CalenLoki

I partially agree with OP - lasers are boring. They are "point and click hitscan". Impossible to dodge, easy to use. Partially, because I can see place in game for them, as low skill low reward weapons. For countering super fast/agile/small targets, but close to useless against anything armoured. NOT as high tier weapon. IMO higher tier should go towards "harder to use, but more rewarding". Gameplay>realism. Ballistic weapons have much more variables to play wit - projectile initial velocity, acceleration/declaration, various payload (kinetic, explosive, fragmentation), bullet drop, guidance (and guidance jamming), projectiles can be shoot down, recoil, ammunition, ect. Compared to that, lasers are just dull.

IMO turret, or in general sub-construct, should be made using the same tools we have for main construct (voxels and modules). If it's turn speed is limited by mass, I don't see any major balance problems. It's of course a bit more complicated for devs, as they need to sync several constructs together. But I don't really like FtD way of connecting hundreds of parts in a search for viable combination. I'd rather have simple list of sliders where you choose weapon statistics (damage per shoot, rof, initial velocity, acceleration, agility, guidance, burst duration/recharge, accuracy, ect.) and the game calculate cost (weight, size, energy/ammo usage, material cost, ect.) and shape. Graphics-wise that's just two or three parts to switch models/scale (barrel, body, ew. base if not spinally mounted). Balance-wise IMO it's easier to tweak single formula, than 30 different weapons.

Very interesting conversation (even if a bit old now) I imagine "shields" less of physical objects, and more of diplomatic thing. It's like "We challenge your forces for a battle! Set a time between 24 and 48 hours from now". Then defenders have 12 hours to decide when the case-fire ends (attackers get notified of the time too - we want battle, not hide and seek). When shield goes down after timer, both armies are manned and ready for fun PvP battle. Shield can be manually closed after 6 hours, should be enough time for a firce fight. So it's a tool to prevent riding off-line bases at 6am. Something that IMO has no place in computer game that's suppose to be PvP rather than PvE. Stronger shields may mean that you need more DPS to set off the timer. Just so single fighter jet can't challenge whole big city (even if it shoots it for a week). Only force large enough to have chance in actual battle. To prevent defenders from reinforcing it too much, or escaping with resources - shield that is on timer should prevent movement of any ships. Good luck carrying resources by hand. You need to park outside, thus be open for unannounced attack. Or just arrive right before the battle. They should also prevent shooting through in any direction. To allow small sneaky raids... maybe based on amount of resources stored withing shield, it could let small vehicles to pass through? So large city would be protected from night-attack of large forces, but lesser threats need to be dealt with small automated/manual defences. So raiders could bring just enough forces to either sneak in and steal something, or assault some less-protected stockpile. BTW on topic of force-fields that actually soak damage - I hate those. They just dumb down whole aspect of localised damage. They may be fine for games with HP pool, but not for games based on engineering and voxel/module based damage. BTW2 Don't forget that unlike Eve, here you can build deep underground. So all your big ships may mean nothing in actual base attack. Kill-box corridor gives huge advantage to defenders.

I thought about different use of sending messages. Scout vehicle: When "Z" is pressed then send radio message at frequency 567 ("launch", <coordinates of target painted by crosshair>) Ballistic missile silo: When receive message at frequency 567 ("launch", <coordinates>) then launch missiles aiming at <coordinates> So basically inter-vehicle Lua communication

I'm against deleting things. DU claim to follow some rules of physics, and conservation of mass is one of the main ones. Destroying (devices, blueprints) OK, you can smash that computer. But the "scrap" should remain, littering the area surrounding cities, factories and bases. And you can't really destroy dirt. But dumping in space should be a thing. If you want to spend time and fuel to shoot all that dirt up there.