Code24

A little correction...
 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b5ATojg7UWW5JmYNc6xo9k2ZI5wZWGhg14R2uKySRWM/edit
 
Exclusively from the CSYN Senate chat. Don't worry though. I've made a copy of it.
 
By the way people. I'll stop doing this once I get an answer from either Neopolitan or Astrophil.
 
See. I'm the antagonist in this story. Dual Universe. The only thing I'm doing is simply causing those who aren't talking to talk. I don't care if it's hate or honesty. Talk about it or else we are not nearly done.

Hello to all of you. I would just like to publicly apologize for the spam that resulted on the forums today.
 
One of my members appeared to have gone and advertised the Diverse Unified Alliance without prior approval nor mention of doing so. This person had no approval nor encouragement from other members. They acted on their own and I take responsibility for what happened. 
 
I am reaching out to contact this person directly and I hope to avoid any future problems like this.
 
Again, please forgive us.

Option 4:
 
THE BEST DAMN COMMUNITY EVER!

There has been some talk about the combat mechanics I mentioned at the end, and I agree with the points made. My main point was actually that ships should not have disconnected parts initially. This could be achieved by modifying the construction tools slightly. I presume that the current system allows you to, for example, add a wing to your spacecraft, attach an engine element to the end of the wing, and then delete the wing without destroying the attached engine. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a modification to the delete tool that deletes the entire disconnected section along with the wing. The entire portion that was about to be deleted would be highlighted with red before deleting in order to avoid mistakes. The section that is not deleted would be the one with a connection to the core unit.

Concept Design Commissions
 
We recently made a cruiser concept design for CSYN by commission, credit goes to them for coming up with the idea.   This is a service that we are opening up to other organizations or individuals, if they have a specific request, and have positive relationships with our allies.
 
No in-game payment will be expected for the concept design itself, as these designs already serve to promote our corporation as well as your own organization. If you wish to purchase them as blueprints or finished constructs in-game, this will of course come at a cost, and is subject to in-game time and resource constraints.  
 
If you like ODY's designs and are interested in giving us a commission, head on over to our public customer service channel on Discord.
 
Thanks for your attention!
 
DISCLAIMER: Blueprints commissions are based on the information available about DU at the time of dispatch and are conceptual. Objective Driveyards reserves the right to alter, at any time and without notice, the colors, modules, hardpoints, specifications and models of the spacecraft presented. Spacecraft designations are subject to change and while craft may be pictured in specific roles, Objective Driveyards makes no guarantee that they will be used in these roles. Objective Driveyards does not accept any liability for the accuracy of information in this blueprint or any damages resulting from its general misuse.

I always liked the name 'Arcadia'.    Good luck to the org!

Alpha is not likely to have Construct vs Construct combat and all progress will be wiped for Beta, so this seems perfectly reasonable. Although, I think that at least one person should be shot just make sure that game mechanic works. Any volunteers?

Latest Kickstarter Update:
 

The planets in game are not life size, I believe the starting planet is 100km in diameter, if that helps. That is the same size as the planets in Space Engineers and there aren't any server issues in regards to modified planets and asteroids even without the zoning tech that DU has (SE is open-source btw), in SE the issue is mainly with active floating player-made constructs that does not scale; but in DU the player constructs use the same voxel tech as the planets. I don't know any of the technical stuff so that's just my outside observation. Hope you can get some more detailed answers.

Welcome to the community.

Concept Design Commissions
 
We recently made a cruiser concept design for CSYN by commission, credit goes to them for coming up with the idea.   This is a service that we are opening up to other organizations or individuals, if they have a specific request, and have positive relationships with our allies.
 
No in-game payment will be expected for the concept design itself, as these designs already serve to promote our corporation as well as your own organization. If you wish to purchase them as blueprints or finished constructs in-game, this will of course come at a cost, and is subject to in-game time and resource constraints.  
 
If you like ODY's designs and are interested in giving us a commission, head on over to our public customer service channel on Discord.
 
Thanks for your attention!
 
DISCLAIMER: Blueprints commissions are based on the information available about DU at the time of dispatch and are conceptual. Objective Driveyards reserves the right to alter, at any time and without notice, the colors, modules, hardpoints, specifications and models of the spacecraft presented. Spacecraft designations are subject to change and while craft may be pictured in specific roles, Objective Driveyards makes no guarantee that they will be used in these roles. Objective Driveyards does not accept any liability for the accuracy of information in this blueprint or any damages resulting from its general misuse.

Hi Everyone,
 
I realize that this was posted before, but for the life of me, I can't seem to find the original thread. If this one could be merged with that one if it is ever found I would appreciate it :-)
 
I wanted to give up an update about the Community Discord that we've been hosting :-)
 
It is a non-official community discord that several of us from this forum set up several months ago, but we've done our best to uphold the spirit of Dual Universe within it and to bring as many people as possible together under one place where we can chat openly about the game.
 
We're now at 317 Members in Discord from all sorts of alliances and groups. Kickstarter was certainly an exciting, if not stressful, time for all of us in Discord. I also find it amazing that we still manage to find something to talk about every day surrounding Dual Universe.
 
There have been squabbles and rants back and forth, but I think it's refreshing to see people settle out their differences in real-time, and ultimately realize that we're all in the same boat heading towards Alpha/Beta/Release.
 
I look forward to continuing this trend of open discussions and keeping everyone enthusiastic through this long wait ahead :-)
 
 
 
For those that aren't currently aware of the Discord that I'm referring to:
 
http://discord.me/dualuniverse
 
 
 
 

There has been some talk about the combat mechanics I mentioned at the end, and I agree with the points made. My main point was actually that ships should not have disconnected parts initially. This could be achieved by modifying the construction tools slightly. I presume that the current system allows you to, for example, add a wing to your spacecraft, attach an engine element to the end of the wing, and then delete the wing without destroying the attached engine. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a modification to the delete tool that deletes the entire disconnected section along with the wing. The entire portion that was about to be deleted would be highlighted with red before deleting in order to avoid mistakes. The section that is not deleted would be the one with a connection to the core unit.

There has been some talk about the combat mechanics I mentioned at the end, and I agree with the points made. My main point was actually that ships should not have disconnected parts initially. This could be achieved by modifying the construction tools slightly. I presume that the current system allows you to, for example, add a wing to your spacecraft, attach an engine element to the end of the wing, and then delete the wing without destroying the attached engine. It shouldn't be too hard to implement a modification to the delete tool that deletes the entire disconnected section along with the wing. The entire portion that was about to be deleted would be highlighted with red before deleting in order to avoid mistakes. The section that is not deleted would be the one with a connection to the core unit.

1) No, the Devs want a stable economy. that's not inflatory. The game is about a player-driven economy, not farming quests for NPC guilds and corporations. The devs plan for market bots in the beginning, so they can introduce money into the game's economy, but they will remve them after that. A system where the game produces magically money, is not a realistic economy. and promotes Chinese Gold Farmers, let alone, make the DAC system worthless. NQ can't outrice the chinese, NOBODY can.

2) Watch the Kickstarter video, or in general, look up the DevBlogs. What you want is answered on how the economy will work DevBlog and the Rights & Duties Management System (RDMS) Devblog.

3) Join us on this community's Discord, we answer questions for all newcomers to the game in real time. Just ask in the General chat and someone will provide you a link to things.

 https://discord.gg/5SWPkDm



 

I want to make this a mega thread of branding for the organizations in the game to get ideas for
their branding. Please do not copy anyone's art fully without the creators permission. I want to make this thread a safe place for people to share there branding with others.
 
(I am very new to the futuristic style of art but I will try my best to post logos and other branding ideas here)
 
Style: futuristic flat , Abused flat
- When I think of futuristic I think of flat clean looking art but there are also the places where this style doesn't extend to such as pirates , and aged industry branding
 
How to chose your style:
You will need to do research on what style you like so that you know before you start you won't have to scrap everything because it wasn't a style that fits you, it's all about the artist. If you feel like you like multiple styles try to combine them and/or make sample branding in both styles. I can't tell you how many times I have scraped entire UI folders because in the end the style didn't satisfy me. It all depends on how your eyes react to the colors , shapes , and story. Best places to look at styles in Google or art station.
 
How to chose your colors:
Another important factor in branding in your color. When you chose your colors try to go for colors that do nothing your eyes for most people it is bright white, yellow, and orange try to stay stay from these colors. When using white add some shade of any other color (gray and red) are best. So chose colors comfortable to look at (try not to use the colors that hurt eyes).
 
How to chose your shapes:
When you chose your style and color you need to chose/make shapes to combine together to make your branding. There are two types of shapes curved and sharp edged. Use which ever satisfies you. Another factor in shapes in shapes is font. Try to use clean (non cartoon) fonts for your branding as it has a more professional
 
 
As myself, I will be working on perfecting my skills in making futuristic sharp flat branding/art style. Here is my first attempt at this style and I will be updating this post adding new branding in this style for people to gain inspiration to make their art as best as it can be. As an uninspired artist makes for the worst art.
 
 
Please tell me what you think and share your branding you made in this thread to give others inspiration If you want me to I will continue to post my advancements in mastering this style. If you would like me to try and make branding for you private message me and I will see what I can make.
 
Latest work:

The way we will likely see this implemented, is in the construction process, each of the elements of a construct will have to be connected. On the other hand, if a part of a construct is damaged "severing" it from the rest of the construct, we will see one of two outcomes.
 
1. The "severed" section is still effectively connected to the rest of the construct, and moves with it despite the voxels holding it on being destroyed. This is probably the most likely outcome, and even though it will be visually jarring for the elements at the end of my wings to continue functioning despite having lost a slice of that wing, it will allow players to construct ships that don't look like cubes or cylinders without fear of losing key components to minor damage. There is a break in immersion, but it can be explained away by having shields maintain structural integrity.
 
2. The "severed" section vanishes as part of the damage. Repairs will be a matter of restoring a construct to its "complete" form, so rounding-up damage like severed parts could work by simply considering anything no longer attached to the core unit destroyed. I don't think this is the likely solution since it'll require more work server-side, since the game will have to check for disconnected parts every time damage is applied, and for rapid fire weapons (like a scatter lazer or gatling gun), that will be a lot of checks. This kind of mechanic would heavily influence ship design, we might just see a whole lot of cube-of-doom ships like in Space Engineers.
 
3. Another possibility when CVC drops is having the damage allocation not fully destroy any voxels, only distort and damage them unless the elements attached are also destroyed.
For example, lets say I've got an arm on the underside of my ship where my landing gear and Gatling gun are attached. If the arm receives damage, the voxels in that area would get bent-up and twisted (to show that they are damaged, and would-be destroyed) but they don't vanish entirely because the gatling and landing gear are still intact. Then when the arm is hit again, the system re-assigns those hits further down the arm (adjacent to the destroyed voxels), damaging the gatling gun and landing gear. When the gatling gun and landing gear are both destroyed, the whole arm vanishes, as there is no longer any healthy voxels or intact elements left. This idea of re-assigning hits to intact areas instead of severing sections would maintain immersion.

Welcome aboard the hype train Aktanom! 

WARNING : LONG POST AHEAD. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.       Construct VS Construct, the point of debate and curiosity of many people.    "This is not like Star Citizen's World War 2 in space dogfighting battlecruisers, what gives?"   "What gives" are the distances involved.     Space is big, really big, therefore, spaceship battles won't be operated within 100 meters between each ship, as even WW2 battleships, fought at 5+ Km worth of distance between each other, so, it's only logical that a starship will have to utilise some of the same principles of compensation of weaponry for these distances, in a non-simulated combat enviroment like DUAL's. So, we'll have to take into account that projectiles are NOT physical objects, therefore, everything can come down to raw stats comparisons and statistics' inputs   So, without any further ado :     TWERKMOTOR's   Call of Math : Pythagorean Warfare.    (sorta my idea, for all I know, the Devs have already thought of this)     This thread will focus first on :   1. The Way a turret can aim in First Person View and Lock-On, as well as the gameplay around it. 2. How to make the "miss" mechanism believable, instead of floating letters that say "Dodged!" 3. How each individual damage model could function on this model of CvC. 4. How Automation will be hindered by this mechanic.  5. Multicrew functionality and the Emergent Gameplay around this mechanism as weaponry wears and tears with usage.   This thread will NOT focus on :   1. Damage calculations 2. Material integrity on ships' armors. 3. If the fight between a large battleship and a helpless Space-trucker is fair. (It won't be, get over it).   So, let's do this.   DISCLAIMER : If  you are allergic to math, this is your warning. I won't be dwelling into how or why ratios are the numbers they are. Learn how to calculate triangles' sides with only the angles provided, then make an arguemtn against this model. This is a suggestino for the Devs, you won't be seeing equations on your screen, but a neat interface of circles the close in on the target to improve your accuracy and damage consistency on the area of effect you go for.       1 .  The way a turret can aim in First Person View and Lock-On. (A Good Day to Lock Hard)    What are Cones? A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base ( most of the times ) to a point called the apex.    Exactly. If you look at a cone from its side, it is a triangle, therefore, time to implement Pythagorean Theorem. We can utilise Cone of Fire, by having the distance of the target dictate the surface area we can generate Damage Bubbles (think of the Mining Tool, only operated differently to accomodate Voxel Durability and Weapon Type).   A Cone of Fire, in most First Person Shooters, is the circle at the center of your screen, indicated via the crosshairs surrounding it. That area, is where your bullets will fly to, the more you fire the gun, the more the Cone Spreads, because the barrel overheats, which is simulated in the game with the Cone expanding, until your bullets fly everywhere BUT your target, therefore, missing all of those shots.     Simple, you aim at a ship, you lock-on the ship, then begin Compensating before you fire, establishing a Base Area on your Cone of Fire in which Damage Bubbles will be dispersed. The tighter the Cone, the more consistent the damage bubbles on the place you want them to be will be.     Compensation is, as we all know, the act of taking into account things like bullet drop, gravity, windage and all that, when a sniper or an artillery operator, or a turret operator on tank or a ship, is planning a trajectory for their projectile.   In DUAL, that can be emulated with a predefined time of "tightening" the Cone of Fire's Appex Angle, to reduce the Base Surface Area in which your target is in. YOu can fire at your enemy as soon as you see them, just don't expect to hit them really much, if they are like a fly at 100 meters, but if you take your time tightening the Cone of Fire, your chances of creating a Damage Bubble on the target increase dramatically ,as the Base Surface Area decreases.     Depends. How many rounds does your Ballistic Turret holds in its magazine? 10? Good, you get 10 Damage Bubbles dispersed in your Cone of Fire's Base Area.  Make sure you compensate hard, so you make all 10 count, and pray your ship's navigator is keeping the ship steady.     Okay, fine, if you insist..   A wild Spaceship appears. You, on the space station you work for your organisatipn, jump on one of the defense Turrets set for them pirates to be deterred.     You notice the Pirate ship is at 10 Km aways, but  you have a problem given the distance. You are Doctor Bones from Star Trek, you're a doctor, not a gunner.   So you wait, knowing you can't get a tight Cone at such distances, but within 100 m, you will be just fine, so you lock-on the target and begin Compensating before you click to fire the turret.   Within the 1 Km range, given you have NO skills invested into Gunnery Training, you begin Compensating the target, which means you narrow the Cone of Fire of the Turrets initial Cone of Fire of 30 Degrees (for the sake of the example, numbers will be kept round).   Within the 0.5 Km, you are 50% compensated. Within 100 meters, you are 100% compensated. Now, the Turret is not magical, it has a minimum Cone of Fire, which is 5 degrees.     Now, if you were to shoot at the target at the 1 Km mark, the Base area would be.   B = 223,760 Km^2   Because of Cone Calculations where :   Initial Cone of Fire Appex angle= 15 Degrees Lnegth Distance from target = 1000 meters Slant Distance = 1035 meters Base Area Radius = 223.760 Sq. Meters    Now, that area of 223,760 Km^2, seems pretty bleak on the possibility of hitting... anything, right? Exactly.   But on the 100 Meters Compensated Shot, you get   B = 251.83 Sq. Meters   Where :   Final Cone of Fire Appex Angle = 5 Degrees (compensated at 100% ) Length Distance from target = 100 meters Slant Distance = 100.4 meters Base Area Radius = 251.83 Sq. METERS   Oh boy, seems like you will be melting those pirates within those 100 meters... but then again, you had to wait for them to practically be right in front of you. And you were on a station... a stationary station... you would have not to suffer from motion loss of accuracy.       In simple terms, if you Compensate while moving, you take FAR FAR longer to fully compensat, if your pilot moves up and down and left and right, that may cause even the Cone to widen even more due to that. Get a good navigators for your ships.   Is that a segue ? Why yes it is   2. How to make the "miss" mechanism believable, instead of floating letters that say "Dodged!" (How to do the Harlem Shake is Space)   On the aformentioned example of a turret locking, compensating and firing, we had a Base Surface in wihch the Damage Bubbles would occur in, their number dictated on the turret's magazine size and their ratio of popping up, on the Weapon's fire rate. 
 
Chill, the great brains behind spacecraft building got you covered. Remember that  base surface area on the cone? Well, the cone can't "target" voxels it cannot spotlight with its surface area.    A. Have a slim fronta profile on your ship, means you mitigate the chance of a direct hit. B. SPEED IS KEY. When the other guy lock's on to you, their weapon's projectile speed is put up in comparison to your speed and direction, as well as Distance between you two. If your speed is greater than your attacker's projectiles and you move away from them, then the "damage bubbles", take time to appear, therefore, creating a sense of missing the target, while making you actually feel that you were responsible for the opponent missing the shot. Your ship's surface area exposed to the enemy, dictates your chances of being hit in this Cone of Fire suggestion. Learn to fly with style and always keep your slim profile facing the enemy, or your reinforced side, I don't care, it's your ship.  
 
Only if they have ZERO skillpoints invested into gunnery. A player who invested heavily into gunnery will start pumping lead into you from kilometers away.     Yes. Just because space is empty, doesn't mean the smartest way to go from Point A to Point B is a straight line. Lua scripts are needed for that reason,  preplanned maneuvers that throw your enemy's aim off.     Oh, another segue. Lucky me.   3. How each individual damage model could function on this model of CvC.   Kinetic Weapons = They have certain speed, they come in varieties of ammunition typ,e from armor piercing to simple chunks of metal in a the form of a giant bullet, for them railguns. They follow the standardised model of compensation, as described above.   Energy Weaponry = This is tricky and depends on the type of laser. If the laser is based on a fission explosion with the cannon directing a very dense X-rays wave in the direction of the enemy, then the laser would be using the Cone of Fire, as an interference-to-distance pattern, which means the laser's damage is divided equally on the surface area it is applied, which means that a laser can do X amount of damage, but it is divided across the surface area it is applied.  If the laser is a Lamp-style laser, then it has a "charge-up timer" replacing the Compensation mechanism, which makes it very precise, but very slow to ramp up to the task.   Explosives = They can be missiles that will go DIRECTLY where you aim them and depending on their quality and distance, they can counteract a ship's lateral speed bonuses on avoidance of the missile's Damage Bubble. Good for taking out engines, IF you manage to tail the opponent to get a good shot at their engines. Bombs are also a good way of looking at this, althought they won't be as "smart" as the missiles are, for a much more powerful boom.   Electromagnetic weaponry : Same deal as the Lasers, only they can't do damage to Voxels, but they can scramble electronics.  
 
Yes, it means you can wear down an enemy's shield as you approach for a firing pass with a fission laser, then use your heavy hitter railguns and missiles to do the real damage.     Those missiles sound expensive. You will know who is a bad pilot, from the amount of missiles they use.      Yes, aim at a target, like a hovertank, fly over them, let the bomb go. Boom.
  They can sure as heck damage an enemy's sensors, flight controls and drain shields. Makes for some sweet sweet specialised ships that can do nasty things in battle.     Another segue ! (Got bored on trying to come up with something stupid )   4. How Automation will be hindered by this mechanic.

  You may build a torpedo boat in space, sure, but you're running on an inherit problem here. Lua scripts will have limit on how many actions they can execute per second. Players though not, especially if they are a multicrew ship, not to mention all those Lua scripts will have a very VERY heavy tax on your RAM. Good luck playing a game at 10 frames per second.     Have you ever heard of Battery Crews on ships? Also, segue.     5. Multicrew functionality.   Weaponry, with use, should suffer loss in quality and durability. For example, a turret, would gradually get its initial Cone of Fire enlarged, after being used repeatedly in battle, requiring recalibration to reset its Cone of Fire to its original state. It would also need repairs, because it got hit once or twice, and it would sure as heck require reloading.   These things should be taken care of by a Battery Crew, engineers who work together with the Gunners to ensure a Turret works as intented.    Because Lua will require power from the ship to run, power you could be using powering your shields longer, or having extra acceleration to catch up to a target. 
 
I don't know, who would want to play a space-trucker? Or an explorer, or a miner? Or a craftsman? Or a builder? That's right, many people.   A dedicated Battery Crew, can be seen as those dedicated healer players in other MMOs that a guild is looking for all the time. We got to remember, a ship's crew will be an org on their own. And once people start seeing how effective those Battery Crews can be in combat situations, there will be a paradigm shift on what Emergent Gameplay can be. If you like keeping alive your budies to keep melting the enemy, a Battery Crew is your thing, as you are the last line of defense before the ship shuts down.     BONUS ROUND OF QUESTIONS 
 
They are called surprise attacks for a reason. And just because they got the Alpha Damage on your, doesn't mean you can't retaliate.     Wait till you see the comments below.
 
Welp, this is not the game for you then :| It is not meant to be simple, as JC said time and time again, if they had not achieved the Kickstarter, they would have to simplify. Lucky for us, that won't be the case :|  
  Said noone ever.     By accelerating the Compensation timer and mitigating the Compensation timer penatly from moving and the distances involved. A Rank 5 Gunner with a Rank5 Advanced Turret Training, will be able to engage the enemy at 5 Km (as a rough example), therefore, giving his ship a greater range on the battlefield.   A builder wil lhave the chance to research and produce Turrets a faction uses due to its tactics, therefore securing a market spot for his or her own.    A miner will know that his faction favors iron, because they rely on Railgun tactics for Metal Storm barrages of turrets towards the enemy, therefore actively scanning for iron and mining iron to support their faction's war effort.     Hardly. Your star-fighter is so small, that you would be throwing the enemy's aim off consistently. If they decide to go for a lock-on missile on you, you took one for the team. Also, you are flying with a squadron of other people, on star-fighters, on am ission to destroy a battleship's turrets. It's a suicide mission to begin with, but the good news are that you, as a jet-fighter, can be equiped with a missile launcher and actively go after the enemy's turrets It's amissile, it doesn't require any power generator to power up a laser or anything, it can fly on its own. In any case, good luck you crazy Top Gun you. o7
 
  Nobody said you can put only ONE laser turret on the front of your ship and Lua rig them all to fire on a common point at the same time. If it was me for example, I may put 10, 100, or, heck , 1000 laser turrets, rig them to fire at once and watch as ships disintegrated in the distance under the immense heat of the impromptu Doomsday weapon. The real question is, if you can sustain the cost of such a weapon. Not to mention the Doomsday weapon would be a very high maintenance weapon. We're talking of an I-Win weapon that has a cooldown of days or weeks on having all its turrets recalibrated, or God forbid, repaired.   While you cannot build a planet-destroying Death Star, nobody said the Death Star can't simply evaporate a Dreadnaught with sheer firepower. :|     Yes. But then again, no pirate in their sane mind would go near a place with such a defense system installed. Not unless they use Stealth Modules and manage to blow your turrets up with a lightning assault on your station.
 
I don't know. If they can transfer your viewpoint to another cluster, so you can have a closer rate of updates so you would be able to aim better at what you want to hit, maybe, but then again I'm making a suggestion for the CvC, not for sniping :|  
  Well, up to something, not really, over something... maybe. Would I want to drop something to someone from over them as I drift in orbit on my ship? Hell yeah and you do too, don't lie   =====================================================================================

Thanks for reading this sort of long post.

Here's a scientifically accurate potato clock.


 

Novaquark, could you please do following things?
 
1) add community portal and devblog button to top bar on forum (so we can get there more easily)
2) add option so we can receive news from devblog to our emails
3) post "Weekly Update" on devblog (and send to email) where you can tell us what are you working on, what troubles are you facing, what you are planning,... communicate with us:) I'm sure you are planning such thing, but now it's about week after KS campaign with no news. We can't wait to hear and see more stuff so we can post about it on forums, chat on discord, etc.
 
Thank you,
Danger + another 3000+ forum users :-)

Posted it some other thread but what the heck
 






 
Still sort of work in progress - I don't particularly like the rear end, and the VToL thrusters need some love. Then add stuff like windows / unmanned turrets etc.

I've dabbled quite a bit with blueprints. Only way to hold me over before alpha 
 
The latest ship class i've been concepting:
 

 
The rest are here: http://www.objectivedriveyards.com/ships/

A city draws people in because of services and because it is cheaper. Services that require many people to be supported can only be in major cities as people have the easiest access to them. Typically in real world cities the first service any town is able to support is a bar (rough population 75-150) and a small town may have two before even a gas station. Bigger services that have more coverage such as lawyers, accountants, specialized dealers all must serve a larger number of people and area in order to stay in business. 
The threshold is the minimum number of customers the market or service needs to remain in business; where as, the range is the maximum distance a customer is willing to travel for a market or service.
 
you wouldn't drive 30 miles to go to a McDonalds, but you would to go to a lawyer
 
Its really nice when you actually get to use what you learned in AP Human Geography.

Sounds about right to me. Remember there isn't even a playable game yet so a lot of people probably don't feel like getting involved. If you build it they will come.