[When the White Knights turn Black (an open letter to the community and NQ)]

17 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

After all this time, I'm not sure that DU actually ever had "potential"...never in its history was there ever a real design plan. They never knew how to translate a vague collection of ideas into concrete game design. 

 

"JC's DU" is one reason why the game never materialized -- it was never real. It was always just illusion and fantasy conjured by someone that had never touched game development before.

 

NQ has made a lot of bad choices since JC left, but if they'd tried to adhere to "JC's vision" (whatever the heck that actually was), the game wouldn't have even made it to this sad state of release.

 

It'd have never escaped beta. If his vision and leadership was really so clear and great, the project would have moved forward and he wouldn't have gotten the boot. JC's inexperience is what set the foundation for the game's enduring problems. By the time they booted him, it was already too late to make up for wasted time and horrible foundations. 

 

In my opinion, fantasy and ambition are not the same as potential...for a product to have potential, it has to be grounded in reality.

 

Teleporting people across the planet isn't an idea with "potential", it's absurd and stupid because it isn't plausible. It's an idea without substance or detail on how that idea will actually work, conjured by someone with no technical experience in any relevant field. 

 

DU has always been the same way.

 

It was a random collection of ideas from someone with no game development experience that was designed to "sound good", but was never grounded in reality.

 

"Be whatever you want and build without limits in a single shard persistent online system" is not a real idea by itself. It's fantasy.

 

They sold people on it because they claimed to have cutting-edge tech that would somehow make it all work...I believed it in the start as many others did, but it's been apparent for a while now that this was not scalable tech -- it was something a smart but inexperienced PhD cooked up not understanding how to make things scale in the real world. 

 

Does the idea of DU still have merit? No...I'm not convinced it does, because I still don't know what that idea really means in the form of a detailed, cohesive, practical, and plausible design. 

Have you ever experienced being "in the zone" or had a sudden realization about something that makes perfect sense but you can't explain where the idea came from or the details or why it works?  That was a part of JC's vision for DU.  You can't ask a bean counter to streamline something when nobody understands how or why that version worked in the first place. Once you start pulling those strings the whole dream begins to unravel and more often than not cannot be stopped, much less put back together in any meaningful way.

 

Most of the potential that I perceived in DU came from the passion of the other players despite what the devs were doing.  With each game changing patch that potential was chiseled away, eventually revealing a hollow shell and then that was further reduced so that it looked like a child pressing shards of broken pottery into mud to make a 2D representation of the pot the shards came from.

 

The voxel building system here is amazing.  The single shard world is really helpful but not the end-all, be-all that it should have been.  The community has been the soul of the game thus far but even that well has been poisoned repeatedly with no sign of change of tactics to speak of.

[Why should I keep playing, NQ?]

30 minutes ago, Jinxed said:

 

@Cergorach Not sure how long I have left on these forums given my current negativity... But just in case, I want to take this opportunity to say that I'm really sorry I vented on you the other day... It seems I'm letting my frustration at the game get the better of me! I'm clearly still a bit immature, even at my age.

 

I feel 100% what you're talking about here (see my other post about future wipes being inevitable given current trends). I have a sort of love-hate relationship with this game.

What they initially promised, basically ruined Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen for me. They waved the potential for in-game creative freedom like a pair of coconut-oiled tiddies in front of me and I caved in. I even bought a Mark Dragon ONE YEAR subscription... LOL.

But after all the false promises, I began to turn my back on DU and went back to NMS multiple times and with the added distraction of my third visit to the recently upgraded Night City, I find myself less inclined to play this game than ever.

I have been holding my tongue far more than NQ deserves but I will continue to be cautious in what I post here since their rules are not forgiving.  I can't even begin to explain my situation without loudly stomping all over certain vague rules that are swiftly enforced and earn a forum ban in the process, but I digress.

 

 

Quote

In my opinion, if we just happened to have a few dozen volunteers of constructive people who all love some of the same aspects of DU monkeying around with a shared project from a certain updated engine we'd probably have a better product playable in less time than it takes for NQ to 'fess up to outright falsehoods that are clearly visible to some.  I suspect several current and many former players have a dream vision for what DU was supposed to be for each of them.  If we compiled the list in a venue that isn't under NQ and focused on features that overlapped we'd have an achievable central design with a long and clearly visible road map to expand.  I believe the mantra most often quoted to those being pushed out of other social networks was "go build your own."  We'd have to reach out to some of the more talented coders that have left DU at various points in the past. 

 

If I am not on these forums after this post then I probably broke a rule that I wasn't aware of.  My prior back-to-back strikes were... well, I can't say, but it was the final straw that drove me off after 0.23.  I guess some lessons are really slow to sink in and I shouldn't have given NQ my money again. 

 

As much as I loudly protest about people who just want to blow up other people's hard work I have seen some those same players act like great stewards to a caring and cooperative community.  The PvP in and of itself isn't the problem, nor are the players who choose to participate in it.  It's the false advertising of being a sandbox with PvP being optional that is irking me.  It's the lack of AND INTENTIONALLY FALSE communication about plans that have game changing value that push me away from being able to re-ignite my own passion within the game.  Speaking as someone who has been trapped in an abusive relationship, I have no tolerance for the same behavior from someone I have paid to produce a product for me and others to share.

 

[How to bring T1 bots back]

54 minutes ago, Pleione said:

Well... that is the end of this discussion:

 

 

They opted for Option X - do nothing.  Guess that solves the problem right?  At least it doesn't cost them anything beyond the post time.

It sounded more to me like this was the plan from the start.  If they had told us that plan up front I would have applauded and probably championed the decision (and probably have previously).  To hide the plan in case it didn't work only harms trust between NQ and the community.  

[Exploit with mining units]

1 hour ago, Jinxed said:

What an odd game this is to allow a certain subset of their players to basically do whatever they want FOREVER and endlessly, while other players can barely afford to enjoy themselves and end up leaving after a couple of fruitless months.

And what do you think will happen the day they turn on territory warfare?  All the people who hold producing land in non-safe space either leave or become legion.  Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't been paying attention.  Under the current system of poor resources if you add in the ability to lose your territory despite paying the tax would be the day DU collapses.  I was a champion for TW during Beta, but the current setup is so far removed from what we had that there is zero hope for DU should NQ enable TW now.

[When the White Knights turn Black (an open letter to the community and NQ)]

4 hours ago, Gunhand said:

 

The patterns were indeed there and I saw them myself, but I like others chose to play the game with the blinders on. My moment of reality came when the game stopped being fun and sitting down to a session which should of been a fun escape, turned into something somewhat akin to that feeling you get when you have to get up for work in the morning.

 

 

I don't doubt they do. Any grassroots developer working on any project would have to have passion and a drive to want it to succeed and see people enjoying their work. The problems in many game developments is that the management and shareholders don't want to make some money, they want to make all of the money. 

 

 

I did read in the past that UE just wasn't a capable engine for a voxel based MMO game of this type, whereas Unigine was. The functional problems that DU has with its architecture and infrastructure mainly come down to its server requirements. It would likely be solved by increasing its resources at cost which NQ don't want to make. They scaled back at the same time as the cost cutting measures when they realised how much the game was costing with AWS. 

 

To port the entire game over to UE and rebirth it would be a mammoth undertaking at insane cost and years more development. Even in the event that they decided this was a great idea and opened the idea up for crowdfunding and investment. How much goodwill has already been burned? Who would support a game that's been in protracted development all this time and mostly failed to deliver on its promises? Players wish they could do a No Mans Sky, or Final Fantasy, do a complete 180 and bring their game back from the dead. Novaquark and Dual Universe don't have that level of hype or playerbase to support anything close to that. 

The building experience is still the best thing available in a multi-player flavor to date.  It is the tiny amount of lift for my wings as I scream toward the planet Burn-out when I discover my airbrakes aren't working for some reason.  Having seen examples of what Nanite can do right now, out of the box, it's only a matter of when (not if) DU's top spot gets sniped.  The first project to get true player cooperative building with UE5+ will likely become the brand name for the next generation of all gaming (i.e. Kleenex for tissue, Google for search, etc.)

 

1 hour ago, BlindingBright said:

Unreal 4 was what NQ turned down at one time for Unigine. During the dev process almost every game announced for unigine fails. It's a great simulation engine and for benchmarking, but it's largely the bottleneck for better performance  and I know tons of people are gobsmacked by the bad performance with modern gaming rigs. 

 

At the time Unigine was the only out of the box offering to do planet scale, I recall the demos when they first announced the engine. 

 

Since then though unreal engine 5.1 has come out, and with it the double floating point precision needed for planet scale. It won't fix their backend server issues, but it might finally give players a stable 60fps with modern equipment without heating your whole house. 

 

Though your point is strong, not like DU is backed by AAA studios with a mainstream established IP. Final Fantasy and elder scrolls are too big to fail. DU is a fun experiment by an amazing French guy with a dream and the idea presented to us without the person is hollowed out version of that in its place. 

 

I loved J.C's DU. I dont love the watered down version NQ has created. 

 

JC's heart was close to the mark, that's part of what attracted so much support.  I think the current management took the wrong aspects from the concept as being the key ingredients to JC's success when trying to cut the fat from the project.  The best scenes being on the cutting room floor just to fit a metric will hurt a film, just as cutting the life out of a gaming community will kill it.

[When the White Knights turn Black (an open letter to the community and NQ)]

15 minutes ago, NotReally ApheIia said:

Some of the developers still care, more than just clocking in. If you actively work on a project as long as some of them have, and have had as much turmoil in development... can lead to some apathy. I do wish DU had a more cohesive dev-community interaction. Even when Starbase was going belly up and spooling development down, several devs stayed vocal with their community and it helped quell the blow a lot, as players & devs were on the same side within the community. NQ has had several people in their ranks take a Us vs Them attitude almost... with at one point the community manager passing off their duties to another because people were a bit unruly on discord... followed by several outspoken, but within rules people... being silenced/banned. Most of those people were/are huge fans of DU, and wanted to see the best of it and are dismayed at the direction.

Though for managment sake, once DU is "complete" and backer rewards are fully realized in the next couple patches, adding what was missing... if the game isn't gaining traction, and or- the investment backers don't see much reason to push it to gain traction.... they may cut costs to run things on a major skeleton crew- more so than they are now... and or move all resources onto their next project(internally at NQ if there is one, which has been hinted at by the CEO on linkedin) in hopes of it being successful. as there is still some hype in the metaverse space... even if Meta/Facebook has pooped the bed and spread it around for us to sleep in.

At some point investors weigh their current potential to recoup investment against the risk of operating at a loss, and loosing more capital. Is Nic and co feeling lucky? The "Smart" move is to release the product and let it "fly" on it's own, if it fails to take off.... juice it for whatever you can to recoup costs and keep it running if possible so you can continue the squeezing process. The "Bold" move is to double down, invest more into the project, and company, and take it to where it needs to be... for the arguably small potential that it will gain traction and become a commercial success.

Most investors go with the smart move, keep the company alive and kicking enough to keep the lights on, and to keep the "IP" fresh in case there is a potential buyer/interest/further opportunity which would mean downsizing staff to a point where subscriptions cover the cost of continued development and support. And taking a guess on the peak of 300 people playing today on steam, and no signs of a positive churn rate.... doesn't spell optimism. 

If you're a developer at NQ, if managment isn't reinvesting now, or open to doing what is needed to turn the game around and spend the years/time needed... it may be a sign that once things are buttoned up.... managment will cut staff. If the focus is on getting these next two patches out, and there is no internal roadmap going 1-2 years ahead for development... than the writing may be on the wall. Not like the higher-ups are going to be "real" with ya'll, when they decide to change gears it will be abrupt and may cause whiplash.

If by chance you are staff, and or managment(small chance they'll read this, I'm sure) please know DU as a game concept is amazing, and that with some serious TLC it can become great. If NQ doesn't figure out the formula, someone else within the gaming space will. DU is in the cradle still, congrats on the new baby NQ! But making a baby is the easy part, comparatively; now you have to raise it to maturity. It took FF14 3? years to self right the disaster of their initial launch till it became a "Realm Reborn", bringing in a new team to rewrite large portions of it, and new game engine.... Elder Scrolls Online was shaky at launch, they retooled nearly the entire flow of the game with the Tamriel One update, overhauling the core experince largely and saw major success after dropping their subscription... bringing in more money than skyrim?! Both games were largely critically panned at launch by players & critics, and both took $$,$$$,$$$.$$ after release to become the juggernauts they are now.

Developing a MMO's is hard. Developing a voxel based planetary/space scale MMO with a single-megashard is harder... A lot of us know what happened to Everquest Next  Though to the company that cracks that nut, goes the spoils. This is dreamin' a bit.... Take the FF14 route, ditch the current engine, port tech to Unreal Engine now that it supports the tech needed for planet scale rendering out of the box and relaunch the game. Rewrite the entire thing, taking the lessons learned from this launch. Take the lessons learned from the the current version of DU, and DU it better, or someone else will.... eventually.

Heck, even Amazon & CD Project Red are moving to Unreal Engine 5 for some of their future projects... and CD Project Red & Amazon both have fully developed in-house engines they own outright. Finding competent devs that know and understand Unreal Engine is easy. Finding devs to work on the mess that is Unigine? Much harder, I'm sure.

Yours Truly, NotReally Aphelia- formerly known as "AphiIa"

I second this.  I would add that a number of the community members have made amazing suggestions that would all be possible with UE5.1.  You built it and we came.  Rebuild it with the help of your community and many, many, many more will come.  Or keep us in the dark while DU dries up.

[Why should I keep playing, NQ?]

23 hours ago, CobaltNZ said:

I've played DU for a couple of years now and I'm struggling to find a reason to keep playing. I can't comprehend why NQ is so insistent on forcing PVP: This game doesn't have PVP, and it never has. PVP suggests both players have a chance. If I decide to  fly my hauler through "PVP" space and I get found by a pirate, I am not surviving it. I have absolutely zero chance of getting away. That's not PVP, that's slaughter.

With the market bots being removed from everywhere but Teoma and Jago, the best offer for coal on Market 6 is 10.1 q/L. So, if I want to get anything close to a reasonable price for my ore, I need to risk losing everything by flying through slaughter space.

Industry and ore are the two reasons I'm still playing. Back before NQ decided to nerf mining to death, I was hard core miner. All of these have now been removed to, as far as I can see, create "PVP". The lag is no better, AT ALL, than it was in beta. NQ told us that they were removing mining nodes because, in part, of the lag the mining tunnels caused. Well that obviously wasn't true because nothing has changed.

I contacted support 2.5 weeks ago and have heard nothing in that time. How can support be so much faster and so much better in beta than it is on release?

And don't even get me started on calibrating mining machines. I've had to create two alts and pay for their subscription just to maintain my mining machines. I have a decent coal flower and in a week it mined just under 500kL. Remember when you could mine that in a few hours? Cause I do.

Artificial speed limits when travelling through space and yet another downtime for maintenance in my prime time gaming time made me fail my first ever mission yesterday. I got to 24km away from the drop off point when it failed. Cost me 9 million quanta in quest reward and collateral that I would have used to pay for territories. Now I'm stuck. If I don't spend 8-12 hours at a time logged on, flying through slaughter space, I can't pay for my territories, and if I can't do that then I can't mine and if I can't do that then I have no money. And of I have no money then I can't pay for my territories. Territory tax - what a fantastic idea that was.

I'm seriously struggling to find a reason to keep playing, and at every turn, NQ does it's best to take away everything that attracted me to this game in the first place.

As a player with years of experience having these issues, what do you think the new player experience would be?  Would someone new to DU today even consider a resub?

 

AFAIK, the only people having any fun in this game at the moment are the ones who just want to blow up other people's hard work.  I fell in love with the old mining system and the building.  There was a glimmer of hope for asteroids but the current implementation started as a really bad joke and has only soured from there.  I have spent more time looking at the MU mini-game since launch than most of my ships existed before being rebuilt in Beta yet I have spent less time in build mode since launch than I spent looking at the logon screen during Beta.  I can see the remnants of the original vision at the heart of what DU is today but it is now devoid of all passion and fun, IMO.

[How to bring T1 bots back]

Just now, Rimezx said:

There's never gonna be a fuel shortage. You can make more than enough fuel just by gathering skittles. So what is the non-pvp play right now? Go calibrate your mining units and then logout? At least scanning and finding ore in different planets and the world being alive would be something to look forward to. 

 

Material passive income. I mean have you ever seen this like anywhere? You are supposed to grind for the material not have an automatic pipeline that hands it to you so you can afk at your base all day. The thing is people that knew how the system worked abused it so hard from day one and have huge high tier ore quantities stockpiled. We are reaching the "wipe needed" territory again. But now there cannot be any more wipes so you have to deal with it. You are never catching up to these people and if u dont scan and find high tier tile soon you will forever be left in the dust. 

 

The game is dead at this point no matter what they do honestly. It's done.

Sure.... let's depend on all the surface ore that doesn't respawn to keep our ships flying indefinitely.  Non-PvP consists of ALL of the activities that are not pew pew including making ships, weapons, ammo, and fuel for said pew to occur.

 

"Material passive income"  Methinks you're leaning too heavily on the wrong meaning of income.  Being required to maintain machines on an ongoing basis to keep the material flowing also starts to chip away at the passive portion of the statement.  Using material passive income in the same way it could be said that I have material passive incoming water and natural gas material that I use to produce home heat and process food into usable product.

 

If you genuinely believe the game is already dead why put any energy into the forums?

[How to bring T1 bots back]

On 11/17/2022 at 12:11 PM, Rokkur said:

Not only the miscalculation by NQ, but some of the toxic members of the community saying content creators such as builders/scripters only want to play 5% of the game and their struggles are completely irrelevant. People fail to appreciate the time it takes to build professional level constructs, or script optimized and functional features. 

Not to mention the failure by NQ to provide the tools these creators requested in order to create in game activities, player driven content etc.
Then the community rags on these players as "filthy casuals" make them feel unwelcome, they leave, and then community complains about lack of content in the game. 

I mean at this point it is so bad it is nearly comical. When both developers and the community poo poo on skilled players that dedicated time creating things for players to enjoy, why would they want to stay, especially in a game where one of major focuses is player made content, and they are told you don't matter and you won't be missed when you leave.

 

This.

 

17 hours ago, Rimezx said:

Applying bandages after shooting yourself in the foot does not solve your issues.

 

Current mining unit and tax and flower system should be removed from the game all together in my opinion. Make mining units placable on dynamic cores and draining a large amount of ore from a tile in a small amount of time, depleting the tile. Have tile ore contents reset and change every month. Include no territory units and claiming in this system. That's 100x more fun and engaging. Also fair to new starters. 

 

9 hours ago, Kezzle said:

Which would conveniently also do away with any need to create a territory wafare system, since there would be no permanent resources to fight over control of.

 

Win-win!

 

The available resources in safe space becoming less predictable would immediately kill the last vestiges of non-pvp play.  There would be fuel shortages killing missions and the rest of the economy with it.  Quanta is a unit of trade, not a resource in and of itself.  You can't fill your tanks with an infinite supply of quanta if there's no ore to process.  

[How to bring T1 bots back]

12 minutes ago, RugesV said:

Except its not a mass transfer of wealth. Where talking about transfering $25 Million in quanta for quartz.  Under $1 million for Coal.  Bauxite a tad less then Quartz and Hematite a bit less then that.   So between all the ores, someone could make a one time money transfer of ~100 Million quanta.  And its probably going to be several someones. These are small numbers.  There are ships being sold ingame for higher amounts then this.  This is a non issue. 

 

Now if you want to talk about bot prices in general. Sure talk about that. But even that is not to far off. If every player that was selling T1 ore swaped out to hualing mission running, they would be bringing more quanta into the game then they currently are selling T1 to bots. 

A mass-transfer of wealth doesn't mean moving a massive volume of money, it means taking from the many for the benefit of a few already atop the pile.  If you want to hyper-focus on the quantification that's your right but numbers alone will not tell the whole story.  There are several key, non-numeric principles that exist in the foundation of an economy that are at imminent risk of being irrevocably harmed in this scenario.  Some of those same principles were alluded to in the justification(s) for wipe that NQ made public as well as in other public communications.

 

The fact that DU is in the situation where everyone is by default forced into one specific activity is antithetical to the concept of a sandbox.

[Exploit with mining units]

3 minutes ago, Thunderblaze said:

 

 

Nicodemus, what's up?

 

Because they explicitly stated it wasn't an exploit it is listed as an improvement to clamp down on that faucet.

[How to bring T1 bots back]

8 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

This still creates a situation where anyone who accurately predicts when the bots will appear, has the opportunity to buy as much ore as possible and double their money overnight.

 

And anyone who's just been stockpiling their ore will get to sell it all at 25.

 

But anyone who's just been minding their own business and trying to enjoy the game, gets left out in the cold.

 

I figure anyone who's selling T1 at 10/L right now probably doesn't even know about the bots.  And they're probably going to be a bit disappointed to find out that they should have been waiting on the bots to come back, instead of selling their ore.

 

This doesn't seem like a great way to treat new players.

 

Prediction is only involved if you're trying to time it.  The newest players not in experienced orgs are the ones hurt the most by the current situation because they'll try to play the game the way it has been described.  Sources of income for a new solo player:  auto miner ore to sell, surface ore to sell, challenges (frustrating WHEN available), and the lowest tier missions.  It isn't just a bad way to treat new players, it all but ensures the vast majority will cancel their subs.

 

5 hours ago, ColonkinYT said:

Why economics? Because there is nothing else in the game at the moment.
Core gamepaly is mining, building, selling.
So far there is nothing more.
You are absolutely right that there are no more game mechanics and goals. Apparently at first they thought that the players themselves would work as game masters for free. But we know that this is not so.
There are no points of interest with player control (similar to stations in eve. There is no tax system within corporations at all.
And most importantly, people who want to shoot have nothing to warm up with (there are no crazy bots for shooting and completing missions).
All this points to global miscalculations on the part of game design.

 

All iterations of mining currently in game are absurdly un-rewarding.  Building just to build will only last so long before boredom sets in.  If only mission runners and pirates are supporting the economy then you either build stuff THEY want or you don't sell, and odds are against you filling their needs even by accident if you've never done those activities yourself.

 

13 minutes ago, RugesV said:

You guys are trying to create a solution to a non existent problem.  There is what ~5 million liters of quarts for sell at less then 24 quanta a L. With an average of about ~20 qunta a liter. So even if a player bought every single bit of it and resold it to the bots at 25. thats only a 5 quanta profit. So they would only be making 25 Million quanta for every bit of quartz that is being sold. 

 

Stop worrying about how much quanta is in other peoples wallets and worry more about what you can do with how much quanta you have in your own wallet. 

 

It is very much a real problem.  You're looking at the quantification of the maths without the context of what the numbers represent.  A mass-transfer of wealth caused by a conglomeration of poor design and bugs not caught during the prior years of development could be the final nail in the coffin for DU.

[THE FUTURE OF DUAL UNIVERSE - Discussion thread]

18 minutes ago, Pleione said:

Not accumulating any fortunes, but paying the bills.

If you want to get a head in DU then build a guillotine?  DU is classified as a game, not a job.  If NQ wants players to build their game world then we need to be able to PLAY and time gated chores don't count.  

[Game became slow]

On 11/15/2022 at 7:36 AM, Wilner said:

Yes, disk is only 30% full.

 

Thank you

Spinning disk hard drives are not recommended for this game.  Even some SATA SSDs are relatively slow with this game and an NVMe drive is highly recommended.

[Bring the fun back]

On 11/14/2022 at 9:36 PM, Jinxed said:

@Aaaron I think the rule is 100m up, 5000m down. 

 

and build is limited to 1000m so several of our megastructure blueprints are no longer buildable. 
 

basically NQ lied to us when they said they would respect our efforts. 

still, I’m used to their lies by now. 

Wow, reading that suddenly made it feel like an abusive relationship.  

[Air delivery challenge no longer available for me?]

On top of bot ore orders being depleted to have the bigger payout of the two challenges unavailable (again)... *sigh*    That leaves missions as essentially the sole source of income in an ore poor and sink heavy post-launch environment.  It may be my poor memory of the events but I am starting to wish DU was at least half of what No Man's Sky was on launch.  Don't get me wrong; I prefer the premise and promise of DU to NMS but I have yet to see any sign NQ is trying to pull off what Hello Games accomplished with NMS post-release.  Nor have I seen any indications that they haven't copied the playbook from a long list of now defunct services.  Give us something to go on.  Now we're at the point that NQ is almost systematically out of time to own the mistakes and take clear measures to correct.

[What is it the youngsters say?]

1 hour ago, blundertwink said:

Not only did they have to rebuild the game from scratch, they did it as they were maintaining the older version. In less than 3 years.

@NQ - Is UE5 being investigated for an engine swap?  Is this the reason we haven't seen any significant changes other than clamping down on faucets?  If yes then I'm all aboard.  If not then I'm not going to include you on my list of holiday card recipients when I win the lotto.

[NQ, are you removing shopping bots from T1?]

1 hour ago, kulkija said:

Not so much trouble at all.

For an experienced player with a ship that can haul cargo.  For a brand new player with no clue about the game it would be a refund request and/or bad review without getting to see anything the game has to offer.

[PLANNED HONEYCOMB CHANGES - Discussion thread]

On 11/13/2022 at 9:14 PM, Jinxed said:

...[T]his game is ... placeholders ... with random off the shelf parts... Just look at how inconsistent everything is. In many places, the interface and mechanics look and feel ... generic...

Shockingly bad consistency.

A paraphrase of your statement, but I suspect is fairly accurate to your meaning.

 

I suspect also that despite your forum avatar sporting glasses you are not using rose tinted glasses in your examination of this game.  I prefer to flip between the two viewpoints to see the difference between what DU promises and what NQ has delivered thus far.

 

[NQ, are you removing shopping bots from T1?]

1 hour ago, ColonkinYT said:

Actually, the topic is about trading bots with ore t1.
This is NQ.
Maybe I'm not wrong? ))
This is not a topic about possible sources of income in the game. 😉

I don't think you can separate the two topics in this case.  Per NQ, the bots buying ore was stated as being a vital part of the economy by giving easy access to quanta for new and/or solo players.  NQ is the source of the mixing on these topics.

[NQ, are you removing shopping bots from T1?]

4 hours ago, Jinxed said:

 

I tried to have a discussion with people on DU Discord about this. It was like talking to six year olds...

 

 I asked, "where do the people who make things get their money from to buy ore and for their schematics?"

They said, "from selling things they don't use themselves to people who don't make things."

"And where does those people's money come from to buy the stuff?" I asked...

And they said, "from selling ore to people who make things..."

 

They literally couldn't comprehend the circular argument and the massive schematic faucet.

No wonder the world is in the current state it's in when people have no idea how simple maths works.

AFAIK, the only people with money to spend are the ones NOT producing anything, only involved in bot delivery missions.  Sure, they need ships and fuel but even with half or more of the population doing so it still would not provide enough demand to keep a fraction of the economy afloat.

[PVP Changes, Hi NQ its me again :)]

3 hours ago, Yoarii said:

No. And you can shoot through asteroids. Line of Sight is not a concept in PvP afaik.

So PvP hit chance is based on cross-section which directly implies a "visual" on a scope but you can ignore other real, interactable objects entirely even when the object is many dozens of times larger and blocks LoS several times over?  Why do we even have PvP anymore? Is there any fun value in it (beyond being the cog in the economy that removes elements and ships from the world when they cross an imaginary line)?

[Surface ore respawn? poll]

My thoughts on this topic have been posted a few times so I'll keep it brief this time.  1)  Meteor strikes are a real phenomenon and could be implemented into the lore of why we get surface respawns.  2)  The current grind is too steep for solo players who want to experience anything other than flying other people's ships for NPC missions.

[bots are nearly depleted with no sign of refresh until next year]

Instead of selling to a bot, post it for sale at the bot price at your nearest market.  You may not get your money as fast as a bot sale, but all of the factories being constructed are hungry non-stop meaning there's enough demand that your ore is highly likely to sell at that price.  If you want to sell faster you could split the difference between bot price and the buy orders at Market 6 on Alioth.  Since you are only delivering it to your nearest market instead of Market 6, the amount of potential savings in fuel should offset your loss compared to the bot orders.

[Waiting for over 14 days on a STU.]

2 hours ago, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

However, please bear in mind the Contributor Pack did NOT originally contain a Sanctuary Territory Unit.
The reason why we are going to give 1 Sanctuary Territory Unit to every Contributor Backer is to make it fair for everyone:

This is better communication.  Thank You.