NanoDot
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Posts posted by NanoDot
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Game play design decisions trump all "logical arguments" as to why things should be a certain way.
If NQ don't want a single player to control multiple turrets on a ship, they'll simply design the game in such a way that it becomes impossible. If players find "workarounds", NQ will patch them out.
We have no idea at this point how NQ will enforce the one-player-per-weapon design, or whether that will apply to turrets only. Fixed forward-facing weapons may or may not be subject to that rule, because if you can only fire at what's in front of you, combat becomes a lot more tricky.
IIRC, all weapons in EVE are turreted, i.e. the direction your ship is facing is not important for firing solutions, and target locking doesn't require keeping a reticle on a target (you simply select the target from a menu and initiate locking).
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8 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:
There are so many scouts and intel spread in EVE's alliance chats that you literally have to be AFK or intentionally ignoring the chats to get ganked. Usually, a gank in EVE is seen coming 10 jumps off. Same will go down in DU.
DU will eventually get to that same level, yes, probably 2 -3 years after launch...
To match EVE's "deep alliance territory" paradigm, players will first have to construct a web of stargates in DU. And that is going to be a slow and expensive exercise by all accounts.
The first year or so, everyone will be mixed together in the "starter-system pressure cooker", where the borders will be arbitrary and porous as a sieve, and "buffer zones" will be relatively tiny and crossed in minutes. AWACS ships may help in this regard, provided that scanner ranges are adequate to provide sufficient early warning times.
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I guess it all depends on how closely DU follows EVE's combat design.
Force fields (a.k.a shields) and armour are standard tropes in any space game with combat, but implementations vary widely between different games.
If the OP's referring to the force fields that were shown in the tutorial video, those will definitely be elements that can be integrated into any construct, be they bases, space stations or even bigger ships. But those force fields are intended to block access (e.g. doorways, passages, etc.) , rather than to protect ships from weapons fire.
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AFAIK, resource distribution on a planet will be determined by the seed number used to procedurally generate the planet. That implies that the amount of resources in the starter solar system will pretty much be fixed at launch.
So NQ will have to guess how many resources are "enough" for an unknown number of players, who'll pretty much be confined to that starter solar system for the first 9-12 months after launch (the arrival of stargates will allow commercial exploitation of new systems).
If certain resources start running short after a few months, I guess NQ could always generate a few random asteroids to ease the shortage...
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8 hours ago, Glowtape said:
Is there some sort of physics simulation that tests strain on the spaceships I'm eventually gonna build? If not, what stops anyone from building a huge dreadnought mostly from wood, or say the cheapest metal in the game, in layers as thin as possible?
AFAIK NQ are not planning to add stress mechanics for either static or dynamic constructs, so you could probably build plastic spaceships if you wanted to, or an elevated city balanced on a single voxel column.
However, I'm quite sure that material properties will be a factor in damage calculations eventually.
There is a graphic that simulates heat friction when you enter a planet's atmosphere. Perhaps it will include a damage calculation.
Constructs take damage when colliding with planets, moons and asteroids. Material properties will probably factor in those calculations.
How combat damage will be handled is unknown at this point, and will most probably remain a mystery until NQ start implementing PVP in alpha-2...
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5 hours ago, 0something0 said:
The space elevator you suggest runs contrary to NQ's desire to have everything in the world built by players.
It also leads to a few other issues...
Players will go down to Alioth, collect resources, and then all go back up to the arkship in orbit to build their spaceships, which will lead to a huge concentration of player avatars and constructs in one tiny space. The arkship will have to provide large hangars where players can build and launch ships from (hundreds of players simultaneously).
The arkship in orbit will also have to have its own safezone, which will be packed with hundreds of player-built space ships. This new arkship safezone will remove the need for a player-built "first foothold" in space, which is a significant goal in the current design.
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Currently we have elements (created by NQ) that are used by players to create constructs. The player-built constructs can contain any number of elements of different types, and can have any shape that the builder desires.
Elements are crafted from recipes (defined by NQ) that require specific components and refined resources, and they have a unique shape (pre-defined mesh created by NQ). A player's personal weapons will be a special kind of element, because it will be the only type of element (that we know of) that will be directly usable by a player avatar.
To make the OP's idea work, NQ could create a new type of element template, where some or all of the components are placed in "slots" (pre-defined by NQ) during manufacture.
The owner of the element can then swap out slotted components as required. Using that template, any element (guns, turrets, engines, scanners, etc) can then potentially be turned into a "configurable" element. The functions of the element (and its mesh) would be exactly the same in both cases, but the allowed attribute value ranges of the configurable element would have to be wider. That will have implications for balance, of course, so components will have to have positive and negative modifiers as well.
NQ can then convert the "old" elements to the new configurable template whenever they like, and introduce the new version as part of a patch or major expansion.
AFAIK, the crafting system in DU is a complete mystery at this point. There's been no devblog explaining the design, and we've seen no examples of recipes or examples of the "components" that will be used in crafting. That makes it a bit difficult to judge what kind of impact this suggestion will have on dev time.
It will definitely require a whole bunch of new components. If that means a new 3D-mesh for each component, it will be a lot of work, but I suspect that components only have 2D inventory icons and will only ever exist in storage containers.
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Lengthy discussion there.
The lines between logout mechanics and rez features tend to get a bit blurred tho...
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There is currently no mechanism in DU to claim a random volume of space. NQ have said they will consider those mechanics at some point after launch, but no promises were made.
Territory control units (TCU) can only be deployed on bodies that have been divided into hexes by the game systems (planets and probably moons).
Asteroids presumably will not support this, because they have irregular shapes and will therefore be very hard to equally divide into hexes. But you could probably "claim" an entire asteroid by placing a few large static cores.
Space stations won't be able to "claim" a volume of space, they will be constructed by placing many large static cores.
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Du has "resurrection nodes" already, and those are intended to handle the features that the OP seems to want to associate with "beds".
Resurrection node mechanics devblog
Rez nodes are quite important in DU, and will be expensive to create and operate, because they have significant tactical and strategic implications. It would not make sense to treat beds that way.
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Having new players spawn in an orbiting arkship just introduces additional hassle.
There's nothing a new player can do there except maybe things like tutorials. They can't mine or build up there, so everyone will be rushing to get to the planet's surface anyway.
It would require a game-generated transport mechanism to get new players to the safezone on Alioth.
It will create an extremely high concentration of avatars in a very small space in the first few days after launch.
According to the lore, the "shield" that protects the safezone on the surface is generated by the arkship. If the arkship is now in orbit, some new lore will have to be created to support the safezone shield on the planet's surface.
Personally, I think the idea of an orbiting arkship is more "realistic", but for game play reasons it's simply better to have the initial spawn for new players on Alioth's surface.
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On 26/10/2017 at 1:02 AM, vertex said:
Just a note of personal preference: I really don't like ram tactics for sanbox games where players design their own ships.
True, I am a strong supporter of the #edprotestgoat (Goat will ram you anyways, David!), but in ED the ship designs are fixed. In a game where the ram tactics option would make "ram capability" a single valid construction goal, it would directly oppose the micro management of the weapon and defensive equipment options NQ will give us.
It's a bit difficult for me to put this in English... but it's about balancing combat. You'll have weapons and counter measures. The more complex these are, the more tactical depth we will experience as players. Introducing the option to ignore all of this implied gameplay, by building voxel torpedoes and such, is not only about trolling, but about what players will/can chose to do.
As I said - it's a personal preference and you may disagree. I can even see your point there - freedom of choice and all. But, on this very personal level and for this very topic, I really disliked the "Throw a construct at em!" tactic that is possible in other games with player built constructs. In my opinion it leads to low-end warfare (mediocre at best, because I really want to use the term "mediocre") and a dull snowball fight experience overall.
Design of a battleship should be more complex than just slamming dem hammer plates in the front and get dem biggest drives in da back, yo
The problem imho is that allowing ram damage will potentially introduce "one-shot-kill" weapons.
The arms race will be to design the cheapest possible ram ship that produces the highest possible collision damage.
Nobody is going to be happy if a 20 ton fighter traveling at 20000 km/h just scratches a battleship's paintwork... how can the damage be kept "plausible" in situations like that ?
In "RL", suicide attacks are not viable as long-term tactics if the person carrying out the attack has to be highly trained, because it takes a lot of time and money to train pilots (even if you have an endless supply of willing kamikaze's).
In an MMO, it's a simple matter, because the highly trained pilot just respawns, which leads to totally implausable "cheese tactics".
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2 hours ago, blazemonger said:
For DU to succeed and grow, ships must be destroyed and rebuilt constantly. It is a player driven economy which needs to be fed. War and conflict (read PVP) is what feeds the economy to a large degree. The DU markets won't survive on selling plants, chairs and tables.
That is not entirely true. Unlike EVE, resources are needed in DU for a lot more than shipbuilding and a few citadels or moon-mining towers.
Infrastucture in DU will consume resources on scale never seen in EVE.
Base and outpost and space station (and later stargate) construction will continuously consume resources, not only due to possible destruction, but because the play area will expand continuously. EVERYTHING in DU is player-built, there are no convenient neutral NPC stations anywhere as there are in EVE, which provide infinite free 100% secure berthing and storage.
Fleets and "reserve ships" will need "safe harbours" all over the place, all those ships are permanently in the world. Outposts will be needed in strategic locations so that larger territory claims and their borders can more easily be patrolled and defended. Fuel and possibly ammo stocks will have to be kept in different places, travel times in DU are real.
As certain resources are depleted, mining operations will move further and further away from "HQ". New outposts will be needed to safeguard those operations and provide logistical support, etc.
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8 hours ago, 0something0 said:
Might as well as build a Wellington bomber to go to space instead of a proper spacecraft. We have indestructible materials but cant wire up multiple turrets to 1 controller?
Also, this sort of thing would probably encourage building "big dumb" ships with the biggest turrets possible in order to cram as much firepower per person. And what if you wanted to say build a spitfire mentioned earlier with 8 forward facing guns?
It's a game design issue.
NQ have said they don't want a single player to be able to fly a battleship and control all it's functions and guns. Ships are mobile offensive weapons, so their impact on game play can be felt everywhere in DU's world.
A single ship turret will probably be equal to several forward-facing guns on a fighter, otherwise there's no balance. But those fighter guns can only hit what's in front of the fighter, so a single pilot can fire them all. Turrets can fire in all directions independent of which direction the ship is moving, so a turret's DPS will in all likelihood be far greater than fighter-based weapons, simply because they can engage a target for longer.
Base turrets are a different matter, they are purely defensive elements deployed in a static area to protect a base. They are also the only weapons that allow automation, because they will provide protection when a player is offline. Your base turrets will protect your ship too if it's parked inside the base.
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7 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:
Most likely, the RDMS.
The RDMS is the logical place to define relationships between you and other players, but I'm not sure that it's the place where the actions of specific elements will be defined.
But it's not clear to me how elements will access the rules defined in the RDMS.
For instance:
- Turret detects player X.
- Turret queries RDMS to determine player X status.
- RDMS returns that player X is "red".
- Turret script says "fire at red players"
- Turret fires.
Will the RDMS have a specific section dealing with "Base turret actions" ?
And where exactly will the RDMS rules be defined ?
Can a single player define RDMS rules for themselves and their bases/constructs ?
Or is the RDMS system an attribute of orgs only ?
Does a turret have the ability to acquire it's own targets ?
Or does it have to be linked to a scanner of some type ?
Or can you link a scanner and a turret to a processing board and do some fancy Lua scripting for "fire control" ?
So many questions...
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1 minute ago, Vellnn said:
I think they said scripts just need someone nearby to be run, not specifically the owner, right?
I don't think there's any clear answer from NQ on that yet.
If anyone has a solid reference in that regard, I'd be happy to see it.
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3 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:
Point is they CAN do automated defenses for bases, they are not that difficult. They said "we may allow simple scripts to run on the server" on many occassions, this is what they meant, systems like 3 step logic.
At no point did I imply that NQ can't do automated defences or that it's "too difficult", and I certainly did not venture into the specifics of what server processors can or cannot handle (the latter was entirely your diversion).
I was only referring to the implications of the apparent contradiction implied by the idea that "scripts only run when the owner is near them". Exactly what that means will become clear once NQ defines the scope in detail and/or we can test the mechanics ingame.
The default functions of a base turret will in all likelihood be things like Set_Target(), Fire_at_Target(), etc. But the rules for defining valid targets will be defined by the owner, either via RDMS or scripts on some element or "target lists" defined on the turret itself or some other mechanism. Hence exactly how scripts are handled may be important.
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Automated base defences will have to provide a "credible" level of defence, otherwise they are useless.
A well-designed turret layout (with overlapping fields of fire, etc.) should make the base a "no-go area" for a single raider or two. Even a small group of attackers should have to proceed with some caution, bringing medics, spare ammo, heavy weapons, etc.
But that protection should also come with a price tag, be it ammo, power supply needs, high component costs, etc.
There's no "free lunch", but there should at least be some lunch...
Offline protection will be VERY important in DU, because raiding and robbery will be a very popular activity. It's the only way for pirates and bandits to earn their living, because in DU there are no NPC's to "farm" for easy credits.
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43 minutes ago, Forodrim said:
plus you can create safezones on your own, expensive but possible.
source?
NQ clearly intend the establishing of safezones to be something only a large group of players will attempt. AND they will have to be defended...
Arkship shield tech creates the safe zone:
This is the kind of construct that will require a very large number of players and resources to create, and will be made available in the game much later.
However, the energy cost of such a gigantic device, as well as the military protection that will be necessary to protect it against frontal attacks or sabotage, does not make it something you can just build in your garden with some friends.
source: Arkship Security devblog
Dropping inventory on death:
You loose your inventory, your ship, possibly also your geographical position (you need to travel back to where you died)
source: Quantum Immortality Devblog
All these things might change before launch, but pinning your hopes on that fact is a very risky endeavour, because that's hoping that NQ will completely change the "spirit" of their intended game design...
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33 minutes ago, Forodrim said:
there is no information on how DU will handle PVP and looting etc.
Not so.
We know that you can be attacked anywhere outside the arkship safezone, so the rule set is non-consensual FFA-PVP.
We know that you drop your entire inventory contents on death, so "full-loot" applies. Your killer doesn't get all the loot though, a random part will be destroyed (same as EVE) before the "virtual loot container" pops into the world.
33 minutes ago, Forodrim said:construct to construct was rather low on their strech goal list, so I would be a bit surprised if that would be the main point of the game
You're trying to rationalize things here in a vain attempt to change the nature of the game.
Avatar vs Avatar combat was in DU from the start. As was the non-consensual full-loot FFA-PVP rule set.
CvC was a stretch goal, not because NQ "didn't really plan on adding combat", but because adding CvC before launch would require significant additional work. CvC was always going to be added, reaching the stretch goal just made the funds available to do it before launch.
In every interview that JC has done, you will hear EVE mentioned several times. NQ have adapted many features from EVE., and the influence of EVE on DU's game design is undeniable. EVE players are not trying to shape DU into "EVE 2.0", NQ are leading the way...
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12 minutes ago, blazemonger said:
Lastly, those who complain and cry about how some EVE players conduct their business will get a rough wake up call in DU.. Besides that, for those who do really do not understand the game they are playing or comprehend the concept of a full loot persistent MMO; If you get killed, you lose the stuff you have on you. If your base gets attacked/destroyed, you lose your stuff. Anyone complaining about this should have done their homework before getting on board.
I feel it's important that people clearly understand the kind of game play that exists in a game before they start playing.
Until such time as all DU's systems are implemented and we know what shape the game play will take, I will stress the fact that DU includes non-consensual full-loot FFA-PVP in almost the entire game world. Trying to pretend that "everything will magically be allright for everyone" does nobody any favours. It will just lead to rage-quitting and DU will become "FU" to the disillusioned...
DU will be far harsher than EVE-Online. EVE's "high-sec" space is littered with 1000's of 100% safe NPC stations where a player's stuff can be stored in complete safety. DU will have nothing like that. DU will have no 24/7 NPC police force that will instantly respond to punish "criminals". In DU you WILL lose your stuff, and probably fairly regularly...
However, I don't intend to insult or ridicule other people's playstyle preferences. Those are just as valid as mine, just not within the rule-set of every game.
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10 minutes ago, Lethys said:
This is only for a job board though, and not that "skill certificate" or advertising of your skills
Quite so, the certification suggestion would simply enhance what can be done on the job market board.
I was not suggesting that certs should be seen as "achievements" with some kind of rewards associated with it, merely as a secure and optional way of displaying your trained skill levels to others.
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12 minutes ago, Forodrim said:
DU is set to be a game with PVP and non-PVP activities suitable for multiple playstyles.
NQ will have to make sure that the toxic "harassment for teh lulz" mentallity that some EVE players have will not run rampant in their community.
How they will do that is the big question, of course.
In this recent interview, JC again remarked (18:50) that they were considering expanding the size of the Alioth safezone, for instance.
My biggest worry about this game
in General Discussions
Posted
We tend to use our past experiences in other games as the basis for forming our ideas of what game play will be like in DU.
But based on what we know of DU's intended design at this stage, many of the lessons learned in other games will quite possibly not apply in DU. It certainly looks like DU's game play will be "slower" than most other games with similar features. Travel takes significant time in DU. Scanning for minerals will take time. Mining is not done on industrial scale. Expansion to other systems will be slow. Constructs remain in the game world when the player logs out. EVERYTHING is player-built.
All those features may not seem very important when considered individually, but all together they may well produce game play unlike any other game.
For instance, EVE players may vastly underestimate the effects of the long travel times in DU, because that's simply not a significant factor in EVE. If your fleet in DU ends up in the wrong place, it make take several hours to get it to the right place...
Simple things like scouting ahead become far more tricky in DU. You can't just login an alt, scout an area and then warp to a safespot and logout the alt AND their ship. In DU, the ship stays in the game world, which means it can be scanned down and destroyed. Replacing the ship may be trivial, but the 2 hours flying required to put that alt scout in place won't be...