hdparm

If being a vulture is a valid play style then DDoSing the server every time something doesn't go your way should be a valid play style too.
 
Why not? "It's how they choose to play the game!"
 
Playing as a vulture literally invalidates every play style NQ has tried to balance. 
 
There will be a mad dash to get all the people's shit who quit for a few weeks, and then there will be less than 8k people with a bunch of shit they did not earn. GG
 
I ignored the other shit in your post because those are not the ways I choose to play the game. I gathered for myself and I built for myself. That was my play style and it was valid. I liked it. Everything me and my friends have we earned together.
 
The mission system is busted, and the asteroids are a fucking shitty underdeveloped mechanic. The devs manually add asteroids to the game one day a week. That is just shitty. The giga-brains at NQ can get a whole procedural universe going, but they can't automate asteroids in an intelligent way?
 
The population graph may not be 100% accurate, but there is zero reason to doubt that it's not in the right ballpark for this specific game. Before seeing that graph, I would have estimated that maybe 2k people play this game daily. I have played private servers with populations between 500 and 1000 with more active YouTubers, Streamers, Discord, Forums and Reddit. There is barely a web presence for this game. That population graph could very well be overestimating by a lot. 
 
Why am I so bothered by the game's population in beta? Because I have played betas where the devs refused to be sensible, and the game died on or before launch. Crowfall, Darkfall: New Dawn, Ever Quest Next. Many other decent MMORPGs are gone now too because the devs wanted to choose pay to win mechanics or just outright ignored what the players wanted. 
 
Also, there is the part where when I invested to Kickstart this game. I wanted the game they pitched in the video. Not this shit.
 

this induced slide to bankruptcy, like communism looks good on paper, but players like myself who build stuff and generate little to no Q will be the first to fall, i do not have daily access to the game, more like a few hours a week, which was not an issue, the daily 150k bonus was not a priority, I guess i will get to see what happens when you leave miners alone for a week or two at a time. 

Feedback is simple, your update is poorly thought out. I'm not sure what the dev meetings must be like over there at NQ but let me make this KISS for you folks:
 
Currently:
 
Zero reason to build anything period outside of a ship. Especially now with your well thought out brutal tax on any grand building ideas creatives might have ever had for POI's. 
PvP that most hate and even the PvP'ers have to admit sucks in it's implementation, never mind completely broken risk vs reward balance
Player based economy is a joke with your constant meddling with bots & refusal to let players setup markets
Industrial gameplay that was put out of reach of all but groups or highly dedicated no lifers with endless time on their hands
Gigantic game world that is so sparsely populated deserts in the real world seem to team with life by comparison
Asteroid mechanics that defy game design logic in their implementation (I mean really is it THAT hard for you to spawn roids randomly and continually like literally every space game with mining ... ever?)
Completely broken organization tools that make managing any group harder not easier. 
Mission system that could have be automatic and really helped the game world when it comes to posting / payouts , instead is a hot mess of must be present hand shaking nonsense. 
 
I could go on honestly, but EVERY single time you people do an update you overcomplicate everything and make it a nightmarish chore, rather then simply go "here are auto miners, enjoy". Asteroids same darn thing, couldn't just create a asteroid belt in the game and have rocks spawn randomly for period of time, part in the safe zone part out? OH NO , you had to make even something simple like digging a rock the most arse backwards design of all time. 
 
*sighs* I am not sure what your grand vision for DU is anymore , but it certainly does not contain the word 'fun' for most people. Every update makes the game more grindy, more work, less reward. The only joy people seem to have anymore is sitting in Discord / Forums talking about game theory of what DU might have been if it wasn't what it is.
 

I can respect what you are saying, and I would almost agree. I am 100% bitter about the changes as I see what it is hurting players, especially new ones that never had a chance to hoard away millions of quanta or liters or ore. That said I feel after the last vlog they aren't the advocates for the players they once were. I don't feel they are being thorough in their work, and in some ways I feel they themselves have given up on doing the proper checks and balances needed for an update like this.

Things like needing T3 ore to have the equipment to get T3 ore are a prime example. That was a fundamental thing that was no complex issue. Something here is broken, and what really drives the angst for a lot of us is the silence in the forums, lack of response, and overall absence of the dev's in engaging with us. 

I don't hate them as people, but I do believe their ability to do the job well is deteriorating with each update. So much so that I spend more times on the forum than I do in game now. I used to be a pretty peaceful builder, was excited and happy to try to create community focused builds cause I believed in this game's potential.

That said when you have issues like ship engines not turning on reliably with the default scripts after 2+ years, and you can't switch containers during trade? These are actionable fixes not complex matters being neglected. So they do absolutely deserve to be called out for ignoring the community, shoving updates down our throats that destabilize the economy, gameplay ecosystems, ruin community projects, etc.

They were warned about the outcomes and the impact on the players, we pleaded for them not to make the update in the current state and they shoved right through and said "we know better than you"... which is why they are getting our angst.

The writing is on the wall, if they continue course the game we love will be dead before the end of next year if not sooner.

They seemed to have turned mining from what some people thought was tedious grind into what everyone thinks is tedious grind that will now lose your work and stuff if you don't do it.  
 
Well done NQ.

@NQ you really need to review some mechanics here to let single players be competitive.
You need to have a progressive taxation that is very small for few territories and grows for each territory someone gets on a planet/moon. Only in this way you can achieve what you said was the purpose to avoid players or orgs to have too many Territories because only in this way a territory can't (as you declared) repay itself just mining it.
You need to review the asteroid mining. The asteroids cannot spawn all together on weekend, you penalize who can't play on weekend, they need to spawn randomly at any time in any day.
You can't reveal an asteroid as soon as a player approaches it, you don't give chance to this player to get anything since someone else will arrive in short time to the asteroid. Single players again are screwed.
You cannot deny a player to warp away if has been attacked by someone it is unrealistic and a clear intention from your side to give "food" to those play just for pvp... sorry I'm not interested in it, the pvp in this game is just horrible plus with all connection problems I'm not going to risk all I've for nothing because yes it is just nothing for a single player go to an asteroid out of e safe zone and not having the time to get anything.
Said so I think the performances increase a bit but not because of the terrain but because now I can set max 30 construct, in fact at the market there was no digging stuff but many constructs and while before i almost couldn't move on them now I get less freezing time.
Hope you listen what I wrote because I think can really make the difference in having players keep playing or having them gone.
In the past year I worked a lot to have an industry and now with this mechanic I may not be able to run it for the type of material I need and can't get anymore. Buying all of them it doesn't make sense.

About
This is a basic autopilot script that can accelerate your construct towards a planet and later apply brakes to stop. Vertical space engines are used to control drift.
 
Requirements
Space brakes, 1.5+ g. Vertical space engines (pointing down), 0.3+ g. A remote controller or a separate hovercraft seat. Limitations
No manual piloting. Use another script to get to space and to land. No collision avoidance. Make sure there are no planets, moons, asteroids, space stations or pirates between you and the destination. Planet positions are stored in the script. If NQ moves the planets, the script will have to be updated. Set-up
With an auto-configuration schema (recommended)
Download this file to Game\data\lua\autoconf\custom in your Dual Universe installation directory. By default it's C:\ProgramData\Dual Universe\Game\data\lua\autoconf\custom Right-click the control unit (a remote controller or a hovercraft seat) and select "Update custom autoconf list". This needs to be done only once. Right-click the control unit and select "Actions for this element", "Run custom autoconfigure", "Basic Space Autopilot". With a pasteable script configuration
Open this link and copy everything to clipboard. Right-click the control unit (a remote control or a hover seat) and select "Actions for this element", "Paste Lua configuration from clipboard". The game should display a "Lua script loaded" message. If it did not, restart the game and copy the script configuration again. Link the core (required) and fuel tanks (optional) to the control unit. Credits
Many planet positions were provided by @meigrafd from Hyperion.
The script was bundled (amalgamated from multiple .lua files) using amalg.
 
Change log
2020-09-23. Fixed heavy constructs not accelerating past 29997 km/h. A radar widget will be displayed if a PVP radar is linked (not available on remote controllers). Tested in r0.22.2.
2020-09-16. Posted the first version outside the NDA forums section. Tested in r0.21.6.

Please explain your vision for how new and casual players and solo builders should be able to find an enjoyable game loop with Demeter.

With demeter weapons balancing this is how DPS from one gunner seat looks like currently. (considering max handling/ops talents).

In changelog you guys said 
 
But as you can see from the graph, that's definitely not the case, railguns are not dominating long-range. They are doing more DPS only on 1.9+su range, and that's not possible to hold that distance in active combat with only 2 su visibility and lock ranges.

This is how DPS graph would look like if you lower the required PvP-Capacity of railguns by only 2.5% so we can fit 4 railguns in one seat. Now you can clearly see that railguns will have most dps on ranges 1.4+su which for me sounds like it should have been.


 
So now to the question:
Will we see proper weapon balancing in near future?

With current shields and CCS mechanics it's encouraging playes to fly on different ships, not as a one big crew.
Because you can have big ship with 40 mil CCS and 20 mil shields for two gunners, or you can have two different ships with 20 mil CCS and 20 mil shields each. (Which would result in more total HP)
 
As DU is an MMO it should encourage players to fly together as a crew (at least that's how I see MMOs), but that's not the case currently. Will that be changed?

This is the output of a script that dumps all global variables. Lua coders may find this somewhat useful.
 
The script was run in r0.21.2 on a hovercraft seat that has 2 fuel tanks and a radar linked. Some functions were called with pcall. The first value indicates whether the call was successful, the second is the actual return value or the error message.
 
 
To see only elements' functions, visit this topic.
 
Dumping script
The script used for dumping is based on something I found on Stack Overflow, with some extensions.
 
In unit start(): https://gist.github.com/d-lua-stuff/180707c172382d06d2c80213a1638f66
In system update():
coroutine.resume(dumping_coroutine) The script will run for a few seconds and then automatically turn off. Output is saved to Dual Universe 's log files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NQ\DualUniverse\log
 
Dump analyzer
To avoid having to look through the logs manually, a Python script was written. It extracts the output of the globals dumping script from Dual Universe's log files, and creates separate files for dumped globals and for members of each linked element.
 
Usage:
pip install six python dump_analyzer.py C:\Path\To\Log\File.xml Change log
2020-09-01. Posted the first version outside the NDA forums section.

What's up with the way overdone effects, why is there so much effect when I use the flatten tool to the point where I do not see what I am doing or where I am going.
 
I spent a bit of time in game, but I just gave up trying to clear out my base. It's like you are in a steam room with zero visibility. 
 
NQ really needs to learn how to use effects and not treat them like a toy they need to show off instead of make it functional. And the fluorescent candy-coloured rocks everywhere make the game look very cheap.
 

Yeah, i see they work offline. So its nearly 2k ore per day. Also i can mine all 3 secs 20L of T1 ore by hand mining. So thats 400l every min if i dont fall a sleep regarding of boring gameplay. 
Before Demeter i mined around 4k ore all 5 minutes with cool gameplay. Scanning and so on. Now i am a stupid slave that is dump enough to press left mouse button all 3 secs? Sorry that is no kind of gameplay. That is something i will call work, not gaming. 

Indeed, if NQ does a wipe they can probably cancel the game, most veterans that now have worked their ass of with the idea everything stays will likely move on. And to be honest with the payment plan, the features scrapped, the stuf that stayed in i dont see busloads of starters waiting for the gates to be opened.  We lost more features then we even got at kickstarter at the moment and most is not even working like planetary conquest. I am having a hard time to fit this progress and the future into the kickstarter ideal

We keep coming back to this point. DU is a builder focused MMO. And for a builder losing all the work they have put into constructs is not "a running start" by any means. It is more of a "time to find another game" type of deal.

If NQ for one second believed they could get away with it, they would have wiped multiple times already.
Would have solved a bunch of technical problems and made life much easier for them.
 
So maybe there is a reason why they have not, like knowing the answers from the surveys they sent out and things like that..

Perfect time to make every player that is left leave out of frustration, because all their work was for nothing.

So NQ even when asked on discord seem to be ignoring this but if you did not know they nerf'd missions by you cannot take or hand them in via VR.  As a result people who run mission haulers for perhaps org friends or you join someone who is running them can no longer join in with 'ease'.  It in fact does not stop those who have 'beta keys' running all their alts on the mission hauler (so they can carry on normal) but in fact hits the player who doe not maybe have multiple alts (well nothing like 80-160 we've heard about).
 
So NQ can you explain the change?  How are you going to stop those who bundle their 'freebie' alts onto a mission hauler and just cycle like they've always been doing?  Now I guess I could 'warp shuttle' everywhere to do it taking even more time out of doing other things I guess!.  

I have to say Demeter pretty much sucks so far.
 
After spending eight hours scanning I found one hex that only sucks badly and a bunch of hexes that suck horribly. I grabbed the one that sucks badly, cause I don't have any reason to think I'll find anything better. If the ore market doesn't collapse it might pay it's own taxes. Fun on a scale of 1 to 10: -5 (that's minus 5).
 
The calibration minigame isn't as much fun as hand mining... by a long shot.
 
My friend found a hex that could produce 60kl coal per week... under optimal conditions... and said "not bad". (That does suck less than anything I found). He used to mine 600kl in a couple of hours. Slow production 100 fold and what happens? Economic collapse.
 
Not optimistic.
 
 

I am pretty damn upset myself.
 
Starting us with zero calibration charges was an extra kick in the nuts.
 
My optimism is very low. This is not fun.
 
The old mining was at least mildly amusing. This is just painful.
 
I don't think I have been this annoyed with a game since No Man Sky launched.

As a nwe player, located on the sanct moon -> this update kills my entire progress. The yields from mining units are simply a joke and a punch in every players face. I suggest to patch out the entire calibration prozess and give allways max. yield until area max is reached. Also 5x or better 10x times yield rates on tiles. Or, just bring back the old mining feature.
 
The game feels so limited right now. I play this for building stuff  - but i can´t build anymore. I guess if you don´t patch it to a version that brings fun - i will not stay that long in this game. Right now it is like log on 30 days for 5 minutes every day to calibrate and 1 day gaming with the material mined in that 30 days -.-

Where's the fun? More of a slog than the old mining simulator.

The fundamental issue here is that DU is a MMO with voxel building as one of the main pillars of the game.
 
If NQ for some reason started deleting inventory items or removing quanta from players who did not log in often enough, would that be accepted by players?
 
Now consider a builder. Most of his time, effort and play value is stored in the constructs he or she has created. So losing constructs is for him much the same if not worse then losing inventory or quanta.

The day the planets ran dry
Memoir of a miner
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315311321…>
 
Ahem. This thing on? Good. I’ve been mining since… Bah. Delete the recording before this. Damn technology, anticipating needs I don’t have. Just do as I say and not...
 
<Recording ended.>
 
 
<Recording started, datalog 2021112315313512…>
 
I've been mining since the day I stepped off the Arkship. It was boring but I never got bored. That’s an old mining joke. Along with the one where we are all old enough to drink at bars. With the bad jokes out of the way I can get down and dirty.
 
Back on Earth we were lucky to have a jackhammer or a sonic destabilizer, but right off the Arkship we were giving nanoformers. Amazing bits of technology, able to detect nearby concentration of ores, vaporize the ground to get to the ore and pack the ores neatly into a container. The abuse of nano-fields and Calabi-Yau space at its finest.
 
Then came the territory scanners. Able to scan a square kilometer and give a read out of the ores in the ground. They were prospecting made easy. The big business scanner-heads went out in their tri-scanner ships and deployed arrays of tri-scanners to be able to prospect on upwards of twenty-four square kilometers at the same time. But before all that it was just me and my trusty ship with a territory scanner bolted to its side. That's all a miner really needed. 
 
Then Aphelia, the Arkships AI, made the Arkship fire its big beam deep into the planet. That can’t be good for the planet.  The Novark spat small ore rocks all over the planet's surface. Must have done it to all the planets and moons of the Helios system, because the rocks were everywhere. But no self respecting miner would waste time picking those up. The yields were simply too small, compared to the expansive nodes in the ground. And then there were the motherloads: the mega-nodes. Where one ore node held thousands of liters of ore, the mega-nodes held millions. I personally found and cleared out more mega-nodes than you can shake a stick of carbon at. Those were good times.
 
But just because a territory scanner said there was ore in the ground, it didn’t say where it was. It was still an art to find those elusive ore nodes, even the megas. My preferred method was walking the compass. Find your level, walk north or south whichever makes the blip get closer. Then east west. Once the blip gets no closer, you know the ore is right above or below you. But never dig straight up or down. How are they gonna get back up?  What if there is a giant desert scorpion or worse… ecologists.  But some did dig straight down. The well-diggers or shafters as I called them, wanted to get down to where the ore was quickly. And they didn’t waste time digging back to the surface either. Instead they would just kill themselves, trusting their resurrection nodes on the surface wouldn’t malfunction. But sometimes they did. That’s why the shafters were either desperate or psychopaths.
 
The proper way of mining was always just the miner and their trusty tool. No floating mining chairs, auto-mappers or follow-me container bots. Just you and the dark. And occasionally a miner would be treated to the midnight sun: the hallucinations of sunlight seemingly streaming through the surrounding rocks to illuminate the tunnels or caverns they were traversing. A beautiful sight but also a warning you might have been mining for too long. Maybe all miners were a little touched in the head.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
If you have been paying attention, you will have noticed I kept saying “was”. Aphelia predicted it would take decades to empty the planets of a fraction of their precious ores, but it’s been a single year and they are all gone. We dug them all out. The purer ores anyway. But humanity always needs more resources. So Aphelia made mining units available, each capable of extracting the diffuse ores from the ground. She gave molecular quantum tunneling or some such nonsense as the reason. But I think it's something else: Nanites.

A high energy beam is used to inject nanites deep into the ground. They suffuse the surrounding rock and gravel through Brownian motion. Each nanite is specially calibrated to search for a specific group of molecules and, once found, they construct nanotubes to pipe their payload towards where they are densest, eventually up the beam. The demonstrations that show diminishing yields within 48 hours seems to collaborate this theory.
 
Either way, the side effect of preparing the ground is the liquification of the rocks that then fill in most of the caves and tunnels already dug. Some might think it’s like turning the rock to magma but there is no heat involved. Just a dark grey sludge that quickly settles back into natural rock again. The mining shafts will be the first to go. Followed by the engulfing of any underground structures. You would think that a solid box of iron would prevent the rock from flowing in. No. This ‘quantum’ rock that flows right through everything contained only by the gravity of the planets. And moons. The moons will be receiving the same treatment.
 
<Evacuation order received. Ignored.>
 
Us Noveans that have served for years as extraction experts have been relegated to asteroid harvesting duty. But Bert, they say to me, Bert, Mining is mining, right? No, I say. Besides micro-gravity leaching of muscle and bone, Asteroids are the turds of the Helios system, attracting pirates like the flies they are. Asteroids just don’t have the same, heh, gravitas of planets. 
What if this is how the dinosaur fossils were made: Subterranean creatures caught in a planetwide rock liquefaction event. Heh. That’s a thought.
 
<Warning. Warning. Approaching anomaly.>
 
Ah. Here comes the grey ooze...
 
<Recording ended.> 
            - Contents of databank found 6km below the surface of an icy planet.
 
 
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