Fitorion

It's just your fear of the unknown showing through.
 
Even Kerbal Space Program which is a pretty dang accurate Rocket Physics simulator doesn't require any math when building or flying.  It's Rocket Legos.  Just snap the pieces together and see what happens.  You quickly develop an eye for what engines and fuel tanks work the best in a given situation without any calculation needed on your part.  But the option is there ... the info is available... if you do want to do the calculations yourself.  If you do you can make rockets that are more efficient...
 
 
DU will not have anything like Kerbal Space Programs level of detail.  DU won't even have Planets moving on their orbits.  They'll be locked in place.  Probably the same for any asteroids and space stations.  Hopefully they'll get the planets to rotate at least...  

It's just your fear of the unknown showing through.
 
Even Kerbal Space Program which is a pretty dang accurate Rocket Physics simulator doesn't require any math when building or flying.  It's Rocket Legos.  Just snap the pieces together and see what happens.  You quickly develop an eye for what engines and fuel tanks work the best in a given situation without any calculation needed on your part.  But the option is there ... the info is available... if you do want to do the calculations yourself.  If you do you can make rockets that are more efficient...
 
 
DU will not have anything like Kerbal Space Programs level of detail.  DU won't even have Planets moving on their orbits.  They'll be locked in place.  Probably the same for any asteroids and space stations.  Hopefully they'll get the planets to rotate at least...  

It's just your fear of the unknown showing through.
 
Even Kerbal Space Program which is a pretty dang accurate Rocket Physics simulator doesn't require any math when building or flying.  It's Rocket Legos.  Just snap the pieces together and see what happens.  You quickly develop an eye for what engines and fuel tanks work the best in a given situation without any calculation needed on your part.  But the option is there ... the info is available... if you do want to do the calculations yourself.  If you do you can make rockets that are more efficient...
 
 
DU will not have anything like Kerbal Space Programs level of detail.  DU won't even have Planets moving on their orbits.  They'll be locked in place.  Probably the same for any asteroids and space stations.  Hopefully they'll get the planets to rotate at least...  

It's just your fear of the unknown showing through.
 
Even Kerbal Space Program which is a pretty dang accurate Rocket Physics simulator doesn't require any math when building or flying.  It's Rocket Legos.  Just snap the pieces together and see what happens.  You quickly develop an eye for what engines and fuel tanks work the best in a given situation without any calculation needed on your part.  But the option is there ... the info is available... if you do want to do the calculations yourself.  If you do you can make rockets that are more efficient...
 
 
DU will not have anything like Kerbal Space Programs level of detail.  DU won't even have Planets moving on their orbits.  They'll be locked in place.  Probably the same for any asteroids and space stations.  Hopefully they'll get the planets to rotate at least...  

You are overthinking this. 

The Devs have engines in mind for atmospheric flight and for spaceflight. You need the latter to fly in space.

A certain engine will have a certain stat associated with Thrust-To-Mass Ratio. Your ship has a certain mass depending on how many things you have on it. All these information, given what is known so far, belong to the Core Unit of the ship, which you can access for the RDMS and other tthings, like info on the mass of the ship, as the Core Unit also defines the blueprint. You won't have to calculate anything. As long as your thrusters provide more than 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration you are fine to take off with a sample ship. If you want to build bigger, you'll have to have symmetry in mind.

However, since gravity is a thing, you won't be building a massive battleship on a hauler on groumd. That's some JJ Abrams Star Trek nonsense. Nobody will be building a large ship on ground because 1) cause the fuel involved is stupendously high in order to do so, given how much acceleration you would have to put into it and 2) how because of your explanation.


Also, the game at PAXWest was a pre-alpha demo. It was simple because it's not the final release. The final release will have thrust-to-mass ratios (which as I mentioned, won't need to have a degree in engineering). I am not an engineer and I can understand how center of mass works, so can you, it's not hard at all.

As JC said on the DM21 interview, if they were the KS failed, they would have to compromise and simplify the game a lot for an F2P market possibly. This won't be the case.

If you are interested in making a smaller ship, sure, it won't need much calculation to do so. Throw two engines on it and a cockpit and you are done. Its thrust-to-mass ratio will be high enough you won't even notice gravity.

But here is the issue, simplifying or removing the need for gravity to have an effect on ships, makes battleships into starfighters.

There's a reason some spacecraft are called ships and other are called shuttles. Gravity is playing a role in it. A shuttle has enough TTM to land on a planet and take off with ease A ship does not.

oh yeah... In game bug reporting that automatically gathers config info and any pertinent in game info... time... server... whatever.
 
Now this doesn't exactly apply because this is a 1 server environment... sorta...  But I've been in a few betas where there were several servers and the in game /bug report system still required you to type in server names... character names... map coordinates... and attach config files.  If there was a crash it should attach the most recent crash report...
 
All of that should automatically be grabbed by the bug report system leaving just the description of what happened for you to type. 

so Archonious just invalidated any point he was trying to make and proved he can't have civil discourse with anyone.

so Archonious just invalidated any point he was trying to make and proved he can't have civil discourse with anyone.

so Archonious just invalidated any point he was trying to make and proved he can't have civil discourse with anyone.

I love the way Squad (makers of Kerbal Space Program) do their weekly updates. 
 
Small team... small updates.  Just a few sentences from some of them each week on what they're working on.  Doesn't have to be a huge paragraph from them.  Just what you would say if someone asked while walking past you in the hall.

actually I'm coming back to the cargo container idea...
 
Transporting ships in all their glory doesn't seem like a thing that will happen very often... if at all...
 
Why?  Because no one buys a ship fully constructed from the market.  You buy the schematic and enough materials to construct it.  All of which easily ships in cargo containers.
 
And if you do buy a ship off of someone... it would be a face to face trade type thing so the new owner is there to take possession and doesn't need any transport...

So say I want to have a shipping company organization to make money bringing things to people.
 
Assumptions:
You can buy goods without having to be next to the pick up location.
Quests can be created which give permissions to the person or organization to pick up stuff for you.
Quests can be accepted from anywhere.
 
 
Person buys 500 materials and a schematic from someone 2 hours round trip away...
Person creates quest for someone to bring these items to them.
 
Person in shipping organization accepts quest... then dispatches someone in the Org who is near the pick up point to get the items.
Items dropped off at warehouse for loading on to regularly scheduled cargo flight.
Flight takes items to destination warehouse while being protected by either the Orgs protective ships or another org hired for that...
Person takes items from warehouse to quest givers drop off point.
 
 
 
If quests can't be created to give the necessary permissions... then instead of buying stuff in advance... quests will have to be set up for the shipping company to go buy the stuff and bring it.
 
I think quests will also need to:
Provide rewards...
Have time limits... with maybe diminishing rewards until 0 and failure
Conditional Penalties... No penalty if you still get the items... penalty of the cost of the items if items were lost in transit.
 
I mean if you bought the items then sent the shipping company to get them and they get stolen... then the shipping comp needs to reimburse you...  If you can't given them permissions to pick up your stuff for you then this isn't an issue.

I actually rather like the idea of being able to turn a resource into currency...
 
It would work just like real life.  Money was more stable when it was gold backed...
 
But maybe several... or all resources should be able to be converted... at differing rates.
 
 
But really what is the difference between there being an NPC you take things to and get currency back... and clicking a convert button to do the same thing?
 
 
I don't like mined resources being destroyed irretrievably... So the convert system is good because you can convert things back...
 
I'd want the NPC system to then sell the resources on the player market.  It would then function as both a currency faucet and a sink...  If it gives out more currency than it's receiving for selling the resources at average market price... then its a faucet and if it's receiving more currency than it's giving out then it's a sink.  It would function to inflate or deflate currency values to a balance point set by the devs.
 
Markets are local yes... but I think the listings are global... meaning you can see what everyone everywhere is selling and their price... and you can buy it from anywhere... but you have to physically go there to take possession. 
 
I'm rather liking this sell to NPC and NPC puts it on the market for current market average idea.  People would still be able to play the market and have value fluctuations based on distance from population hubs and inflation would be kept in check.

current character creation is woefully inadequate and the "advanced" character creator stretch goal isn't much better... and certainly not advanced.
 
 
I just hope they continue to work on the character customization options as we go forward and let us change our characters looks as new things become available. 

It's the future.
 
Different equipment is obvious.
Different faces, body shapes, hair is obvious.
 
Tattoos, piercings, make up, face/body paint, genetic mods, cybernetics, scars
 
And a lot of this should be changeable via in game "barber shops"
 
On tattoos and the like.  I wish we could upload our own but understand why we can't in most games.  I also want to be able to adjust positioning.  In all games I've seen the positioning of such things can't be changed.  You only get to toggle it on or off... I want to be able to pick up a decal and place it anywhere on my character model.
 
On genetic mods.  fur... animal eyes... ears.... head shape.  You know if people could do it IRL without major side effects people would.  In a future world where medical tech has advanced as much as the tech it took to transport humanity to a new planet... such body modification should be available.
 
 
The current character creation is pitiful... understandably so but still.
The "advanced" character creation stretch goal is more like default... the low end of standard for MMOs... not actually advanced. 
Advanced is like the Black Desert Online's character creation. 
And I want something beyond even that.
 
This isn't something that has to be at release... but I hope they will continue to upgrade and change the character creator long long after release and offer the ability to change and update how our character looks as we play. 

I like the way FFXI and FFXIV have their translation system set up.  I just wish it had more words and phrases in it.
 
 
Basically they have a dictionary... a very limited dictionary of game terms and useful phrases that they've translated into all the localization languages they support. 
 
To use the system you just start typing a word in chat and hit tab... a list of potential translated options appears based on what you've typed so far.  So you can select from the list and string translated words and phrases together.  The words will appear in chat as what ever language you have your client set to.
 
For example
 
I type:
Ple
 
And hit tab... a list shows up:
Please Help!
Please leave.
...
so on and so forth. 
 
They could ask us to submit words and phrases we think would be most helpful to have and build a nice list of things for their localization people to work on.  Doesn't have to be a release feature... could be a spare time project.  and the submission process could continue after the game is out to... as new social interactions and game systems are added new phrases would be needed. 

The way I see it... there will be PvP... it'll just be person to person... ground based... boarding actions... at the start.
 
 
But you are right that there being not ship to ship... construct to construct combat at launch is a problem.  People see the trailers for the game and their minds go immediately to imagining all the epic space battles they'll have.  It's an expected ... fundamental feature... which not having will hurt the progress of the game.  The game wont be able to grow very fast without it.
 
That said... it also has to be done well.  Bad, boring, and superfluous pvp is just as bad as none at all. 

Just trying to be sure I'm clear on everything.
 
DAC can be redeemed for game time.
DAC can be bought for real money.
DAC can be sold for in game currency.
 
Why would DAC ever be a physical item in game?  If you want to steal them for the value they represent... why not just steal the currency used to buy them instead? The currency used in these transactions isn't being sunk out of the game... it's going from player to player to be used to buy other goods and services from players.  So we can short circuit this whole discussion by just making the in game currency stealable. 

Nothing should disappear...  Ownership should be removed so anyone can claim the stuff... and demolish or keep the things built as the new owner so chooses.
 
We don't want everything disappearing but we also don't want everything staying forever...  There should be a timer ... or multiple timers for different categories of object... Like say if you don't log in for 3 months then your buildings... space stations... can be claimed.  And of course claim priority lists should exist so that people who already have permissions to use said objects get first chance to claim it before any random person can. 
 
But the staying forever issue is mostly just in the arcship safe zone... anything out side... if you aren't there to protect it... then it could be destroyed or taken from you by force...

I want crafting of objects to be rather open...
 
1. I'd like visually for objects to have skins... and detail dyeable... maybe even contests for people to submit their 3D models for inclusion in the game during a later update...
2. The stats of whatever object determined by the materials... mods... gear... circuits... whatever you want to call them... that's slotted into them.
3. The process of putting the stat carrying items into a object skin requires skill and trade offs and synergies. 

In a building game... Of Which This Is...  Progression can be handled differently.
 
What we build... together... which allows us to build more and better and different things that we couldn't before... that's the progression.  I don't think this game needs to have our characters have Levels... and in fact I'd be disappointed if our characters have levels.

but He's talking about it being natural and tied to the player... where as you're talking about it being codified into game mechanics. 
 
In his system the intricacies of how each system works and how well a person knows and can manipulate them to achieve results determines whether other people recognize them as being skillful... not the game applying any label. 

well one This is a niche game for people with niche interests.  It can not be all things to all people.
 
and two The game is designed to concentrate players together so they build cities... form communities... as such travel is restricted to encourage that.  While we can eventually expand out into an infinite universe I think the devs said something about them expecting it to take several months for us to advance and build enough to get off the planet we all start on.
 
This isn't a free flying... universe roaming experience.  If you're expecting that... you'll be disappointed... may I suggest No Man's Sky for that.

In a building game... Of Which This Is...  Progression can be handled differently.
 
What we build... together... which allows us to build more and better and different things that we couldn't before... that's the progression.  I don't think this game needs to have our characters have Levels... and in fact I'd be disappointed if our characters have levels.

What if the cryobed is there with you on the crewed ship?  So the ship can be run in shifts like real ships... people log off and new people log on to take their duty station...
 
You could add a delay during battle if you die so any invading players actually stand a chance of making it to the beds and destroying them... preventing people from respawning back on the ship.  Basically to prevent a never ending supply of defenders for the ship.