Kuritho

My suggestion is, that when the open alpha comes out, after people have spent a while frantically running around, building ships, cities, houses, mining stations etc. when the game is actually released, convert all of these creations into "discarded ruins from a long forgotten race" by changing all of the blocks used. Like all metal becomes corroded metal, all turrets become broken turrets or removed, power cores become depleted power cores that are useless (if there are such things) and giant space ships become 40k-esque space hulks... dead, broken and discarded. Cities built during the time become abandoned wilds, buildings above a certain height have their top halves removed, random holes in them everywhere, environmental recapture so vines everywhere, bushes and trees breaking through blocks in the roofs and flooring. 
These things could be made to either make them a valuable resource, or have no value at all depending on what the devs want. 
I would be fine with all of this being purely decorative, part of an integrated sub-lore, but something that cant just be rebuilt in the game as they would be exclusive (yet useless) blocks. Something to preserve, as part of this world's legacy. Hell the resources might even have value simply because of their rarity, after all "party hats" were one of the more expensive things in Runescape at one point - not because they are good or useful, just because they are rare. 
 
If you don't like the idea of all this coming from the alpha, I'm sure there's room for this kind of thing anyway that's put in the game by creative teams you might employ. I just think this sort of thing just gives a small bit of...atmosphere to a game that needs it. 
 
Anyone agree?

It'd be awesome if an alien took over the mines, and they sent like a elite group to wipe them out...
Only to get #REKT by the elevator stalling.

It's not actually human skin. Its a nanotech synthetic adaptive polymer. It allows for more than one form (not simultaneously) and allows for deep infiltration into the ranks of....ohh dear I have said too much. If you have any weird dreams of abduction or red marks on your arm, ankle, legs or neck after you wake tonight...it was not me.

physical dammages could only be applied to voxels parts, and gameplay dammages to elements parts

Easy mode; As described already.  Hardish mode; someone has moved your cryopod out of the safe zone to the other side of the planet. Dig and hide. But the nanoformer works.  Hard mode; As per hardish mode but the nanoformer is on the fritz you take damage every time you use it but you can make a healing booster that fixes it if your close, you can pick stuff up by making a lever and cut stone with a hammer and wedge, Strip branches form trees with a pruning hook. Dig dirt with primitive pick-hoe. make a 3D printer and fix the nanoformer with a repair kit from it.  Extreme mode: defective cryopod, you emerge a zombie. You can walk, jump, turn, melee and make a nanoformer attack but nothing else works until you harvest a vital resource to fix your brain and nanoformer. And everyone is hunting you because you have a useful resources drop. How long can you last as a space zombie.  [i keep writing about space zombies and awaiting someone saying "Noooooo no zombies!" But All I hear is a worrying silence. Scary. ]
 
Hard and Extreme mode would both be sweet griefer penalties.  

My concern is that they dumb down the logistics chain so that you can just dig metal out of the ground then instantly build anything (taking this to the extreme version).
 
There should should be a requirement to smelt ore and the use factory blocks to assemble components before creating elements.
There should be scope for a skilled factory operator to optimize their production system by automation and clever factory design.

I agree, when everyone is special nobody is.
 
I'm a proponent of easy to pick up, hard to master. It "should" be like playing chess. Anyone can easily pick up the game and learn the rules but it takes insight to be a master at it.
 
Does that make sense?
 
Complexity should emerge out of the interactions between a simple set of rules. At least thats how I feel about it.

I have been a proponent of the "harder is better" philosophy from the beginning.
 
I think that things in the game will be more rewarding if you have to work to get them. 
 
Wurm Online was 99% grind and it was still super rewarding after you built something massive, even if it took months to do it. I'm not saying DU should be grind, but it should at least be difficult.
 
Getting into space should be a rewarding feeling, like you managed some huge accomplishment. Going to another planet should feel the same way, putting a space station into orbit, etc. All of those grand things should require a massive amount of logistics to accomplish, and will then feel that much more rewarding. 
 
I also like the idea of having survival mechanics like food and weather/temperature. I know that food has generally not been a well received suggestion on the forums, but I still would like to have food/beverages in the game, at the very least for RP sake.
 
 
You and I can be in the "everything difficult" club because I feel like this suggestion won't be well received  

There have been some topics around this area, particularly with building ships, but I feel that the this is a concept valid for the entire game. In a huge civilization-building, player-interactions-driven game, I feel that having people skilled in just certain areas will eventually lead to a more enjoyable experience for players. And this is something that many people may disagree with upon first hearing it, but find in the long run that they think it works really well. Or maybe they'll hate it! I want to share my opinion on it though, and I ask that those reading, who may think it's stupid, give it a chance. Also remember that there are two sides to this, neither are correct, and both are valid. It's just opinion based.
 
If anyone is familiar with the game series LittleBigPlanet, the first and second iterations for the PS3 played a huge role in a season of my life. They were the main games I played for months, and I had a friend who was into it as I was. Anyway if you don't know the game, it's not important. Basically, you use some basic tools to make little minigame-ish things (I'll refer to them as levels).
 
Anyway, in the first game, there were a few levels and creators that stood out significantly from all the rest, because they were fantastic (anyone that knows the name "Lockstitch" off the top of their head is a freaking awesome person). Me and my friend, we knew exactly what tools were available, and what you could and "couldn't" do. But some few levels stood out to us because, as people who knew the game inside and out, we had no clue how they some of these things were accomplished. A fair few levels were outstanding and amazing due to their mechanics and visuals.
 
When LittleBigPlanet 2 arrived, there were tons and tons of new tools added. These were fun and great to be sure, but they made everything that made the old levels special, not special. Because, all of the fantastic things that had been done before (in the first game) were now basic and easy because there were tools to do them (in the second game). This made a lot of great content a lot more common. Which of course was a good thing. And there were certainly levels that still pushed the boundaries. But overall, by making cool and unique things easy, it made great content a lot more common and thereby a lot less special.
 
If Dual Universe makes building easy, and mining easy, and combat easy, and exploration easy... Well, then there are going to be lots of amazing ships, and lots of miners, and lots of warriors and lots of explorers. You may say, "that sounds great!" But, remember my exceedingly dramatic and emotional story. When you make it easy, it stops being special.
 
In a game like Dual Universe, where player interactions and jobs and organizations are such a key factor, it shouldn't be easy to do anything. It shouldn't be easy to switch from a being an efficient miner working for a large corporation to a stupendous explorer finding rare resources on hostile worlds at the edge of the known galaxy. Sure, you can switch job titles and do whatever you want whenever you want, because it's a game! I'm just saying you shouldn't be able to switch from being outstanding at one thing, to suddenly outstanding at another. This allows individuals the opportunity to stand out, and be known for something. "Hey he's that guy that makes that line of super efficient yet powerful ships. I don't know how he comes up with that stuff." "What, you want to send Xx_M8_SLAYR_xX to go hunting for that anomaly? He's an architect, someone else will find it way sooner!" If someone wants to be known for something, then they go for that something and only that and they end up being great at it, and known for it. Lots of people will choose to not do this, which allows the few that do to stand out.
 
I can't really say much else that I haven't said already. I believe I've gotten my point across. Regarding designing ships or stations, it's easier to see how an individual could be better at it than most others. Mining or exploration expertise could be accomplished, not just by having better equipment or skills, but also by there being hidden techniques that people just have to learn by doing it. Thank you for reading and please try and be civil in your response, as, once again, both opinions are valid!
 
 
When everyone's special, no one is...
And if you're good at something, never do it for free!

Hello,
 
In DU there is a lot of potential. Despite being a sci-fi game, DU can have a lot of scientific material in it, and this is what it is about: add science based mechanics, that could potentially be used to do IRL research.
 
The mechanic is simple in concept, but adds a ton of complexity to the game.
All material crafting should be done with material combinations or chemical reactions (material combinations being alloys, assembly etc...)
chemical reactions would be made in a chemical reactor, where you input molecules in certain proportions, and it outputs the realistic output. during that process, it either absorbs or emits heat according to this concept that can either be used to produce or needs energy to work. different energy levels can mean different outputs.
 
the crafting system would be quite like in reality:
you get the ore, crush it to improve reaction speed and efficiency, put it in a chemical reactor to extract your wanted material into a solution, extract that material from the solution in another reactor, let it dry to get a powder of it, and melt it in case it is a metal (last step not required, but needed to use it as block).
 
Additionally, that would allow for scientific like discovery of compounds in the game (it is to decide if it remains fictional or is realistic to cooperate with material research labs irl). if we go with the scientific discovery one, a physical simulation of the reaction will be made on 3 of the client's computers, so it can be validated. all three of them will get a reward for it: the compounds but also the rights of exploitation in case of discovery. 
these mechanics should be worked on a bit more tho.
 
I hope this makes it into the game as it would make it quite educational if not a benefit for science, and would add the required complexity to the game to make it worth specializing in such fields.
 
EDIT:
 
how would these new compounds interact with the mechanics:
 
1: they can be used for further reactions
2: have their IRL properties
3: if 2 is non existent, as if not discovered, it will deduct its properties from composition of the groupings it is composed of (like all alcohol molecules will burn, or will have the color, or be explosive etc...)
 
globally each molecule has different stats.  In crafting, you do not need a specific molecule, you need a molecule grouping, for instance for fuel you can use any carbon chained atom, and the more the molecule has carbon atoms in it the more power it will produce when used as fuel.
Procedural texturing could be used to generate the alloy textures depending on the impurities and compositions of alloys, and on the colored molecule groupings.

I was intentionally general because without having any insight into the actual design process of the virtual world itself it's hard to be any more specific.
 
In general terms, it would work something like this - every in game item would need to have a few variables that include Age, Resistance and Complexity.
 
Age obviously is a way to calculate the time elapsed since the item was manufactured (it would be difficult to apply entropy to planets/raw materials themselves in a meaningful way). The older something is, the more likely it is to suffer changes in molecular alignment, imperfections, etc and deviate from the original manufacture. This would eventually affect or limit how it could achieve peak or optimal performance. Of course this also is related to the next variable, resistance.
 
Resistance is a way to measure the innate property of a material to degradation through entropy. For example a piece of raw meat will degrade much faster than a steel pole, which in turn will rust and degrade much faster than a diamond. Some materials also age better than others. A 500 year old wooden beam will not have the same strengths and properties as a newly seasoned one, but a 500 year old steel beam should still be fairly close to the original provided it hasn't undergone dramatic changes in loading, stress, magnetic fields, heating/cooling, etc.
 
And complexity tracks how far away an object is from the original materials that created it. A lump of titanium is not very complex, but a spaceship engine made of titanium is quite complex. Therefore you shouldn't expect a lump of titanium to either fail or require maintenance, but the spaceship engine must be kept in top shape quite often in order to remain fully functional.
 
Now - depending on the time-scale of Dual Universe, it's highly unlikely that we are going to be concerned with the degradation of simpler things that would normally take thousands or tens of thousands of years to start showing any form of degradation. This would limit us to three basic scenarios in the time scale of a game (even a game that spans a few decades of real time):
 
Artificial stress and loading: Anything that is made to undergo rapid/sudden changes in acceleration should suffer increased degradation rates. Wings of airplanes, turbines and fan blades of engines, hulls of space-ships, etc. They cannot be expected to last forever with zero maintenance/repairs. Repairs should cost materials and energy - as well as time, but I can imagine a future where trivial, time consuming tasks are automated.
 
Environmental damage: Anything that is exposed to hostile environments (thermal, chemical, ionizing radiation, etc) must suffer accelerated degradation. This includes anything destroyed by weapons, for example - heck this could even be a way of implementing damage say from energy weapons.. And it must also include the weapons themselves. The gun barrels on large artillery pieces and WW2 battleships for example had to be re-lined after 100 shots or so. Nothing lasts forever and usage = maintenance. This would also include production facilities/machinery - except for the magical "root" machines that allow players to start building the world. You cannot create a fabricator for example and expect it to produce forever without additional inputs for maintenance and repair and "downtime" to carry out said repairs.
 
Complexity damage: while complexity itself should not be a cause of damage if the engineering is well done, this basically assumes that engineers are human and not perfect, therefore their creations are not perfect. Bugs in software. Zinc fingers on circuit boards. Bearings wearing out on moving parts. Shorts in electric motors. Magnetization of things not supposed to be magnetic, etc. The more complex a system, the more maintenance it requires to prevent a sudden catastrophic (ie - it stops working) failure. This is a boolean condition. If adequate maintenance is provided (including preventative maintenance), the system will work flawlessly - forever. But if maintenance is neglected, the system stops working AND suffers damage.
 
But exactly HOW to go on implementing something like this is quite, quite daunting. It could make for a game all by itself THAT's why I was vague...

It'd be awesome if an alien took over the mines, and they sent like a elite group to wipe them out...
Only to get #REKT by the elevator stalling.

I got an idea.
What if a person attempts to colonize a planet, but for some reason deletes his account.
If nobody else visited the planet, it becomes a "Failed" world, where his creations are copied and pasted throughout the planet, with slights randomly generated lore, and stuff misplaced.
Simple things make a game great.

As you may know:
 
 
In short, the economy start with 0 credits. NPCs at the start of the game will give us credits for raw materials, up to a certain point, where those NPCs will be removed. Then there'll be a limited amount of credits, that will make the economy. 
 
Doubts:
 
- After some time, some people may stop playing, abandoning a character with credits in it. 
- Some people may accumulate a huge amount of credits, without spending them. In that case the economy run with much less credits. If credits are more rare, prices for stuff are lower, and at a certain point, those rich guys may use all their credits buy all the stuff they can, at a lower price than usual. At that point there'll be again a large influx of credits in the economy, that will rise the prices up again, so those people will make profit out of this phenomenon. Sorry if I couldn't explain this better, but my english is limited.
-Adding again NPCs in the future (or even at the beginning), is something that comes from the devs. I feel is too much of an intrusion in a game made by players. It defines the economy too much.
 
The first problem regard the natural loss of credits over time: a guy that stops playing, another that changes account, or wathever. This may be fixed by adding again NPCs temporarily to resupply credits up to the original amount.
The second is a problem caused by the static amount of credits in game, and the one-off random resupply, decided by devs. 
The third pretty much explain itself. 
 
In other games we usually have NPCs, that create credits, what are called gold-sinks, to remove them. This usually mantains a stable economy, if done properly. It is artificially balanced. 
In a game like DU ofc this can't work, since there are not even NPCs that gives quests or something like that. The devs idea may be a solution, but a little basic and with problems imho. So what's the solution?
 
Create a rare resource that we can craft credits with. Example:
 
-Gold is a rare resource. You can craft, with a recipe, an X amount of credits with a single ingot. 
-Gold is a resource needed to craft a fundamental element, like the construct cores. It will always be important and have a value in game.
-The price to buy an ingot of gold from other players will never be less than X credits, but higher, simply because you can just craft yourself X credits from an ingot. Let's say an ingot is worth Y credits. Y > X always. 
-This kills inflation. When there's a ton of credits in the economy, the price of all resources go up naturally, gold included. This means that is not convenient for people to craft credits with the recipe, because they would get only X amount of credits, that is a lot less than Y, so a fewer people will "create" credits, letting the natural loss of credits reduce the inflation naturally.  Viceversa, if there's not enough currency in the system, Y is a lot closer to X, so people are more incentivized by using the recipe, and new crafted credits will flow into the economy. Wait, there's something wierd....If Y>X always, why would someone ever think about using the recipe to craft credits? Because of two reasons: Trade fees and wait time: If you sell stuff, you're probably using a market element, maybe in a city, maybe in a station, and you'll have to pay taxes on your trades to the owner. When the difference between X and Y is small enough, crafting credits is more convenient than selling gold.  "Wait time" instead is referred to you having to wait for a buyer, instead of having credits instantly by crafting them; consider that with high inflation there are more buyers (more money in circle, people are more incentivized on buying stuff despite mining/crafting by their own), so the wait time is smaller, so isn't a problem and you would sell gold instead of crafting credits, while with low inflation, you may have to wait quite a bit to find a buyer, because there is less currency in the economy than normal, so you're more incentivized to craft credits. Everything works perfectly and balance itself naturally. Sorry if it's a bit confused, I hope you understood.
-No need for NPCs, no need to balance the economy artificially, by force, adding or removing credits. 
-If someone accumulates a huge amount of credits over time, the economy is not going to be affected, so that people can't play with the economy, creating instability. Not that easily at least.
-People are not going to be chained to the arkship forever, where the NPCs are. You can craft credits anywhere supposed you have the gold.
-Incentivize mining, pirating, and stuff like that. Gold has a value just because you can make credits out of it, and every other resources will have a balanced price relative to the gold rarity, and their usefulness. 
-The fixed amount of credits in game depends on the amount of active players, that defines the amount of trades. With the system I propose, this gets automatically balanced. Because less/more players means less/more mining, other than less/more trades. So credits will always be proportional to the amount of trades, and the amount of players.
-Credits resupply/removal needs to be applied gradually, constantly over time, not by a one-time temporary reintroduction of NPCs. The economy is stable, you don't see large influx of credits over a certain period of time. Prices are more stable.
- And more
 
EDIT: If the natural loss of currency throught loss of accounts, isn't enough to balance the amount of credits crafted by gold, in other words, the inflation, forging back gold from credits is a solution. You'd loose something throught the crafting process (you would get only 80% gold back, or you'd consume energy to craft or a third material required by the recipe) to balance the continuous switch gold to credits to gold, that players could abuse to transport gold without worrying about mass.
 
 
What do you think? 

@N
 
 
Actually, you're just thinking about this using a traditional, (quite old now) MMO lens.
 
DU's content is player-made. But not entirely as far as we know - that could happen. But, more's the point - Alioth, the system, the Universe - as we discover these things (and given procedural generation) - this is new content. Persistent new content.
 
And really - that's what the REAL value proposition of a P2P system over DU is - it never gets turned off. That's the beauty of all this.
 
They are starting their development journey now, with a drop date of Dec. 18. One only has to consider the ubiquitous techs which will be in play at that point that WoW and EvE can't match.
 
For instance - today, No Man's Sky, despite criticism, shows the power of procedural generation at scale - DU will take that further.
 
And with the advent of blockchain tech - DU could leverage Distributed Application technologies - (bet they are already looking at it) - the beauty of which is that you can make an MMO as awesome as DU, with massively reduced server costs, as the more people play, the more compute power you effectively get. (Check out Zeronet website's for instance). And literally, the "servers" in models like that can't crash as the data comprising the universe becomes peer to peer and consensus based - essentially any modern online game, on steroids, with a single source of uncorruptible truth at it's core. That both we and NQ made.
 
THAT's why I'll pay a sub happily - because I'm paying for persistence. And a sub means that if I want to take a 2 month break or even a one year break - say I go on an overseas holiday or if I was a soldier, get deployed - I can. I reactivate my account and EVERYTHING is as it was, but changed in a way that has provenance - a real change history just like the real world. No resets, no take backs. The closest thing to a real (in a persistent tangible, non-transient or ethereal sense) alternate reality you will ever likely see.
 
Don't get me wrong - all good things come to an end, I know - but while DU is alive, it will be a single game continuum - you will really make history - and that's worth it.

I'd love to have a companion over the long dark void of the universe...
And maybe some fresh lunch if the situation gets desperate.
AI COMPANION
I'd love to see an advanced AI giving you some hints, maybe try to start a universal conversation:
Is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable?
Hey! Look! DIRT! You don't see that everyday. 
Is the cake really a lie?
Why are we here again...
Woo... we actually did it. My calculus suggested below 0.1 success rate.
 
Just some conversations idea.
Maybe power consumption just... for realism. Upgrading the core to have different personalities as well.
CREATURES COMPANION 
I dunno. This would be pretty obvious. Maybe the pet would circle around you ever so often.
Eat something, herd animals. You know, the usual stuff.
Why should I adopt (or make) one?
Brilliant question!
Well... utility.
Remember kids, its only animal abuse if you get caught.
Don't abuse animals. That's wrong.

I was updating my profile and noticed under my user name it said "Member Since Yesterday".  I don't know why but that just made me laugh, I guess it's because I've been around for a while with my own YouTube channel, Sketchfab portfolio and extensive Imgur album.  I have to say though in the short time I've been here I've been made to feel extremely welcome by this community.  I wanted to say thanks to everybody who helped me to set up my account and get orientated on this forum.
 
I'm not usually an early adopter of games and software, but based on the information I have so far, Dual Universe will be a great project to get in on the ground floor.  Basically, my understanding is that for the first few months after release the community will be building the groundwork technology and craft designs that players who join the game later on can use to flesh out the game world.  Now that's something I can sink my teeth into!
 
In short I'd like to send a shout out to all the other newbies in this community and any others that join in the future - you're in the right spot.  It's a great place to be and if you have any questions don't hesitate to make yourself heard.  I'm looking forward to working with all you...
 
Jett
 
 

Seen in trailer:
Cockpit Thrusters Weapons Implied or mentioned:
Gyroscope Control Unit/DPU Containers Energy shielding FTL like Star Trek or Star Wars Stargates Reactors Probably others... I would like to see: (a lot coming from Space Engineers)
Antenna Wheels & suspension Other kinds of chairs and cockpits with various functionality Ship size nanoformer for building large constructs and mining Ore detector Usable motors, pistons, hinges and sliding surfaces Different kinds of reactors or power sources Different kinds of thrusters Lights of various designs Various decorative objects Sensor devices And as a stretch goal, perhaps an interplexing subspace beacon? Yes? Please?

A voxel that emits the power, gravity and heat of a star. (not really, but it'd be cool, right?)
 
As for actual hopes, 
I like the idea of being able to collect your standard metal elements and such, but mixing in gases from moons, planet atmospheres and etc. could make things interesting, meaning you'd essentially have to mine the atmosphere of a planet, the crust of a moon or the gas of a star. 

Some rarer elements and metals could be asteroid based, but I really like the idea of having things be different than usual. Instead of just mining an asteroid or the planets surface, you move a hulking gas huffing ship through the atmosphere to get to certain pockets of gases and such. Alternatively, you could take that ship to take gas from space. 

Now, I imagine storing things like this could happen in two forms, depending on the state its in. Gas and Liquid Gas, meaning you could change the weight and density of it. That maybe something to do with the later refining process. 

They are my ideas on the elements of 'gases' and mining them. 

(I really hope this is what you mean, Or I look like an Idiot) 

True dont joke about 9/11,but this is an actual strategy that for what i have seen is pretty effective

This would certainly be a possible strategy... but just as in real life it will be extremely annoying. As discussed in other posts there will have to be downsides to dying, like a recharge time before you can use your resurrection node.
 
In the interest of balance I'd say the devs shouldn't make it possible for you to carry an explosive on you that can do serious damage. A small blast radius that can only take out people and blocks within the immediate vicinity.

obnoxious font, wrongly written LASER. im close to start to dislike you :V
 
and any expansion would be thermal, its all thermally limited.
 
and all im saying is that hand held laser weaponry isnt exactly "faster equipment degradation" only.
from the calculations there a "light" pulsed laser weapon would be able to penetrate about 2.5cm of steel or 30 cm of flesh.
thats not exactly harmless.
 
and faaar away from the energy budget one has when he casually carries around antigravity generators and space compression devices as we do according to the Dual Space lore.
in addition to that casual availablility of the required energies due to the casual nature of the power source it seems that the heat problem would also be pretty secondary.

I think it would be a cool feature, so that if someone set up a base on a planet with an acidic atmosphere others wouldn't come there as often. Which would add an element of a hidden or backwater world base which could aid black market dealers and such, or if the acidic atmosphere is to complicated then you could have an oxygen level which dictated how easily survival on a world was. Such as a limit to how long you can have oxygen outside without tech assisting you.

I read the title of the topic as "Create your own Pants". I got to say, I was confused at first.

I think a multi-level system of blocks working together achieve a task(s) https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/566-multi-block-systemweaponry/,
combined with this idea... We're talking gatlings man.