Frenotx
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Posts posted by Frenotx
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I like the idea of DAC being lootable, but I think there needs to be a way to store them safely. Without that, you run into problems in situations like with the backers: you're given a bunch of DAC, but don't know what you're going to do with them. You don't necessarily want to use them to extend your game time way into the future, nor do you necessarily want to sell them for quanta right off the bat. You're left with this valuable resource without an immediate use (that you paid money for), that could be stolen away before it's utilized.
Really, it's just a can of worms. It may ultimately be better to make them non-lootable. You miss out on the possibly of video game heists involving items bought with real money (which is neat), but it avoids a lot of awkward situations. As long as you make sure other things ARE lootable in the supply chain needed to trade for DAC, then you minimize the loss of gameplay. So you might not be able to steal DAC directly, but you can still steal the gold bars someone's hauling to trade for DAC.
Edit: you need to make sure the game has some high value-density items worth hauling if you want piracy to be a thing. If people do lots of little trades of relatively low-value things to afford their DAC, then there's never a worthwhile big-score target for pirates to go after. Similar situation with mega-freighters hauling massive quantities of low-value stuff. The whole load might be worth a lot, but it's highly impractical to steal. You need items that are relatively small, but worth a lot and are easy to sell / use for piracy to be worth the risk.
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1 hour ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:
That's like saying "I hate how kevlars work irl, if I have a BB Gun I should evenetually penetrate through it".
The "DPS tank" of things in EVE is there to emulate the intensity of the given tanking medium. You could rpelace DPS Tank twith Damage TYhreshold from other RPGs, it's the same thing, DPS tank in EVE just takes energy to do.
There's no actually any reson for your shield to not regenerate while you take damage, it's volts turned to EM-waves, it's like suggesting that phones should not charge while you use Tinder.
Sure, your phone CAN expend more energy that it is fed while charging AND it's beinf used, but that's the point of Active Tanking in EVE. And the best part is, DU has fuel. EVE has not. If you FORCE a person to pump energy into their shields to stay alive (and especially if NQ allows for Entropy Weaponry, AKA Nosferatu / Neutralisers), you could force a person to leave by giving them an ultimatum - you stay, I'll drain your shields, you leave, either case I win - which is what Nosferatu ships do in EVE more or less.
Also, yeah, EVE's shields work at below 50% with the "penetrating" methods. Howver with a lot of training into Shield Management (or something) yo ucan reduce the penetrating chance to 0%.
Howver, not many have that trained. There are far better skills to spend 12 days of training on that Shield Management V.
Although, on an interview, JC Baillie did say they want to go for directional shielding, i.e. choosing which side to reinforce, so no "ultra sexy bubble shields" like in EVE, which don't take any account of directions of which hits are coming from.
So, that's a compromise for the better part, yes? You can reinforce your front, but have to risk damage from smaller ships on your flanks.Strictly speaking, bullet-proof vests are petty poor at blocking damage in the same spot more than once. Obviously there comes a point at which a an attack is too weak to do any damage at all (nerf gun, for example), but chances are a people won't be fitting a nerf gun on a space ship. A weak gun on a spaceship is still a spaceship-scale gun. It being able to wear down even a tough shield isn't much of a stretch, imo.
As far as the, "shields are just [insert sci-fi explanation here], they should be able to recharge while under fire" goes, well, this is a video game dealing with stuff that doesn't exist. Coming up with an in-lore explanation of why shields work a given way is trivial. What's important is GAMEPLAY, and how fun the system is. I'm of the opinion that absolute shields lead to overly-binary combat, and situations where both parties tend to leave unscathed (or one party trounces the other, and leaves unscathed).
Damage reduction shields, instead of absolute protection shields, mean every fight will have excitement. Even a lopsided fight will still see the victor with some battle scars. It makes getting into a fight a serious decision no matter what, unless you think you can outright one-shot your opponent. A fight is almost never completely "free". I personally think that's best for gameplay.
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39 minutes ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:
EVE Online has a good idea on shield mechanics. The lower your shield HP is the more the chance of damage "penetrating" through it and hitting armor. to simulate "sploches" on your shield during battle In DU, it could be that if a shield bubble is weakened, the attacker's shot may actually deal damgge to voxels or the player themselves in Avatar V Avatar.
Is that how it works in Eve, now? I remember shields being absolute, at least unless they'd already been depleted enough that the ship's tank had been broken. That's something I really didn't like about Eve: if your ship had below a certain DPS, it was impossible for you to do any damage to the target ship. Felt way too absolute. That's something I think Elite did correctly: your shield only regenerates if it hasn't been been hit for a moment. This makes it technically possible for even the weakest weapons to EVENTUALLY wear down any shield.
Edit: I DID like Eve's non-linear shield regeneration, though. Relatively quick to fill up the first good bit, then slowly topping off.
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One thing I know for sure is that I don't want shields to provide absolute protection. I think it's important that no matter how ballin' your shields are, it should be possible for a little bit of damage to still get through. Think of Star Trek. How boring would it be of they were 100% safe while their shields were up? If shields are absolute, then fights ultimately turn into this: fight with the other person until the shields are about to fail. If you get to that point, you run. If they get to that point, they run. Nobody takes any damage, and nobody dies. Not very exciting.
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It's entirely possible that a memory element may be unnecessary, if the lua scripting can just have variables. Same thing with the more advanced timers. That said, I would like to see some sort of wireless antenna for allowing communication between disparate constructs. Just set the set them both to the same frequency, and they'd allow the transmission of information. Even if it was only a simple "they mirror each other's state, 1 or 0", that could have a lot of utility. It would also allow for some nasty stuff for nasty people that managed to acquire the frequency of your wireless relays. >:3
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20 hours ago, yamisniper said:
pre alpha
I am excited to test the pre-alpha, but I'm looking forward to alpha 1, too.
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I think it would be neat if a given gate could "dial in" to s miner of gates, but only ones it has a connection set up with. Setting up that initial connection would take a good bit of time, and require some special access code / "frequency" being exchanged between both gates. Gate A has to enter Gate B's frequency into its registry, and Gate B must enter Gate A's. This way a given gate can act as a hub to several places (important and valuable if the owner wants to make a trade hub, or something), but gates can only be linked if both parties wish them to.
This could lead to some interesting politics. For instance, let's say my org owns and runs a major trading outpost, which is equipped with a star gate. Other star gate owners would very much like a connection to said trade hub, due to the obvious economic opportunities of quick access to such a place. To get that link though, they need to "make friends" with my org. This could mean taxes, required protecting services, required doctrines to follow, etc. If that org stops following the requirements, my org could revoke access.
It also leads to interesting espionage / sabotage opportunities. Let's say some big organisation is at war with mine. I might try to get someone to infiltrate the hostile organisation, and work their way up the ranks. If they successfully get high enough to access the start gate controls, they could link to MY gate, allowing for a brutal surprise invasion. If the fight goes south, I could revoke access from my end, and prevent them from getting to come through and retaliate.
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20 hours ago, Vorengard said:
1) Yes, everything outside of the 20km Safe Zone will be fully PvP. The discovery of other Arkships was mentioned as a possibility, but that's not at all set in stone, and would not happen for years after release, if at all. Protection Bubbles have also been mentioned, but they're also hypothetical. We know literally nothing about them, and they might not even be in the final game, so planning around them isn't a good idea at this time.
2) All combat will be "tab-targeting", not free fire, and it's going to stay that way because the server load for free-firing in a game like DU would be extreme. You will have to select or "lock on" to a target before you can shoot at it, with hit chance and damage being automatically decided by the server. However, in some cases (like with avatar v avatar combat), the "lock on" mechanism may be tied to automatically select whatever target you're aiming at, so it will feel like a free aim game, even if it isn't.
3) Yes absolutely. Players can also build ground vehicles, like tanks and armored cars. Ground combat will be a fully functional and important part of the game, particularly if you want to storm someone's underground base, or take over a building without completely destroying it.
However, I should mention that PvP will not be implemented into the Pre-Alpha at all. PvP as a feature isn't going to be implemented until Alpha at the very earliest, but more likely not until Beta, so don't get too excited about it right now.
Thanks for the info. I'm pretty interested to see how this plays out, especially when it comes to vehicle v. vehicle. For instance, I wonder how hit chance will be calculated? If I have a gun with mediocre accuracy, but I'm firing against ship shaped like a huge wall (broad side of a barn), I'd expect to hit it. Likewise, if that wall-shaped ship turned sideways relative to me thus only presenting a thin target (edge of a piece of paper), I'd expect it to be quite hard to hit.
I'm interested to see how the devs handle that case of relative cross sectional area, as it will potentially have major ramifications on ship design. If cross section matters, I'd probably design fighters that are very flat, so as to present a minimal target when facing the enemy. If it DOESN'T matter, then it would make sense to shape the front of the fighter more like a wall- acts like a physical shield protecting the rest of the ship, and gives you a lot of surface area for forward-facing guns.
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On 9/8/2017 at 0:57 PM, Lethys said:
We don't know yet if they lock certain skills with the system or if they go for a "you can do everything but get a higher bonus for higher skills" instead.
I just wanted to point out that ggrinding in the sense of "I use that skill now 500 times to get a lvl up" won't happen, as this was often confused and asked in the past
The idea is to have a skill training system similar to Eve's, right? Something passively going in the background, based on the passage of real time?
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9 hours ago, Lethys said:
If you can effectively mine more in less time, you destroy the market for new players. Supply and demand - if you throw way more onto the market then prices go down, cutting the profit of newbros.
See eve for reference, if you don't have a serious mining operations running with dedicated t2 miner, then you won't makebe any profit at all (compared toto your little mining cruiser as newbro).
Solo/small gangs/people who try DU the first time should earn their share too so they have a reason to move on. Better skills and experience or larger orgs should benefit because of numbers and not because they kill the market for new players
Strictly speaking, you will still make a profit. I know- I did it. Was part of a 2-man corp. We mined enough to manufacture more than all the ammunition and PoS fuel we needed, and sold the surplus on the market. It wasn't our biggest income source, but it was reliable. Made decent money mining gas in my... Venture, I think, in wormholes. Again, nothing crazy, but since all I was spending was time, it was still profit.
Yes prices will go down as supply increases, but all a new player needs to spend is time (pulling the ore up by hand), so ANY amount of credits earned from selling said ore is profit. Will it be as many credits per hour as a major mining operation? No, but it's still profit, and thus income. If there were no benefit to big mining operations, then people wouldn't do them. Why invest all the time and resources setting one up when you can make just as much, just as quickly, solo?
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I'd love if they added some rotating elements, or at least engines that can rotate (but you can't attach stuff to them). It would be cool to be able to make something like a firefly-class ship, a keelback (elite: dangerous), or an osprey (irl aircraft).
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3 hours ago, GhoulX said:
Is Refund possible or what?
I haven't seen anything indicating one way or the other. Did you just run into a tough financial situation, or something?
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18 minutes ago, Lethys said:
If you're talking about factories or production, it's all good. Thought you talk about resource extraction there for a sec
No, I wasnt, but the same logic applies there. Party A mining oreX faster than party B doesn't stop party B from selling what little they pull up at the same unit price. The can still participate in the market, but their time is effectively worth less. That's fine though, since there's nothing stopping them from investing time and resources into faster mining methods too. Each unit of oreX they pull up will still sell for the same amount, but the rate at which they earn will increase.
As long as there's never a way to undercut the new guy's prices such that you still profit but they wouldn't if they matched your price, everything works out. New players will be able to participate and profit, and experienced players / organizations have room to grow their profit/hour income rate.
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22 minutes ago, Lethys said:
So you don't want to increase resource efficiency but want to decrease time needed.....That's an efficiency upgrade and with less time needed = more resources than a newbro
The difference is that by not touching the resource efficiency, you don't affect the material cost to produce something. Sure a new player won't be able to make money as quickly as a big factory, but they'll still be able to make a profit on what they produce.
Example: new guy spends give minutes turning $10 worth of materials into a single element that sells for $11 They profit $1 per element crafted, once every 5 minutes.
In that same 5 minutes, megacorp can do that same process 10 times over, thanks to the efficiency of their factory. In five minutes, they can turn $100 worth of materials into 10 of that component, for a total sale of $110. They still each component at $11 a piece since any less wouldn't be profitable. They can make a profit of $11 dollars every 5 minutes (way more than the new player), but they don't prevent that new player from participating in the market since the unit cost remains the same.
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On 9/7/2017 at 11:32 AM, Vorengard said:
I definitely understand where you're coming from, and that does sound really cool in it's own way. But like you said, automation would force new players out of the market completely, and would eventually destroy the in-game economy if taken too far. So not including those types of features really is for the best.
It really depends on what advantages said automaton confers. If it doesn't increase RESOURCE efficiency much (or at all), then it wouldn't push new players out of the market. There'd still be reason to do it, since there's a lot of value in scale and time savings, but the unit price wouldn't be heavily affected.
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It really is hard to say, without have yet played. I think I'd get a lot of satisfaction out of being a ship designer, but I'd also enjoy flying said ships and collecting the resources to build them. I was very industrial-focused in Eve, so there's a good chance that'll happen here, too.
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I definitely intend to get to know the system and try to push it's limits- especially when it comes to automaton.
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On 9/5/2017 at 11:43 PM, Fitorion said:
I kinda want a refinery to be something you build... along the lines of a space ship.
So what I'm saying is that there shouldn't be a single element that is a refinery... there should be many elements with their own functions that when assembled together function as a refinery.
Much like you assemble engines... and fuel tanks... and thrusters... and a cockpit to make a space ship. The machines used for industry should also be assembled that way.
I think there should be a mix of both. I'm fine with basic, small-scale inefficient refineries being single elements. These would be the first step, and what a player could use in a small personal base for small personal projects. When it comes to the larger scale stuff, this is where I think the multi-element structures should come into play. Way more efficient and higher capacity, but needing a lot of space, and several elements hooked up to each other to form a process. It could be that using certain elements in that production line could specialize it for certain tasks making it extremely effective at refining one type of thing. This would lead to top-end refineries being even bigger and more complicated, with several specialized production chains for different particular materials.
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On 9/5/2017 at 5:58 PM, Vorengard said:
To quote Nyzaltar's response to a similar question in the AMA from way back in July of 2016"
Who knows if this is still the plan for how stargates will work, but this was what they were thinking previously. It's also important to note that JC has said on multiple occasions that stargates are not something players will be able to build until years after launch.
I'm as excited for them as the next guy, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here
That sounds like a pretty cool approach. It would be neat to be on the build team that makes that first jump to the new gate build site.
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As far as scripts not firing ship weapons, how sure are we of that? I would understand the devs not wanting a single person flying a ship bristling in automated turrets, but it would make sense for a single pilot to be able to fire several fixed weapons at once. Most WWII single-seat fighter planes had several guns that all fired together, and the pilots and engineers managed just fine.
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Thanks for the info. It all sounds promising. I'm excited to mess around with all this at the end of the month.
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in General Discussions
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It's a neat idea, but would really cut into the dev revenue. It would also add a larger degree of variability to their income flow. Considering we're paying their wages (presumably a petty static cost) and their server costs (again presumably fairly static, with the exception of player growth), are more stable method seems appropriate.