NanoDot

Admiral, I'd suggest you have a word with your military intel people about that... Welcome to the forum !

Neutrality only works if state or organization declaring themselves as neutral have nothing the warring parties need. Do you really imagine an oil-rich country will ever be able to remain "neutral" during a RL world war ? In MMO's, neutrality has even less chance of being recognized, because combat and robbery are essential ingredients in some play styles, so all targets are fair game...

It's great fun to dream, but keep in mind that DU is just a game. You could build a voxel sphere around the "sun", but absolutely nothing would happen unless NQ adds the necessary code and game features for something to happen. In DU, the sun does not radiate energy. "Solar energy" doesn't exist until NQ implements elements that can interact with it. Your character won't get a suntan when they take off their suit helmet, unless NQ codes-in that feature...

Yes, it's pure speculation and entirely my own opinion. NQ have never given an estimate for 24/7 availability AFAIK. Perhaps the promised "new roadmap" will give a rough estimate in that regard, but I doubt it. Unless I'm totally wrong, 24/7 access is too far away to even risk an estimate at this point. People tend to take developer estimates as hard facts, regardless of how many disclaimers accompany them.

There won't be 24/7 server access for a long time yet. Perhaps by the second half of 2019 if all goes well...

That assumption wouldn't make sense. We know that the amount of objects in the game world impacts ANY game. In the case of moving objects, that impact is higher. For instance, EVE severely limits which ships can deploy drones and how many they can deploy. Without remotely controlled drones, the amount of moving constructs in DU cannot exceed the amount of active players, but if drones and bots become a thing, the amount of moving constructs at any given moment could increase by several orders of magnitude.

One problem I see with the idea of "automated bots" is that it will massively increase server load, because each player can then control multiple constructs simultaneously. Each active construct will be a mobile core, and will have to be tracked by the servers so that they can be displayed in the game world and be shown on radar scans, etc. The amount of mobile constructs in a battle or player city will potentially double or triple (or more). I suspect the server load implications are possibly a significant reason why NQ is against automated drones and bots...

From what NQ have told us so far, it sounds to me like "market terminals" in DU will function similarly to the player shops (vendors) in StarWars Galaxies. There will be no "global auction house" though, all buying and selling will be controlled by players. The ONLY exception to that rule will be the buy orders for mined ores that will be placed by NQ themselves. Those buy orders will generate currency (quanta) in the game, and is the only known method of creating "new money" in DU.

I would assume that market terminals themselves will have access rules, just as cores have currently. They may also be controllable via RDMS rules. The simplest solution will probably be to setup 2 terminals, one for the general public and one for your internal org members. That way you can set different prices and tax rates easily.

In most games, the requirements of "balance" outweigh everything. For instance, you can't have an anti-missile system that is 90% effective, even if those do exist in RL. Players will simply stop using missiles, because their DPS will be judged to be "useless". There's no point in designing a weapon system in the game that nobody will use.

Why not create large "elements" representing a patch of plantation or cropland ? Using pre-rendered blocks will be much easier on the server load than individual trees or corn stalks. There are many ways of solving the problem other than manually planting individual trees randomly in the world. JC has already said that reforesting the existing trees (once they're removed) will be "difficult" to do, but we need some creative solutions then, otherwise the settled planets are going to be devoid of vegetation after a few years. Players will cut down trees, because they can...

No need to "synthesize" animals, lol, DU will have a "a few animals" at launch (as stated in the KS feature list). NQ have also mentioned that there may be some "survival" features added after launch, but it's uncertain exactly what that will entail. DU's game world has no shortage of land, so farming and forestry could fit in quite easily.

Unfortunately, "necroing" a post that's been inactive for more than 2 months is a violation of NQ's forum rules. In this case, the Forum rules dictate that a new post should have been made.

The last word from NQ was that they plan to lift the NDA when alpha1 starts. There is currently no ETA for alpha1 yet. NQ have also indicated that they will be releasing a new roadmap "in summer", but the roadmap is unlikely to contain hard dates, game development is not an exact science.

Don't forget that the planets are not solid balls of resources. The ores are scattered in small pockets, so it's quite likely that only 5% to 10% of the planet's voxels will be mineable ores. You only need to dig a narrow shaft down to the ore, there's no need to dig a giant crater. And mining is the only way to increase the money supply in DU, so I expect that the amount of players involved in mining will be very high, specially in the first 6 months.

That looks pretty impressive at first glance, but if DU attracts 100K players, it changes the picture somewhat...

Resources don't respawn, which means NQ will have to make a calculated guess at how many players will be active in DU in the first year or so. In case they get it wrong, there's a plan B though: stargates ! Once stargate tech arrives in the game, we will be able to colonise new systems and exploit the minerals there. However, the planets in DU are quite large, and there will be many planets at launch in the "starting system". If DU turns out to be much more popular than NQ estimates, they will have to implement the first game expansion (stargate tech) sooner than currently planned, which is somewhere around 6-12 months after launch AFAIK.

The decision about what constitutes "legitimate" code rests entirely with NQ. If some player finds a really clever way to use Lua to automate 10 turrets on their battleship, NQ will plug that hole if they don't want players controlling 10 turrets via scripts. The player may get a warning, but probably won't be banned. The developer owns the game, not the players, and if the developer wants the game to develop in a certain way, it's their prerogative to steer it in a direction of their choosing.

Absolutely. "Emergent gameplay" is always bound by the rules of the game. It's not an excuse to exploit or a justification to use things in ways that are not intended. Pushing the boundaries always has risks.

You can only do what NQ allows you to do, and NQ have made it clear that they are not in favour of automation. If players "find a way" to implement combat automation, NQ will simply close that loophole by changing or removing the Lua functions that make it possible.

We have no idea how possible or practical it will be for solo players to operate in DU. There's no shortage of opinions in that regard, but they are all based on pure speculation. NQ have indicated that they are not in favour of single players controlling large multi-gun ships by themselves, so the current plan is that each turret will require a player to be operating it. You might be able to fly a "mothership", but if it is attacked, you'll either have to run or switch to ONE of the turrets to fight. Multi-gun ships are intended to be multi-crew. Currently, the plan is for ALL of space to be FFA-PVP territory. There's no NPC police or combat restrictions anywhere. A few moons will have "safezones", but those do not extend further than 1000m from the moon surface. Everything is subject to change, of course, we're a long way from launch at this point. But expecting the fundamental design to change is a risky proposition...

That's not the issue, water as a resource inside a closed container is no different to a container full of ore. Using water in the game in that way is the same as using any crafting material. The problem arises when you want to pour that water out of the container and into a pool, so that you can swim in it...

We'll probably have the new roadmap somewhere in the next 3 months. NQ have to revise the timeline soon, the KS page originally had an expected launch date of 2018, which is obviously not going to happen. The new official website doesn't appear to have any references to estimated launch date anymore, though, which is probably a good thing.

If all goes well...

I made no such assumption. How the game world is spread across cloud-based servers or server clusters is irrelevant to the player. Your ping won't change depending on where you are in the game world.