CalenLoki

I may be in the (forum) minority, but I prefer to focus on more meaningful tasks, like constructing or utilising those constructs. So IMO if I have resources, technology and tools, then crafting should be as simple as clicking "I want that element" and waiting.

Just as much as automatic factories, which are confirmed by NQ. So I see no reason not to allow putting wreck into factory unit, feed it with blueprint and missing parts, and receiving repaired ship. Or use factory unit to scrap it (100% parts return) then build it again. In both cases you need blueprint (may be flagged as "only for repairs"), so ship builder can denny you the right to do so. Yes, it's mmo. But it doesn't mean that tedious meaningless tasks should be forced to be done manually. But combat repair should be fully manual. That would encourage building maintenance corridors and having multi-crewed ships. Preferably with option to use small crafts to repair those really huge. Still manually.

IMO it would be the best with weapon grouping. So if you can handle controling multiple guns, then good for you. But if you have weapons that differ greatly (tracking speed, firing angles, ect.) You better have more people to help. There are tons of other tasks that could encourage multi-crewed ships, i.e.: combat repairs, boarding, piloting small crafts as direct support. Just please, no mindles sitting and clicking, that could be done by dumbest AI.

Soon we'll have to provide sources if we state that planets are spherical. I'm on the phone, and it's not really good for searching. But it's quite easy to find - search for "market unit", "player driven economy" and stuff like that. Edit. Ok, my mistake. He asked for the bot-markets, not player-markets.

Anyone can build his own market, so they'll be spread all around the universe

Engineering for combat. So building things, then blowing other things with it. Or getting blown, then building better things. Quite possibly in semi-protected environment, like player-made sport arenas. Just to be able to spend more time building/fighting than searching for opponents.

https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/841-ask-us-anything-event/&tab=comments#comment-7193 That's the only thing I found so far. And it seem to prove your point - temperature forbid digging deep enough to reach actual magma. I still think I've seen something else, but no source to prove it right now.

I think I've seen some NQ post saying that the core will be something like magma... I'll search for sources....

I'd prefer if nametags were not visible by deault, unless you point your crosshair at him, or tag him for tracking (i.e. your whole team during combat). So hiding in the crowd would be still possible, unless someone is checking every single passing person (or just spot you by accident). And sneaking, ambushing, hiding and things like that would be player-tactical-skill based.

@Lethys "They will greatly influence..." Source? I think I've read something about "slightly increase". And how is it best way for equal base for everyone, if only some players will have them? And you can't really get them by being good. That's why I'd much prefer combat to be mostly equipment+tactical skills.

Because it require very good connection speed and responsiveness, as lags affect it quite a lot. No game that I know of can support fluent twitch-aiming combat with hundreds of players close to each other, destructible environment and vehicles. Also don't forget that all players will be on the single shard, so those who physically live close to servers would have huge advantage over those living far away. Another reason is that a lot of players just don't like it, and prefer combat to be based more on well thought decisions, rather than being forced to think and act fast and precise. And NQ seems to target those players as their playerbase. I wouldn't mind FPS, but won't cry when it's not implemented. And I'm glad it won't be implemented poorly - that would kill the game.

@unown006 I've first read the post, then checked who posted. No surprise. But I have quite confirmed answer for you: ATM only planed vehicles are air-based. But some of them can only hover close to the ground, so they'll play more like ground vehicles. ATM water is postponed to some far far future, and it's not certain what form it'll take. So no plans for ships (or subs) anytime soon Player skill - oh yes, a lot. Positioning, surprise, engaging targets at range that favour your loadout over your enemies, smart use of cover, cooperation with your allies, pre-combat preparation, construct engineering, ect. No twitch aiming skill required though - built in aimbot does the work. But that's just small part of combat. Character skill - hopefully not that much. I'd rather have most things decided by player skill and equipment.

Unfortunately you may be right. Although one can always dream.

IMO just simple tasks. Like managing base storage (porter bots), building simple things (i.e. straight stone road for kilometres, simple tunnel), produce constructs from blueprints, patrol around bases (no shooting, just detecting), repair ships and bases after combat, recycle constructs, ect. Just as complicated as players can program them. Without access to: resource mining, offensive weapons and resource scanners.

Not gun. Gun is meant for killing, in game you can't kill anyone. Not even hurt permanently. It's more of a slap to the face + destroy his clothes + teleport far away. And for sure I'd slap someone hard and throw him into mud for destroying land around me, if I have means for that and it would be the only way to stop him. Those are examples someone may find offensive, just as building dicks. And they are performed outside TCU, so doesn't count as "territory defence". So for automatic rep system they are exactly the same. Just widening it. Giving more examples of complicated situations that automatic system can't get. It's again very relevant - you want a system that punish player who shoot first or kill. Thus it need to cover all situations and accurately judge who really was the aggressor. Warning system looks nice on paper (warn -> then attack after certain time without penalty unless enemy moves away). But would be quite easy to go around. In that example I could just fly straight through the fleet, fast enough that the timer wouldn't kick in. Nobody argue against manual system where land owner can forbid permission to anyone (i.e. outlaws) via RDMS. Only against automatic system that represents safe-zone.

Obviously IRL we have some other ways to deal with things we find offensive. And even in game "killing" is nowhere close to "remove someone from the world permanently" like IRL - more like "kicking someone so hard that he fly to the other end of universe". If we live across the street, and I wrote on the wall "blazemonger is ******* **** and his mum **** ** ****" would you react in any way, or just let it be? (just example, don't take it personally). Or if I destroy the road you've built, that was leading through terrain you didn't manage to fence? How would you react if there was no law and police you can call? How if you have whole village behind you? How if he has way more support? How if the only law would be "you can kick only if someone kicked you first"? What would you do if you are stronger than me or any of my friends alone, but you see that we'll slowly gathering with obvious intention to kick your ass? Or more in game examples: What if you are counter-scout around large fleet/mining operation, and you intercept my small neutral scouting ship "casually flying around"? Griefing is intentionally destroying other players experience without in-game reason. So destruction for the sake of destruction. It's quite broad and unclear term, but indeed proper piracy (where you attack targets that gives you monies) is absolutely not griefing. There is counter to piracy - just shoot them dead. And repeat until they move somewhere else. It's possible anywhere in the universe, except half of one planet + some of it's moons.

1. Something right outside my TCU (so still close enough to see it) is not my territory de iure, but I may consider it my territory (as it's clearly visible from my window). Thus it doesn't count as defending my territory. Thus it would lead to me being punished for taking any actions. 2. I've just read something wrong, and though someone said they are meant to reduce PvP aspect. Being tired pays off. 3. Yes, you shoot whatever. But if it cost to do so, then you need to work really hard to grief. Even harder than the guy you want to grief. We're talking about ways to give "evil" actions a consequence. "High time investment" sounds like something absolutely relevant. Thanks for clarification. Yes, the point was "no cheap ammo available at all". Maybe except one that is extremely heavy and bulky (so only for static/super slow constructs). To make sure that attacking side need to re-think if it's really worth attacking, while defenders don't need huge investment to be able to defend.

That's one of core decision for NQ to make regarding construction aspect of the game: If they want to make all design decisions affect it's performance (which may lead to very dull brick-like designs) or if they want to give full creative freedom regarding shape (which leads to dragon- or dick-shaped ships still being viable). I'd go for the first one any day. Yes, it leads to meta, but it makes engineering feels much more meaningful. It also allows some judgement of ship properties based on it's looks (i.e. short and stubby - probably slow but armoured, thin and long - probably quite fast but not too agile). And NQ could add various game mechanics, i.e. elements with vastly unique placement requirements, thus allowing way more viable builds. Thrusters for example could be of various types: 1. Rocket require just space behind. Thus can be used for brick builds. Not the most effective engine, but easy to use. 2. In-out engine require space behind and in front. Thus forcing designs to have them on wings (or whole ship need to by flying wing type) 3. Rail-propulsion require long elements to be placed facing each other with a lot of open space inbetween. Force whole ship to be kind of catamaran. 4. Heavy-radiation jets need to be mounted quite far from other elements of the ship (and each other), on long posts. Think of Star Wars pod racing or Star Trek enterprise engines. Or mix of above requirements

Just to voice my opinion: 1. Any automatic reputation system is going to fail at identifying who's really the bad guy. And I don't want such easy to go around system to decide on quite core game mechanics (like ark safe zone). If I see someone building dirt around my base (or right outside my TCU), I gonna shoot him dead, as it's only way to stop (or at least slow down) his vandalism. And IMO I shouldn't be punished for that. And don't forget that safe zones are not spread all around the universe. They are around ark, and on moons around Alioth. Pretty far (by that I mean - time consuming to travel) from all other planets. Thus they can be used by pirates quite rarely anyway. 2. Protective bubbles are not meant to protect from PvP. They are meant to force PvP, rather than PvOfflineBase. 3. Main game mechanics to discourage attacking everyone on sight should be economy. For example: If ammunition is more expensive than you can ever earn by destroying ship (unless it holds or protects cargo) then griefers will be able to destroy others much less frequently (because they need to earn monies to buy griefing tools). Or for extreme example: ammunition required to destroy ship is more expensive than said ship. Thus you need really good reason to attack the guy. Otherwise you waste more of your own time than his.

Given how voxels and elements in DU work, I'd say sphere, rather than cube. It has the best volume-to-armour ratio. And there are some game mechanics that could be used to encourage some variety: 1. Some elements may require clearance on both ends (i.e. engines, recoil-less guns) forcing builders mount them on wings of some sort 2. If passages are narrow (between asteroids, hangar gates, tunnels, warp gates) then you need longer ships to accommodate more stuff (rather than increasing sphere size). 3. All external elements that doesn't need wide angle (i.e. heat-sinks, hangar doors) will be best put in deep groves, to protect them from enemy fire. 4. If your cross-section is the same size from all angles, you can't put the smallest one against enemy fire. 5. Guns and trackers require specific shape to maximise their firing angles. 6. If you hope to out-maneouver enemy, you may want to have side designed to face opponent (guns&armour) and side designed to be hidden (external elements, weak armour). 7. If it matters for detection which side is exposed to detectors, then it force diversification of external equipment placement. Of course meta-crafts will be dull. But with just those few mentioned rules they will be shaped more like cucumbers, with some things sticking out the sides (engines), some recess (external elements) and turrets placed like on RL battleships. And from that shape to interesting design is not that far, thus you don't sacrifice much to make it pretty and meta at the same time. You mean active defence? Like LAMS, CIVS, shields? After playing FTD I'm in favour of NOT adding those to the game. Instead of making each ship good against specific weapon type, they just force you to place all of them or die in seconds against builds with mixed weaponry. Relying on simple armour, speed and agility (+ev. stealth) gives more interesting design choices. And it can't be really swapped easily. Back on topic I agree that some things can be usable only on static constructs (i.e. any offline protection like shields or automatic turrets). But forbidding usage of sensors on ships sounds artificial AF. That sounds like viable and realistic scouting vehicle (well, if you add anti-radar coating outside, and low emission thruster). IMO it's good that ship which have no chance in combat have some use in warfare. That increase fleet diversity. To execute stealth attack, you still need ships that have a bit more meat than that, while still remaining quite low profile. And I think that detecting things around large ships/bases/fleets should be more manual - by physically flying there with smaller scout boats, rather than just mounting bigger radars. I'm for really cheap detection equipment, so pretty much all ships have full set and similar range. So "louder" ship will be always spotted before "quieter" one. Thus to scout core of enemy fleet, you need to get past perimeter guards undetected (you can see them first and keep safe distance). Another thing that would make stealth-detection range more interesting would be diversification between active and passive detectors. With active ones giving you slightly more detection range, but at cost of making you much more visible. Radar would be the best example: Active detects enemy at X distance. Passive detects active at 2X distance. Thus being counter-scout relies on anticipating "where the heck enemy is" and switching active detector on only when you thing you'll catch them.

Matter of preference. I tend to slowly leave games once they get their final form. Maybe because while they still change, I still have hopes that some flaws will be fixed. And where they settle, all hope is lost.

My understanding of @Lethys post (and main point why I disagree with him) was that you can never fit all of them. And you need to redesign whole ship to change type of stealth, while you need to switch just few elements to change detection. Thus it's gamble for stealthy side, because you can never know what kind of detection they're using right now. @GunDeva Great video. But remember that we're talking about game-play. Realism always comes later. And war without stealth would be kind of boring.

I love those assumptions taken out of thin assir. 1. Cloaking means you can't be detected. It doesn't have to mean "visually invisible". It may mean "designed in a way that greatly reduce radar/heat/magnetic/mass signature". It's probably much easier to detect objects that way in space. And visual invisibility is bad for most pvp games that implemented it. 2. IMO being undetectable would be better as mostly passive action - not moving (too fast), not firing, not actively detecting, ect. Rather than active "turn cloak device on". 3. Ship designed to be stealthy would use much smaller part of it's mass/volume on firepower/armour/speed. And could be (as any other ship) built in a way where you have more elements that use energy than those that produce it - thus being forced to choose which system to power up.

They need to create tax system, as there is no such thing. Then they need to constantly keep its level balanced, based on world population. Because 50 people may be a lot if it's low, and 500 may be not that much if it's high. It would also break the core concept "we give you tools, but won't interfere in actual gameplay (unless someone really break the game)". Not to mention it's artificial as fuck. Orgs would just use external sites for management, rather than in-game system. Most players won't be affected much, as they are just grunts (of the winning biggest alliance). And those few who rule and coordinate don't mind hassle at all. Some even see it as additional challenge.

AFAIK no custom clothes, armour, weapons or elements are planed within near future. Maybe some day, way way after game release. But it also breaks "premium cosmetics", which is a nice way to get additional funds for developers. PS. If this happens, prepare for dick costumes