Emma Roid

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :(.

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 :(.

the problem:
@NQ Devteam all moons in safe zone im visiting are empty of rare ores... the surface of all plots are like this:

what should we do? what is planned in short term to gather higer tier ores? and for new players that they pay you some sub?
it is an important issue that we need to solve in max of weeks not months.
 
smaller orgs actually can't compete with bigger ones for the mining competition in safe zone. in other words, big orgs are exploiting the safe zone resources (already having military power) and make smaller orgs or solo players can't do nothing else than basic stuff or sell basic ore they gather making the trouble worst.
in my opinion is not fair and need some kind of balance "quick".
keep the resources in balance will make the comunity safe and mild. if this balance is broke, well i think very well that you know the concecuences and don't need that me a nonamer gold backer to tells you about. didn't you?
or this is a social experiment and you want to learn about the patient and consecunces of the people when run out of resources and you split the comunity in 2: the bigger powerfull empire and the resistance... probably thats why is call "dual": the good and evil, the red vs blue, the light vs dark, the bigger alliance vs the rest of the server. that things ruin sandbox mmos comunity behavior (the best example is life is feudal mmo).
plz do something quick or the wars will explode in your discord, forums, social media and everywhere else than the ingame before the full pvp is turned on.
 
my ideas: (for newbies and pve sheeps)
     -short term: (easy for you to acomplish)
asteroid rains over the moons that refill the resources from time to time (making dangerously deadly to build constructs there or simply negate the TS placing on moons) not need to be visual in short term. just keep the players informed when it happens. (this idea is from a zellcore memeber called: Vitari) diferent tiers of quests to gather resources, quanta and talent points from renewable resource moons or especific renewable ore veins near arch plots (im sure you are working on something similar)   
     -long term: (im quite sure you are working on it... didn't you?)
asteroid belts (can be a good oportunity to test physics and/with volxel entities apart from the core construct system you have now) expand the open space with more systems  
***the idea of this thread is to have an answer from "NQ Team" for a public information.***
if someone want to discuss or add more ideas for short and long term plz help and support this thread. salut!

Grow up. All they had to do was report the bug. If you use bugs for gain without reporting I have no sympathy for those banned. Good riddance. 

Hello Noveans, 
 
By now, some of you may be aware that unlucky number Market 15 has been stripped bare and left to create ugly memes for generations to come. We’re trying to look at this in good humour as, from the front, it appears to be an issue that was created when we moved the markets, making it editable by players. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (though we know there are a few of you out there) to understand that the markets are not a community construction, and as such not intended to be handled by players on this level. The destruction of the build isn’t a quick fix, and was clearly done knowing it shouldn't be. 
 
An important aspect we are considering in all cases and investigations is intention. The intention behind this destruction is very clear to us. The players involved did not report this bug to us, but instead simply filled their pockets. Had this stopped with a single voxel removed it would be a different story.  This is, at its core, a violation of the EULA and against the intentions of beta. We have been as understanding as we can until this point, but there must be a line.
 
Let us be clear, we will not tolerate this kind of behaviour during any phase of the development of Dual Universe.
 
The players responsible for the destruction of the market have been permanently banned from Dual Universe, and all salvaged materials and assets gained will be removed without compensation.
 
Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 
Follow up statement: 
 

As you may know:
 
 
In short, the economy start with 0 credits. NPCs at the start of the game will give us credits for raw materials, up to a certain point, where those NPCs will be removed. Then there'll be a limited amount of credits, that will make the economy. 
 
Doubts:
 
- After some time, some people may stop playing, abandoning a character with credits in it. 
- Some people may accumulate a huge amount of credits, without spending them. In that case the economy run with much less credits. If credits are more rare, prices for stuff are lower, and at a certain point, those rich guys may use all their credits buy all the stuff they can, at a lower price than usual. At that point there'll be again a large influx of credits in the economy, that will rise the prices up again, so those people will make profit out of this phenomenon. Sorry if I couldn't explain this better, but my english is limited.
-Adding again NPCs in the future (or even at the beginning), is something that comes from the devs. I feel is too much of an intrusion in a game made by players. It defines the economy too much.
 
The first problem regard the natural loss of credits over time: a guy that stops playing, another that changes account, or wathever. This may be fixed by adding again NPCs temporarily to resupply credits up to the original amount.
The second is a problem caused by the static amount of credits in game, and the one-off random resupply, decided by devs. 
The third pretty much explain itself. 
 
In other games we usually have NPCs, that create credits, what are called gold-sinks, to remove them. This usually mantains a stable economy, if done properly. It is artificially balanced. 
In a game like DU ofc this can't work, since there are not even NPCs that gives quests or something like that. The devs idea may be a solution, but a little basic and with problems imho. So what's the solution?
 
Create a rare resource that we can craft credits with. Example:
 
-Gold is a rare resource. You can craft, with a recipe, an X amount of credits with a single ingot. 
-Gold is a resource needed to craft a fundamental element, like the construct cores. It will always be important and have a value in game.
-The price to buy an ingot of gold from other players will never be less than X credits, but higher, simply because you can just craft yourself X credits from an ingot. Let's say an ingot is worth Y credits. Y > X always. 
-This kills inflation. When there's a ton of credits in the economy, the price of all resources go up naturally, gold included. This means that is not convenient for people to craft credits with the recipe, because they would get only X amount of credits, that is a lot less than Y, so a fewer people will "create" credits, letting the natural loss of credits reduce the inflation naturally.  Viceversa, if there's not enough currency in the system, Y is a lot closer to X, so people are more incentivized by using the recipe, and new crafted credits will flow into the economy. Wait, there's something wierd....If Y>X always, why would someone ever think about using the recipe to craft credits? Because of two reasons: Trade fees and wait time: If you sell stuff, you're probably using a market element, maybe in a city, maybe in a station, and you'll have to pay taxes on your trades to the owner. When the difference between X and Y is small enough, crafting credits is more convenient than selling gold.  "Wait time" instead is referred to you having to wait for a buyer, instead of having credits instantly by crafting them; consider that with high inflation there are more buyers (more money in circle, people are more incentivized on buying stuff despite mining/crafting by their own), so the wait time is smaller, so isn't a problem and you would sell gold instead of crafting credits, while with low inflation, you may have to wait quite a bit to find a buyer, because there is less currency in the economy than normal, so you're more incentivized to craft credits. Everything works perfectly and balance itself naturally. Sorry if it's a bit confused, I hope you understood.
-No need for NPCs, no need to balance the economy artificially, by force, adding or removing credits. 
-If someone accumulates a huge amount of credits over time, the economy is not going to be affected, so that people can't play with the economy, creating instability. Not that easily at least.
-People are not going to be chained to the arkship forever, where the NPCs are. You can craft credits anywhere supposed you have the gold.
-Incentivize mining, pirating, and stuff like that. Gold has a value just because you can make credits out of it, and every other resources will have a balanced price relative to the gold rarity, and their usefulness. 
-The fixed amount of credits in game depends on the amount of active players, that defines the amount of trades. With the system I propose, this gets automatically balanced. Because less/more players means less/more mining, other than less/more trades. So credits will always be proportional to the amount of trades, and the amount of players.
-Credits resupply/removal needs to be applied gradually, constantly over time, not by a one-time temporary reintroduction of NPCs. The economy is stable, you don't see large influx of credits over a certain period of time. Prices are more stable.
- And more
 
EDIT: If the natural loss of currency throught loss of accounts, isn't enough to balance the amount of credits crafted by gold, in other words, the inflation, forging back gold from credits is a solution. You'd loose something throught the crafting process (you would get only 80% gold back, or you'd consume energy to craft or a third material required by the recipe) to balance the continuous switch gold to credits to gold, that players could abuse to transport gold without worrying about mass.
 
 
What do you think? 

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? 
 
 

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? 
 
 

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? 
 
 

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? 
 
 

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.

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.