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Emma Roid

Alpha Tester
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Everything posted by Emma Roid

  1. Well, this is basically a ban on solo players running big factories (like me). People will be able to make a small range of stuff on the side, but dedicated industry is dead. I do not think this will lower market prices (on the contrary: material cost is already not in line with the price of higher tier items), but it will succeed in banning industry as an specialism. Together with the (probable) upcoming wipe it kind of rules me out for coming back to the game because the industry is what I liked most since Alpha.
  2. After posting these (admittedly critical) remarks on the #discussion channel in discord, I am suddenly blocked (I didn't post anything else all day). Granted, they are not my best posts ever - but do they deserve a discord block? Or is NQ just actively blocking negative reactions to the update? I made a ticket with NQ asking for a reason. Maybe someone outside of NQ reported me causing a block, so not sure what happened and I don't want to jump to conclusions. But it does not help keeping my faith in the game & the company
  3. How about a decision about that possible wipe?. Does not make much sense to play, or post updates while we are in the dark
  4. Totally agree. I stopped playing and stopped supplying M6 until they are clear what they will do If they wait too long I am probably immersed in another game (I normally only play 1 game hardcore at the time). So for me the clock is ticking....
  5. A wipe would solve none of the stated (presumed) issues: It would not make the new player experience better. Taking undeserved money away some some cheats by taking it away from everybody will not solve the economy/markets Removing schematics will not solve market issues (if there are any in the first place). (my more detailed arguments here) If NQ does not change underlying dynamics in the game we are just back in the same situation 1 or 2 years later. The reason I would quit the game for good if they wipe is not just that I loose 2 years of work, but that I would not trust NQ not to just grab the 'wipe' stick again whenever they feel like they want a clean database. So whatever time you invest is lost repeatedly - unless you limit yourself to just being a ship builder, because they will probably get their BP's back. But all the city builders, industrialist and miners will be screwed over every 1 or 2 years. Sure they will promise never to wipe again. But they have made that promise before.
  6. Although I could live with a partial wipe, I still don't see any reason for a wipe. The pros and cons given sound a bit contrived to me: New player experience If an MMO needs a wipe to attract new players, where are we a year later? You would need a wipe every year or so. The challenge is to make the game in such a way you can step in at any time I just did the new player experience on the test server, nice improvement. But I do not see how there being some big bases on Alioth or some rich players in space has any effect on the new players when I am setting up my base, start building and exploring. On the contrary: it gives something to explore and can be an inspiration to new builders in what is possible. Exploits Ok, so some players got rich using exploits. How does that effect other players? The example I know of is the guy that bought 100 warp beacon schematics for 8mil each and was willing to sell them for 700mil. But my warp beacons (I bought the proper schematic) normally sell within two weeks and with a 1500% (15 times the production cost) margin. So it seems to have no effect at all that I can see. Ok, so they can buy more expensive guns. So what? the advantage of that is not great, and most of these cheaters don't even play anymore. Some other examples: gates have a >100% profit, advanced engines > 100%, rare engines 800%. There is no problem with rich people pushing out regular players. You can buy a Gate XL schematic with half a day of T5 astroid mining with 2 guys, you don't need exploits to be able to make it. If there is a problem with the markets, it is not because of rich players, but a lack of destruction. An element once made stays in the game forever, except in PVP and in players leaving the game. That is not a recipe for a healthy economy but exploits have nothing to do with it. It is rather naive to think there will never be an exploit again: people will find ways to cheat and exploit with every change to the game. Are you going to wipe every time that happens? Just deal with it and undo some transactions or kick some players, like other MMO's do. removing schematics will indeed resolve the market issue: there will be no market. The schematics where introduced exactly for this reason. Of course people will complain about the cost: new players are used to games where you are in the end game in 10 days and they don't want to invest time and effort for a 2 year period to build a factory (like I did). Those are exactly the players NQ should not listen too: they are on to the next game in a month anyway. You need to listen to the players that stick around and are willing to build long-term: those are your money-makers. Partial wipe complexity There are many ways to do partial wipes, and clean up the database. Not all of them sound complex to me: You could let players mark up to 10 construct with a flag (like the headquarters) and then wipe the rest and reset the planets: the dynamics for planet reset and construct deletion are already there, and so is a 'tag construct' mechanism, so how is this complex? You could just remove the need for the schematics from the game and - like someone suggested in this forum - set up NPC buy orders for them. That makes refunding people real easy. And you don't need a wipe for that, could be done in a patch. You don't need to split communities if you want to start fresh and keep the current, you could make a gate/portal to a new solar system with its own currency where you can only take blueprints back and forth: that will be a bit more work I imagine, but only if you want new planets. you could also just copy this solar system and rename the current one 'legacy'. All-in-all it seems to me that part of the devs in NQ just want a clean database and are looking for arguments to justify a wipe.
  7. add schematics to that, or compensation in quantas: I grinded them together over 2 years. Would be unfair if builders keep their blueprints, and industrialists loose everything.
  8. I don't really understand the need for a wipe, other then that NQ would like to clean up their database. The 'Pros' listed sound contrived to me. Any permanent MMO where a wipe is needed to make it attractive to new players is doomed. Are you going to wipe every year then? The challenge of an MMO is to make the game is such a way that a player can step in at any point.
  9. I would like to suggest option 5: New solar system you can get to with a gate - Has its own currency - Schematics are not needed there But you can't take anything from one system to the other except blueprints. Pro: - Long time builders keep there builds and factories - Money made from exploits has no influence in the new system - Community does not need to split: you can go back and forth between your old base and new ones - PVP and planet PVP could be added there without having too much impact: for planet PVE you can stay in the current system Con: - Needs some coding and (preferably) some new planets. Although a straight copy would work So basically similar to option 3, but without having to split the community
  10. As a long time regular player: a partial wipe I could live with, a full wipe not. I would expect to at least remain blueprints, talents and schematics and preferably 'capsule constructs' (maybe without cargo and fuel). I think I am entitled to replace my factory I spend 2 years working daily in building without having to set it all up again from scratch for the 4th time (after alpha, beta pre-schematics, beta post-schematics). The idea to remove schematics is new to me, but if we can run factories without schematics that is ok: I did that before and with my talents I should be able to make money. There would just be more competition and a smaller market as more people will make their own stuff. But I do expect compensation for the years of grinding money and talents together to build up my schematics set. Not sure what I would do with 30bil, but I worked hard for it, and I never used any exploits. Would not be fair if the builders get all their work saved by getting blueprints, and industrialists loose everything they worked for. It is frustrating that this wipe discussion has been going on for so many months now. I would like a decision soon please, so that I know if I am wasting my time these months or need to go look for another game.
  11. On itself I find these limits too restrictive to enjoy building, but that is not what is pissing me off about this post. What it is is the total disrespect for their player base, especially loyal daily players like me: With the Demeter release we where all encouraged to place cores and mining units everywhere. I spend 8 full weeks building mining bases, logistic station with warp beacons and elevators. Then they do a post telling us that we are not allowed to put down so many cores and I have to take it all down again... I can't believe they didn't knew this was coming when releasing Demeter. If the problem is that there are too many cores on the server they could have easily fixed that by removing >90% of them by not automatically placing headquarters on players that left the game. They are so desperate for old players to come back to the game that they screw over the loyal player base that remained. If removing those would not have been enough they could have introduced new limits excluding existing cores. But they don't seem to care. I think NQ underestimates how much builders hate breaking down builds. The style of the post doesn't help: trying to sell a severe limitation as a max increase: they really must think we are stupid. Personally I cancelled all my M6 industry- and ore-buying orders and going into hibernation as a player. How this release pans out will determine if I resume or need to go look for another game. I am certainly not motivated to keep building at the moment.
  12. I am just realizing: a new command to request the current config of an industry would make it possible as well to automate a restart 'getSettings()'?. But the run() vs start() would be my preferred solution if I would have to choose.
  13. I would like to suggest to rename the 'start()' command to 'run()' for industries, and then add a 'start()' command. The reason to bring it up now is that the current issues of bugged industries after a patch are hard to solve, but an easy way to avoid the manual resetting of all your industries after a patch would be to make a 'start all' button in a factory. This would be really easy if it was possible to ask all elements from the core, filter the industries, and then give them a 'start()' depending on their status (couple of lines of Lua). Currently however the 'start()' command in Lua is actually the 'run' button (so make unlimited items). There is no Lua for the 'Start' button (to continue with previous setting). So in my case i could only use lua if I would code out every single industry with their maintain level. I think having both a run() and start() command makes more sense and fits the GUI.
  14. If I look at my factory, it seems that every production that is running and finishes during the patch period gets in an error state. Pending elements, or products that need a long runtime seem to be fine.
  15. Regarding the (endless) wipe discussion. The main thing that breaks the economy and creates the slow markets is that there is no destruction: players only ever have to buy each element once, unless they do PVP. Bring back the breaking of elements for crashes and the economy becomes healthy overnight. I would not have a problem with a wipe if this would have been clear from the start (like during Alpha). But it was heavily suggested over the last year it would not happen. If I fully loose the year of daily time investment in my factory I would probably not have the motivation to start anew.
  16. I like the fact that market clutter is addressed, but in am not really a fan of the chosen solution. Solving this with a detailed list of rules moves the game further away more from the 'sandbox' principle. I would have preferred a solution like for instance charging 'parking fees' (first hour free) depending on core size and then 'hide' the constructs when wallets run out. That way it would help to gets some money out of the economy to fight inflation and that way you can advertise but it will not be free. It also doesn't require a set of rules everybody needs to know and NQ will need to police.
  17. I had a big factory so 0.23 affected me greatly. But that does not mean I was against it in principle. I am not so sure the schematics solves anything in the long run as it is just a one-off investment cost. I will help get a more healthy market, but it will also make high-tier industry exclusively for early adopter big organisations. Organisations that want to get into it later will find it very hard to build up the investment and to compete on prices. So do solo-industrialist. It will stimulate organisations trying to dupe new players into being their 'mining slave' (I have seen some of that already), but will it make healthy and active player-interaction? I am not so sure: missions you need to do in a group, PVP and other cooperative activities work much better for that then Industry. But aside from the downsides of the schematics: In my opinion the most imported market improvement in 0.23 was actually the destruction of elements. The 'fixes' now proposed make matter worse instead of better in my opinion: - Setting up a Tier one factory is already possible (I managed), so that did not need fixing: it will only increase oversupply on an already slow-moving market. - By removing the breaking of items there will be an even lower turnover on the market. That has been the biggest market problem from the start: if you can endlessly reuse and repair items, only new players occasionally buy something. You need a healthy amount of destruction to get a healthy throughput on the markets. PVP alone will not do that. Why is the destruction removed again? 0.23 stimulate people to start with smaller ships and more T1 elements, and build up over time from that. So the destruction fits: those ships are not that hard to replace or repair. People should not fly large core 20-engine monsters until they know what they are doing. So for me this change removes the good bits of 0.23, and makes the bad bits of 0.23 worse. I think the result will be even less healthy markets. Update (after the patch): I stand corrected: they did not only lower the schematic prices on Tier 1, but across the board. Making a big factory is still a serious investment and not something to do casually, but it is not only achievable for big organisations anymore. I still think we need to get the destruction back to get more activity on the markets. People should just fit an ECU and enough breaks and they survive a disconnect. Most of the people disconnect on purpose to save their ship: that is an exploit in my opinion. But they prefer to wine and complain :(.
  18. I like the scalefactor Idea, and it is easy to combine with the limited size idea: just make the shield generators produce a 'layer' on the outside of the ship (form factor 1.05 or 1.1 sounds good to me), but with a limited range. So you need multiple rooms with shield generators and supporting equipment if you want to shield a big ship. I still think overloaded shield generators should explode, but I do not mean nuke-size. Just enough to destroy equipment in the surrounding area: so if you want a robust ship, you need strong bulkheads and some armor on the inside. Also, the shield generator is just an example: there should be lots of supporting equipment in all areas. (and imagine how cool it looks on the outside if you overload a shield: explosion blowing out, the battleship still in good fighting shape, but with a vulnerable hole in the side. Rolling the ship can help compensate) In the end all of this is just an excuse to make a big battleship not just a big hollow shape that only looks good on the outside. I want to walk through the maintenance tunnels and be amazed about room after room of weapon support bays, defense turret support installations, control rooms, backup power facilities, shield rooms, damage control centers etc. It will also make building a big ship HARD. It should not just be a race about who can grind the most resources, but also a design challenge. I like a design challange
  19. I am all in favor of people interacting. And for the rest I will adjust to the game dynamics, that's all fine. But my Eve Online experience tells me that their are lots of people that love spying and betrayal. I am curious how you can prevent Pirate corps from letting spies join corps, scout out juicy targets, and then send the whole pirate fleet over to loot it. Of course we have the claim/bubble thing, but that is 48 hour max. As a small corps you cannot protect yourself from a sustained pirate attack. I hope that in DU small corps can still have a base without getting grieved every few days. In Eve Online small independent corps cannot really own a base in 0.0, they can only roam around with a base in low sec, or hide in wormhole space. We will see how DU develops, I am excited either way.
  20. I think we should only get individual maps, that grow and show only the places you have been. That way Space is BIG. And exploring is more fun. It is no fun to just fly to a point on the map: you want to pick a star in the sky and just go there and see what is there. Also: as a small alliance you could move out deep, and let new members spawn at your base. They will not be able to betray the location (spies etc). Only a few trusted members know the way to the Hub and nearby trading centers. They can try to find out of course, but by flying out in random directions it is very unlikely the spies find their way back to the hub. They might try to follow the trusted traders, but that sounds like a nice cat & mouse game That way you could build your empire up without being wiped out on day one by the neighbouring superpower. I stopped with Eve Online because it was not possible anymore as a small group to own any deep space system on your own. Either fleet service, or high taxes where required from a larger power: made me feel like a slave.
  21. I am really looking forward to the pre-alpha, but as an 8-year Eve Online veteran and almost 2 years of Space Engineers I have a few concerns/recommandations. I am curious how other people think about this, and if the devs said anything regarding these topics. My concerns are: Travel should be slow Large ships should be full of equipment Blueprint use should be limited. Let me explain :). Travel In Eve online you can go to the central trading hub (Jita) with a couple of carriers or jumpfreighters in less than an hour from anywhere in the 7500 systems. The introduction of cariers, jump freighters and jump beacon networks (over the years) killed off local trade hubs, and most of the deep space industry. Deep space / 0.0 is now mostly just used for (moon)mining and alliance wars. Trading is mostly limited to the center zone and the profit margins are so low most people do not bother. It also had the side-effect that empires got too big: it is so easy to have fast moving roving fleets cross the universe the empires got bigger and bigger. I miss the early years where you could set out with a group of friends, find yourself an empty solar-system and build yourselves a home. Those days are long gone in Eve-Online: you have to negotiate a rent from an empire, then mine your ass off paying that rent, or you sign up for endless grinding fleet service but never fight for your own home. (this is why I stopped with Eve-online a few years ago) To avoid this, travel should be slow: I think we should not have stargates in this game: that would make big empires too easy. People would just restrict their use to their own alliance to get a war advantage. I think 12 hours flying or so to the next solar-system is fine to start with (was mentioned in one of the videos). Maybe you can introduce a warp drive so that travel to moons and panets within a solarsystem is a bit quicker, but to the next solar system should take hours (at least 1 or 2 hours I would say, enough so that it is a real expedition, not just a little hop and back). This makes trade more viable, with better profit margins (you could even pay for getting your ship moved while you are offline?: dock it in a huge ship as in the Dune books for instance?) As long as all the basic building components can be found in each solar system there is no need for fast travel. Slow travel will create many local economies instead of one big one, give room for real exploring, make trade and local industry viable. It will make the universe feel big. It will also mean that many people from two sides of the universe will never meet, but I see that as a plus, not a problem. Big ships In Space engineers, when you build a really big battleship, it is mostly empty space: the power plants, oxygen plants, etc. take very little space. For the rest its an endless repeat of engines and guns, but they slap on on the outside. Inside it is mostly empty space. I do not like that. This way there is no real reason to build a big battleship other than the look: a smaller one is just as strong, and easier to armor. I would suggest that in DU the equipment should be BIG. And I would also suggest lots of supporting equipement. For Instance: say a large shield generator can be made stronger with one or more capaciters to handle peak loads, and they need 1 or more cooling systems so it overloads slower, they all need to be linked to a control unit to configure these settings, but they need to physically close to work. Then add that when a shield generator overloads, it explodes (seems very reasonable). This forces you to armor the room on the inside. Follow up with making the shield area it covers a limited sized disk, not a sphere. The effect will be that if you want a battleship to be shielded, you need a series of armored rooms full of equipment. Repeat this type of thing for large guns, engines, power supply, sensor arrays etc, and you get a naturally big ship. I think a large ship focused for battle should just have room for living quarters and a few small ship bays, but for the rest be full of equipment. (I am speculating stuff like this fits with the game engine, and should not take much performance as the supporting equipment can just be calculated through as improved stats for the shield module). A positive side effect is that large trading ships - that DO need lots of empty space - will always be more vulnerable than a battleship of the same size. Blueprints I like the blueprint idea to store and recreate your personal designs. But I think it is a bad idea to make mass production too easy (also an experiance from Eve online). In the end somebody will come up with an optimal design for a small scout, miner, fighter etc, and then everyone will just endlessly copy that design. I think we all want there to be lots of variations in ship design. Standards might still happen, but I think we can fight to keep diversity by limiting the blueprint functionality. One way of doing this would be to make the use difficult (as in Space Engineers you see the blueprint in space, and then have to slowly welt it together from the inside out: very hard to do for large blueprints). You could also make it so that you can reproduce your blueprint, but only 1 reproduced ship of the blueprint can exists in DU: that way you limit it to personal use as a sort of 'save game', but not stimulate mass production. Wat would be the dead of ship variation is the buying and selling of blueprints, I hope we do not get that. As I expect some wipes in the alpha and beta phases of the game the blueprint is a great help, but personally I hope that it is dropped when the game is out for real. Losing a ship should hurt, and not just for the materials: it should take time and effort to create a new one. This will limit piracy, because it makes piracy more time-consuming and harder to make profitable, and it will limit war: nobody is going to trow their hard-build ships away because an alliance leader has a temper tantrum. War will come when a group of people feel it is a just cause. Ok, so far the 3 topics running through my mind lately. How do others feel on these topics? Is this all old news and already sorted?
  22. What is an ATV test? Saw it on the Dual Universe Twitter feed, but no links. Can't find anything on google, the DU forum, facebook or twitter about it. No idea what you guys are up too
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