Whiskey

Personally, I hate games with designated "Starting Areas." They are infested with pirates, trolls and scammers and don't really do much to exemplify the game as a whole, often turning me off to a game by cramming me into a zone with 100 12 year old's (Need I say more?)
 
My proposal is this: The UN Built thousands of Ark Ships, right? Rather than having a planet with 10,000 new players(NP's from now on) I think it should be built so that each player gets their own planet/Ark Ship/Safe Zone.
 
They also get say 9,000 "Survivors" or "Colonists" who can then be assigned different jobs in the city that the player builds in his "Safe Zone" on the planet. (IE: Build a mine, needs 650 colonists/workers to operate at max capacity. These "Colonists" could also be assigned jobs outside of the safe zone, but would be vulnerable to attack from other players.
 
Once the player runs out of "Colonists" he/she could then gain more by either
           A) Enslaving another planets colonists who are caught working outside of the safe zone
OR
          Build/Craft/Buy (ing) some form of AI/Robotic Worker
Option A would be free at the risk of retaliation from the other player or runaway slaves, while B would cost but be risk free
 
I plan on adding/adjusting this idea as I get comments and probably shot down by people with this stuff called "Reason" and "Logic"
 
-Whiskey Out
 

Hello Whiskey, many of the player made factions, good, evil, and ambiguous are planning to bring players together to jump start the game.
 
It's in the interests of many people that Alioth be a relatively peaceful place to jump start the economy, introduce newbies to the game, and to serve as recruitment fronts for the major factions. Just like you, I was very interested in the economic potential of the game, This is an old post, no need to bump it, but for your viewing pleasure you can scope it out. Im a bit embarrassed by it now days, but oh well. https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/43-a-take-on-gathering-interaction/
 
While by the nature of my faction I cannot enter into binding treaties beyond certain limited aspects, such as pacifying the tiles owned by Cinderfall on Alioth, it will be up the the member guilds of the syndicate to decide their alliances with external entities.
None the less many people here, more and more by the day, are joining onto the responsible gamer attitude. We're trying to burn out the toxic players like the inquisition on heretics. That is to say, were trying to pull this community up, together, if you see someone behaving childishly on the forums attempt to encourage positive and constructive ideas for them. When people become hostile, there is no reason to further engage them, so far even with 500+ members we have managed to avoid any significant moderation in over 4,000 posts.
 
Sorry, I strayed a little bit.
It wont be so bad as you think, the planets are quite big, the server infrastructure is proactive. Alioth may be one planet but at first, at least, there will be many servers sharing the load of players. Probably based on the hexagonal planet grid and number of players active in an area.
 
With the Command and DPU, and a bit of LUA, we should be able to make basic robotic machines. Somewhat like a Minecraft "Turtle". You could probably create a semi-automatic mining rig, they will still need human interaction though to command them. No full on AI will be possible.
 
There wont be any masses of NPC players, and even if there are Handcuffs or player restraints in the game, you will have a hard time forcing them into slave labor. If you kill them, they will just spawn at a Resurrection Node.
 
Also, it will be possible to "Arkify" a limited number of player territories, for a number of reasons. To provide a temporary respite from attackers, to slow down an overwhelming enemy advance, and to create miniature safe-er zones than out in the wilds. Many people here will be willing and eager to work with you, no need for a AI slave army. well except it is kind of cool.

I personally love the idea of a common starting area. It would make it so much easier for a trader to set up a ship targeted to new players.
 
I intend to establish early on where all noobs can find me easily for their first products and to buy resources in insane quantities.

From what I know there are anti-gravity engines commonly discussed for this game. The devs even have a concept drawing for a hovercraft engine found here. From the E3 trailer I can deduce that something like this is already implemented as you will see massive ships suspended in mid air hovering over a planet's surface.
 
I made this thread because I think that the hovercraft engine is cool but I don't think it should be the only means of mobility on a planet's surface. I would like to see trains and automobiles still in use as I feel like they could achieve certain tasks that certain ships couldn't. A maglev or a hyperloop train for instance would probably be very effective at hauling massive amounts of cargo or people safely, reliably, and quickly at a fraction of the cost of a full size cargo ship. Cars/Rovers would still be effective at moving individuals and small amounts of materials in a local area while being fairly inexpensive.
 
Plus the infrastructure of building roads and rails would really bring character to a planet or colonization. Hovercraft should definitely have their place but I think that there should be other forms of surface transportation.

Yes I'd like to see data collection and cartography/systems mapping be a profitable industry in the game.

That is a valid concept, but it also depends on what the devs are creating. For instance, the universe they are creating seems to already be procedurally generated already, and to create a planet generation system that generates a planet randomly wouldn't be difficult as well, so I don't see planet generation being as much of a problem.
 
However, as far as animals, creatures and artifacts, unless they all spawn in different biomes and are random, it would be impossible to not have the information available. As well, making some information, as I'm sure you understand, is impossible without infinite content.
 
However, your discussion about planets and stuff on them is probably fine, unless they decide to just go the easy route and do non-procedurally genorated planets, which is that is the case, I will be disipointed.
 
So yeah. Good thing to bring up and suggest.

I have alluded to this in other posts, but I would like to see a built in support for authenticating users on you command consoles. For example, I hop out of my super sophisticated space fighter and walk around a bit. Meanwhile, player Joe decides he likes the chrome tailpipes of said sophisticated space ship and hops into the cockpit to take it for a spin around the galaxy. As he grabs the control stick, an authentication required message shows up asking for the flight command codes.
 
While I can also imagine a couple of ways to enforce this, using tags and permissions, it would be really nice if this short of support was baked in to the system core by the devs.
 
Your thoughts?