Novidian

Why would smaller ships need stasis weapons to slow down larger ships, if the speed changes make the larger ships slower to begin with? I always saw it as a way of larger cargo ships being able to either slow down smaller PvP ships to get away, or make them easier to pursue and take down with their own weapons. Either way, I see it as more a benefit to larger ships and a redundancy for smaller ones. In fact, stasis weapons make more sense if there weren’t a speed cap at all, so their introduction baffles me since they’re both being implemented in the same patch. 🤪

I love this idea, was pondering the same thing. Would also been cool if we could access a color palette for steel/glass panels, so they can be used to match construct colors. Just to piggy back, I would love to see gates without the sides or maybe even corner pieces, so they’re more modular and can be used for larger/more customizable dimensions.

I was thinking the same thing when contemplating connecting the sea floor to my ocean platform base. Unfortunately, it’d be a LOT of work for something not exactly impactful - I doubt it will ever happen. However, if the entire area inside voxels is submerged, you can make it to where the water is barely noticeable with enough light.

Oh god yes. I think the addition of AvA would be huge, with the death match arenas we could build. That was one of my biggest draws are initially; being able to build actual combat maps for competitive AvA inside DU. Give us our bread and circus!

Yeah, I’ve long accepted it won’t be anytime soon or anything resembling an FPS. However, if they can add some kind of combat skills to the hot bar, something resembling Tabula Rasa or The Secret World could be very cool. They don’t need hit boxes and fancy gunplay, they just have to make it have a little depth and take it’s implementation seriously.

This game will always been about building cool stuff to me, everything else is a means to an end. I want to PvP, but it’s an ultimately expense hobby with not much incentive IMO. I look forward to that changing, though. That said, I was more interested in AvA and base/ship raiding when I found out it was planned. Come to think of it, stasis weapons could be a precursor to boarding, but I doubt it. Flying around in my jet pack popping dudes like a light assault in PS2, or a space marine of some kind. Building stuff is my bread and butter, but if PvP were actually expansive and fun, I commit to it in a heartbeat.

Nice of you to admit you’d willfully exploit the game, I guess? Honesty respected. Insurance costs would increase and the returns decrease considerably the more claims are made by a player. A person’s reliability rating as a courier could also take major hits, resulting in them being locked out of taking missions for X amount of time. The diminishing returns would make it harder to fudge. One thing you’re also not accounting for is that you lose your items that were in the parcel. That can’t be unpacked after looted, only sold for the insurance value to black market kiosks or other players for the set value at the time of creation. You may get reimbursed for the contents full value once, plus the 10% from an alt, but at the end of the day that is only a 10% gain from the stolen parcel AND you have to replace the materials just to run the mission again, replace any busted elements/cores, and spend time transiting things to PvP space. I think there would be easier ways to make quanta, personally. And I think it goes without saying that there could easily be a log tracking how many unique accounts/IPs are interacting in a given time. It’s very easy to see who is looted and getting looted frequently by the same people in a short amount of time. I would, as a developer, communicate very clearly that exploiting this system in any way can result in a lengthy lockout from the mission system or even a permanent game ban for repeat violations. Make it abundantly clear that using alts or farm groups to game the system is a serious nono, then drop the axe early and often for egregious offenses. I stopped playing EvE over a decade ago, but I remember this being an issue back in the day. Not sure how they handled it, but I know exploiters eventually made insurance worthless (at least when I played).

I have a laptop with a 10th gen intel/1660ti and 16gb ram, and a 10th gen intel pc with an RX580 8gb w/32gb ram. Both w/nvme’s, and they run fine for me @1080p and to a degree 1440p. By fine, I mean playable no stutter. Might be some pop in, but I’ve kind of accepted that as a way of life in DU. Different people have different expectations for performance, but my only real complaint is the L core I’m standing on not fully rendering until I’m like 50m away from what I’m looking at, but I can make out a base 5km away. Of all the upgrades since alpha, I’d say the SSD was the most impactful. I played with a 5th gen intel before and it handled things well enough paired with a 960.

An easy solution would be for the mission giver to be able to insure his package for say 10% of its value based on the market closest to the packager. The mission taker would then pay that 10% as collateral. Should the parcel be intercepted, it wouldn’t be able to be unpacked, only traded to a black market NPC terminal for that same 10% (or whatever amount insurance costs) value. This should incentivize missions over taking risk yourself, since if the package and it’s contents are lost, you are reimbursed. It should also lower the cost for collateral, while eliminating exploits. I admit, it’s less than ideal for pirates, but if you want people to brave open space AND avoid abuse of the system, it’s what is needed. However, I think a special black market currency (1:1 value) for pirates would reward and incentivize that kind of gameplay. Then, you can put exclusive resources and combat elements in the market, potentially tying those players a bit more closely with builders and industrialists.

As long as original backers such as myself maintain that status until launch, as agreed upon… I guess? I would honestly rather they just add lifetime memberships for $200 or something. That way they may get some extra dough out of existing players, and have something to offer new backers. Frankly, if they actually started crowd funding again after introducing subs, it would probably send the wrong (or right, oof) message about the game, being as far into development as DU is.

Honestly, if alien cores just adds a new resource, I'll be really disappointed. Eventually, the resource won't be that scarce, since it's generated automatically just by holding/monopolizing a position. (I mean, look what MUs did to ores) I could realistically see a scenario where the handful of dedicated pvp orgs defend the cores they have, and rather than have some reason to expand into others, just sit on their little respective fountains of alien goo. If every core generates the same thing, there's not much reason to control more than one, right? (Though, if this could be used as new fuel types for the energy system that gives higher output, it could tie pvp and industry together, so there's that) That said, I think each more should offer something unique to them, so there's always an incentive to get more than one. Something that can't just be traded away like any other commodity, so that being a part of an actual org and tackling this content as one has a purpose. Also, these are cores, so I imagine they can be built upon to make bases. It makes sense to tie those bonuses to what you use the core for. You want people to actually invest time and energy into defending them, what better way than to make building on them necessary to reap the benefits? Just adding a resource is, IMHO, just lazy. Wouldn't it be cool if some cores added to different types of industry output? What if all flight elements created using industry elements on one core had 20% more thrust. Weapons on another would have higher ammo count before reloads. Shields made on another have higher output. Higher CCS tolerances for cores made on another. Warp cells made on another yield 25% more product, etc etc etc. You have a REASON to have more than one, and it would tie industry and pvp together in a very exciting, highly contested way.

You really don't need to add a crafting element to this, and honestly I'd rather not have the game saturated with more "same but different" things. Ideally, this could simply be added to the UI of a weapon seat that the guns are linked to. That way they don't have to track thousands of unique weapons potentially, and just apply modifers whenever you get into your seat. This could actually tie into the energy system in a VERY cool way, where if you have surplus energy, it can be diverted to any ship element family for various boosts. So let's say, your ship can generate 50,000 "units" of power, but all of your elements only require 40,000 - you could divert the remainder to greater engine output, stronger shields, or higher weapon performance. In that scenario, you could have even more flexibility to prioritize mobility, defense, or offense as a construct, overall. I think giving people the tools to make creative builds will always be better than adding more elements, and this would make it to where it doesn't actually cost more money for players to have more specialized weapons systems. It also doesn't undermine the whole point of having different weapon types having certain advantages/disadvantages. If not that, then you could simply have weapon augmentation modules (WAM!) that you can add to weapons (akin to schematics and blueprints) that boosts a set statistic for a weapon, so you can min/max or cover up deficiencies of your weapon of choice. There could even be talents that allow one to use an additional WAM per tier, making the PvP talents tree even more specialized and valuable.

EvE also has a tiered insurance system. It’s easier to yolo PvP when you can recoup 40+% of a ships raw value. There’s a lot more risk mitigation in that game, especially for new players. I would say that also contributes to funding industry and not just the destruction aspect. Then again, I haven’t played EvE in well over a decade.

Without an easier way to find wrecks, it’s never going to be worth the time. Why not have them as a part of the mission system? “A derelict ship (core size) has been spotted at xyz. You are tasked with salvaging it, to eliminate a possible hazard for your fellow travelers. You have X days to complete this task before the construct’s core destabilizes and self destructs (despawns).” Then, you add some exotic/unique elements to it that can’t be found elsewhere. Higher rarity and quantity in PvP zones. Make sure the spawns are random, but in proximity to planets/in the pipe. Local missions could drop common or uncommon parts in a random unclaimed tile on planets as well.

It may not be a typical mmo, but drawing inspiration from a two decades old game isn’t exactly inspiring, either. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would, or has, suggested a single non PvP ship should be able to take on any number of combat ships. You said it yourself, they’re at an inherent disadvantage, more so when speed changes are implemented probably. That would be a silly expectation. Even an armed hauler is at a disadvantage vs a dedicated attack ship, between the extra mass and the build restrictions. You say the solution is to not get caught, but outside of avoiding the pipe (which isn’t much of a guarantee), there are no counter measures to avoid enemies. There are no sensor jammers or an otherwise way to go dark, so if you’re made, you’re dead. I don’t see the challenge in that for either party, but that’s just me. When 90% of the challenge is finding a target for PvP ships, that seems kind of boring to me. At the very least I’d like to see ships whose engines aren’t running be harder to spot and have a device that can send dummy radar pings to throw people off, but maybe that’s just me. Also, have the stasis weapons effect be able to stack, so maybe the meta for haulers is to jam a lot of those to outpace your persuer. If you’re built for hauling, you aren’t winning any slugfests, especially if your a ship balancing space and atmo. I think giving non dedicated PvP ships a chance to put smart or otherwise slip out of an attackers grasp makes things interesting, and might actually result in more people braving the pipe since the encounter isn’t certain death. As far as combat escorts, you can’t count on someone being available for that and it adds cost to your trip, considerably. Getting someone to slow boat a few hundred SU with you won’t be cheap or even fun. For the cost, you may as well warp, probably.

This was actually what I was hoping for before they even introduced constrict combat. Setting up boarding parties by hacking Rez nodes on enemy ships, capturing enemy tiles by dropping troops on the ground under fire and taking down their TU, etc. Avatar perks would matter more then, especially jet pack ones. It’s be like being a light assault in PS2 and would change how people build bases. So much lost by them holding out. As far as hauler vs combat ships, I kind of look at it like a typical mmo and not eve. Imagine outside of city hubs it’s pure pvp. You play a healer or tradeskiller and get rooted by a rouge while doing some gathering. You have no defensive ability or way to break root, to even have a chance to survive. You have a garden spade and not a sword, why try? Thats not fun to me. I’d argue NOT giving haulers tools to be more slippery makes PvP boring. Shooting fish in a bucket is carebear in a sense, because the attacker is assuming no risk and has to put in minimal effort to meet his goals. Adding defensive measures only makes real combat more deep, and adds more layers for the pvpers to consider, even when evenly matched against other PvP players.

Honestly, thinking about it, alien cores should just give bonuses to the person/org that controls it - not resources. Kind of like notum wars in Anarchy Online. It’d be cool if you could choose a perk when you capture a point, like higher XP gain, additional industry output or higher ore production in org contructs. This is actually the perfect opportunity to make orgs relevant and give players incentive to defend them. It’s all about the rewards, and some alien goo or whatever the hell they give as resource won’t be enough.

Stasis weapons? So you’re adding crowd control with no CC break mechanics? Not sure how I feel about that. What’s next; plasma weapons that have a DoT burn effect of CCS? Healing lasers? It could be cool, kind of like the game Dreadnaught, but if you put these things in ala carte, I think it’ll be a shit show. The whole alien cores things doesn’t seem well thought out. Why not anomalies that pop up in random locations? It could add a new resource into the game, as well as elements to secure them. This feels like something tacked on, using existing assets. Or better yet, wormholes that act as a shortcut in between planets, but the downside being a narrow corridor makes it harder to run from pvp. This would make showboating missions riskier, but less time consuming.

I would love a L atmo shaped more like the XS, long and narrow like space engines. However, of all the things that need work, I can’t justify putting this anywhere near the top of my list of things to implement. ?

They should add wormholes in pvp space, where players can take a short cut through the larger expanses, at the risk of getting engaged in PvP in and around these areas. That way, haulers can get from point a to b faster, but they’re basically much easier to find by pirates. More people will arm themselves or hire escorts, if it means shaving a lot of time. I imagine slow boaters would be less of a target, because they’re harder to find, so a longer trip generally would mean lower risk. The wormholes would be their own instances, naturally. They would be a winding corridor or sci-fi gobblety gook that require you to actually make flight corrections, or you risk hitting the outer walls of it and getting ejected back out into normal space and taking significant damage. This should in effect create an artificial speed limit to them to account for course corrections, and make PvP more likely. You could also throw in a few ship wrecks in there from time to time.

Ore and making quanta has never been easier. Not saying it is particularly fun, but it’s easy. For context, I’m an alpha backer who only seriously started playing again post demeter, and was flat broke when I returned. Only ship I had was a XS core with 2 small containers. The key is finding a good spot. That little ship was enough to haul a TS and XS core to check for ore. Took a few hours, but I found a cluster of 489-504 coal and decided to set up shop. Started with one tile, then three, then seven. Built a single 192kl hauler. Your daily login bonus is enough to fund your first tile in very little time and it snowballs from there. Now, my tiles are paid up 13 weeks and all I have to do is haul a little ore and calibrate every 3-4 days. I never made much at all, and now only playing casually, I’m almost at 100m. Pre Demeter I never had the time to make money like that and now I can do it with almost no effort at all, now that the MUs are up and running. I think the main issue is there are no tutorials for this and no real guidance on what the progression looks like for new players. Someone who at least half knows how the system works and how to benefit from it can be on their feet from scratch in a week or two, tops. I think there needs to be tutorials from having nothing on up to getting your first light hauler and territory scanner, and claiming a profitable tile. Otherwise, you’re flat out flailing in the dark. I also think the daily login bonus should instead be a 1m weekly one, so new players can hit the ground running easier.

So when that goes live, no one can do anything until they literally run to market and everyone has to completely redesign their ships (because size is a restriction in this scenario.)? We already have to run an excessive amount of elements just to make functional crafts, I’m not a fan of having to jam even more of them into ships and bloat builds more than they have to be. Now, if they buffed flight elements and brakes to where you don’t need 20-60 wings and 20-40 brakes to not die in a fiery disaster, it could work. Even then, it’s massively inconvenient because it would turn every design that came before it on its head. All in all, as things are now at least, I would hate to see more size restrictions imposed on builders. Perhaps every ship could have a baseline amount that is reasonable, but you could add generators to boost those numbers. That seems fair, at least.

I see energy as more as a pvp addition, making players favor design choices that are specialized. It kind of reminds me of an FPS called MAG on PS3, where every weapon, attachment, grenade, and even armor had an equip value. You could run heavy armor, but then you had to run more cqc oriented weapons with smaller attachments or less grenades. On the flip side, you could run light armor and have the ability to run a silenced weapon, sensor jammer (add this plz), and motion detectors to be a glass cannon of sorts. DU should be the same. Max energy output could be determined by core size. From there, each combat element would have a set power drain. That way, they could drop the restrictions of having only certain weapons on certain size cores. Maybe you run bigger shields, and fewer weapons. Maybe you run bigger guns, but weaker shields. Do you run a warp core so you can bug out/ambush? You can, but it would lessen available energy for other combat capabilities. They could even introduce CCS restoration lasers that use a lot of energy, so you could have ships that could specialize in healing friendly units. This could work for mining lasers, too! Have a similar mini game to mining units, and when you’ve found the ore, you can engage your laser to blast a tunnel directly to the ore. But make sure you have a friend nearby, because you won’t be able to defend yourself or warp out as quickly. I’d also make it to where efficient designs engage warp more quickly and use fewer warp cores, if you have a surplus of unused energy. That way heavy combat ships have a harder time chasing down and getting the drop on weaker ships and specialized haulers can move about more efficiently. Honestly, if energy is done correctly, it could change the game for the better in so many ways.

Wow… you are going to lose so many players with this one. First of all, nested orgs was not only mentioned by JC, it’s in the damn helper screen. How are you going to seriously say this is an exploit or not intended? That’s a straight up lie. At least be honest and say you’re doing this to cut costs or something. Don’t make it seem like players have done something wrong when they haven’t. There are going to be so many abandoned structures by hard working, creative people, who will have no choice but watch months/years of work just vanish into thin air. You should reward player effort, not penalize it, and yet here we are. Players will only take so much disappointment before they leave for good. This isn’t just disappointing though, it’s demoralizing. Most other decisions you’ve made, people can roll with the punches and adapt, but this one doesn’t have that luxury IMO. It’s going to be catastrophic if the new core counts are implemented.

A wipe right now is an absolutely horrible idea. For launch, possibly. Even still, it’s a catch 22. By the time launch rolls around, you will have had people invest a lot more of their money into subscriptions, and this would definitely sour their feelings toward NQ by doing it later, rather than sooner. However, if you wipe before the pillars of the game are fully realized, the player base may not come close to reaching the needed development to actually test the game properly. You NEED people with the resources to build and manufacture at a large scale, especially with more PVP content on the way. A hard wipe without bots and ways to make money outside of mining is impossible. There’d be no money to even start the economy, let alone sustain it. And even then, you need MANY ways to generate quanta, otherwise it’s just mining 2.0. We’re not even remotely close to that. There was a time when I would have sided with a full wipe. I just returned to DU, having not played since early alpha, so this was a wipe for me, either way. I tend to lean towards not hard wiping - I see more cons than pros. There are too many bugs/optimization issues to even implement all the features (element destruction) properly, so I think there’s a LOT of work to be done before we even consider a wipe. I’m not sure what you gain by doing it, honestly. In short, this is at best a discussion to have 6 months to a year out, and even that may not be enough time. If a wipe comes, it should only occur in preparation for launch, otherwise we may be having the same debate again before then. We need a feature full, highly functioning game, before we can even consider what a wipe should be and how it would work. Wait for the final product, then we’ll see. Regarding people paying subs, I think a fair compromise in the event of a wipe would be to offer them free post-launch game time and some of the other freebies promised to alpha backers (Pets/TUs/etc). That way, everyone who contributed pre-launch with subs didn’t feel like it was all for nothing, and their time and support was appreciated.