts - but I don't really need them to. Still I'm fine with you waiting for an answer here. Tho it looks like a minority request and in your stead I wouldn't get my hopes up too much, but try to get familiar with the idea that this part of the game might not be 100% exactly as you understood or want it to be.
 
As for me: I actually love that JC owns those tiles. It adds a bit of excitement and anticipation and represents a place that I wanted to visit ever since I heard it exists. I encountered NQ-Blacksun in game when he helped me out and it was an awesome experience. I like having GMs close by and in touch with the players - feeling like real people, wandering the world, visiting us and looking at what we made. Once a GM was around by chance and out of the blue commented on my ship sitting there - something like "that looks like an efficient little thing" - one of the best moments in my time playing this game. Not just because of the compliment, but it made the GM look human and connected with us. Not just a number on some random service center employee that follows a basic script causing me a headache because my problem doesn't fit into their pre-made scenario where it takes me 10 minutes to listen to unrelated answers and explain the issue until they realize they don't have a script for this and forward me to the next service level to which I have to explain everything all over again etcpp. As a player I love the idea of GMs having their homes in our system, where they're tinkering with stuff, reproducing issues, trying to solve some gameplay related issue a player might have asked about once, or just chilling on the porch, watching the sun set after work.
 
Conclusion: Even if what you're concerned about is true, it's still the way I prefer it and I would vote against suggestions that drive the staff away from the community. I want them to work with us, not on us or even against us. To clarify how the "against" is meant: when I read stuff like "totally player created" with an implicated "exclusion of anything else" or even stuff like "abusing power" (of which I'm certain they don't) it feels like taking opposition to the ones who make this all happen and I don't want a "them against us" scenario 

That I can get behind. I am constructing pitchforks as I type... will be done in 8 days because for some reason they need 216 advanced casings.

Was that his castle site? Then it's practically Lore.

We can debate all day about if pirates flying XS cube ships with L Railguns have any class or not (spoiler: they don't, cubes are lame), but I think we can all agree that the current iteration of PvP has plenty of problems.
 
Current Problems:
Lock-on range is only determined by core size Some weapons have ranges that are greater than the minimum Lock-on range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy falloff with increasing range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy loss for high transversal velocities and accelerations  
My Proposed Solutions:
 
1: Lock on range needs to be based on different parameters.  The current meta of L guns on XS ships is problematic, since S and M ships (even if they also have L guns) are outranged and don't even get an opportunity to fight back.  I propose splitting lock-on into 4 separate "Radar" units:
Radar - lock-on range based on sum of ship's 3 cross-sections (already calculated, and doing it as a sum encourages non-cube ships) Gravimetric - lock-on range based on ship's mass (already calculated, makes heavy ships easier to detect whether its cargo or armor) Thermal - lock-on range based on magnitude of the ship's maximum thrust in newtons (already calculated, makes ships with lots of engines easier to detect) Electromagnetic - lock-on range based on power capacity and shields (obviously only useful when/if those systems are added) Balancing the ranges from the 4 methods will take some trial and error, but overall it would make detection more "fair" by adding more control handles for NQ to balance.
 
2+3: Weapons being able to shoot far is very reasonable, and is really a necessity for the BVR combat caused by the velocities of ships in space.  With the lock-on changes above, #2 becomes less of a problem.  However, just because your weapon CAN reach that far, doesn't mean it should have great accuracy at doing so.  Weapons should be able to fire when they are locked on, regardless of range (maybe missiles would be an exception to this), but should have accuracy falloff due to that range.  Additionally, lasers should have damage falloff with range.  I'd like to see the weapons rebalanced accordingly:
Railguns - high accuracy, low rof, moderate damage Cannons - moderate accuracy, moderate rof, moderate damage Lasers - high accuracy, high rof, damage falloff at range (low damage at long range, moderate damage at short range) Missiles - moderate accuracy, low rof, hard cap range limited (high damage at short range)  
4: Unless you are exactly in the target's flight path, you shouldn't be able to hit someone blazing past at 30k kph, aka "0.99c".  Accounting for transversal velocity forces pursuers to match velocities in order to have high hit chances, not just reduce the distance.  This means that weapons need a "tracking speed" property, so that some are better than others.  While tracking speed should vary by weapon type, it should primarily vary by weapon size so that Large weapons have low accuracy at high transversal velocities.  This solves the "the ultimate ship is the biggest ship covered in the most armor and cannons" problem, by making it hard for large weapons to target faster moving ships.  While that can be overcome by adding a ton of engines to make "the ultimate ship" accelerate like a fighter, it will also drastically increase their Thermal signature thus allowing smaller ships to plink them to death from out of range.  Additionally, if transversal acceleration and facing cross section were taken into account, small and quick ships like fighters would be harder to hit.
 
Now some of you are going to say "but SGCam, that sounds a lot like the combat mechanics in EVE."  And you are right, it does.  But as with many things in DU that take inspiration from EVE, Lock+Fire combat is one of them.  That system overall works pretty well for EVE, and the more granular and customizable nature of DU means that it can be even more effective here.  I'm also looking forward to warp interdiction and tackling, but that would be a whole other post.
 
Overall, the more complex the mechanics, the less all-around advantage "meta" builds have.  They may be powerful in certain situations, and that's ok - as long as they are weaker elsewhere due to their optimization.  Adding tradeoffs opens up the design space for more varied and interesting PvP, and will hopefully prevent us from playing "Cube Gank Squad 2020" going forward.

We can debate all day about if pirates flying XS cube ships with L Railguns have any class or not (spoiler: they don't, cubes are lame), but I think we can all agree that the current iteration of PvP has plenty of problems.
 
Current Problems:
Lock-on range is only determined by core size Some weapons have ranges that are greater than the minimum Lock-on range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy falloff with increasing range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy loss for high transversal velocities and accelerations  
My Proposed Solutions:
 
1: Lock on range needs to be based on different parameters.  The current meta of L guns on XS ships is problematic, since S and M ships (even if they also have L guns) are outranged and don't even get an opportunity to fight back.  I propose splitting lock-on into 4 separate "Radar" units:
Radar - lock-on range based on sum of ship's 3 cross-sections (already calculated, and doing it as a sum encourages non-cube ships) Gravimetric - lock-on range based on ship's mass (already calculated, makes heavy ships easier to detect whether its cargo or armor) Thermal - lock-on range based on magnitude of the ship's maximum thrust in newtons (already calculated, makes ships with lots of engines easier to detect) Electromagnetic - lock-on range based on power capacity and shields (obviously only useful when/if those systems are added) Balancing the ranges from the 4 methods will take some trial and error, but overall it would make detection more "fair" by adding more control handles for NQ to balance.
 
2+3: Weapons being able to shoot far is very reasonable, and is really a necessity for the BVR combat caused by the velocities of ships in space.  With the lock-on changes above, #2 becomes less of a problem.  However, just because your weapon CAN reach that far, doesn't mean it should have great accuracy at doing so.  Weapons should be able to fire when they are locked on, regardless of range (maybe missiles would be an exception to this), but should have accuracy falloff due to that range.  Additionally, lasers should have damage falloff with range.  I'd like to see the weapons rebalanced accordingly:
Railguns - high accuracy, low rof, moderate damage Cannons - moderate accuracy, moderate rof, moderate damage Lasers - high accuracy, high rof, damage falloff at range (low damage at long range, moderate damage at short range) Missiles - moderate accuracy, low rof, hard cap range limited (high damage at short range)  
4: Unless you are exactly in the target's flight path, you shouldn't be able to hit someone blazing past at 30k kph, aka "0.99c".  Accounting for transversal velocity forces pursuers to match velocities in order to have high hit chances, not just reduce the distance.  This means that weapons need a "tracking speed" property, so that some are better than others.  While tracking speed should vary by weapon type, it should primarily vary by weapon size so that Large weapons have low accuracy at high transversal velocities.  This solves the "the ultimate ship is the biggest ship covered in the most armor and cannons" problem, by making it hard for large weapons to target faster moving ships.  While that can be overcome by adding a ton of engines to make "the ultimate ship" accelerate like a fighter, it will also drastically increase their Thermal signature thus allowing smaller ships to plink them to death from out of range.  Additionally, if transversal acceleration and facing cross section were taken into account, small and quick ships like fighters would be harder to hit.
 
Now some of you are going to say "but SGCam, that sounds a lot like the combat mechanics in EVE."  And you are right, it does.  But as with many things in DU that take inspiration from EVE, Lock+Fire combat is one of them.  That system overall works pretty well for EVE, and the more granular and customizable nature of DU means that it can be even more effective here.  I'm also looking forward to warp interdiction and tackling, but that would be a whole other post.
 
Overall, the more complex the mechanics, the less all-around advantage "meta" builds have.  They may be powerful in certain situations, and that's ok - as long as they are weaker elsewhere due to their optimization.  Adding tradeoffs opens up the design space for more varied and interesting PvP, and will hopefully prevent us from playing "Cube Gank Squad 2020" going forward.

Hello Noveans!
 
We would like to thank you for your patience during the past few weeks as we have been incredibly focused on getting you all into the game. While we know there are still a few edge cases out there, we hope you’ve been enjoying your time in Dual Universe!
 
A burning topic is known bugs surrounding duping, and their exploitation. We’d like to offer some clarifications on this. 
 
We are aware of some bugs that were allowing players to dupe items and resources, and we are actively investigating  these. The process is however slow and labor intensive. Given how much time is involved, and how severe the outcome is, we want to make it clear that we are taking all exploits very seriously and they will carry heavy sanctions for abuse cases up to and including removal of player accounts and permanent bans.  
 
We have a zero tolerance policy towards cheating and exploiting, as is clearly laid out in our Code of Conduct.
 
For those who have encountered these bugs and already reported them, we thank you. There will be no sanctions on those accounts. We may balance gains if deemed necessary.  For those who have been knowingly abusing bugs, you have 48 hours to report your activities via a ticket here: support.dualthegame.com - your duped proceeds will be removed, but no further action will be taken. Please select Gameplay in the first form drop-down, select the “Rules & Policies” > “Exploits” category and use the subject “Self Report” For those who continue to exploit, and do not report it, your account will be banned without notice upon completion of our investigations.    
While every person has their own sense of fun, it is important to remember that this is an MMO and that rules must be enforced to keep play fair and even. 
We thank you for being a part of the Dual Universe  beta and for helping us keep the game fair and entertaining. 
 
Sincerely, 
The Novaquark Team

We can debate all day about if pirates flying XS cube ships with L Railguns have any class or not (spoiler: they don't, cubes are lame), but I think we can all agree that the current iteration of PvP has plenty of problems.
 
Current Problems:
Lock-on range is only determined by core size Some weapons have ranges that are greater than the minimum Lock-on range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy falloff with increasing range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy loss for high transversal velocities and accelerations  
My Proposed Solutions:
 
1: Lock on range needs to be based on different parameters.  The current meta of L guns on XS ships is problematic, since S and M ships (even if they also have L guns) are outranged and don't even get an opportunity to fight back.  I propose splitting lock-on into 4 separate "Radar" units:
Radar - lock-on range based on sum of ship's 3 cross-sections (already calculated, and doing it as a sum encourages non-cube ships) Gravimetric - lock-on range based on ship's mass (already calculated, makes heavy ships easier to detect whether its cargo or armor) Thermal - lock-on range based on magnitude of the ship's maximum thrust in newtons (already calculated, makes ships with lots of engines easier to detect) Electromagnetic - lock-on range based on power capacity and shields (obviously only useful when/if those systems are added) Balancing the ranges from the 4 methods will take some trial and error, but overall it would make detection more "fair" by adding more control handles for NQ to balance.
 
2+3: Weapons being able to shoot far is very reasonable, and is really a necessity for the BVR combat caused by the velocities of ships in space.  With the lock-on changes above, #2 becomes less of a problem.  However, just because your weapon CAN reach that far, doesn't mean it should have great accuracy at doing so.  Weapons should be able to fire when they are locked on, regardless of range (maybe missiles would be an exception to this), but should have accuracy falloff due to that range.  Additionally, lasers should have damage falloff with range.  I'd like to see the weapons rebalanced accordingly:
Railguns - high accuracy, low rof, moderate damage Cannons - moderate accuracy, moderate rof, moderate damage Lasers - high accuracy, high rof, damage falloff at range (low damage at long range, moderate damage at short range) Missiles - moderate accuracy, low rof, hard cap range limited (high damage at short range)  
4: Unless you are exactly in the target's flight path, you shouldn't be able to hit someone blazing past at 30k kph, aka "0.99c".  Accounting for transversal velocity forces pursuers to match velocities in order to have high hit chances, not just reduce the distance.  This means that weapons need a "tracking speed" property, so that some are better than others.  While tracking speed should vary by weapon type, it should primarily vary by weapon size so that Large weapons have low accuracy at high transversal velocities.  This solves the "the ultimate ship is the biggest ship covered in the most armor and cannons" problem, by making it hard for large weapons to target faster moving ships.  While that can be overcome by adding a ton of engines to make "the ultimate ship" accelerate like a fighter, it will also drastically increase their Thermal signature thus allowing smaller ships to plink them to death from out of range.  Additionally, if transversal acceleration and facing cross section were taken into account, small and quick ships like fighters would be harder to hit.
 
Now some of you are going to say "but SGCam, that sounds a lot like the combat mechanics in EVE."  And you are right, it does.  But as with many things in DU that take inspiration from EVE, Lock+Fire combat is one of them.  That system overall works pretty well for EVE, and the more granular and customizable nature of DU means that it can be even more effective here.  I'm also looking forward to warp interdiction and tackling, but that would be a whole other post.
 
Overall, the more complex the mechanics, the less all-around advantage "meta" builds have.  They may be powerful in certain situations, and that's ok - as long as they are weaker elsewhere due to their optimization.  Adding tradeoffs opens up the design space for more varied and interesting PvP, and will hopefully prevent us from playing "Cube Gank Squad 2020" going forward.

We can debate all day about if pirates flying XS cube ships with L Railguns have any class or not (spoiler: they don't, cubes are lame), but I think we can all agree that the current iteration of PvP has plenty of problems.
 
Current Problems:
Lock-on range is only determined by core size Some weapons have ranges that are greater than the minimum Lock-on range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy falloff with increasing range Weapons have no/minimal accuracy loss for high transversal velocities and accelerations  
My Proposed Solutions:
 
1: Lock on range needs to be based on different parameters.  The current meta of L guns on XS ships is problematic, since S and M ships (even if they also have L guns) are outranged and don't even get an opportunity to fight back.  I propose splitting lock-on into 4 separate "Radar" units:
Radar - lock-on range based on sum of ship's 3 cross-sections (already calculated, and doing it as a sum encourages non-cube ships) Gravimetric - lock-on range based on ship's mass (already calculated, makes heavy ships easier to detect whether its cargo or armor) Thermal - lock-on range based on magnitude of the ship's maximum thrust in newtons (already calculated, makes ships with lots of engines easier to detect) Electromagnetic - lock-on range based on power capacity and shields (obviously only useful when/if those systems are added) Balancing the ranges from the 4 methods will take some trial and error, but overall it would make detection more "fair" by adding more control handles for NQ to balance.
 
2+3: Weapons being able to shoot far is very reasonable, and is really a necessity for the BVR combat caused by the velocities of ships in space.  With the lock-on changes above, #2 becomes less of a problem.  However, just because your weapon CAN reach that far, doesn't mean it should have great accuracy at doing so.  Weapons should be able to fire when they are locked on, regardless of range (maybe missiles would be an exception to this), but should have accuracy falloff due to that range.  Additionally, lasers should have damage falloff with range.  I'd like to see the weapons rebalanced accordingly:
Railguns - high accuracy, low rof, moderate damage Cannons - moderate accuracy, moderate rof, moderate damage Lasers - high accuracy, high rof, damage falloff at range (low damage at long range, moderate damage at short range) Missiles - moderate accuracy, low rof, hard cap range limited (high damage at short range)  
4: Unless you are exactly in the target's flight path, you shouldn't be able to hit someone blazing past at 30k kph, aka "0.99c".  Accounting for transversal velocity forces pursuers to match velocities in order to have high hit chances, not just reduce the distance.  This means that weapons need a "tracking speed" property, so that some are better than others.  While tracking speed should vary by weapon type, it should primarily vary by weapon size so that Large weapons have low accuracy at high transversal velocities.  This solves the "the ultimate ship is the biggest ship covered in the most armor and cannons" problem, by making it hard for large weapons to target faster moving ships.  While that can be overcome by adding a ton of engines to make "the ultimate ship" accelerate like a fighter, it will also drastically increase their Thermal signature thus allowing smaller ships to plink them to death from out of range.  Additionally, if transversal acceleration and facing cross section were taken into account, small and quick ships like fighters would be harder to hit.
 
Now some of you are going to say "but SGCam, that sounds a lot like the combat mechanics in EVE."  And you are right, it does.  But as with many things in DU that take inspiration from EVE, Lock+Fire combat is one of them.  That system overall works pretty well for EVE, and the more granular and customizable nature of DU means that it can be even more effective here.  I'm also looking forward to warp interdiction and tackling, but that would be a whole other post.
 
Overall, the more complex the mechanics, the less all-around advantage "meta" builds have.  They may be powerful in certain situations, and that's ok - as long as they are weaker elsewhere due to their optimization.  Adding tradeoffs opens up the design space for more varied and interesting PvP, and will hopefully prevent us from playing "Cube Gank Squad 2020" going forward.

Everyone will be in the same "shard/server".  Literally every single player.  And that's why not having NPCs works - because there should be plenty of players to make it feel lively.

Don't forget to remember to read this ~4000 word short story about The Forgotten.
 
The Forgotten.pdf
The Forgotten.docx

Was bored, so I took some notes of all the curious and interesting stuff I heard during the podcast in the latest news update. If you don't want to listen through the whole hour and forty-six minutes, feel free to read everything I skimmed off and enjoy. Also, feel free to post or message me if you got something I should add to the OP.
 
Here's a quick rundown on what I got.
 
PVP Social Features Piloting Revamp Industry Changes Surface Gathering Territory Units Visual improvements UI Roadmap Update Player Questions NDA Lift  
PVP ===
CVC is on track for January.
 
First version of CVC:
Large -temporary- arena in space only Will be expanded to atmospheres, then the entire game world. More versions in the future?  
Pillars of CVC:
Lock+Target - operating at long range, one way of dealing with lag Destruction - piece by piece, physical holes Multi-crew - No battleships controlled by one person  
Future Improvements to CVC:
Repair Units - Rebuild your ship at 'last snapshot', Shipyards Separation between PVP space and safe zones.  
Construct vs Avatar: 
If a player is hiding behind a wall and you shoot the wall, the player will die because of the blast radius. Explicit player targeting will come later (if needed).  
 
 
Social Features ===
Some features may be coming sooner.
 
Legates:
Legates will have the right to decide who should do what in an organization. A voting system for Legates You can have other organizations among Legates Someone in an organization can be chosen as a representative - A Super Legate  
Ownership: Everything in the game has an owner.
Will be expanded to individual items in the player's inventory. An engine belonging to a specific player can be held in another player's inventory. New filters will be applicable. Organizations can now own constructs. Players can formally trade and transfer construct rights between each other and organizations.  
Partial revamp of RDMS:
New types of rights introduced Legates will have rights to manage an organizations RDMS Three specific groups: Actors: Groups of people put together to define people. Miners, pilots, etc Rights: Construct based, territory-based, item-based, and more. Tags: Ability to tag items, constructs, territories, etc, to target a policy Chat system being worked on. A solution will be made for people in organizations that are non-testers.  
 
 
Piloting Revamp ===
All changes will be given a dedicated dev blog, this is just some of them
Wings will be able to cause torque
Script generation in control units redone
Flight with mouse
Autoconfig script will need to be run on A3 release
"G" will trigger gears without the need for scripting.
Cruise control will control your ship with velocity instead of thrust
 Different 'mode'  Easier to control ship  Easier for new players in space, more feedback, easier to understand what you're doing  Not a 'better way' Balancing
 Space engines unbalanced, very overpowered  Rocket booster fuel cost and materials adjusted  Player specialization will start to increase  
 
Industry Changes ===
New Modes:
Maintain - Indy linked to out container, will attempt to keep a number set of whatever the unit is building (always maintaining a set 30 ore then stopping) Set Number - Indy will make a specific number of parts, then stop. Recipes revamped, will now make sense, parts will have actual names, "burner", "case housing", etc
Ore distribution altered
New Specialized Indy Units: Glass, metal, etc
New Indy designs, animations soon.
 
 
 
Surface Gathering ===
Extension of existing game play
Collect surface resources, fairly low value
Resources may, depending on where they are, but not always regenerate
Intended to be a more casual experience and help new players
Rocks, crystals, trees
Initial seeding will be done, then more refined over time
New Tool: Surface Gathering Tool
Walk up to a surface element, activate the tool, charge up, gather resource  
 
 
Territory Units ===
Making a comeback
Who has rights to mine, build, etc
 
 
 
Visual improvements ===
Space lighting 'too dark'
Nebula added to brighten things
Will be able to see other ships at a distance in space

 
UI ===
Not all UI elements will be changed in A3, all however will be improved over time.
Entire revamp planned for more consistent interfaces
 
 
 
Roadmap Update ===
Consolidation and stabilization will be focused on after A3
Some beta features may be postponed New things will still be added User Experience
Ensuring things work well Information provided when the player needs it Onboarding process further polished Beta 2
Need to introduce features really important to coherence for all gameplay pillars Release will be an acknowledgment of the maturation of the game, not necessarily addressing more issues. This was done with the unannounced 'pre-alpha' stage.  
Fast Travel Options:
Visit a place once, unlock a 'fast travel' option. Planets moved closer together. Speed limit increased. Other ideas open to player feedback  
Planet Revamp: Exploring in DU gives a sense of wonder. Well underway. Destined for alpha 3 but was pushed back. Biome design, more realistic textures. How things look today are still considered placeholders. Ongoing effort. The geometry of planets will not be changed after the beta, no wipe, no regeneration. It will be the final version of where mountains, forests are, etc.
 
Mining: Bigger variety of mining veins. From mega veins over multiple territories, to tiny pebbles, regular nodes, etc.
 
Territory Warfare: Design not completely set. Claim enough territories around a territory you own, one in the center becomes a 'temporary safe zone'. Destroy the territory unit to claim it for your own. Evolution of combat V2. Expanded to the whole system, not just the PVP arena.
 
Mission System: Nothing more than a player given quest system allowing players or orgs to design missions for others to complete for rewards. Will help address the need for things for new players to do, mine ore for an organization, etc. Exploring 'NPC type' missions that only new players can do (TBD).
 
Release and Post Release: An indication of what NQ wants for release with some features coming after release. Some features might be ready earlier. 
Player-owned markets were pushed back due to challenges; what happens if you store your market in your inventory, destruction occurs, having player owned markets be in PVP areas or not. Energy management will come with specific challenges. Create groups of people who are not parts of the same organization to work, play, fight together.  
 
 
Player Questions ===
Will Beta be feature complete:
What is 'feature complete'? It's really hard to say for a game like DU. What do we need to make a release ready game? We have our priorities for release. As company size increases, we'll be able to do more things. Things will get better the more successes occur for the game.
 
Will gameplay look much different after release from alpha? Crafting times, recipes, talent costs, space station placement, restrictions, and so on. When will we see these changes before release:
Balancing things will always be occurring, new things will always be here to fix for changes to old features and after introducing new ones. As much balance will be pushed as needed to keep the health of the game where it needs to be.
We try not to revisit things that we consider are 'in a good state'. How many features we need vs how many we want. When there is a feature that is pretty good or where it needs to be, great, let's shelve it and work on other features that need help. Loopback if we need to.
 
Preception of less communication in NQ since Kickstarter ended:
It's been busy, the team hasn't exactly been happy with this lack of communication. Dev diaries reintroduced, would like to do one every month, but we need to gather high enough quality footage for these videos, this is why we introduced the podcasts, we're still trying to find the tone and type of content for podcasts, but the idea was to have a forum where we can speak to the community, talk about the game, give them an inside look at what we're doing, give them access to the developers. 
 
We've had a great reception, this is something we'd like to do more frequently. Hopefully all this we've been putting out to answer more questions from the community. We have a second podcast, we're planning an AMA, all to reinitiate that communication. Hopefully, this is something we'll be doing in the next few months as we head into another incredible year. Maybe as a reassurance, we spend quite a bit of time reading the forums, maybe we don't respond always, but when we think about new features and are balancing things, we spend quite a lot of time on the forums seeing what you're thinking and saying. As often as we can, we make changes to act positively to what you're saying.
 
Our ticket system is carefully monitored and various things are given priorities where everything will be handled at some point. The problem is the limit of how much we can do in a given time so sometimes it might take a lot of time to fix something you think would be easy to fix, that's not the problem. The problem is other things need to be done before this because we've judged there are more needing. Think of it as a hospital, you deal with the most urgent first so even though you are in pain, you're not going to die, you're not first.
 
Not just on the forums, we also spend time reading YouTube and Discord, something I can say and I'm going to give them credit, we have a team of community managers who are advocates for the players inside the company. They are extremely vocal about making sure the community and its concerns are heard, and you can be assured they have your best interests at heart. 
 
NQ-Nomad is one of them, he works on this podcast. I want to thank them and close this podcast by thanking the community for helping us move forward and for their support. We put that in every video and communication, we want you to know that we mean it and its not just a gimmick. This is something we all believe in, starting with JC and that culture of 'community first'. The community is our most precious asset as what this game and vision are based on, and this is distilled to all employees at NovaQuark.
 
Nothing pleases me more than reading Discord on release days. Sometimes the feedback is good, sometimes bad, but as someone who works on the game, when players get their hands on what you've been working on and just break it instantly, we expect that, I just love reading everyone talking about the features and things I've had my hands on for a while.
 
 
 
More community questions will be answered later in the second podcast along with the AMA.
 
 
 
NDA Lift ===
Will come next year when the game is ready, closer to early March after A3 is released. We need to make sure people outside the community are ready to enter the game. Stabilizing everything, improving user experience. These new players won't spend as much time as Alpha players understanding the development process and will just jump in and judge the game by its current state.
 
Need to polish performance, visuals, improve onboarding, etc. This needs to happen before beta which creates a hard limit. We hope to be able to do this in March but it is hard to say if we will be able to meet this deadline.

 

Just voicing my opinion in this thread for the sake of sharing with NQ on this topic.
 
I agree with others concerning persistence of the world should also mean persistence of the people. I actually don't think live avatars should disappear at all. People taking space in the world is a physical motivation to build safe spaces and provide restricted access to areas. I'd want any toon not online to be asleep with their inventory accessible to everyone; doing so means you inherit risk when you don't log out in a secured location place. The exception to avatars existing in the world would be for "high security" areas like the ark ship; there the players could disappear immediately in complete safety (barring any combat timer).
 
For those concerned with bodies littering the land, slaying the asleep person would relegate them to the heavens, troubling your frame rate no more. An alternate option to requiring death for entrance to the heavens would be, as some have stated, to have a "cryo-chamber" to logout in. I'd be fine with a chamber that shows the last player in the chamber and makes it inaccessible to entrance for 5 minutes, after which time the player toon vanishes allowing another to enter the chamber. Having multiple cryo-chambers is thus incentivized by the the speed of logout, but does not prevent a group using only one in their building. Any player capable of reaching the cryo-chamber should be able to see who is in the chamber and have access to all embodied toon's inventories (no magical permissions, if you're in range to activate the cryo-chamber, you can loot it).
 
Taking this sentiment to death, if killed, instead of a toon being asleep, their inventory would drop in the form of a container. The items in these containers should begin randomly despawning after a grace period until the container is empty (this is to prevent using death containers as storage). Empty containers would despawn immediately, and you'd not be able to put anything in a death container, only remove. Regarding destruction of a cryo-chamber, it too would generate a container if any toon inside had items. It is important that these "death containers" be bound to any dynamic construct they are in such that the weight of them is not ignored. I'd gladly murder my teammates in order to get a ship into space with their inventories for free. This also means dying on a ship in space makes the container follow the ship. Outside of a constructs influence, I'd like the containers to maintain some velocity and react to gravity until the influence of a construct interceded, but I can understand if that is too much effort on the server; thus having space-born death containers hold position in the world should be OK.
 
Respawning would be allowed at any spawn point that is not under cool-down, and the cool down time for any given spawn point should increase after each use. Additionally, as I think others mentioned, there should be a spawn delay based on distance to the spawn point. That is, something like 5 seconds per SU of distance traveled. The reality is that any spawning mechanic is going to provide "fast travel" capabilities. People will kill each-other and themselves for the sake of travel. The disincentive for that is that you never carry your inventory through death, and regardless of a spawn point's cool-down state, you have to wait to spawn when doing so over distance. There will still be a benefit to death-traveling long distances, but it simply won't be free and people can work with that. In order to make respawn waits not entirely boring, we could allow the player to perhaps "follow a friend" through their eyes while dead (first person perspective only).
 
As far as default spawn points, the ark ship should always be available but still require the spawn distance time cost. I'd possibly include some player agnostic spawn points on sanctuary moons, but perhaps those would continue to have cool-down timers per player. I mention the sanctuary moons because I fear having the ark ship as the only always-available spawn point puts too much emphasis on Alioth as a home planet and would discourage more emergent activity in the outer planets.

(Update: November 12th, 2019: detailing the content that will be released before the end of the year)

Dear Community, 
 
We heard your feedback regarding our communication that wasn't as regular during the past months than it was before, in addition of a few miscommunication incidents. That's why we decided to plan several events to catch up and address that topic before the end of the year:
 
For those who have questions (or concerns) about Dual Universe or Novaquark, we've just opened a dedicated thread here (as many questions may be related to subjects under NDA, and we can't check beforehand, we had to put the forum thread in a section under NDA. If you're not a backer and you have questions on topics that aren't under NDA, feel free to contact NQ-Nomad and/or NQ-Nyzaltar by private message on the forum, and they wil transmit them to the team). No question is taboo. Although we can't promise to give a clear and detailed answer for each question, we will try our best to reply as much as we can.
  Here is the content related to communication we plan to release before the end of the year:
- a video presenting the updated roadmap.
- a Dev Diary video showing the recent progress on the game development
- a PodCast where we will try to answer the most pressing matters (based on the questions posted in the dedicated thread).
- an AMA event where we will try to answer to the remaining questions.
- a Kickstarter update.
  We can't give specific dates for all of this content yet, but all will be released before the end of the year.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

Here's just a quick idea, but Comets could be an interesting new type of body that could be added into the game. Especially if comets are implemented as more than just a new type of simple and static body, but something dynamic and dangerous.
 
TLDR Below (Cause I write this all in two ways: A short summary. And a big text dump that's as much an explanation of my idea as it is me figuring it all out as I write).
 
My idea for a comet in DU would be as a transient body that would appear and disappear in game every few weeks or months. Each comet would spawn on the outskirts of the system on a trajectory that will lead them to crash into the sun within a few weeks, give or take. Every comet would be different/procedurally generated, but would basically be like a medium to large asteroid covered in a thick ice and rubble shell. Large boulders, some as big as buildings dot the surface. And caverns up to the size of cities hide within the ice. Beneath which would be a rocky semi-solid core housing deposits of extremely rare and valuable ores. As the comet nears the sun the surface of the comet will begin to slowly vaporize (not physically, so no complex voxel physics) and create two beautiful cometary tails (because that would look incredible in game). Even closer to the sun the comet will begin to 'offgas,' producing a slowly noticeable force on all players and objects on or near it, growing until the force is enough to blow players off the surface as the comet approaches the surface (Basically could function like negative gravity so no complex wind physics. And, is a cheap way to kick people out of and off the comet before it is despawned). Until the comet finally crashes into the sun and those who managed to mine it successfully and survive return to Alioth with their riches.
 
The main purpose of these comets would be to hold some of, if not the rarest ores in the game. Perhaps they could be the only places to find ores necessary for crafting of FTL engines, Warp-gates, or Fusion/Antimatter Reactors to power them. Rather than just hiding them in a few planets or moons, transient comets would create a game-wide gold rush event as players and orgs race to reach and mine them before they disappear. Not to mention the battles if not all out wars that could result as orgs and nations fight for control of a comet. And the ensuing espionage, smuggling, bribery, backstabbing, and other fun stuff that would occur. Plus they would be harder to camp than asteroid or moons, since they don't last too long and once found it is a race for everyone to reach them.
 
As for mining,  beyond ices and basic ores the main attractor would be said rare ore. These would be buried up to several km deep beneath the ice and rubble, in the core of the comet (maybe the ice could mess with Territory Scanners too, forcing players to mine old school?--Unless that's going too far). To make mining more fun and challenging the interiors and surfaces of comets could be made to change as it nears the sun; adding another layer of danger to staying on one for too long. Geysers erupt at random as the heat begins vaporize the surface. Boulders could be thrown about in the low gravity when this happens, along with any unsuspecting ship or mining outpost. Perhaps pockets of pressurized gases appear, awaiting miners to accidentally uncover them and explore. And, pending voxel physics, the surface itself could shift over time. And finally, extremely rarely (like yearly or less), the core of a comet could survive and create a 'gold rush of gold rushes' as players race to mine the now uncovered core.
 
All of this is something that would need DU to implement new physics. Particularly either a switch to systems where planets and bodies have proper orbits (like Kerbal Space Program), or at least something to allow mobile comets and small bodies. And the geysers, vapor wind, and etc. would probably need new physics as well. At the very least basic transient comets could probably be done without needing to change much in game. I just really think implementing something like this would be a very fun and interesting addition to DU that would be much more than just adding another type of static body.
 
Please let me know what you think of my idea, if there's anything I missed, or if you have suggestions for it.
 
TLDR: Add comets that appear every few weeks or months, on slow crash courses with the sun. These comets would hold extremely rare ores deep beneath their ice shells, that players and orgs would need to race to mine before they are destroyed. Not to mention creating a gold rush and focal point in the game that would cause all sorts of battles, wars, smuggling, etc--as orgs fight for dominance and players try to sneak by and mine the comet. All in a race before it is destroyed. And, pending physics/how far the devs are willing to go, comets could be made dangerous themselves with geysers, shifting surface, and exploding pockets of gas/whatever. Having comets as catalysts for game-wide gold rushes is the main idea. That, and comet tails would look amazing in DU.
 

I'm sorry, this is one of my hot-button issues.  For the life of me, I will just never understand why people think that MMO games should be free.  I just don't get it.  Programmers spend years and years to learn their trade and then years and years to make a game and in the case of games like this, they then pay years and years of sever costs, maintenance and updates to continue providing access.  Not to mention the innovation, risk taking and passion game devs have is unlike any other service that I have ever paid for.   But people still want them to be free?!

On the other hand, these very same people will buy a $600 phone and agree up front to pay anywhere from $50 -$100 or more per month to use the darn thing for at least two years or they are in breach of contract.   They seem to have no problem paying places like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon $10 a month forever to see reruns of movies that they have, most likely, already seen that took a fraction of the time and money to make and are not near as entertaining as a good MMO.  But no one seems to have a problem with that.   There are tons of similar examples that i won't go into, but I'm sure you get the gist.

So what is it about games that makes people like you believe that its ok to even suggest that other people work for free and even cover any costs they have to pay to provide you untold hours of free entertainment?   How does anyone think that's a reasonable request?

No. Please, No.

At this point you may as well be asking to just buy our resources from NQ with cash.

If you're really burning through ships and supplies that fast, that's a you problem, not an economy/gameplay problem.

 

So, this post is about the distinction between basis classes of crafting in games. Between having n Items, where each Item class is equal (i.e. an Engine 'squirrel' always being the same), or diversification through quality levels of sort (meaning the squirrel could be stronger or weaker, depending on quality levels).
 
The first system would quickly boil down to just raw price of the Items. Nothing more. Live. i.e. EVE.
It would make shipbuilding and selling very easy, as you can (with some experience) quickly figure out, how much stuff you need to accomplish the task for the ship.
But trading would only diversify through price, and I don't quite see how that would invoke that Industrialist's nook, famous, for whatever. As talked about in the devblog. Unless an heavy localization on industry is enforced. I.e. 'pardus': Hauling did require so much action points there, that you would not travel far for supplies, unless absolutely necessary.
 
Howether, by adding in Quality levels of Items, you split market competition between price and quality level, creating a far wider field of competition and diversity.
It would add more challenge to shipbuilding, because the really good ones will know, when they i.e. need a squirrel less to make the ship do the job. And thus also kinda forces redesign of the ships. Because price matters there too.
And at the end, that would totally enable that specialized industrialist people hear about, because he produces the best squirrels in the galaxy.
Finally, because the careful specialization will likely yield more profit, it will require more people to really hit the limit, thus providing more player interactions. You want to be sure, that your premium parts still will be available tomorrow.
 
But how to get those quality levels?
I would suggest to essentially handle that with 3 categorys:
- The materials used, higher quality in the components -- higher quality in the result. Or more expensive materials for the first things.
- The level of technological finesse asserted in their production. I.e. smaller tolerances for a better result,....
- The level of specialization of the factory. If the factory is custom made to create squirrels that it should do a better job than a general one, which in change can also create different engines. By unlocking more tech improvements for the specialized one.
 
Of course, each crafter has to decide for himself, which road to pursue. Specialize on one single high end, high price Item, or just produce on demand in bulk and low quality what ever is at demand, go in mid spec and mid price by selecting a small group of Items,...
 
Technological finesse and specialization. How?
I do remember that the devs wanted to add actual research to the game. I would use that.
Let's say, you can research engines. After some research you may gain the ability to research atmospheric engines further. And eventually, you might be able to research further into the 'squirrel'.
Of course, the Research effort per level would grow exponentially but unlimited in level, and the more specialized ones would be more expensive in general. But if you specialize you will quickly be able to apply more levels of research to the engines you are building. If you use specialized factorys.
The general engine one would only get the engine tech levels, that atmospheric one would get the engine + atmospheric engine levels, and the one for the squirrel would also get the ones for the squirrel itself.
 
Additionally that also woks with the materials. Let's say we use the engine housing as an example.
You can craft general purpose engine housings, specialized atmospheric engine housings, or an housing specifically tailored to the squirrel. And of course the research and production sec options should also apply there, too.
Once again, the special suirrel housings would likely ending up to be the best you can get. But the crafter will literally have set all his bet's on that part. With the risk, and if no one wants squirrels any more, for whatever reason, those specialization might suddenly not worth anything any more.
 
How the blueprints would be need to taught to deal with the chance of facing elements with different quality levels from the ones theroy were constructed with, is another point, but surely there could be a way as to how the builder can specify the valid quality range for each element, if necessary. Or provide some general defaults/settings. Building seems to take a lot of time, adding a few minutes to specify the valid quality ranges should not be too much of an issue.