Knight-Sevy

I didn't expect my topic to make the discussion last so long and address all these different subjects (which remain very interesting, so continue).
 
I hope that NQ's next project will completely detach itself from the "emergent gameplay" side or the metaverse.

They proved that they were completely incompetent, not on the technique, which I cannot judge, but on the very principle of this operating system.
 
Jean-Christophe Baillie, even if he certainly had a huge share of responsibility in the failure of the project, was the person who had the vision that corresponded to the reality of what emergent gameplay should be.
 
I will have for proof of it the multiple DevBlog edited years ago with mechanics described in detail and more than deepened. Nothing was respected.
 
And here we are before this bitter failure.
 
BUT 2023 seems to be a good year for MMOs, there are new projects with veterans coming out. Maybe elsewhere, a vision close to that of JC will hatch on another theme.

I didn't expect my topic to make the discussion last so long and address all these different subjects (which remain very interesting, so continue).
 
I hope that NQ's next project will completely detach itself from the "emergent gameplay" side or the metaverse.

They proved that they were completely incompetent, not on the technique, which I cannot judge, but on the very principle of this operating system.
 
Jean-Christophe Baillie, even if he certainly had a huge share of responsibility in the failure of the project, was the person who had the vision that corresponded to the reality of what emergent gameplay should be.
 
I will have for proof of it the multiple DevBlog edited years ago with mechanics described in detail and more than deepened. Nothing was respected.
 
And here we are before this bitter failure.
 
BUT 2023 seems to be a good year for MMOs, there are new projects with veterans coming out. Maybe elsewhere, a vision close to that of JC will hatch on another theme.

I take a few moments to inform (if whoever is interested in the information) that I am suspending the subscription of another of my alt accounts.
 
I had already suspended one of my 3 accounts, I had made the feedback on the PTS during the update and the highly insufficient balancing of the PvP. This was the reaction to the still haughty and disdainful behavior of the Chief Game Designer at Novaquark towards his community (in this case PvP).
 
The additional blow in the back leading me to delete the subscription of another account, is the fact that NQ allowed the bug exploit to occur allowing a group of players to remove a beacon while it was submitted to the seat mechanics. This is simply unacceptable and disgusting to the highest degree.
 
The icing on the cake is the disastrous communication regarding April 1st. I usually have enough humor for this sort of thing, but I couldn't help but cringe.
You could have at least had the presence of mind to teaser (however minimal) your new PvE features.
 
This post is not for free bashing. I just wanted to share as an adult and in all honesty my current feelings.
 
Indeed I always keep an account that retains access to the game.
But I have little hope left.

The beacon exploit thing reminds me of the time when they gave everyone cheap schematics in beta and just let them keep them  because taking them back was too hard.
 
I mean, it should be really obvious that this was dodgy and really easy to find where the beacon went.  It's not like there are many of them in the game.  And surely it should be really easy to see who ran the maintenance unit on there.
 
This is not just going to go away, everyone will remember that the second strongest PvP group in the game cheated to avoid losing the most expensive item in the game and NQ just let them get away with it, just like they let people keep all those schematics.
 
Of course looking back at the schematic thing now it seems fairly obvious that they had already decided to wipe the game and were therefore only prepared to go so far to keep things running.  It makes me wonder what decisions they have made about the current game if they won't put in the effort to take that beacon back?  It's a far cry from the NQ in the first month of release swinging the ban hammer for exploits ....

First of all, before advising you on a ship that can defend you, I will extrapolate the threat against which you wish to defend yourself.
 
I'm going to assume that you come across 2 experienced PvP players. These 2 players with access to Geforce.
The best PvP ship to date is hands down the S core double gunner rail gun + cannon.
This is really the most unfavorable case, very often you will encounter less disadvantageous match ups (or bad luck an entire fleet that comes to undermine it by chance).
 
If you are less experienced and less armed, I would advise you for your mining session to start with 3 people.
It is indeed an MMO and if you want to engage in battle and win, you have to be in a group.
 
With 3 single gunner ships, you will have less firepower, but will gain in maneuverability and overall resistance of your fleet (3 shields vs 2 for your opponents).
 
Here are the kind of ships that I can recommend for a fight:
6 Rare precision cannon S
2 Ammo containers
4 Advanced freight L space engine
2 Space Fueltank M
1 Rare Shield M
 
If you don't want to go through the design phase here is a BP vendor:
https://du-creators.org/makers/SNS Sentinels/ship/Saber
The buff of a ship created by them is free. This will make up for part of your lack of PvP handling talent.
 
If you still want to make your own ship, they sell their buff price, find out on the discord.
 
=> Now that you have gathered your friends, built your ships, let's talk about some tips that could allow you to win a fight:
 
- Bring a container dock on your ship. In case of aggression you can separate from it and will not be handicapped by your farming

- Always have someone to watch while you mine

- Training is important. Overall players who do not practice PvP like to shout that because it is not FPS and only lock and fire, that the game does not require any player skills.
This is totally false, regularly we have PvP confrontations where victories are won at 1 against 2 or even 1 against 3 with almost identical ships. Piloting is really not to be neglected.
 
That's a lot of information to consider. There's more to see, but you can start working your way from here. You are already in the 20% of players able to take advantage of most of your encounters in PvP Zone.

PS : 
There is a fairly comprehensive public google doc on PvP. The information is quite relevant but it may be too specific if you are a complete beginner.
 
PS 2: Maybe you and your friends will have to put on the face with cheap XS ships just to understand the pressure of combat, movement and the use of weapons.

The HP voxel increase is fine.
 
But that's still not enough.
 
I'm keeping my subscription renewal off until you offer an alternative to voxelless ships.
 
=> To recall the question is:
- What are the means that the game gives me to kill a ship moving faster than mine?
(With the shield the ship without voxel flees then returns to the fight, which a ship with voxel cannot do).
 
Shields have been the addition that will destroy your games if you continue to ignore your community's request to balance them.
 
Maybe think about adding a tractor beam or something like that. We must have at our disposal an inverse mechanics of the stasis.

The HP voxel increase is fine.
 
But that's still not enough.
 
I'm keeping my subscription renewal off until you offer an alternative to voxelless ships.
 
=> To recall the question is:
- What are the means that the game gives me to kill a ship moving faster than mine?
(With the shield the ship without voxel flees then returns to the fight, which a ship with voxel cannot do).
 
Shields have been the addition that will destroy your games if you continue to ignore your community's request to balance them.
 
Maybe think about adding a tractor beam or something like that. We must have at our disposal an inverse mechanics of the stasis.

Hello, everyone! I'm Mark van den Heuvel, known to many of you as NQ-Deckard, a member of the Production team here at Novaquark.
 
First, to those of you who celebrated your new year recently, I wish you a wonderful new year, and I look forward to seeing all of your creations in-game. As we step into 2023, I want to bring you all up to speed on where we're at with Dual Universe and where we are going.
 
After our launch last September, we have all worked hard to squash remaining bugs and improve balancing. We also delivered the promised digital Kickstarter rewards to our backers.
 
As is always the case with Dual Universe, work does create itself in front of us, and we have a great deal to work on and improve. One of our current central goals is to enhance the gameplay experience and catch up with some features and quality-of-life improvements, particularly some of those requested by our community.
 
Let me walk you through some of what we have planned for you both soon and further down the road.
 
Planets

We’ve recently released a new version of Talemai, and we’re continuing work on the others. After reviewing our progress, we've decided to take extra time to make the new planets truly feel different with new art, new terrain, and more exciting features. This means they are coming at a slower pace and possibly in a different order than we had envisioned. Expect new teasers, concept art, and images from us soon™!

Combat Missions

We had decided early in the life of Dual Universe not to focus on a PvE combat system, given other priorities. With all of the feedback we’ve received since the beginning of the game, PvE combat has consistently remained a highly requested feature from our community. We always try to listen to your feedback, and I’m happy to announce that we have begun work on implementing the first iteration of a PvE combat system into the game!
We’re planning the first version to be a PvE mission system that takes players into combat in their ships. The missions will scale in size to allow all players (solo or part of a larger group) to participate.
 
We’re very excited about the PvE combat feature. It will add more engaging gameplay for all Noveans and allow players to try out the rigors of space combat before heading out to battle with other players in Dual Universe PvP.
 
We are still in the early development of this feature, and it will take time, but we are already looking forward to seeing you all trying it in future PTS sessions. Your feedback will be instrumental in our developing PvE combat in Dual Universe.

PvP Improvements

Following a recent and very successful round table discussion with members of our PvP community, we are reviewing all the feedback gathered and our own data to determine what changes we will make. We are considering increasing the importance and/or requirement of having voxel armor onboard successful PvP ship designs, finding ways to encourage multi-crew ship setups, and potentially restricting the ability to remove cargo while in combat. Stay tuned for more exciting developments on PvP.

Contest Winner Constructs

Before launch, we ran the Build Your Legacy Contest for players to design starting outposts and speeders, with the winning entries being added to Dual Universe. We are currently working to make the constructs that the contest winners submitted available as options to select during the first start of the game, and we are also looking to make these available for purchase in the UEF shop. The contest entries were original and impressive. I want to congratulate all of you who took part. 

Maintenance Unit

A complete rework of the repair unit was planned for the 1.2 release just before the holidays. The feature still needed more work, and we decided to delay its release with plans to include it in the upcoming 1.3 update. When finished, the repair unit will be replaced with the maintenance unit, which can repair constructs with scrap and disassemble constructs. However, construct disassembly is the feature that still requires the most work, and we are determining if the feature will make it into the 1.3 release. When added, this feature will remove the pain of finding that one last bit of voxel in a construct and make redesigning builds easier, with the Maintenance Unit taking down constructs for you.

Joystick Support

Dual Universe already has a basic system to connect joysticks to the game. However, these were never cohesively connected with the Lua system. We will change that, allowing players to map analog and button inputs from Joysticks, Throttles, Pedals, and even simple Gamepads into Dual Universe. This will significantly improve the flying experience for non-Lua developing players and open new doors for Lua developers through projects such as Lua arcade games, custom flight control systems, and other nifty things our community creates.

Default Lua Configuration Rework

Once we’ve added Joystick support, we will redesign the default Lua scripts we give to players. Our community has long requested this update, and we want to ensure we deliver it. We will add a full suite of features and improvements. This means new Lua flight control systems, the ability to toggle widgets on and off without requiring Lua code, and integrating several systems not fully encapsulated in current control scripts, such as Anti-Gravity Generators.

Fuel Intake Changes

This has been a popular demand by our players, and we are looking into options to allow players to refuel tanks from another element. Currently, we plan to make a  'Fuel Intake' able to act as a proxy for a single fuel tank. This feature is still on the drawing board and may change as we dive deeper into it.
 
-------------------------------------------

As always, thank you for reading this short overview of some of what’s coming up. I hope you have a clearer picture of the direction we're taking Dual Universe in, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the forums. Have a wonderful day.
- Mark (NQ-Deckard)
 

The Battle of the New Year

With the recent patch NQ added two space resource spots into the game. These resource spots can be mined for the most valuable resources in the game. The building blocks for powerful exotic elements, weapons, and even warp beacons. Each of these space resource spots is worth billions to the organization that owns them.

In the current state of DU power struggle, there are only two real superpowers. Legion, a pvp alliance formed from the ashes of the beta alliance AC and Lodestar, a large coalition of multiple organizations bounded together to fight the threat that Legion poses.

In the opening days of the patch there were some back-and-forth battles for control of the alien cores with Lodestar eventually claiming them and holding them for weeks. After constant harassment over the holiday season Legion was finally ready to make its move. Legion reinforced the alien cores which put the cores into invulnerability until a time chosen by the defending owner. The first of the cores coming out at 00:43 utc new years day. This Video is of this battle.

The battle of the New year ended up being one of the best fleet fights I have ever been in. The back and forth and strategies both sides use were evolving and the skills of the pilots evolving even mid-battle led to an intense battle and one for the history books. Legion ended up retaking the alien cores for now. Good fight to Lodestar and I hope to have many more battles to come!
 
 

NQ, where is my warfare ?



NQ, where is my giant battleship ?



NQ, where is my battles for the control of the Territory ?

This is on the right track.

I hope to be able to tease you the update 1.3 with the management and the attribution of the energy :



 
I am joking.
 
I hope to see quickly what it will look like in NQ version

This is on the right track.

I hope to be able to tease you the update 1.3 with the management and the attribution of the energy :



 
I am joking.
 
I hope to see quickly what it will look like in NQ version

Here is what the ChatGPT AI has to say when asked.
 

I take advantage of the creation of this section to quickly resume some advice that I recently gave on another subject.
 
This is not a complete step-by-step guide. But a reminder of a set of safety rules.
=> If you want to transgress even a single point, be careful, it may be this one that will make the difference between your death or your success.

- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. 
It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.

- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a full space ship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.

- Don't bring your home with you ! Granny's porcelain dishes should stay safe at Haven.

- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.

- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.

- Do not keep your DSAT on your mining vessel. Discover the asteroid and come back with a ship without this DSAT.

- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)

- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Loot => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.

- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.

- Try not to take any "pipe" road on the way back

- Do not dig to bury and hide your ships. All construction remains visible to radar and can be destroyed. You are not Han Solo in star wars.

----------------------------------------------

If now you want to defend yourself during an attack and not use a "disposable" ship.

- The first : Arm yourself and go there with friends Don't Go PvP Alone If You're Inexperienced

- Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the radar all the time

- Use 1 ships for 1 player

- Respect the PvP meta of the game (we may have the opportunity to talk about it clearly in dedicated threads).

- Use force respawn on a resurection node to quickly return to your ship when needed.

- Use a dedicated ship to pick up the containers you will excort or separate the ores on all the ships.

---------------------------------------------------

If I think of anything else I will complete.

I take advantage of the creation of this section to quickly resume some advice that I recently gave on another subject.
 
This is not a complete step-by-step guide. But a reminder of a set of safety rules.
=> If you want to transgress even a single point, be careful, it may be this one that will make the difference between your death or your success.

- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. 
It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.

- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a full space ship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.

- Don't bring your home with you ! Granny's porcelain dishes should stay safe at Haven.

- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.

- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.

- Do not keep your DSAT on your mining vessel. Discover the asteroid and come back with a ship without this DSAT.

- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)

- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Loot => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.

- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.

- Try not to take any "pipe" road on the way back

- Do not dig to bury and hide your ships. All construction remains visible to radar and can be destroyed. You are not Han Solo in star wars.

----------------------------------------------

If now you want to defend yourself during an attack and not use a "disposable" ship.

- The first : Arm yourself and go there with friends Don't Go PvP Alone If You're Inexperienced

- Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the radar all the time

- Use 1 ships for 1 player

- Respect the PvP meta of the game (we may have the opportunity to talk about it clearly in dedicated threads).

- Use force respawn on a resurection node to quickly return to your ship when needed.

- Use a dedicated ship to pick up the containers you will excort or separate the ores on all the ships.

---------------------------------------------------

If I think of anything else I will complete.

https://www.du-killboard.com

This uses the honor system, if you are making KILLS and want your org listed message me. 

Please add some scrap (Tier depending on the item tier, maybe randomly 2-5% of the used pures worth) to the items you get from recycling, as it is now its pretty much useless. If we could get some scrap besides the random part, then recycling would have its uses in case of crashes or if you escape pvp but have serious damages and need to repair some essential systems. If you could do that then the recycle system would be pretty useful.
 
(And let us stack elements with the same number of lives, as your streamer yesterday expected it to be, no one wants to right-click -> recycle a few hundred times)

I take advantage of the creation of this section to quickly resume some advice that I recently gave on another subject.
 
This is not a complete step-by-step guide. But a reminder of a set of safety rules.
=> If you want to transgress even a single point, be careful, it may be this one that will make the difference between your death or your success.

- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. 
It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.

- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a full space ship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.

- Don't bring your home with you ! Granny's porcelain dishes should stay safe at Haven.

- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.

- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.

- Do not keep your DSAT on your mining vessel. Discover the asteroid and come back with a ship without this DSAT.

- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)

- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Loot => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.

- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.

- Try not to take any "pipe" road on the way back

- Do not dig to bury and hide your ships. All construction remains visible to radar and can be destroyed. You are not Han Solo in star wars.

----------------------------------------------

If now you want to defend yourself during an attack and not use a "disposable" ship.

- The first : Arm yourself and go there with friends Don't Go PvP Alone If You're Inexperienced

- Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the radar all the time

- Use 1 ships for 1 player

- Respect the PvP meta of the game (we may have the opportunity to talk about it clearly in dedicated threads).

- Use force respawn on a resurection node to quickly return to your ship when needed.

- Use a dedicated ship to pick up the containers you will excort or separate the ores on all the ships.

---------------------------------------------------

If I think of anything else I will complete.

Lets assume we are talking only about Basic Space Engine L.  This applies to all but I want to make it simple.
 
I have these items below....
 
30x Basic Space Engine L - New
30x Basic Space Engine L - 2 of 3 lives remaining
30x Basic Space Engine L - 1 of 3 lives remaining
 
I now have 61 slots in a container taken up.  
 
Can we please get the ability to stack parts with equal lives remaining and instead just have 3 slots taken up?   This has an effect on being able to use dispensers as well since I would have to reset the dispenser for each individual element as opposed to using 3 separate dispenser to dispense a part with equal amount of life left.

Look what I got
I've got a jar of dirt

I take advantage of the creation of this section to quickly resume some advice that I recently gave on another subject.
 
This is not a complete step-by-step guide. But a reminder of a set of safety rules.
=> If you want to transgress even a single point, be careful, it may be this one that will make the difference between your death or your success.

- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. 
It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.

- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a full space ship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.

- Don't bring your home with you ! Granny's porcelain dishes should stay safe at Haven.

- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.

- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.

- Do not keep your DSAT on your mining vessel. Discover the asteroid and come back with a ship without this DSAT.

- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)

- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Loot => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.

- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.

- Try not to take any "pipe" road on the way back

- Do not dig to bury and hide your ships. All construction remains visible to radar and can be destroyed. You are not Han Solo in star wars.

----------------------------------------------

If now you want to defend yourself during an attack and not use a "disposable" ship.

- The first : Arm yourself and go there with friends Don't Go PvP Alone If You're Inexperienced

- Somebody's gotta keep an eye on the radar all the time

- Use 1 ships for 1 player

- Respect the PvP meta of the game (we may have the opportunity to talk about it clearly in dedicated threads).

- Use force respawn on a resurection node to quickly return to your ship when needed.

- Use a dedicated ship to pick up the containers you will excort or separate the ores on all the ships.

---------------------------------------------------

If I think of anything else I will complete.

You will never be completely safe.

But with a few basic recommendations, you can get by:
 
- For your first outing use a small ship and tell yourself that you will die with it. It will force you to use some things that you can lose and since the mourning of this ship is already done, it will affect you less if it really happens.
 
- Always to reduce the price of a possible loss, asteroids are in space, only go there with a complete spaceship (no hybrid/atmo ship). You can also use pieces that have already lost 1 life.
 
- Do not be too greedy, limit your mining time.
 
- Do the astroids 1 by 1. Looter => Go home
Do not chain asteroids one after another.
 
- Try not to take any road on the way back
 
- Don't go to the biggest roid (exotic/rare)
 
- You can discover a roid, but don't mine it, come back later in the week.
 
- You can already go to an asteroid discovered several days ago.
 
- Arm yourself and go there with friends

Let me answer you again ^^

Multiple reports of over a 1000 scans being needed to find T2+...
- When the game was launched, I scanned several planets.
I did about 50 scans on each (about 4h of scans). I stop after finding 3 flowers of T2 and 2 flowers of T3.
There is a technique to learn to scan effectively.
=> Now it's easier: go next to a player's flower and scan next to it: you will find T2.

Safe zone Roids being mobbed by 26+ ships with 75 minutes left before being "Discovered" (during the weekday, weekends must be worse)
- They are safe zone asteroids: low risk = low reward

High risk of being ganked if you try an mine other Roids with just a couple of people and no PVP protection pilots.
- It's an MMO, with 2 or 3 players you can effectively defend yourself against a single pirate.
Of course bad luck if you're on the same asteroids as an entire organization. But this scenario is very rare.
The pirates are often all alone and in rare cases with 2. More people makes the hunt not profitable at all.

Shields that don't protect you, just reduce the damage taken (? based on description ? Rather unclear about that)
- Shields don't make you immortal.
They can take a certain amount of damage and then deactivate.
M shields have 5M HP, L shields 10M. You must also be present to correctly set the resistances according to the weapons that your opponent uses on you.
To be invulnerable you would need to land a station and use a station shield. But be careful, enemies can come and besiege your construct and this will create a window of vulnerability.

Mass based speed limits that guarantee a ganker can close on a loaded hauler. 
- You need a mining ship and an escort.
Or distribute the mining over several ships.

Seems like we are forced to have someone man guns to fend off lone raiders, and hope that we can sting raiding packs before they inevitably kill us.
- Arming yourself is indeed the best defense against a lone raider.
Go out with your friends and with multiple ships, someone keeps an eye on the radar. If a threat arrives that you cannot fight: separate.
They can't kill everyone.

Wondering if there is a Universe Patrol org that focuses on hunting down raiders and killing them, repeatedly???
- These people need to be funded by PvE players if they want to be protected.
Legion (full PvP aliancy) was created because the totally PvE organizations of the old Ascendancy alliance did not wish to participate in the financing of the protection of their armed forces.

If so, what do their ships look like?  e.g.  Is there a difference between a ganker ship and a anti-ganker ship?
- PvP ships are almost all alike. You can come to the "SNS main Base" to see what a fleet looks like.
Quickly: 6 S cannons, 4 L freight engines and the rest of the basic elements of a ship.
Oh also we sell PvP Meta ship BPs in our showroom; VR: " SNS Showroom Public DSAT "
https://du-creators.org/makers/SNS Sentinels/ship/Sabre

and who is going to be left to build ship parts for the PVPers after they force us from the game for not being like them?
- As a PvP group we have +500 mining units and we regularly farm on PvP asteroids.
We have a very large industry from T1 to T4 which covers all of our needs.
Large stocks of combat-ready ships, resources, ammunition and fuel. Even if we completely stopped mining and crafting, we would continue to be a threat in the PvP space for many months.
The remaining PvP players will play against other PvP players who enjoy playing the game using all of the gameplay mechanics available to us.

Have a nice day

Is this the pillaging and plundering advice thread?
 
 

Yeah the game has minimal reason/forces that make it profitable to be a "good guy" in pvp. Part of my frustration is you have much more opportunity in game play as a pirate and to make it profitable vs playing pretend space cop. 
 
So its turned into alliance vs alliance, group vs group. I've seen orgs I never thought would pirate(like infinity corp) but as it stands it's the only viable option IMHO if you want to pvp. Almost every org has taken a shoot first ask questions later because the game doesn't offer a better way to identify, hail, and communicate with another ship. 
 
And with the changes to speed its like shooting fish in a barrel with haulers being bigger, and slower... and the meta being S core combat ships to get that speed advantage a hauler will NEVER be able to overcome when you can rig Lua to intercept a craft. 
 
Pirate: hunts fish in barrel, might get in a fight with another pirate that may cause ship loss. Higher chance of escape in a pirate v pirate battle, as both ships will probably be S cores and there is a chance to out maneuver and get break off an engagement.  
 
Police: constantly engaging with pirates in a game with long travel times and nearly impossible to respond to a conflict on a roid.  Resource spend and time sink to locate pirates, and then much higher risk taking down their ship vs a hauler. 
 
I tried being a non pirate pvper in this game, bit it was lame and frustrating... and only did it because of excess resources to burn. Now in release resources are even more scarce, not  worth the effort now, and it wasn't before.