NanoDot

The galaxy in DU is potentially vast, but only in theory. NQ have clearly indicated that they want to limit expansion to a "manageable pace", which could very well imply that there simply won't be any destinations created outside of the Alioth system until such time as NQ want expansion to happen. Each new system that's populated will require additional processing power to support, which brings additional operating costs. Having a 1000 systems active with only 1 player in each is not going to be cost-effective.

"Obsolescence" is the wrong term in this case, that refers to items that are superseded by new and improved designs. Obsolete items still work perfectly, there's just something better that can be used instead. The OP seems to be talking about "wear and tear", which occurs through repeated use of a specific item, leading to it eventually breaking if it's not repaired or maintained.

Sadly, my experience with "proximity voice chat" in public areas in other games has brought me to the point where I immediately disable it in every game. It's simply too irritating to have to mute the inevitable abusers individually all the time. It would probably work fairly well in limited environments like multi-crew ships in DU though.

Trying to implement "systems" to limit people's play time is a fruitless exercise. The OP has already abandoned the idea of penalties for long play hours, and is now focusing on "massive bonuses" to the first few hours of a play session. That will just make things worse, because those with ample spare time on their hands will get the full benefit of the bonus every day PLUS whatever they can get done in the remaining X hours that they play. So someone who cannot use up their full bonus time every day will fall even further behind those that can...

The full extent of what Unigine is capable of may not be possible in the DU implementation, because a voxel-based MMO may have performance constraints that impact gfx fidelity. It would awesome if DU's game world looked like that Unigine demo vid, but I suspect it will not reach that level.

I suspect there's a subtle difference between "WEATHER!!!!" and "certain weather-related events"...

I'm not excited, that will come muuuuuch later when release is imminent... I am however fascinated by the concept of what DU is trying to achieve. Watching it all unfold will be very interesting. It could even be a case of "MMO history in-the-making", time will tell...

I hope all these people eagerly waiting for the release of Supporter Packs realise that buying a pack will not grant instant access to the pre-alpha... EDIT: Given the mixed signals from NQ lately, it sounds like the original schedule for granting early access may no longer be valid, so I cannot make the statement that instant access will not be a part of some of the new Supporter Packs.

Control of a planet or solar system will only be practical if we have appropriate scanning tech that can monitor large volumes of space. DU's game world is massive, you can't just fly around and effectively monitor things using the good 'ole Eyeball Mk1... If anyone slips past your orbital patrols and makes it to the surface, finding them via visual search will be a massive task, unless you can scan for energy signatures or some such. Even if all cores show up on the minimap, it will take many hours to search an entire planet. We have no idea of the actual mechanics of how setting-up a stargate will work. You may have built a bridge-head to a new system, but how will you detect the arrival of other "stargate-building" probes ? Will all probes arrive in the same small volume of space when launched from system A to system B ? What if the probe is launched from system C ? Can the probes be scanned-down and destroyed before a potential invader builds a stargate to "your" system ?

That would be a logical pattern for DU, because it gives smaller orgs a chance to survive. When you don't have the manpower to field a fleet of capitals, at least you still have a fighting chance with a bomber wing and the fighters to support them, because it's a credible defence force. It may mean that smaller orgs will not be rolling over bases, but that may well fit into DU's strategic design. Alliances will have the offensive power, and territorial warfare will be "grand strategy" rather than "me and my 4 buddies gonna blow up ur base"...

NQ's design for DU is trying to make a game where combat is not the primary goal of the game, but one of the aspects of the game. Large ships (requiring multi-crew) may have specific roles to play. Perhaps capital ships will be the only ships that can support the large guns needed to effectively take down the base protection shields. So they could possibly be DU's "siege weapons". Single-seat fighters may struggle to kill capital ships, so to counter a base siege, the defenders will have to field their own cap ships to fight off the siege. It certainly sounds like the idea of "my battleship" will not be a thing in DU. It will be "our battleship" instead... The multi-crew requirement of capital ships may be a subtle way to reduce the scale of warfare in DU. If bases are destroyed too easily, it will upset the balance of the game. Just because it's possible does not mean it has to happen every day...

That's quite simply because that's what the "general public" wants ! The general public is not interested in EVE or DU, but they'll eagerly read the shocking news that $500K worth of "assets" were destroyed in a video game !

We don't yet know the time-cost of producing things in DU, and that factor will have a significant effect on the kind of game play that DU will have. At this stage, it sounds to me like things will be a lot slower in DU than in EVE. EVE's design facilitates a high level of combat. There's large-scale mining in EVE, there's automated mining (moons) and there's automated "planetary industry". The huge money faucet of PVE means that many players can afford to replace losses relatively easily, without being "forced" to mine for hours. A combat player in EVE can spend all their time fighting, whether it be PVP or PVE or a mix of the two. There's also a lot more risk in DU. EVE has hundreds of NPC stations scattered throughout empire space, each of which can safely store all the possessions of an infinite number of players indefinitely. That's simply not possible in DU, because things like ships occupy physical space in the game world, whether you're using them or not. Take a 3-month break from playing DU and you'll login to a character with an inventory full of blueprints, the physical assets (and the resources used to construct them) will all be gone. The only resources you'll have will be whatever was in your personal inventory when you logged-off last, and that space will be limited. In EVE you just resume play wherever you left off last, whether it was yesterday or a year ago. All your assets in all NPC stations will still be there and ready for immediate use.

Not quite, very few space games (any ?) require all larger ships to be multi-crewed. DU is an MMO, so players will quickly calculate the most efficient way to deliver dps. If 5 players in 1-man ships potentially deal more destruction than 5 players manning turrets on a battleship, battleships will probably be a rare sight. And we've yet to see how attractive the game play will be as a turret gunner on a multi-crew ship. Flying your own fighter sounds like a much more entertaining option...

So, should one player-controlled turret have the same firepower as a single-seat fighter ? And how can you predict the firepower of one-man fighters, they're custom-built, after all. How many turrets should be "anti-fighter" weapons (i.e. flak guns), and how many should be heavy weapons (that will struggle to hit fast fighters) ? Balancing it will be interesting...

What confusion ? It will be a shield, just like any other shield, except on a very large scale. That shield will be targeted and hit until the timer kicks in.

Keep in mind that PVP in DU only exists in the design documents currently. NQ's "vision" for space combat may well change somewhat once they start implementing things and players get some "hands-on" experience with the designs. "One-player-per-turret" is an interesting idea, but balancing it will be even more interesting.

I'd opt for something simple and straightforward, like "Territory Shield" or even "Hex Shield". Long and fancy names will be ignored by players anyway, because they're cumbersome in chat and a mouthful if you're on voice comms.

The "benefit" of not having secured information is that it creates opportunities for emergent game play. If scamming is not possible, players have no need to worry about the reputation and reliability of the person selling the items. They may as well be buying from an NPC. Reputation makes the player more real and "lifelike", and has significant consequences in your interaction with other players. If scamming bookmarks is a possibility, those that gain a reputation for honest dealing will be able to sell their BM's more easily, and quite likely at a higher price. If all bookmarks are equally safe, there's no premium attached to buying from a "trusted" seller, because trust becomes irrelevant. Without the possibility of crime in the game world, there's no possibility of playing a "good guy" or a "bad guy".

Agreed. The "scan result" data item does not need to be altered, any required scamming can be done when listing the item for sale on the market by simply lying about what the data item contains. Any potential buyer will only have access to the actual data once the item is in their inventory, before that it's simply a generic "scan result item". The seller will have the ability to misrepresent what they're selling, if they so desire.

There's a very clear role that combat medics can fulfill in DU: healing people BEFORE they die. Prevention is better than cure, no ? Allowing players to be battlefield rezzed (even if it's only once every 20 mins) is essentially giving a "free death" without the considerable consequences attached to respawning at a rez node. It will diminish the strategic importance of the whole rez node mechanism. That leads to meta-gaming and things like suicide attacks, which are expedient because the player can just be quickly rezzed afterwards by the trusty squad medic... It all depends on what NQ's idea is for the "pace of battle". A system where the death of a squaddie can seriously affect the outcome of the fight will inevitably lead to a more cautious fighting style, with less "Battlefield" and more "ARMA". Given the design of the flight mechanics in DU, I'd guess NQ lean more toward the "simulation-type" designs than the "arcade".

I think "revive" mechanics in DU will most probably be either severely limited or absent entirely. Those mechanics are fine for "shooter" games, where the emphasis is on keeping the player engaged in "fun" combat for as long as possible. DU's whole combat philosophy seems to be more focused on strategy than tactics. DU does not seem to be designed to facilitate and sustain a high level of combat activity: distances are large, travel time is significant, big ships need crews, etc. When taken together, all those factors do not support constant pew-pew... The importance of rez nodes (and safeguarding them during battle) is clearly mentioned in the design docs. If you've traveled a long distance to launch an attack in DU, you better bring a ship with a rez node, otherwise you'll not be replacing any fallen comrades in that battle. If the enemy finds and destroys your rez node, the battle is basically over, unless you have a decidedly superior force. A "battlefield rez" mechanic would dilute the strategic importance of the rez node. Consider the consequences of dying during a base assault in DU: you respawn at your team's rez node, naked and unarmed. Your weapons, armour, grenades, etc. are still on your corpse on the field. One of your squadmates may have saved your gear (if they could manage that without over-encumbering themselves), but you'd have to first meet-up with that soldier before you can get re-equipped. So, the assault team will have to bring not only a rez node, but also a stock of spare weapons, armour, etc., so that respawned troops don't have to run around the fight in shorts and t-shirt looking for their corpse... If there's a battlefield rez, you're back in the fight almost instantly, fully equipped and already on the frontlines. If you have to rejoin the battle from wherever the rez node is safely hidden, you travel alone and vulnerable until you can rejoin your squad. And while you're out of the fight, your squad has to fight a man or two short.

We simply don't know how well DU will cope with a 6000-ship battle. Or if it will cope at all... We're still in the early stages of testing the "DU Theory". Once the game has actual PVP systems implemented, we'll be able to get a much better feel for what the limits will be. And there will be limits... You can certainly split that 6000 spaceships into 600 "logic bubbles" that can each be assigned to its own server dynamically, but all those servers have to continuously communicate every little detail with each other, because all the players in all those instances are trying to interact with each other in realtime. Handling 6000 ships in the same general area is one thing, it's quite another matter when those 6000 ships are all trying to kill each other.

I guess we can therefore assume that "non-regenerating resources" will basically be irrelevant to normal game play in DU ! The only way it will be felt is in the case of extremely rare resources, which will be seeded in small quantities. Those resources will be depleted quickly once located, so finding more of them will be the primary drive behind expansion to new planets and solar systems.

That doesn't need to be suggested, it's an inevitable outcome, lol Each ship design in DU will have its own quirks and "personality", due to the variances in mass, distribution of that mass, the elements used, where they are placed and which scripts are used on the ship. Both pilots and crew will HAVE to "learn the ship" to get the best out of it. The only time you will "know" exactly how a new ship flies and performs is when the "new" ship is an exact copy of the one you knew previously (i.e. made from the same blueprint). But if you're suggesting a "learn through use" mechanic (e.g. +10 to reactor power for every 25 hours spent "operating the reactor"), then I don't think that will fit in DU. The "learn by using" mechanic always leads to grinding and encourages silly things like AFK botting...