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Dorlas

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Everything posted by Dorlas

  1. I doubt anyone will even bother with taking over the entire planet using TUs, when you only need to prevent others from coming there, first by force and then by reputation. Let´s say planet is colonized by 20 smaller organizations. These eventually start fighting and one by one they are destroyed by their enemies, until only few remain. I think this will take really long time to happen and it will still be a long way to world domination from there. But when it happens and planet will be claimed by one organization, said organization will be strong enough to keep everyone from the planet. Of course, someone may slip through the defenses, but you can´t hide somewhere forever. If those few players are found, there will be nothing preventing said huge organization from declaring war and obliterating them easily. In the end, nobody will dare to enter that planet without permission of the organization, unless they are some sort of spies or secret forces of their enemies that will be sent there before major war begins. Keeping TUs active can end up being costly thing and I doubt anyone would willingly spend all those resources just to keep random forest tile on the planet under their empire, when nobody would dare to come there anyway.
  2. It won´t. WoW has always been extremely casual-friendly MMORPG which also came out at the time when everyone and their mom was into high fantasy and brought in the golden age of MMORPGs. That age is now long gone and even if DU could somehow cater to such a big audience as WoW did, it would never get so many players simply because the gaming population has moved on. Of course, DU will be for much smaller audience, pretty much like EVE Online. That smaller audience can still number in hundreds of thousands of players, but it certainly won´t be millions. Well, this could bring something else: Planets that are deliberately sparsely populated. Factions will need major bases of operations. Places where ships are constructed, headquarters of government, army, navy, housing for citizens and so on. These places will require tons of players to take care of, so naturally more and more citizens of that organization will flock to that city. Now let´s say there will be resource on another planet in the system that this faction needs. They will build mining outposts there and start mining the resource. Most of the planet will be unused, but the faction certainly won´t like if some small organization starts building on that planet and draining its resources. So they may destroy them simply to keep that planet for themselves to use in the future. If we magnify this and put two or three organizations into that solar system, we can end up with all of solar system divided between them, while only three planets are actually inhabited, with others being claimed and used for various purposes...or just left unused as sort of buffer zone. Of course, this can change and we may end up seeing organizations that are spread out throughout dozens of planets, with smaller settlements on each of them, with every organization controlling only a portion of each planet (although how could security even work in such organization is beyond me). But I really see DU being similar to The Expanse as the most plausible option, simply because it is far easier to have one planet as "Earth" and then have multiple colonies in the same system, while also preventing anyone with the exception of other major factions in the system to do anything (or maybe even union between those factions, where they can be in state of cold war, but when someone from the outside universe dares to do anything in their system, they band together and kick their butts).
  3. Not sure about the last part. I read somewhere that Alioth has about 40k square kilometers of surface area. Let´s say water makes half of the surface. We then have 20k square kilometers of surface...that is area of Slovenia, pretty moderately populated country with 2 million inhabitants. I simply don´t see a way for any organization to claim entire solar systems and then colonize (or even protect) them effectively. Maybe one planet, after years of development and conquest of other orgs out there. In the end, we may end up with situation similar to The Expanse: Few big factions per solar system, with bunch of small ones fighting for scraps in places those huge organizations don´t bother to control (or maybe working for those big orgs to be left at peace).
  4. Why do people think there will be battles involving thousands of ships? Most players in huge factions (a.k.a. those that could be part of those battles) will not be part of military and those who will be won´t all command their own ship. I think current limit of players per construct at any time is 100, but they want to raise it even higher. We may get to the point where 200 players crew one vessel. Unless the battle is fought with one-man ships, there will not be battles with thousands of participating ships. My bet is that bigger battles will be on the scale of Scariff and the biggest (equal to those huge EVE battles with dozens of titans) will be on level of Endor.
  5. Why wouldn´t they? If someone wants to create a mercenary company, that company needs to be known. And not only that, their customers also need to know what resources said mercenaries have. Nobody would pay ton of money for protection of their trade route when they don´t know what will they get in return. Or if they are shipbuilding company, it is only in their interest to be as transparent as possible. Is this company aiming to build huge ships or manufacturing tons of smaller vessels and could therefore be employed by my huge empire, or are they more into staying small and building more specialized vessels according to wishes of every customer (I am certain companies like this will arise, similar to real world companies that can build customized cars for big price)? And even in cases of small organizations that want, for example, to set up a small secret mining base, there is really no harm in revealing that right now. Stewie901 wants to go into the universe and build an outpost with his little brother and friends? I will go destroy it, hahahaha. Oh, wait, the game is nowhere near the launch and even if it was, knowledge that Stewie901 wants to hide from everyone won´t mean a thing, because he never said where that base will be. Knowing the plans of other organizations at this stage does not harm anyone.
  6. By disorganized I mostly meant that you don´t seem to have plans to create a formal structure and (for the lack of better word) country once the game starts, but rather act as group that covers like-minded players. That doesn´t mean you don´t stand together behind single purpose of creating the dankest of memes Shame I am into those great empires so much and therefore would probably not enjoy the playstyle you guys want to have, because you seem like a really cool group.
  7. Well, I think that creating a system in huge organization where even people who can´t commit on scheldule and can play only a little can still be part of military could extremely benefit said organization, but from what I have seen, it seems those organization want the exact opposite in their ranks: Players who can commit both quite substantial time into "service" and can log in at the same time every day. Of course, we are only in pre-Alpha and it may turn out that this system could lead to huge burnout in ranks of military (I have been part of WoW private RP server scene and I saw with my own eyes how people who were RP gamemasters (a.k.a. the people both creating events and providing technical backing for them like spawning mobs or acting as antagonist) burned out because what should have been their free time activity became sort of a second job. Maybe we will end with military forces that will require this type of attendance only with officers and commanders, while crew members like pilots or technicians would be able to come in and leave at any time they want and rewarded based on the amount of time they spent in service. And at the same time, there would be ships made out of dedicated players that would be sent into more combat missions and unsafe zones, while those vessels with "casual" crews would orbit home planets and act as defense ships with only small crew most of the time. This whole logistics thing actually really intrigues me. As Twerkomor said, huge ships need lots of crew and finding a way to make it work will be challenging. Unlike in real world, where you can have most of crew doing nothing, yet still be available to fight at any time, you don´t have that luxury in DU. Let´s say HMS Queen Elizabeth is attacked. Alarm is sounded and all of its crew can participate in the fight. Now let´s say DES (Dorlas Empire Ship, patent pending) Num Nums is attacked and its captain calls everyone on Discord to help. Well, it ain´t happening because I am in school, writing my thesis about beginnings of Magyar settlement in Slovakia. Crew will be the biggest problem navies in DU will have to face and it is why, IMO, automatization will be a must for huge ships. Those Star Destroyers will need to be capable to fire from all guns even if only 5 crew members are present on board. Of course, nothing will ever beat the 1guy=1 gun system, but it is better than nothing. My bet is that we will see ship to ship combat with full crews only during the biggest and most important battles. And that is also why intelligence will become extremely important. Imagine if Terran Union launches surprise attack on the Empire, timed to the point where their battleships emerge from FTL over half of Imperial planets at the same time. Without information about their intentions, movement or at least simple knowledge that something is happening and it may be wise to be alerted, the war will be won before it even starts, because half of Empire´s fleet will go down without a fight. And about physics and usage of huge ships in planet invasions and control: Many people want to build exact copies of Star Destroyers or BC-304s and let´s be honest, who doesn´t? But I think this is another thing that will be completely changed once the reality of the game hits and we will end up with strange mix of Galactica and Donnager. Battlestars in BSG were unable to land on planets or operate in atmosphere (except when Adama jumped them into atmosphere, but that was Adama, the guy was maniac), because ship of that size and with that kind of armor would never lift itself off the ground. And the same will go for battleships in DU. Why waste space with engines and fuel for atmospheric flight or bother with aerodynamics, when you can build it in space and do whatever you want? You won´t be shooting fighters 100 meters above the ground with it anyway, so why even give it that possibility? You can always make smaller ships for atmosphere and let´s be honest, they will be better in that type of combat anyway. And why Donnager? Well, imagine that you have huge battleship incapable of landing on planet, with huge crew and necessity to secure even whole systems. What is the best way to do it? You make the ship into a base. That´s what aircraft carriers in real world do, after all. So you need said battleship to carry fighters, landing craft, corvettes and so on. Those huge ships may be by themselves in star systems with no support from their home territory. They will need smaller ships to protect them and maybe go after enemies that are not significant enough for battleship to pursue. And what better way to take care of those ships than allowing said battleship to serve as their port? This whole comment can be basically summed up by this: The players often have illusions how this game will work, but it may end up as something completely different. With the exception of building the Death Star J.C. keeps talking about, that´s the one thing which we should definitely build no matter how stupid or unpractical it is, because we owe it to him.
  8. What would I want to use as my main mode of transportation? Huge mother-effing Star Destroyer, where I am captain, of course. What is the realistic scenario? Some small ship that I (hopefully) build myself, maybe with a gun so I can defend myself, because there is no way I could even be part of any navy (not even command one of big ships) without reliable gaming scheldule and dedicating pretty big amount of time into "being on duty".
  9. DU and WoW can´t even be compared. If some WoW YouTuber creates a guild for his fans, he can literally stop doing things for it right there and the guild is not harmed in any way. Just put bunch of officers who you trust and they can handle everything that is needed to manage it, because guilds in WoW are pretty much just places for people to hang out and do fun things together. Organizations in DU are completely different. The big ones will pretty much resemble real life nations (just in smaller scale), with their own economy, laws, military and law enforcement. They will require so much effort on the side of leaders that anyone who is not able to come and deal with problems 24/7, will not be able to be effective leader (once again, just like in real world). And unless those YouTubers dedicate their whole time to this game, they won´t be able to do that. Mark my words, the people who will rise up to the positions of leadership in huge factions (maybe with exception of factions which act as disorganized group of people with same playstyle, like Band of Outlaws, for example) will be no-lifers, people who (for various reasons) can´t work and therefore have tons of free time with little responsibilities outside their house and maybe even retired people. Not YouTubers who visit tons of events, play many games and do activities with their fans in videogames.
  10. But how will you grief someone who is always inside huge city owned by his organization? Well, of course, you may be able to get to him...once...then he will inform his organization about you and they will kill you any time you try to get to their territory or even hire someone to murder you again and again and again for killing their leader. DU is not EVE, PvP is not the main focus of the game. Leaders will not spend their time on the frontlines (well, besides military leaders), but often back inside their territory (just like leaders do in reality, you don´t see Bashar al-Assad running around Idlib, shooting rebels).
  11. Well, there will be need for people at the top who will be rulers of the cities/planets/systems/whatever, but those will also be positions requiring huge amounts of player´s time (and will require him to be available at all times, even during the night, to deal with crisis) and most players will not be capable enough to deal with it (simply because it will be second job...no logging in and just building new nice room for your little house, you will have to deal with lots of things). But that will be the case probably for all leading positions.
  12. I think World of Warcraft uses Lua too. And there were people who changed their game files in the past, for example to get quicker to an end boss in a raid. They were permanently banned. Lua is just a programming language, just like C++ or *instert name of another programming language, I don´t know them, I am programming noob*. It will be used to program your constructs, but that´s it. You will not be able to somehow magically switch from programming your ship to shutting down the servers ingame, because that´s simply not how it works.
  13. I just now realized. We are talking about need to have some sort of basic naming system for ship types, but what about names for specific class of ship (like for example Nimitz-class aircraft carrier)? It will be like naming your character, with many cool names taken and you will end up spending an hour trying to find a good name that is not already in use. Or worse, we will be allowed to use the same names and there will be 5 designs called Hammerhead Corvette or Millenium Falcon.
  14. Still, enforcing it will be impossible. I can already think of one example among existing organizations which would not name their ships according to these conventions: Empire. The main battleship (what would in this proposed designation be called Capital/Carrier) will be called Destroyer. And this is only at the pre-Alpha stage, when things are not that clear. So, once we progress and get closer to the launch, more and more of those big organizations will start creating their ships in Alpha and Beta and saving the blueprints, naming then how it suits them. What if they will create light carrier in size of Frigate? Who in their right mind would choose to call it XYZ-class frigate, when its sole purpose is to act as a small hangar? Saying that, uniformity is often the easiest way to do things (that´s why metric system is so popular and easy to learn...you just multiply/divide by 10) and eventually, standard designations for ship classes will emerge. If two huge shipbuilding companies start talking to each other and agree upon having the same class designation, they may end up influencing the market so much that the whole naming culture will adapt to suit their new standards. Let´s say Freighter is meant to be quick and small transport ship that can be operated by one person, with one gun at least to defend itself. Those big organizations design ships like that to be freighters and because of this, the market is filled with ships of this type called XYZ-class freighter or ZYX-class freighter. Everyone will then soon understand what freighter means and if they ever want a ship like that, they simply search for freighters in market (I suppose we will be able to just type a name of what we want and get results including that name...just like WoW auction house. If it ain´t broke, don´t try to fix it). So, if someone wants to sell his blueprint, he will also have to name his ship FER-class freighter, to even be able to sell it, because every potential customer will be automatically searching for freighters and then choose the specific ship that he prefers.
  15. In my country, we don´t celebrate Halloween, but instead visit graves of our deceased family members and lighting candle-lamps (no idea how it is called in English, basically a lamp made from colored glass with candle inside), ending up with multiple lights on each grave in cemetery. You often end up having spontaneous family meeting in the cemetery because you both arrived at the same time. It´s quite nice.
  16. I think all organization (the big ones) will end up naming their ships just as they want. Still, I doubt we will end up with 500 meters long corvette class made by some huge company focusing on producing military craft, because the classic naming style will be there (corvette will always be small ship, battlecruiser will always be huge). I also doubt that overall, there will be many ships that end up being mass-produced and available to civillian population. Many players will prefer building their own ships and only the best constructs will end up being mass-produced (simply because nobody will buy the ordinary ships...why spend lot of money to buy something which you could build cheaper for yourself and customize it as you become more experienced). Most of these will also be civillian ships, so the classic naming system for various classes simply cannot apply, even if they may have weapons. And these mass-produced ships will mostly be designed by those organizations which aim to do such things and therefore we can expect there will end up being (at least partially) unified naming system for classes. Although, there is bound to be someone who names his ship Steven-class marshmallow.
  17. Rusty Samaritan? Roman Senate? Rasputin Soviet? Ramadan Suleiman?
  18. There is difference between games like WoW and games like DU. In WoW (and similar MMOs), I can do lots of things completely without PvP. I actually play on PvE server and I never turn PvP on, so even players of opposite faction can´t attack me (or I them). Yet I do not feel I lost anything by doing so. That´s because WoW at its core is PvE game where you interract with environment (quests, dungeons, raids, world quests, pet battles, reputations, professions...) and PvP is only added feature (fun fact, the only PvP that was at the beginning of WoW was world PvP...so basically no content for PvP players and they had to create it themselves for the first few months). DU is completely opposite. Player interraction is driving force behind its universe. That does not only mean friendly (after all, that is also major part of WoW, as you need others to do instanced content), but also unfriendly. Lethys made an amazing point by simply asking: "What then?". And please, ask yourself what would you do once you built your base, got your amazing spaceship and got skills to max. There are no PvE options, no dungeons to clear, monsters to kill, daily quests to repeat. What would you do once you basically complete the game? Also, PvP is what makes games like this alive. How can huge organizations like Terran Union or Empire further their goals if they cannot fight anyone? How can Band Of Outlaws even exist if nobody can be pirate, bounty hunter or mercenary? What even is the point of joining huge organization, if you never require protection? And so on. Funny thing is, PvP does not even have to occur, it just needs to be possible for all of these things to exist. Tensions between nations can rise, because there is actually a way to deal with an enemy if they become your enemy. Pirates can raid others, thus allowing creation of bounty hunters who may be hired to hunt them or mercenaries to protect transport ships. People will be banding together, because that way, they can defend themselves and be safe. All of this is possible only if there can be PvP. Without it, the game loses so much of its soul, it basically becomes Space Engineers copy.
  19. Logistics and micromanagement will not only be possible in DU, they will pretty much be required part of any big organization. Of course, small ones will not have this problem. If 3 friends create a company, build a transport ship together and then start transporting goods for other organizations, it won´t be really complex. Yes, they will have to think about where to find customers, how much money will they earn compared to costs to run everything and so on, but overall, it won´t be that difficult. On the other hand, look at huge organizations. They will have to build and manage things on much larger scale. Will they, let´s say, build their military vessels by themselver rather than outsource it to other organization? Then they need to think of getting enough materials to produce them. Will they mine everything themselves? Then they need to get people mining. Those people need protection from potential enemies (with the size of planets, one organization claiming whole world is something that will happen far in the future, if ever), so military will have to be sent to protect the miners. Materials then need to be transported to place where construction of elements will happen. Then these elements have to be put into factories, together with mined material, to produce the fighters on mass scale. Then the produced fighters need to be moved to their final destination, so you need to find a way to transport them...but safely, to prevent some pirates or enemies from blowing the transport up. Of course, they can be flown there by their pilots, but those pilots will probably be in that final destination, not on planet where the fighters were made (and maybe it will be in the middle of a war and both fighters and pilots will have to be moved, because pilot died in previous fight and was ressurected at the Arkship). Even the simplest things become extremely difficult once they need to be done at a huge scale. So don´t worry, some people will focus on logistics and there will also be entire organizations doing so (example: shipbuilding companies doing everything I just wrote and then just selling the finished product to those empires).
  20. I don´t know much about EVE´s gameplay or the way community works, but I know a lot about 2b2t and it is extremely wrong to compare it to DU. First, 2b2t is basically pure Minecraft, which at its core is singleplayer game. If I came there, travelled tens of thousands of blocks away from spawn (and survived), I would be able to get everything myself. There would be no need for interaction with other players. This type of setting in a game means I can do whatever I want, because I do not require other players to achieve anything. Therefore I can grief and kill with no repercusions. What will that random guy do to me? I will be able to return to mining/crafting as if nothing happened. Compare it to DU. People will have to work together to achieve things. You won´t be able to fly a big ship with multiple weapon systems alone, you won´t be able to even build that ship in a reasonable time by yourself, because mining, researching and actually designing it may take too much time and effort and you may end up with ship that is inferior to even ordinary interstellar transport ship because of bad design choices or superior scripting for that transport ship. This already creates game where it may not be beneficial for you to be known as griefer and someone who steals from others, because you will become outcast of the community. Of course, you may find other players with similar mindset, but here is the basic problem of people who love griefing and destroying stuff: They do not really work that well as a group. Because, you know, their whole purpose in the game is to harm others for fun, so how are they supposed to form an organized group where every member is there solely because he wants to destroy things. On top of that, you have to build things first in DU, so griefers are naturally discouraged, because they don´t really like building something. Overall, DU in its basic setting is unfriendly for griefers. It is friendly towards smugglers, pirates and similar players, but those are not griefers. Even pirates can form a community (not sure now about Band Of Outlaws, do you guys allow piracy in your ranks, or is it more about smugglers, mercenaries, bounty hunters and so on?) and be partially trustworthy (look at privateers, they were basically pirates who were allowed to attack ships of the enemy country, I am certain something like that will also arise in DU), so they will not be banished from the community (even if they will, somebody will certainly secretly make trade with pirates...black market FTW). Now, second point: Ability to ruin the game for others. Once again, 2b2t is completely different from DU. In 2b2t, you have communities of few players who build a base together. Once that base is found, it is over, because those few players cannot possibly defend it against every griefer on server. Even if they were powerful enough to do so, how can 5 players be online 24/7? Now let´s look at DU. There will be organizations with thousands of players (there are already few big ones over 200 and Terran Union has over 500) which will act as nations. Their "bases" will be known to everybody, but unlike those small groups in 2b2t, they will be able to defend them 24/7. Those griefers in their small ship armed by 2 weapons will not stand a chance when squardon of fighters flies from that organization´s capital ship and starts shooting at them. Griefers will certainly thrive in some areas of the universe. But they won´t be able to waltz in to areas claimed by large organizations and have free hand, simply because those large organizations will be far more powerful than any group of griefers.
  21. Or hide your base. It is possible to make many paralells between our real world and DU and one of them is the fact that if you choose to live in lawless part of society, you can easily lose everything (including your life, of course, in the game you can respawn). But most of us humans (including everyone on this forum) choose a life in an organization: our country. There is nothing preventing me from killing everyone around me or steal huge amount of money, but if I do it, I will have to face consequences (in first case, decades in jail, in second, winning election fourth time in a row *sob*). It will be the same in the game. The reason why it won´t turn into hobostabfest is because those huge organizations will be able to enforce laws in their areas of influence. But outside those areas, it´s free for all. You may find friends, you may just pass other players, or you may end up being ganked and griefed. If you are afraid, then the solution is simple: become part of one of those big nation-organizations. There is no shame in that, I personally plan to do that and I have no doubts that most players will do the same.
  22. Dorlas

    Raming ship

    I am wondering if it would be able to ram the ship non-destructively. Correct me if I am wrong, but the way weapons work is they cause damage to the voxels to the point where they completely destroy them. So, could some ship be knife-shaped, have tons of weapons in front and fire a hole into another ship, through which it will insert its tip (for some reason, this sounds dirty to me, sorry) into the created entrance, "locking" the two ships together. Then the ramming ship could influence the movement of both constructs (just like Hammerhead corvette did in Rogue One). Imagine ton of small ships swarming huge one, creating holes in its hull, entering through them and through coordination of players operating those ships, moving the huge ship into any location, as if they were its own thrusters.
  23. I have been watching this forum for about a month and noticed this game when the first trailer dropped, and now I finally decided to sign up. So, just wanted to say hi, end of transmission.
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