TranquilClaws

Here are all the things I'd like to see on the battlefields of Dual Universe, whether in space or at your base.
 
-Weapons- 
Cannons Lasers Missiles Mines Flak Electromagnetic Pulses (including ion cannons) Railguns Plasma  Rockets Corrosive Cryo Bombs Tesla -Defenses-
Solid Armor Reactive Armor Magnetic Shielding Energized Armor Deflector Shields Absorbing Shields Stealth Self Mending Armor -Mechanics-
Cannons require ammo and are versatile yet slightly less powerful than more specialized weapons, coming in all shapes and sizes from automatic rifle caliber guns to large mortars Lasers require a constant input of energy and deal scaled damage over time with energy consumption, distance from the target lessens the effectiveness of the laser and absorbing shields will almost completely nullify it, however any light craft will be devastated by lasers Missiles require more materials to produce and can be intercepted, however they are able to home in on enemies, deal a lot of damage, and be filled with different lethal ingredients Mines are multipurpose bombs left in space or on a surface that can be used for ambush of an enemy, defense against projectiles, drones, fighters, or even restricting the movement of an enemy, the only downside to mines being that they sacrifice other factors for utility such as cost or movement Flak are a subclass of cannon that is more costly for the ability to explode and still deal damage to nearby targets EMP's effectively take the form of any weapon that is capable of disabling a ship's systems if they are unprotected, however, they take a lot of power to fire when emitted directly from the ship (in the form of an ion cannon), the advantage there being that they cannot be intercepted Railguns take a lot of energy and a solid slug to punch through multiple layers of armor and do critical damage in a thin straight line Plasma cannons accelerate a magnetically contained packet of super heated gas that bursts on contact, melting everything it touches, but coming at the cost of a significant amount of energy Rockets are unguided missiles that are cheaper and capable of packing a larger punch than missiles Corrosive elements can be added to any container of explosives for a less powerful explosion but a constant stream of damage over time Cryo weapons work by filling a container with an extremely cold gas and dispersing it into small fissures in hard metals, causing them to become brittle and freeze up mechanical systems, allowing a followup shot of sufficient force to shatter the material, the trade off being that cryo weapons on their own do next to no damage Bombs are powerful explosives that are cheap to produce and only work with the presence of gravity Solid armor is extremely effective against smaller caliber weapons and lasers while not being that effective against piercing, explosive, corrosive, cryo, or melting weapons, with stronger armor materials allowing for higher defense against larger projectiles Reactive armor is extremely effective against explosive and kinetic weapons but is partially used up in the process, allowing a few hits to be absorbed fully before becoming ineffective, meaning that lasers and high fire rate weapons can quickly use it up Magnetic shielding protects against EMP's so long as it completely surrounds the system it is protecting, meaning that any large enough gaps will make that shielding ineffective Energized armor is armor that is strengthened by a stored electrical charge, meaning that it will sustain all damage thrown at it by drawing on the charge of energized armor connected to it (the more damaging the projectile, the larger the area drawn from), weakening itself and the armor from which the charge was drawn from until becoming a very weak solid armor Deflector shields are dome shaped shields that block all types of incoming damage at the cost of a lot of energy for every impact, meaning that large kinetic weapons do additional damage, whereas smaller weapons deal less Absorbing shields nullify energy based damage (lasers and plasma) and conform to the shape of the object they are protecting, effectively reducing the overall damage of energy based weapons at the cost of a constant stream of energy scaled with the percentage of damage nullified Self mending armor draws on a ship's power to mend itself (up to a fixed rate of health regained per second) and is otherwise a slightly less powerful solid armor Tesla weapons fire arks of electricity that, while not so useful against enclosed ships, will devastate unprotected electronics and personnel Feel free to point out any flaws with this and share your own ideas on what features space combat should have.  

Let me start by saying that I'm very excited about this game, I've backed it from day 1 of the Kickstarter, and I've been promoting it to everyone who will listen ever since. I very much want this project to succeed.
 
That being said, the idea that PvP might not be included in the launch of the game is a very serious negative for me and any other player whose main gameplay in MMOs is PvP. I have no doubt that such an absence of combat will turn off a lot of people just on principal. Building games are all well and good, but DU isn't setting out to be a prettier Minecraft, or a PvE-only Space Engineers. If DU wants to be, as the Devs say, "the next best Sci-Fi MMORPG" then it cannot launch without a combat system.
 
For example: I can run around for hours in The Witcher 3 just playing Gwent and exploring because those are all fun and enjoyable experiences; but if the game didn't have combat in it I never would have bought it in the first place, because combat is an essential part of every RPG. The fate of Dual Universe will largely hinge on the review scores it receives at launch, and if there is no combat then you can bet that every single one of those reviews will reflect strongly on that absence. You do not get a second chance at a first impression, and DU's first impression can't be as another half-baked, all-promise-no-delivery No Mans Sky clone.
 
It's not good enough for combat to show up "eventually", it has to be there at launch, and it has to be at least decent. Just thinking of the 100 or so people in my EVE corp, it wont matter how good the game is; if there's no combat they won't even give it a second look.
 
I want this game to succeed too much to ignore what I consider to be a failure-inducing design decision.
 
Thoughts?

Here are all the things I'd like to see on the battlefields of Dual Universe, whether in space or at your base.
 
-Weapons- 
Cannons Lasers Missiles Mines Flak Electromagnetic Pulses (including ion cannons) Railguns Plasma  Rockets Corrosive Cryo Bombs Tesla -Defenses-
Solid Armor Reactive Armor Magnetic Shielding Energized Armor Deflector Shields Absorbing Shields Stealth Self Mending Armor -Mechanics-
Cannons require ammo and are versatile yet slightly less powerful than more specialized weapons, coming in all shapes and sizes from automatic rifle caliber guns to large mortars Lasers require a constant input of energy and deal scaled damage over time with energy consumption, distance from the target lessens the effectiveness of the laser and absorbing shields will almost completely nullify it, however any light craft will be devastated by lasers Missiles require more materials to produce and can be intercepted, however they are able to home in on enemies, deal a lot of damage, and be filled with different lethal ingredients Mines are multipurpose bombs left in space or on a surface that can be used for ambush of an enemy, defense against projectiles, drones, fighters, or even restricting the movement of an enemy, the only downside to mines being that they sacrifice other factors for utility such as cost or movement Flak are a subclass of cannon that is more costly for the ability to explode and still deal damage to nearby targets EMP's effectively take the form of any weapon that is capable of disabling a ship's systems if they are unprotected, however, they take a lot of power to fire when emitted directly from the ship (in the form of an ion cannon), the advantage there being that they cannot be intercepted Railguns take a lot of energy and a solid slug to punch through multiple layers of armor and do critical damage in a thin straight line Plasma cannons accelerate a magnetically contained packet of super heated gas that bursts on contact, melting everything it touches, but coming at the cost of a significant amount of energy Rockets are unguided missiles that are cheaper and capable of packing a larger punch than missiles Corrosive elements can be added to any container of explosives for a less powerful explosion but a constant stream of damage over time Cryo weapons work by filling a container with an extremely cold gas and dispersing it into small fissures in hard metals, causing them to become brittle and freeze up mechanical systems, allowing a followup shot of sufficient force to shatter the material, the trade off being that cryo weapons on their own do next to no damage Bombs are powerful explosives that are cheap to produce and only work with the presence of gravity Solid armor is extremely effective against smaller caliber weapons and lasers while not being that effective against piercing, explosive, corrosive, cryo, or melting weapons, with stronger armor materials allowing for higher defense against larger projectiles Reactive armor is extremely effective against explosive and kinetic weapons but is partially used up in the process, allowing a few hits to be absorbed fully before becoming ineffective, meaning that lasers and high fire rate weapons can quickly use it up Magnetic shielding protects against EMP's so long as it completely surrounds the system it is protecting, meaning that any large enough gaps will make that shielding ineffective Energized armor is armor that is strengthened by a stored electrical charge, meaning that it will sustain all damage thrown at it by drawing on the charge of energized armor connected to it (the more damaging the projectile, the larger the area drawn from), weakening itself and the armor from which the charge was drawn from until becoming a very weak solid armor Deflector shields are dome shaped shields that block all types of incoming damage at the cost of a lot of energy for every impact, meaning that large kinetic weapons do additional damage, whereas smaller weapons deal less Absorbing shields nullify energy based damage (lasers and plasma) and conform to the shape of the object they are protecting, effectively reducing the overall damage of energy based weapons at the cost of a constant stream of energy scaled with the percentage of damage nullified Self mending armor draws on a ship's power to mend itself (up to a fixed rate of health regained per second) and is otherwise a slightly less powerful solid armor Tesla weapons fire arks of electricity that, while not so useful against enclosed ships, will devastate unprotected electronics and personnel Feel free to point out any flaws with this and share your own ideas on what features space combat should have.  

The problem with ark weapons is that electrical currents caused by lightning only travel along the outside of surfaces that they touch. Basically they just don't harm ships in space, however I could see them being added as an anti-infantry weapon and for overloading energized armor. The other problem with them is the immense energy requirements, but hey it's Sci-fi so who cares.
 
Tesla weapons are now on the list.

How about this. Instead of logging out in cryotubes/beds, you set them as your log in point. You may not log into the game inside them, but next to them. That way you can log out where ever. On a ship or planet. You would only need one per ship/base or what have you. I think this would have the most benefit for most situations. You wouldn't have to worry about your ragdoll falling through structures, or have to worry about building around you or digging a hole under you. As well as not allowing travel between them, as you would need for it to scan your "DNA" so to speak, so you can spawn there on log in.
 
BUT, there needs to be things to prevent abuse, like you would need to be logged out for a certain amount of time before it took effect. Also, maybe you can only have a limited number of inventory items on you. Unless its a lost connection type of thing maybe? Also, if you are tagged for combat, maybe you drop most of your inventory if you combat log, or you log into a different, maybe random location. Maybe combat logging is ragdoll?
 
As soon as I got the idea, the ways to abuse immediately came to mind, lol. So, my idea would HAVE to have ways to prevent abuse. 

Well, if they want to go realistic then the laser/energy weapons would have a limited lethal range. Lasers suffer from the divergence of the beam, so after awhile the power of the laser is spread over a larger area. The loss of power concentration makes it less dangerous after a certain point, so that could be a way the devs choose to limit the range of a laser/energy weapon.

If this feature is at all possible I'd love to see it. Perhaps a simplified version would be making the entire system precalculate it's stats, become one object with said stats, and scale them down with the total damage taken regardless of which component was hit. Basically dumbing it down to the point of least performance loss.

You can thank me for that idea   To expand on what was just said I will add to it that this could make galactic E-Sports a thing WITHIN a game. Virtual reality can also serve the function of any other wacky mini game that just wouldn't make sense in the main universe. The game itself is one giant story that every player gets to take part in. The more it feels like a second life the better.
 
 
I think bounty would make a great mechanic to counter people who like to be mean for no reason. 

This sounds right. I love the idea of non-permanent safe zones which can still be taken down but will otherwise deactivate any player vs. player mechanics. This makes a lot of sense as major cities will be able to ensure their own safety unless a war were to emerge which afflicted that city. It'll be much like a major event which affects a large number of people can bypass anti-troll/griefer mechanics for the sake of roleplayers. 

You can thank me for that idea   To expand on what was just said I will add to it that this could make galactic E-Sports a thing WITHIN a game. Virtual reality can also serve the function of any other wacky mini game that just wouldn't make sense in the main universe. The game itself is one giant story that every player gets to take part in. The more it feels like a second life the better.
 
 
I think bounty would make a great mechanic to counter people who like to be mean for no reason. 

Anyone get thoughts of the Flood from Halo when they read this? 
 
 
Because I certainly did.

i dont think there should be skyboxes, as someone already said, the sky isnt colorful, and most pictures of nebular are colored after they were taken because they just don't emit light in the visible spectrum.
I do hope we will have some nebular to actually explore them and thus see them in the night sky, but i wouldn'twant artifical textures of things that aren't present.

indeed I don't think there should be 1 starting "city"  FF11 and 14 both have 3 starting cities which also provides some faction loyalty.  In Dual there could be a large number.
 
If you had a way for old starting worlds which have been depopulated as people moved on to new worlds to cease being starter worlds and decay back to wild world... perhaps now with ruins of the past civilization... and player drive creation of new starter worlds... that would ensure new players are always popping into the area where the action they crave is.

Indestructible safe zones in the main world space are nightmares for any player that likes role playing or fighting. Destructible things are just a must for any continuous story to thrive with empires falling and new ones rising in their place. That's one of the reasons Halo has such a good story line, the UNSC lose countless battles that actually felt impactful. Entire planets were glassed, monuments destroyed, and lives lost in the age old conflict between the Humans and Covenant. Other great stories and games alike use the destruction of major monuments to give a sense of desperation and awe in the eyes of the audience. The one thing that completely screws this up is when said monuments are indestructible for the lone reason that a creator doesn't want to lose his or her precious work. This completely shatters the experience for any player who doesn't like to just look at something without any form of interaction. In order to make something matter in the role playing world things cannot be static.
 
As a direct consequence of the above game mechanic, Arkification Tokens are put out of the question. They are barriers to the cycle of build, destroy, and rebuild which both fighters and roleplayers thrive on, as well as requiring a multitude of limitations to prevent abuse which almost always decrease immersion.
 
Alien Ruins are something which makes sense lore wise but would also cause a disruption in the cycle.
 
Any truly safe area in the game universe provides a place where players will flock to and also attract griefers and trolls. When there is no challenge that players have to overcome there is usually less incentive for development and more for the abuse of mechanics. The general player base has a low tolerance for people who are abusive, and this causes people to find creative ways to protect themselves, given the right tools, so in other words development counters abuse, and abuse encourages development when the tools for such development are provided. The kinds of development I'm talking about are security organizations, police forces, and security systems that can all be created by players, meaning more immersion, player interaction, and less need for developer intervention. A truly player driven MMORPG.
 
The builders still need a safe place to build, and that's where Virtual Simulators come in real handy. Virtual Simulation fits perfectly with immersion and provides no barriers to the cycle, as it doesn't actually affect the universe apart from providing blueprints, which boost economic growth, player ability, and creation quality for basically everyone.
 
There's a lot you can do with blueprints, and for a game of this type, that could only be positive. Safe zones have to be managed regardless, but virtual spaces are completely controlled by their creator in the first place.

The short answer to that is yes.
 
The long answer to that is here https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/314-devblog-lua-scripting-and-distributed-processing-units-dpus/ 

Congratulations on blowing my mind,
There is much more offered here than what I thought would be available, I can clearly see you all aren't just smart, but genius.
 
I believe when it comes to tag's they are a type of hard-code. Just like if I put a padlock on a door and only tell my best friend the combination. If we lived in a world without bolt cutters, nobody would be able to break the the lock. It all depends on if there will be a mechanic to bust into something, bypass the law, or even 'hack' a terminal.
 
I will also need to spend some time wrapping my mind around whats here and using some predictive analysis to write a post to help people structure their organisations.

I had pretty much the same question.  Computerised locking mechanisms and vehicle controls automatically becoming unresponsive makes sense, although I do believe there should be some scalable, non-trivial means available to "hack" such systems.  Besides that, a payment not being rendered should flag up a warning and nothing else.  To use the dev blog's real world example; if a citizen of a country decides to break a law, there is nothing stopping her/him from doing so.  She/he can break the law.  It is up to law enforcement or other citizens to a) notice that a law was broken, discover who broke the law, and then c) bring the perpetrator to justice.  I think this kind of freedom allows for more emergent gameplay.
 
Regarding the system of roles, duties, management outlined in the blog; it all sounds incredibly well thought out and in keeping with the sandbox mentality.  Would this same system be used for short term contracts as well as long term contracts and internal politics?  Like a payment being released from entity A to entity B once an entity B fulfils some task?

I'm glad so much time is being put into the organization system/ guild system/Rights system. I think this is a key factor that if done correctly could make this game great. One question though will these tags be rigidly enforced by codes inside of the actually game, or will it be up to the player to police these tags and make sure that people are not where they shouldn't be.

I'll be interested in learning much more about the safe zones as time goes on, and I am in split mind concerning them. Personally, I believe some things should be protected. Much like in the real world, we pretty much have safe zones. Any major city in a western nation is a safe zone to the degree that it is protected (or should be). Most nations are particularly protective of their airspace for this reason. For a civilisation to thrive, which it will need to do so in Dual Universe, there has to be safe zones for things to be built and stay built. 
 
On the other hand, there is a lot of motivation in fighting to defend your home, or your city, or whatever it is you've built, and keep it safe from potential invaders. I guess this is where guilds and organisations come in. Perhaps alliance will be forged to protect each others interests, but not everyone will be in a guild, and not everyone wants to PvP. 
 
Some roleplayers will appreciate full destructive capabilities, others will prefer the town or abode or station they took a long time to build isn't easily open to destruction so that they can continue to roleplay in a way that fits their own desires.

When you die, your will spawn back at wherever the nearest accessible resurrection pod is. That will likely be back at the arkship for quite a while in game. After time, you might make your own pod, maybe on your ship where you died, but that will require huge quantities of resources and power to maintain, plus a potentially significant recharge time for the pod. You will also lose some of your resource inventory likely, due to the differences in the other multi dimensional self that was resurrected.
 
But my main point: Once you are dead, it is very likely that whoever killed you will likely scavenge everything you had at that moment, and the only thing left there of your base and ship will be a few piles of dirt.

Or just leave the entire process of territory taking, holding, and claiming to the players and not have any features that could be potentially limiting.

Stealth systems, or some kind of "silent running" mode, are often depicted in sifi as a kind of tactical art form. For example, in Elite Dangerous, dog fighting while in Silent Running to throw off your opponent's targeting requires a carefully control of heat levels. Meanwhile, in Space Engineers you can build a stealth ship simply by painting it to blend in with the skybox or an asteroid. In The Expanse, stealth ships are covered in an advanced, sensor-resistant composite material. Either way, effective stealth requires skilled engineering and piloting to achieve. 
 
Why not combine all of these aspects in Dual so that stealth is very difficult to achieve (so it is not OP,) but very powerful as a strategic asset.
In my mind there are two kinds of stealth: 
Active - protects from active detection, I.e. bouncing a sensor beam off of your ship.
Passive - protects from passive detection, I.e. emissions by your ship that could be detected.
 
Materials
I envision stealth-enhancing hull coatings or plates being lightweight, delicate, and extremely difficult to manufacture. They would also, to fit the balance I am describing, not be very effective. 
Stealth materials would do two major things:
First, they would partially absorb active scans, reducing your sensor signature.
Second, they would reduce the amount of heat radiated into space by your hull.
 
Camouflage
Simply painting your ship to blend into a given environment. Perhaps some kind of adaptive coating could be possible, that changes to blend in with different surroundings as needed. Also, fewer windows.
Reduces chance of visual detection at extreme close range.
 
Hull design
Designing a ship's hull to have as small a profile and conceal it's drive plume as much as possible. Placement of thrusters and radiators to minimize unnecessary emissions.
Makes the ship a smaller target and thus a smaller blip on sensors.
Reduces thermal signature and reduces the angle you must thrust at relative to a target to avoid detection.
 
These are just a few basic concepts to make stealth possible but challenging: an art form for sneaky pilots. 
 
Thoughts?
 

Yes, I would certainly agree. The Arkship Secure Area should be the only indestructible safe zone, because since emergent gameplay is a huge part of the game, I think many would like to see the natural rise and fall and taking and grabbing of land and territory. With the ability to Arkify areas, this just renders certain areas excluded from the entire system of territory control.

I understand your reasoning behind this, as I have 16+ years of experience playing MMO's and have certainly grown tired of dealing with problem players that bring very little to the game. Personally though, I do not feel that your suggestion would fit well within this sort of game, as part of playing an MMO is being immersed in a world with thousands of other players and personalities. It is an interesting concept to propose though, so kudos for trying to think outside the box. I don't think it really brings RTS playstyles into the game, but as some mentioned each person having their own starting planet would make many things like bringing your organization's people together much tougher.

What I mean by entities is literally bullet spam to the point of ludicrousness in FTD. I have made a capital ship with 8 CWIS systems firing 3000rpm. Plus 20 secondary batteries and 12 main battery guns, this results in roughly 25000 entities. Plus the 200000 blocks of the ship. This tanks my frame rate from (capped) 60fps to 15fps. The 12 engines (spread across multiple sections for redundancy and space efficiency) plus 45 multi block weapons systems and the multi block laser anti missile system totalling roughly 75000 blocks don't cause a notable performance loss.
This is because each system is built around a central (programming wise, not positioning wise) control block, witch calculates what the system does based on the attached blocks. The blocks themselves just check wether they are functioning (not destroyed, attached to the right thing, etc.) and if they are connected to a control block. This way, of the 75000 blocks in the MBSs, only 58 are doing any significantly taxing calculations. The rest are just doing health checks and attachment checks like all blocks on the craft. In FTB all of the blocks are doing taxing calculations. So you may only have 200 blocks of machines, but all of them are doing calculations, rather than the 58 on my 200000 block ship.