MatzaJew

I know that NQ doesn't have any kind of road map for wheels at this time. And while I'm sure that's based on their projections to having a stable single shard Universe. There have been other threads started about wanting wheels for the sake of having them but not too much linear thought down that line of what we would do with them beyond the obvious. 
So I propose (Assuming we get wheels and any other form of locomotion) we work towards having a Planetary scale race track!
For those who have seen the Anime 'Redline' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH7eBCTu_eM  There is a Race that is held in 3 teirs. Blue, Yellow, then Red 'Line'. At the highest class about a dozen racers have a ground race where the vehicles go sometimes several hundred miles per hour with the race lasting somewhere in the 1+ hours range. The main Idea for this race is primarily based on this anime.
 
-A track would need to be built with crazy speed in mind, varying types of vehicle types and weight to power ratio classes.
-So wheeled (if implemented), hover, *anti grav*?, skid, legs, possibly a flight type as well.
-Could do a Newton output maximum with a weight minimum perhaps. 
 
Would like to know some feed back on if this would be something everyone would be interested in doing. Have all corporations and organizations large and small compete in this race that could impact the winner in a huge way. Vehicle designers could be awarded contracts for having their blueprints churned out by large military factions wanting the winning design. Drivers could be hired out based on skill shown in the lower brackets and be sought after by the highest bidder. There are tons of opportunities here!
 
There are some key issues I'm sure I'm unaware of that could make or break this idea but wondered what everyone here thinks.
     (Please remember to be constructive with your criticism, if you think this is a terrible idea please detail it) 
 

(Posted Friday 4th of November 2016 on the DevBlog)
 
 

 
Some progress on the mining game mechanics
 
 
In this Devblog, we aim to shed some light on a very important part of the future gameplay of Dual Universe: scanning & mining. What follows is our current thinking on these features, as we are currently implementing them. This may still evolve in the future, in particular thanks to your feedback! So, let’s have a look.   Scanning is the activity of prospecting to find new resources in the ground on planets. Resources are physically geographically located, they have a span and a size, and they are generated via our procedural algorithms together with the planet as voxel blobs. They will be spread on the planets based on rarity and how important they actually are in crafting recipes. Some rare resources will not be found on Alioth, the starting planet, so you will have to journey out into the universe to locate them.. Each biome will have a set of typical resources associated with it, so prospecting starts by “knowing your biomes” The table below presents a simple rough description of how we plan to stage the levels of difficulty for materials:           Our current plans for prospecting are focused on two scanning techniques: radial scanning and directional scanning.   Radial scanning will allow you to probe for a given class of material in a given radius: the scanner will be able to show you what percentage of the area you’re scanning is made up of the class of material you are seeking. It’s only partial information. You won’t know where it is exactly, just that 1.6% of the volume of your scanning sphere is filled with metal, for example. A scan “operation” will take some time. Longer scans will yield more precise measurements. There will be a level of imprecision in the exact size of the radius, which you will be able to improve via skills.   How does it work? Well, most of the time, the thing you are looking for will not be in the sphere you are probing. So, you’ll see a 0% signal reading. You will then move and suddenly, a signal will show up. You know that your sphere has just “hit” a vein of what you are searching for. At this moment, you will be able to deploy a sphere marker, that will basically help you to visualize the volume where your target material is likely located.. The marker will stay there while you move to another location and start again. By intersecting markers you will start to be able to pinpoint more precisely where your precious material is located. This is the general idea.   Now, the exact technique you will use will also depend on the type of veins that correspond to the material you are looking for and what kind scanner you have. Consider these two schema that illustrate different strategies depending on the relative size of the average vein compared to the radius of the scanner (the double circling of the spheres illustrate the imprecision on the radius):                 These strategies will be important to master, because mining randomly will just exhaust your time and resources and will usually return only very common and not very worthwhile materials. Mining gear will have fixed scanning ranges that correspond to their levels. You won’t be able to adjust these ranges or change the scanning radius. They’re fixed. So, no choice: you need to move!   Now, once you start to have a better idea where you material is, you might start to use the directional scanner. This is much more straightforward. The directional scanner will give you the amount of the 4 or 5  most significant materials within a cone of a few degrees in the direction you’ve pointed your scanner.. The max distance will be a level dependent parameter, but will remain relatively small so you need to use radial scanning first to narrow your search area. The signal received for a given piece of material will decrease with distance, which should give you precious “gradient” information to follow. This is roughly how this could look:           In some future expansion we will probably add some more advanced tools for prospectors as well as planetary scale global information to help you judge the potential of newly discovered planets.   Our vision for this gameplay (as well as most of the gameplay of Dual) is to make it deep. We want players to be able to develop their own very real expertise on best practice, specializations, etc. We want the activity of prospectors to remain challenging even when you master it, so that a good prospector will have a very high value as part of a team. Now, for easy and abundant materials, it will be possible to find resources much more easily (we are considering a simple local highlight of what is there, so you just “see” it). But for the more rare and uncommon materials, we want it to be rewarding and feel like a real achievement. We provide the tools, but players will have to come up with the best strategies to get to the most precious material. The way you dig for gold as a beginner, and the way you will approach it after 100 hours of being a prospector are totally different. Sure there is a skill tree, but the actual trial and error experience also makes a difference. For a MMO game that is supposed to be played for hundreds of hours, anything not challenging quickly becomes a chore. We want to prevent that.   Now, about mining: it will be done via your Nanoformer. The harder the material and the larger the volume collected, the longer it will take. We have chosen an energy-based model where each material is capable of absorbing a certain level of energy before being “mined”. So, you will be able to upgrade your Nanoformer energy throughput to improve your mining as well as various mining skills. For more advanced mining, and possibly some rare materials, dedicated tools will enter the scene, but this might not be available at release, but rather in a future expansion. We are considering the possibility of Mining Units inside your constructs, but this will be in an expansion after release and it will require some careful balancing to make sure standard mining is still an option, in particular for beginners.   Interestingly, we imagine that the “profession” of prospector/scanner and the “profession” of miner could very well be separate. Some people will specialize in finding large veins of important materials (and possibly sell the intel about the location), while some others will specialize in mining it, focusing on a mining site for several weeks or months. When you exploit a deep vein, you will need to install things like lifts, vehicles, containers, and clean wide shafts to ease material and dirt evacuation. Maybe even factories close to the vein to transform the ore into pure material. This differs from most other games where scanning and mining are usually very similar and the activity of mining and scanning alternate frequently as you jump from one asteroid to another, or one mining spot to the other.   We hope you enjoyed this short intro and, as usual, we are very excited to hear your feedback and ideas! We are developing this at the moment, so it’s a good time for the community to share your thoughts and influence what is going on!     JC Baillie, Project Lead.  

I know that NQ doesn't have any kind of road map for wheels at this time. And while I'm sure that's based on their projections to having a stable single shard Universe. There have been other threads started about wanting wheels for the sake of having them but not too much linear thought down that line of what we would do with them beyond the obvious. 
So I propose (Assuming we get wheels and any other form of locomotion) we work towards having a Planetary scale race track!
For those who have seen the Anime 'Redline' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH7eBCTu_eM  There is a Race that is held in 3 teirs. Blue, Yellow, then Red 'Line'. At the highest class about a dozen racers have a ground race where the vehicles go sometimes several hundred miles per hour with the race lasting somewhere in the 1+ hours range. The main Idea for this race is primarily based on this anime.
 
-A track would need to be built with crazy speed in mind, varying types of vehicle types and weight to power ratio classes.
-So wheeled (if implemented), hover, *anti grav*?, skid, legs, possibly a flight type as well.
-Could do a Newton output maximum with a weight minimum perhaps. 
 
Would like to know some feed back on if this would be something everyone would be interested in doing. Have all corporations and organizations large and small compete in this race that could impact the winner in a huge way. Vehicle designers could be awarded contracts for having their blueprints churned out by large military factions wanting the winning design. Drivers could be hired out based on skill shown in the lower brackets and be sought after by the highest bidder. There are tons of opportunities here!
 
There are some key issues I'm sure I'm unaware of that could make or break this idea but wondered what everyone here thinks.
     (Please remember to be constructive with your criticism, if you think this is a terrible idea please detail it) 
 

There is a dev blog that explains their intentions for this. 
Here is a link it.
 
Scroll down till you see the part referring to protection planned for builders:
 
Virtual Simulator: enabling player to enter a virtual world (call it “inception syndrome”!). While in that virtual space, the player would be able to design any construct, in a completely peaceful setting. This would help builders to design their construct and create their blueprints safely, without being interrupted by any PvP action. For ships, it will also be possible to test their flight mode, without risking a crash or wasting resources!
 
I understand the desire for an out of game voxel creation tool that can import the blueprint into the game. 
However, it is equivalently asking for the devs to create a tool to keep you from ever entering the game. Keeping players on their servers while they create their content is also conductive to fair game-play for other players and the moderators alike. Think of it like everything created in the light of day is clean, fair, and equal.  

Trade outpost? Added the hauler from last post to provide size

Possible Hauler concept, could add up to 10 of the containers(the icoSpheres) extending the length of the ship in segments, these ones being to carry fuel but also could be swapped out for other storage options such as large cargo containers.
Placed in some of my Stalker fighters for size comparison.

The civilian variant of the Stalker Fighter - Takes on a more friendly style paint scheme and replaces the guns for a larger storage bay
 

Couple more rough templates, learning how to render now to so the ships are going to look cleaner rather me using snipping tool and paint.net to gain these images aha. 
 
 

I got bored and decided to start working out rough plans for possible ships that my organisation would start developing when the game becomes live. The are low poly and crappy quality but they give the rough idea of what I want to build.
 
The first(well second) ship I have developed is a mining barge. Its purpose is to fend off attacking enemies and store the materials that the small miners collect. It also serves as a carrier to move the small miners long distances with its FTL drive.
 
Fitment of the ship:
Has 2 large cannon turrets and one medium sided cannon turret(Not sure if these weapons will be available its just how I designed the ship)
3 large cargo tankers to store the materials collected by the miners
Large radar array to communicate with the miners and scan the area for enemies
 

 
Shows the material tanks and the bridge of the carrier
 

 
The two large turrets and the engine array
 

 
Size comparison from small miner to carrier (Note: the small miner will seat 1-2 persons)
 
Thanks for your input

I tried a sort of bomber style heavy fighter, Made this one a bit more curvier.
 
 

 

 

“They told us it was impossible…They were right.”
 
 
 
The scorching sun, the blistering desert wind, the screams and shouts of the desperate people behind us. The images immediately switched to outer space. I saw the earth, a small blue sphere, seemingly insignificant against the backdrop of the celestial realm in all its glory. The image stayed there for a second shorter than I would have liked it.
 
Again, I was teleported into the chaos I just escaped. The people were being held off by armoured guards. Somewhere in my confused mind, I sensed a tinge of acquaintance with them all. The crowd seemed grimly desperate to get to where I was standing.
 
“Hisashi, we need to leave, now!” A voice screamed in my ear.
 
As the view turned, my eyes caught Kyle standing in the crowd. He was wearing the same uniform the others were wearing. Standing beside him were Nora and little Jeane. The three of them waved frantically at me, smiling and cheering me on. Somehow, I knew that they were all just trying to be brave: the sadness beneath their eyes was way too evident. But, my brother seemed happy, almost ecstatic at my departure. The door closed and darkness enveloped me.
 
I woke up with a dreadful headache, enough of it to kill every living human three times over. My entire body was stiff and ached with a pain that drove me to the edge of utter madness. The place was cold, as if I took a walk on a winter evening without so much as cloth on my back. Somewhere in my foggy mind I remember being told to stay still and wait the pain out.
While I waited for the pain to subside, I strained to get my thoughts together. The thoughts that came were ones I didn’t ever want to remember. I slept off, the tiredness overcoming the terror of pain.
 
Kyle, Nora, Jeane, Sonke, Tzu, Peretti, Karl… A pang of guilt stung me, hurting more than the pain my body had to endure. I killed them. I killed them all. The Arkship could only take so few people and it was no secret that to a large extent, the selection process was corrupted. What was to become of the people left behind? Death, famine, wars, disease and distress. Oethe Inc. had decided to change that.
 
As the Arkship was being constructed, Oethe was busy building our light at the end of the tunnel. The masses sponsored the project: any alternative hope was worth the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars were poured in and still the people on this craft with me were the children and grandchildren of those that had started the project. What was the name again?
 
I struggled to scratch my head, realising that I could move my hands. How long was I asleep? I craned my neck to the left all that was there was the white wall of the “Cocoon”. With a hiss, the transparent cover slid down, and the Cocoon tilted, patiently waiting, it seemed for me to make my first step. It was harder than I thought possible. My body was as stiff as a mountain. With great difficulty I put one foot out and adjusted my weight—I was floating within the moment. Slowly pulling myself along the cold metallic walls, I used the faint illumination provided by the electric blue phantom lights somewhere on the roof to guide myself along the dark corridor to the control centre. The pain was immense, nerve wracking at times, as my joints began to recover the fluidity of movement they once had.
 
We had been warned, hadn’t we? The project we were undertaking was one that entire nations in a massive and surprisingly concerted effort struggled to finance and complete. Even if we did complete the project, what would happen if an error on the on-board computer wiped us out in space? What was going to stop space debris from destroying this fragile structure?  Nonetheless, we pressed on. What hope did we have here on earth or with the corruption fraught selection system the United Nations hailed as fair and square? We had no hope on this planet.
 
As I entered the massive control centre, Eidolon came online.
 
“Hisashi, how are you feeling?”
 
I loosened my tongue and tried to reply. All that came out was a grunt.
 
“Is that how you thank me for keeping your sorry life intact?”
 
I shook my head, half amused, half frightened. Eidolon was the on-board AI developed by Oethe. He was more human than computer, being based in part on the high output brain scan of the Oethe founder. That made him, above all else, dangerous.
 
“I would have opened the air-lock to teach you manners, but the lot of you are still going to die anyway.”
 
My neck snapped in the direction of his holographic image.
 
“Ow! Whaa…do…say?!”  
 
“There is a catastrophic system failure in Section 53. The Instant On-board Error Analysis and Repair System (IO.EARS) has reported its inability to fix the problem.”
Section 53 was the central propulsion hub.
 
“How much…tume… we have?” I asked, sweating despite the cool breeze.
 
Eidolon moved across the room to the windows.
 
“Until we enter the gravitational field of the Arkship’s current home: one hour, fifty-four minutes and thirty-three seconds.”
 
Panic kicked in faster than light.
 
I could leave this ship and escape. There were enough emergency crafts to go round and I could at least save myself and carry the legacy of the Oethe with me. Eidolon could be deactivated or commanded, either way, I would need his help.
 
“Thinking of leaving, aren’t we, Grand Architect?”
 
I spun round and flew back in bewilderment as Eidolon closed in on me.
 
“I’m disappointed.” Even as he said those words, the command centre lit up in a brilliant but, macabre show of red lights.
Eidolon stood over me, looming and threatening even as the lights made his face seem dark, almost hellish.
 
“You are—“
 
“Shut up.” I spat and assumed my standing position.
 
He looked taken aback.
 
“I said shut up, if you didn’t hear me the first time. I’m not leaving. Go make yourself useful somewhere.”
 
Without so much as a word, the AI vanished into animated aurora that flew down the corridor and out of sight.
Running away right now would make me a worse person than all the tyrants, dictators, cowards, deceivers and war mongers that made us leave in the first place.
I slowly sat down in the Prime Seat and assessed our imminent death. The five hundred and fifty-seven people on this ship were my family and responsibility. The survival of Project Deliverance hung on my shoulders.
From what the Argos’ computer was relaying to me, there was no chance of survival.
The critics of this Project Deliverance had clearly told us:
 
“It’s impossible.”
 
They were right.
The planet loomed ahead, embracing us with arms of death. At this speed, we would all be dead before we felt any pain.
I whispered to myself, lost in fear, terror and desperation.
 
“Hold on, Kyle. I’m coming.” 
 
Part Two will be released soon. Stay tuned for more. 
Find out more about the Aether here.

I like this idea a lot, would be neat to have a gladiator like death race style event also i think. 

"All from the idea of a small racing patch. You see, Dual Universe forums are places for the creative. Who wouldn't want a nice tournament--more so an entire planet made for it. Diplomats would want to prove trivial things about the importance of trade exclusivity and pirates would want to joust and compete for fun! (and sell candy floss)"

I like this idea quite a bit. I have been thinking about a planet dedicated solely for shenanigans and tournaments for a little while. Arena's, race tracks, bumper ships...... Jenga. 

Would certainly be a fun part of the game. Would love to have a race league where you can earn decent money. Perhaps it could even go the way of reality and have advertising and sponsorship... .

I know that NQ doesn't have any kind of road map for wheels at this time. And while I'm sure that's based on their projections to having a stable single shard Universe. There have been other threads started about wanting wheels for the sake of having them but not too much linear thought down that line of what we would do with them beyond the obvious. 
So I propose (Assuming we get wheels and any other form of locomotion) we work towards having a Planetary scale race track!
For those who have seen the Anime 'Redline' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH7eBCTu_eM  There is a Race that is held in 3 teirs. Blue, Yellow, then Red 'Line'. At the highest class about a dozen racers have a ground race where the vehicles go sometimes several hundred miles per hour with the race lasting somewhere in the 1+ hours range. The main Idea for this race is primarily based on this anime.
 
-A track would need to be built with crazy speed in mind, varying types of vehicle types and weight to power ratio classes.
-So wheeled (if implemented), hover, *anti grav*?, skid, legs, possibly a flight type as well.
-Could do a Newton output maximum with a weight minimum perhaps. 
 
Would like to know some feed back on if this would be something everyone would be interested in doing. Have all corporations and organizations large and small compete in this race that could impact the winner in a huge way. Vehicle designers could be awarded contracts for having their blueprints churned out by large military factions wanting the winning design. Drivers could be hired out based on skill shown in the lower brackets and be sought after by the highest bidder. There are tons of opportunities here!
 
There are some key issues I'm sure I'm unaware of that could make or break this idea but wondered what everyone here thinks.
     (Please remember to be constructive with your criticism, if you think this is a terrible idea please detail it) 
 

"A good idea, but it will have to be created by players, not Dual Universe. All in all, it will provide a good chance for shipbuilders and craft builders to showcase their creations and allow for a good get-together. Brilliant idea! Let's hear what the others have to say."

There is a dev blog that explains their intentions for this. 
Here is a link it.
 
Scroll down till you see the part referring to protection planned for builders:
 
Virtual Simulator: enabling player to enter a virtual world (call it “inception syndrome”!). While in that virtual space, the player would be able to design any construct, in a completely peaceful setting. This would help builders to design their construct and create their blueprints safely, without being interrupted by any PvP action. For ships, it will also be possible to test their flight mode, without risking a crash or wasting resources!
 
I understand the desire for an out of game voxel creation tool that can import the blueprint into the game. 
However, it is equivalently asking for the devs to create a tool to keep you from ever entering the game. Keeping players on their servers while they create their content is also conductive to fair game-play for other players and the moderators alike. Think of it like everything created in the light of day is clean, fair, and equal.  

I apologize if this isn't the right forum for this topic, but I didn't know where else it might fit into.
 
Lately I have seen some conversations on the forum become very aggressive, insofar as people cursing at each other and getting into really heated arguments. While I think it's healthy to be able to debate openly on the forum, there are certainly some people you might not get along with very well. I'm not going to point out any names, but some people certainly have the tendency to escalate debates into full blown attacks on one another. 
 
Which is why I want to point out a feature of this forum that I think many people are unaware of.
 
 
If you navigate to your "My Settings" page, there is a tab on the left hand side of the page titled "'Ignore' Preferences". 
 
From there you can ignore any user you'd like to, including their signatures and personal messages. 
 
 
I think if more people were aware of this feature, there would be less of a chance for discussions to break down into full blown arguments, and things might stay a bit more civil overall.
 

...So I did a bad and started a thread about this very topic without being aware of this thread.
 
Instead of linking to my thread (and thus getting "points" or something), I'll just sperg what I posted here. Feel free to lambaste me at your leisure...
 
 
Thanks, sorry, you're welcome, oh wow,,,flowers!?! ...jeepers. 

I'm ALL for P2P, don't get me wrong. I'm just trying to bring ideas to the table and throw out ideas for people to discuss. We are, after all, 2 years away from release. 

Another note, this would be something I wouldn't want to see day one of the game release. Maybe the 1 year anniversary for instance. As Kiklix posted above, Dual needs to keep this simple.
 
Edit:
Were playing devil's advocate for this thread and are inviting others to do the same. If your unsure about it even being possible don't worry about it. We're just openly discussing what were verbally going back forth about for over an hour. Adding to any possible way the F2P Could be viable. Different viewpoints from everyone here is what were seeking, 2 head's better than 1 etc. We've exhausted what we could come up with and are asking what everyone else can come up with to answer the "Potential ways F2P COULD be possible"
 
After sleeping on it had this idea:
Consider this a permanent tutorial island. The game is going to free, then a free tutorial period, then the payment will be required. Barring that, this is where the F2P could live, just a permanent variant of after reaching the tutorial conclusion. Or even instead of going through that last door, just go backwards and live in that tutorial room making some quick creations and play around for a bit. Maybe people want to pay for the game but are waiting for that pay check to come in. Playing around in the F2P tutorial room could be at least decent creative fun. 

Introducing all kinds of barriers based on the pay model of the game introduces confusion to new players and it also introduces a lot of coding.
 
Dual needs to keep this simple, just make it a subscription model at X amount per month. Everyone is on the same footing, there is no confusion and no additional coding because of tiered gameplay or anything else confusing.
 
I really don't understand what is so hard about accepting a simple subscription model. Look, I do not say this to be abrasive, but this is simple. If you can not afford a modest monthly subscription, then you should probably be asking for more hours at work instead of playing video games, if you are a younger person...save your allowance, go mow an extra lawn a month or pick up a single evening of babysitting.
 
There is no need to over complicate how Novaquark is compensated for their services.

From the info we have so far it looks like we'll have a set of skill trees that determine tech level and a set of basic pre determined elements to combine into ships and stations.
Maybe there will be ways to get higher tech elements of the same type through research? I remember someone saying something about levels of weapons in an interview but there isn't much to go on yet.
 
Personally I'm in favour of making the crafting system more sophisticated so that specialisations arise naturally among the player base instead of through arbitrary skill allocation. This strikes me as the sort of game where progression through player skill would be a better fit.
 
To that end I propose that the pre built functional elements be smaller components with set properties instead of full parts.
 
So for instance instead of just throwing on a single engine block that takes up a large amount of space you would build an engine out of smaller parts stuck together that function as an engine. 
 
To build a basic engine that works you'd only need a handful of parts. Say an ignition block, propulsion unit, stabilizer, vector cone and control unit.
But you could add more parts to increase it's performance in different ways, with the better ones made of rarer elements. Each component would add weight and energy/fuel requirements. Some might also need a certain amount of space around them to function correctly(eg heat sinks) or have interference with other more sensitive parts. After you'd built the guts of the engine you would then use standard voxel tools to give it a casing and incorporate it into the ship.
 
And this would be the case with every part that creates function. A cockpit would be a pilots seat(with control surface), computer, life support monitor, oxygen tank, heating element, hinged canopy etc. Extra parts could be holographic projector, rangefinder etc.

Some common parts would be found in multiple devices (like power cells) whereas others would be specialised to certain devices (matter transmitter coils). 
 
Each part would have multiple connection points so that they can be configured in various ways. The game would have a master list of devices and when the minimum number of parts are connected together via their ports for a particular device it would treat them as that thing when powered up. Or alternately you might include a way for the player to tell the computer which device they are building (perhaps by including a control chip in every device)
 
Technologies that the devs want to be harder to master (like FTL) could have a significantly larger number of more sensitive parts. And they could not include a standard template if they wanted to make it take real research.
 
The end result of this is that as well as ships and stations players could also become experts at creating ship parts and the complexity of the interactions would create genuine expertise in the player base. When your organisation's engineer tells you the reactor can't take it anymore it's because she designed it. When the ship takes damage, you would replace the destroyed components in a device to get it functioning again.
 
At launch the developers would have a no frills version of each device blueprinted up for each player to start off with so they don't have to become an expert just to begin building. The players who are interested in that side of things would experiment with all kinds of configurations. Later on people would buy device plans off the market if they want to build their own ship without starting from scratch.
 
You could create the coolest looking hyperdrive on the market. Or the cheapest. or the most powerful. And you could create your brand for advertising. 
 
The other benefit of this system is that you don't need weapon tiers or constant injections of tech from the devs. Make up a list of weapon and defence types that are interesting, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Break them into bits that make sense, with lower tech weapons like projectiles requiring less exotic materials for their components. Then let the players experiment with what you give them. 
 
I guarantee you a Blastcorp Annihilator Cannon is way cooler than a tech three plasma cannon. 
 
Just my thoughts.

Exactly. All of what you said and more. Game Developers cannot just create a game that everyone wants. If that was possible then the game market would be full of amazing games. (Well, more amazing games). There has to be a fine line between realism and fun. Think Space Engineer's Planets. Everyone wants a realistic sized planet to play with. What the server wants, however, is a raise.