Knight-Sevy

Hi, Entropy

First of all, thank you again for answering in such a complete way on these precise subjects.
Even if we did not necessarily have the same desires, knowing the motivation and orientation of the modifications and additions you make to the game will allow us to be more relevant in our remarks.
I will therefore try to dig into the subject now that I have taken a few days back, and that we have seen the fleets forming and more in-game testing as well.

The objective of this post is not to contradict your vision of the game, but to help you make the necessary changes to make it happen.
Here is the feedback I can give you on the subjects for which you have requested comments.

I would have liked to detail 3 subjects but I did not have time so I will focus on 2 points only.

-----
 

Here is a chart for the speed we need to achieve when spinning around an in-game target to avoid targeting.



It is the calculation of the rope resulting from the angle (tracking of the weapon) and the distance where the target is. I arbitrarily retained 4 values:
- 50km
- 100km
- 200 km (1su)
- 400 km (2su)
The tracking being in deg/s I transformed the distance obtained in m into km/h to make it more meaningful.
 
- The first line is an example for a tracking of 1deg/s
- The second is the value I have on a siege guner with my character (talent at 4)
- The third line is the value of the biggest weapon in the game that should hypothetically have the most difficulty aiming at a target and it is the talentless value to symbolize the worst case.
- The last line is a spin test with an M railgun battleship. In 10 seconds I have time to do a 360 + stabilize my aim on a target.

Remember that the rate of fire of an M railgun is 13 seconds without talent, which leaves a comfortable margin of maneuver to align its target between 2 shots.

Here is also the visual of the rail gun firing cone.
30° cone radius in optimal + 30° cone in fallof.
The further away your target is, the more area you cover to be able to hit it.



Here is a table to symbolize the distances covered by a railgun without the ship needing to move :



With the talents on a weapon we reach a fairly huge coverage, almost 90° without fall off and almost 180° with him and that on a basic weapon without cone bonus and talents not max at lvl5.

(The choice of railgun as an example is arbitrary, this is valid for all weapons, not take this for a nerf/up request.)

Here are the issues raised (in my sole opinion) :
- The penalty linked to the tracking of weapons is valid at very short range.
- Tracking is possible if your opponent is not moving or at low speed
- If you are attacked by an opponent further away than the one you are moving arround, you will not benefit from your speed bonus to avoid shots
- Desynchronization has a strong impact on your positioning and that of your opponent, it opens or closes shooting windows independently of the players' game.
- We still have M or L size combat ships that can do 360° in less than 10 seconds, which still allows near-hand tracking using the adjusters.
 
If your opponent is far from you, the more easily he can kill you.
That's why we think going for the shield is always better. It protects you against several hazards over which your speed has no control.

-----
 

From the first returns, we can see a very large majority of small ships (but based on M or L cores rather than S or XS).
Especially a lot of small ships with an L size shield.
 
Here is a comparison of what we find in game compared to the possibility offered :



 
On the previous meta we were with ships which for the biggest approached 5% of the total construction surface that a builder had the leisure to use.
We went to Athena and now we have M ships that hardly exceed 3% of the cumulative surface of the usable box.
 
There is certainly a lever to exploit on this subject at the level of the nature of the game. The voxel and the voxel construction seems to remain a main pillar of dual universe. We necessarily need small vessels and large vessels. But shouldn't the small ships be on an XS and S core category, and the larger ones on the much more massive M and L cores? (category of vessel damaged from the voxel massive nerve).

-----
 

Just quickly on this subject.
 
I started looking to make a ship with spacing between different elements so as not to lose everything on the first try.
 
The areas of effect and the damage are so important compared to the current resistance of the voxels that even using a full block (so no interior in your ship).
The surface needed to just spread the weapons apart does not compensate (or very little) for the increased chance of hitting given by the cross section.
Since the voxel gives you a weight penalty, we always come back in the case where we seek to maximize the cross section.

 
 
I think you can try without too much risk to improve the defensive aspect of the voxels a little.
You still implanted a triple nerve:
- Significant reduction in voxel HP
- Added CSS
- Weapon DPS buff
 
In my opinion the CSS has a good balance, it will be necessary to look more on the side of the damage of weapons and voxels.
For the voxels maybe not the HP pool, but why not look into the resistor values.

-----
 
I will end with a question.
 
Would you like to have the help of the community for all things HP of the elements?
 
There are a number of elements in play currently with quite unbalanced health points.
 
I know that for the Dev team it must be tedious to review everything and that you certainly have better things to do.
 
Can we help on this subject?
 
I already have a few examples in mind. Like decoration plants having more points than weapons.
Or very heavy armored doors but with less hit points than hatches.

Where are your stuffs ?
Certainly in our containers. We didn't need them but we took them anyway.
NQ didn't develop PvP, but allowed the PvE mob to plunder the possessions of a ton of defenseless players. This is literally grieffing.
Your abandoned belongings weren't even destroyed, they were given away massively to other players.

I don't understand how NQ can not want their former player back so much.
But reassure you, all will be reset to 0 for everyone. In any case, you would never have been able to keep your belongings.

Honestly, I don't see what Dual Universe video content can be released without making the viewer die of boredom.

Honestly, I don't see what Dual Universe video content can be released without making the viewer die of boredom.

Hi, Entropy

First of all, thank you again for answering in such a complete way on these precise subjects.
Even if we did not necessarily have the same desires, knowing the motivation and orientation of the modifications and additions you make to the game will allow us to be more relevant in our remarks.
I will therefore try to dig into the subject now that I have taken a few days back, and that we have seen the fleets forming and more in-game testing as well.

The objective of this post is not to contradict your vision of the game, but to help you make the necessary changes to make it happen.
Here is the feedback I can give you on the subjects for which you have requested comments.

I would have liked to detail 3 subjects but I did not have time so I will focus on 2 points only.

-----
 

Here is a chart for the speed we need to achieve when spinning around an in-game target to avoid targeting.



It is the calculation of the rope resulting from the angle (tracking of the weapon) and the distance where the target is. I arbitrarily retained 4 values:
- 50km
- 100km
- 200 km (1su)
- 400 km (2su)
The tracking being in deg/s I transformed the distance obtained in m into km/h to make it more meaningful.
 
- The first line is an example for a tracking of 1deg/s
- The second is the value I have on a siege guner with my character (talent at 4)
- The third line is the value of the biggest weapon in the game that should hypothetically have the most difficulty aiming at a target and it is the talentless value to symbolize the worst case.
- The last line is a spin test with an M railgun battleship. In 10 seconds I have time to do a 360 + stabilize my aim on a target.

Remember that the rate of fire of an M railgun is 13 seconds without talent, which leaves a comfortable margin of maneuver to align its target between 2 shots.

Here is also the visual of the rail gun firing cone.
30° cone radius in optimal + 30° cone in fallof.
The further away your target is, the more area you cover to be able to hit it.



Here is a table to symbolize the distances covered by a railgun without the ship needing to move :



With the talents on a weapon we reach a fairly huge coverage, almost 90° without fall off and almost 180° with him and that on a basic weapon without cone bonus and talents not max at lvl5.

(The choice of railgun as an example is arbitrary, this is valid for all weapons, not take this for a nerf/up request.)

Here are the issues raised (in my sole opinion) :
- The penalty linked to the tracking of weapons is valid at very short range.
- Tracking is possible if your opponent is not moving or at low speed
- If you are attacked by an opponent further away than the one you are moving arround, you will not benefit from your speed bonus to avoid shots
- Desynchronization has a strong impact on your positioning and that of your opponent, it opens or closes shooting windows independently of the players' game.
- We still have M or L size combat ships that can do 360° in less than 10 seconds, which still allows near-hand tracking using the adjusters.
 
If your opponent is far from you, the more easily he can kill you.
That's why we think going for the shield is always better. It protects you against several hazards over which your speed has no control.

-----
 

From the first returns, we can see a very large majority of small ships (but based on M or L cores rather than S or XS).
Especially a lot of small ships with an L size shield.
 
Here is a comparison of what we find in game compared to the possibility offered :



 
On the previous meta we were with ships which for the biggest approached 5% of the total construction surface that a builder had the leisure to use.
We went to Athena and now we have M ships that hardly exceed 3% of the cumulative surface of the usable box.
 
There is certainly a lever to exploit on this subject at the level of the nature of the game. The voxel and the voxel construction seems to remain a main pillar of dual universe. We necessarily need small vessels and large vessels. But shouldn't the small ships be on an XS and S core category, and the larger ones on the much more massive M and L cores? (category of vessel damaged from the voxel massive nerve).

-----
 

Just quickly on this subject.
 
I started looking to make a ship with spacing between different elements so as not to lose everything on the first try.
 
The areas of effect and the damage are so important compared to the current resistance of the voxels that even using a full block (so no interior in your ship).
The surface needed to just spread the weapons apart does not compensate (or very little) for the increased chance of hitting given by the cross section.
Since the voxel gives you a weight penalty, we always come back in the case where we seek to maximize the cross section.

 
 
I think you can try without too much risk to improve the defensive aspect of the voxels a little.
You still implanted a triple nerve:
- Significant reduction in voxel HP
- Added CSS
- Weapon DPS buff
 
In my opinion the CSS has a good balance, it will be necessary to look more on the side of the damage of weapons and voxels.
For the voxels maybe not the HP pool, but why not look into the resistor values.

-----
 
I will end with a question.
 
Would you like to have the help of the community for all things HP of the elements?
 
There are a number of elements in play currently with quite unbalanced health points.
 
I know that for the Dev team it must be tedious to review everything and that you certainly have better things to do.
 
Can we help on this subject?
 
I already have a few examples in mind. Like decoration plants having more points than weapons.
Or very heavy armored doors but with less hit points than hatches.

Hi, Entropy

First of all, thank you again for answering in such a complete way on these precise subjects.
Even if we did not necessarily have the same desires, knowing the motivation and orientation of the modifications and additions you make to the game will allow us to be more relevant in our remarks.
I will therefore try to dig into the subject now that I have taken a few days back, and that we have seen the fleets forming and more in-game testing as well.

The objective of this post is not to contradict your vision of the game, but to help you make the necessary changes to make it happen.
Here is the feedback I can give you on the subjects for which you have requested comments.

I would have liked to detail 3 subjects but I did not have time so I will focus on 2 points only.

-----
 

Here is a chart for the speed we need to achieve when spinning around an in-game target to avoid targeting.



It is the calculation of the rope resulting from the angle (tracking of the weapon) and the distance where the target is. I arbitrarily retained 4 values:
- 50km
- 100km
- 200 km (1su)
- 400 km (2su)
The tracking being in deg/s I transformed the distance obtained in m into km/h to make it more meaningful.
 
- The first line is an example for a tracking of 1deg/s
- The second is the value I have on a siege guner with my character (talent at 4)
- The third line is the value of the biggest weapon in the game that should hypothetically have the most difficulty aiming at a target and it is the talentless value to symbolize the worst case.
- The last line is a spin test with an M railgun battleship. In 10 seconds I have time to do a 360 + stabilize my aim on a target.

Remember that the rate of fire of an M railgun is 13 seconds without talent, which leaves a comfortable margin of maneuver to align its target between 2 shots.

Here is also the visual of the rail gun firing cone.
30° cone radius in optimal + 30° cone in fallof.
The further away your target is, the more area you cover to be able to hit it.



Here is a table to symbolize the distances covered by a railgun without the ship needing to move :



With the talents on a weapon we reach a fairly huge coverage, almost 90° without fall off and almost 180° with him and that on a basic weapon without cone bonus and talents not max at lvl5.

(The choice of railgun as an example is arbitrary, this is valid for all weapons, not take this for a nerf/up request.)

Here are the issues raised (in my sole opinion) :
- The penalty linked to the tracking of weapons is valid at very short range.
- Tracking is possible if your opponent is not moving or at low speed
- If you are attacked by an opponent further away than the one you are moving arround, you will not benefit from your speed bonus to avoid shots
- Desynchronization has a strong impact on your positioning and that of your opponent, it opens or closes shooting windows independently of the players' game.
- We still have M or L size combat ships that can do 360° in less than 10 seconds, which still allows near-hand tracking using the adjusters.
 
If your opponent is far from you, the more easily he can kill you.
That's why we think going for the shield is always better. It protects you against several hazards over which your speed has no control.

-----
 

From the first returns, we can see a very large majority of small ships (but based on M or L cores rather than S or XS).
Especially a lot of small ships with an L size shield.
 
Here is a comparison of what we find in game compared to the possibility offered :



 
On the previous meta we were with ships which for the biggest approached 5% of the total construction surface that a builder had the leisure to use.
We went to Athena and now we have M ships that hardly exceed 3% of the cumulative surface of the usable box.
 
There is certainly a lever to exploit on this subject at the level of the nature of the game. The voxel and the voxel construction seems to remain a main pillar of dual universe. We necessarily need small vessels and large vessels. But shouldn't the small ships be on an XS and S core category, and the larger ones on the much more massive M and L cores? (category of vessel damaged from the voxel massive nerve).

-----
 

Just quickly on this subject.
 
I started looking to make a ship with spacing between different elements so as not to lose everything on the first try.
 
The areas of effect and the damage are so important compared to the current resistance of the voxels that even using a full block (so no interior in your ship).
The surface needed to just spread the weapons apart does not compensate (or very little) for the increased chance of hitting given by the cross section.
Since the voxel gives you a weight penalty, we always come back in the case where we seek to maximize the cross section.

 
 
I think you can try without too much risk to improve the defensive aspect of the voxels a little.
You still implanted a triple nerve:
- Significant reduction in voxel HP
- Added CSS
- Weapon DPS buff
 
In my opinion the CSS has a good balance, it will be necessary to look more on the side of the damage of weapons and voxels.
For the voxels maybe not the HP pool, but why not look into the resistor values.

-----
 
I will end with a question.
 
Would you like to have the help of the community for all things HP of the elements?
 
There are a number of elements in play currently with quite unbalanced health points.
 
I know that for the Dev team it must be tedious to review everything and that you certainly have better things to do.
 
Can we help on this subject?
 
I already have a few examples in mind. Like decoration plants having more points than weapons.
Or very heavy armored doors but with less hit points than hatches.

I don't completely agree with you.
 
Basically, it's a few interesting things for the gameplay that the radars are exposed.
This can lead to having a repair team to repair this as a priority during a fight. So a possible argument for the multicrew.
 
But on the form, well it's NQ what, it's always disastrous. They never try to sell / explain the slightest thing they do... It's quite desperate.
 
Good story to be constructive for NQ and why this change is badly led / incomplete:
 
1) You can still put your radar entirely in voxels. This completely avoids the principle of exposing your radar
 
2) Item Pool HP is ridiculously low
Voxel HP pools are ridiculously low
Weapon damage is ridiculously high
 
3) This still gives a significant advantage to the ship without voxel and playing only with a shield (their radar will never be in danger)
 
4) The cross section system always destroys all interest in PvP the game. People only use 3 or 5% of the maximum cumulative usable area of a core. It is absurd. Bringing out the radars will not increase the size of the nano ships
 
5) To really bring depth to PvP gameplay, such a change would need to be accompanied by real gameplay features.
You expose the radars to enemy fire, so ok but make sure that for example XS ships can lock these radars during a fight rather than randomly spraying an entire building.

 
In short, this could have been a coherent change with a real strategy for the future of the game.
But right now, I don't feel like there's an future.

I don't completely agree with you.
 
Basically, it's a few interesting things for the gameplay that the radars are exposed.
This can lead to having a repair team to repair this as a priority during a fight. So a possible argument for the multicrew.
 
But on the form, well it's NQ what, it's always disastrous. They never try to sell / explain the slightest thing they do... It's quite desperate.
 
Good story to be constructive for NQ and why this change is badly led / incomplete:
 
1) You can still put your radar entirely in voxels. This completely avoids the principle of exposing your radar
 
2) Item Pool HP is ridiculously low
Voxel HP pools are ridiculously low
Weapon damage is ridiculously high
 
3) This still gives a significant advantage to the ship without voxel and playing only with a shield (their radar will never be in danger)
 
4) The cross section system always destroys all interest in PvP the game. People only use 3 or 5% of the maximum cumulative usable area of a core. It is absurd. Bringing out the radars will not increase the size of the nano ships
 
5) To really bring depth to PvP gameplay, such a change would need to be accompanied by real gameplay features.
You expose the radars to enemy fire, so ok but make sure that for example XS ships can lock these radars during a fight rather than randomly spraying an entire building.

 
In short, this could have been a coherent change with a real strategy for the future of the game.
But right now, I don't feel like there's an future.

I don't completely agree with you.
 
Basically, it's a few interesting things for the gameplay that the radars are exposed.
This can lead to having a repair team to repair this as a priority during a fight. So a possible argument for the multicrew.
 
But on the form, well it's NQ what, it's always disastrous. They never try to sell / explain the slightest thing they do... It's quite desperate.
 
Good story to be constructive for NQ and why this change is badly led / incomplete:
 
1) You can still put your radar entirely in voxels. This completely avoids the principle of exposing your radar
 
2) Item Pool HP is ridiculously low
Voxel HP pools are ridiculously low
Weapon damage is ridiculously high
 
3) This still gives a significant advantage to the ship without voxel and playing only with a shield (their radar will never be in danger)
 
4) The cross section system always destroys all interest in PvP the game. People only use 3 or 5% of the maximum cumulative usable area of a core. It is absurd. Bringing out the radars will not increase the size of the nano ships
 
5) To really bring depth to PvP gameplay, such a change would need to be accompanied by real gameplay features.
You expose the radars to enemy fire, so ok but make sure that for example XS ships can lock these radars during a fight rather than randomly spraying an entire building.

 
In short, this could have been a coherent change with a real strategy for the future of the game.
But right now, I don't feel like there's an future.

This will always be the owner of the ship.
 
If your friend starts lending ships to people who are unfriendly towards you then they are not your friend.

Thanks to you we got a radar update.
 
Cheer 

Hi, can we have different colors on dynamic construct in PVP?

By priority order:
NQ Staff > Green (like actually)

Transponder match, not a NQ Staff > Blue

Transponder didn't match BUT pilot is in friendlist/orgs and not a NQ Staff > White

Transponder didn't match, not in friendlist/orgs and not a NQ Staff > Red


It's the first MMO where I can't clearly see my ennemies/allies, I take 2 minutes for color them on GIMP, with 5 minutes you can have a nice icon for sure.

What was initially planned for the game is that players could create their own safe zone which will be attackable by other players.
For the moment the alien space cores are only an L shield on a static core.

What was initially planned for the game is that players could create their own safe zone which will be attackable by other players.
For the moment the alien space cores are only an L shield on a static core.

Thank you Entropy for the response which was sincerely unexpected 
This gave a good boost to some of my mates who rushed to do some tests and shoot videos.
I think they will answer you on the various questions and subjects that you leave open for discussion and will share them all with you soon.
As for me, give me a few days to reread everything several times and continue to react to this constructive exchange.
 

Hi,

There has been a change in the HP value of shields to align them with voxels
=> It's a good thing
 
But when I try to see if it is relevant to use voxel to be able to play with the venting function. I can't find anything conclusive.

I made a small table to see if it is interesting to use an M shield and the voxel. Or if it is more relevant to go directly to a L shield :



The M shield is 30 Tons.
So I have the right to use 95 Tons of voxels before reaching the weight of the L shield.

At the resistance level, I decided to go with the average values. The fact that the shield has a dynamic resistance management function is an argument in its favor. Keep it in your mind.
 
From what we can see on the table, the best armor that gives us the most hit points is the T1 plastic voxel.
Average: 6,666,000 + 8,750,000 = 15,416,0000
In 2nd and 3rd position we find the Al-LI and the SC-Al.

The shield L has 13,333,000 life points.
Which is slightly worse than plastic shielding.
But now we must remember that its resistance values are dynamic, which will certainly make it pass in real condition.
You should also know that during the venting phase, you take the risk of losing elements and seeing your combat capacity reduced.

Analysis :
If you can upgrade your shield size, you should. This will always provide you with much better protection than that offered by the voxel.

Problems to be solved:
- The values of % of resistance do not correspond to the tier of the voxels, we end up with a plastic of tier 1 always clearly more efficient than the others. Tier 5 was particularly lagging behind.
- Venting phases are currently unplayable if using XS, S, and M size shields.
- The TTK values of weapons seem unbalanced when comparing the hitpoint values which seem really low for elements and voxels. Kiling all very faster.

I think it would be nice if the game designer could chime in on this thread to clarify how he sees the use of these shields and the venting phase.

See you later,

Thank you Entropy for the response which was sincerely unexpected 
This gave a good boost to some of my mates who rushed to do some tests and shoot videos.
I think they will answer you on the various questions and subjects that you leave open for discussion and will share them all with you soon.
As for me, give me a few days to reread everything several times and continue to react to this constructive exchange.
 

Hi,

There has been a change in the HP value of shields to align them with voxels
=> It's a good thing
 
But when I try to see if it is relevant to use voxel to be able to play with the venting function. I can't find anything conclusive.

I made a small table to see if it is interesting to use an M shield and the voxel. Or if it is more relevant to go directly to a L shield :



The M shield is 30 Tons.
So I have the right to use 95 Tons of voxels before reaching the weight of the L shield.

At the resistance level, I decided to go with the average values. The fact that the shield has a dynamic resistance management function is an argument in its favor. Keep it in your mind.
 
From what we can see on the table, the best armor that gives us the most hit points is the T1 plastic voxel.
Average: 6,666,000 + 8,750,000 = 15,416,0000
In 2nd and 3rd position we find the Al-LI and the SC-Al.

The shield L has 13,333,000 life points.
Which is slightly worse than plastic shielding.
But now we must remember that its resistance values are dynamic, which will certainly make it pass in real condition.
You should also know that during the venting phase, you take the risk of losing elements and seeing your combat capacity reduced.

Analysis :
If you can upgrade your shield size, you should. This will always provide you with much better protection than that offered by the voxel.

Problems to be solved:
- The values of % of resistance do not correspond to the tier of the voxels, we end up with a plastic of tier 1 always clearly more efficient than the others. Tier 5 was particularly lagging behind.
- Venting phases are currently unplayable if using XS, S, and M size shields.
- The TTK values of weapons seem unbalanced when comparing the hitpoint values which seem really low for elements and voxels. Kiling all very faster.

I think it would be nice if the game designer could chime in on this thread to clarify how he sees the use of these shields and the venting phase.

See you later,

Hi,

There has been a change in the HP value of shields to align them with voxels
=> It's a good thing
 
But when I try to see if it is relevant to use voxel to be able to play with the venting function. I can't find anything conclusive.

I made a small table to see if it is interesting to use an M shield and the voxel. Or if it is more relevant to go directly to a L shield :



The M shield is 30 Tons.
So I have the right to use 95 Tons of voxels before reaching the weight of the L shield.

At the resistance level, I decided to go with the average values. The fact that the shield has a dynamic resistance management function is an argument in its favor. Keep it in your mind.
 
From what we can see on the table, the best armor that gives us the most hit points is the T1 plastic voxel.
Average: 6,666,000 + 8,750,000 = 15,416,0000
In 2nd and 3rd position we find the Al-LI and the SC-Al.

The shield L has 13,333,000 life points.
Which is slightly worse than plastic shielding.
But now we must remember that its resistance values are dynamic, which will certainly make it pass in real condition.
You should also know that during the venting phase, you take the risk of losing elements and seeing your combat capacity reduced.

Analysis :
If you can upgrade your shield size, you should. This will always provide you with much better protection than that offered by the voxel.

Problems to be solved:
- The values of % of resistance do not correspond to the tier of the voxels, we end up with a plastic of tier 1 always clearly more efficient than the others. Tier 5 was particularly lagging behind.
- Venting phases are currently unplayable if using XS, S, and M size shields.
- The TTK values of weapons seem unbalanced when comparing the hitpoint values which seem really low for elements and voxels. Kiling all very faster.

I think it would be nice if the game designer could chime in on this thread to clarify how he sees the use of these shields and the venting phase.

See you later,

really appreciate the detailed reply.  It sounds like pvp ships are destined to remain tiny little blobs with no design flexibility.  My M core only has 45t of voxel and is already considered too heavy in athena.  I feel like we have all this design freedom in DU but in pvp its squeezed into a thimble.  
 
I like that you appear to want 'some' honeycomb to be used.  but as primarily a ship builder, building pvp ships at the moment is dead in the water. 
Venting should be a tool that gives arnoured ships an advantage because they can tank more damage but are easier to hit...but at the moment having armour is such a disadvantage (especially on m cores that become too easy to hit by exotic L weapons if they are armoured/bigger) that the benefit venting brings is insignificant.  
 
DU has miles to go to make pvp work imo and NQ are moving 1mm at a time. 

I'm going to bite tounge on my thoughts on this subject for now and just say thank you for the response Entropy. I'll always applaud the dev team jumping in direct communication like this. Keep it coming mate!

Hello there,
 
First off, thanks for the feedback. 
 
So there's a couple of different things to touch on here:
 
The internal balance of shields sizes CCS/honeycomb health vs Shield Health per mass Venting
I’ll try to address in that order but they will mesh a little since they have some obvious links.
 
First of all smaller shield sizes are at an advantage in regards to HP/mass. So something to keep in mind is that as you go up in size, as it pertains only to shields, you are losing out on the HP/mass ratio (in simpler terms, each HP weighs more on larger shields). This is an inbuilt advantage smaller sizes simply have.
However, the main and primary reason we have different shield sizes at all, is to support constructs of varying sizes and mass. This is the key center-point around which everything else mostly revolves.
 
If you are intending to make a larger, heavier construct, that is going to trend towards or go past the max mass, then the large shield becomes the obvious choice. However, should you want to make something smaller, more agile, and quicker, you may start to use shields of smaller sizes. We already see people experimenting with constructs of smaller sizes using S and M shields to take advantage of the speed, this is a great direction, as long as the pendulum does not swing too far in the favor of smaller constructs.
Now, if the weight penalties do not sufficiently affect the design of the ship, and large shields are still too mass effective even on smaller designs. That's a subject we will continue to address. We do not want to see S designs using exclusively L shields because the additional mass from larger shields doesn't matter in regards to acceleration, max speed, and rotation speed.
 
To answer your question clearly, there is no direct goal for an M shield and an equivalent 95t of voxel to be worse, equal, or better than an L shield and I’ll try to explain why as we go. You should take the shield of the size that makes sense for the design of your ship. If you have the mass available, or are willing to “spend” the mass to have a larger shield, then go for it.
 
Don't want to get into the venting subject too quickly, but using an M with a bunch of honeycomb could allow you to vent once or twice during a battle, especially on a lighter design that can also evade some damage. Maybe the balancing on that isn't perfect, but it should be an option.
At the end of the day the inbuilt advantage of an M shield over an L shield is that it's significantly lighter. You say it's always worth going to an L shield because M+HC is worse in HP, maybe this is the case (more on that later) but the point is that for that 95t you could probably build out a good part of a fully equipped construct, allowing you to have a quicker, more agile construct with a superior max speed, that's the upside.
 
Talking concretely in regards to the mass, if I made a competitive light-ish design with an M shield around 250t ( I don't have one on hand, this is probably on the lighter side after the changes). I'm going about 38-39k km/h max speed, just switching from an M shield to an L shield, I drop down to about 35k km/h. Now adding an extra 95t to a 250t design is probably going to seriously hurt my acceleration as well, so now I'm probably at least looking at redoing my engine setup, which likely adds some more mass as well.
So now the question is more along the lines of, do I prefer an extra 5mill HP from the L shield, or about 5000-6000km/h extra max speed and some extra rotation speed. Well that's a question I’d love feedback on, maybe the max speed and rotation speed isn't enough, I could see that.
 
Secondly there could be an advantage to being able to “modulate” your weight while still gaining some tankiness from honeycomb. An M shield with some honeycomb unlocks some venting on that design, while retaining some/most of the mobility.
 
In regards to your reasoning about M vs L shields. Roughly you're going from “it only makes sense to use the largest shield mass wise, so I can never vent on xs-m because I'm not going to be using voxels on anything smaller than the L”.
 
Well honestly, I don't particularly agree with that, at least not in theory. The interest of voxels is that it's scalable, and you can choose how much voxel you think you need. If you're going to use an M shield because that makes sense for your design mass wise, you don't “have” to use 95t of honeycomb. You can use 30t of a good hc over your ship. That's already going to give you a chunk of armor to help you get some venting going, and probably not endanger your cross-section too much. If that honeycomb buys you enough time for 2 vents (probably optimistic), then you’ve essentially caught up on an L shield in raw shield HP and you’re operating at more than half the mass. 
Now maybe that's not viable, maybe the honeycomb itself is too weak and even reasonable quantities of honeycomb get blown apart too quickly, that's possible and that's something we can look at. Perhaps at that point the subject is more that voxels are generally weak.
 
It's also important to note that in regards to your “real HP”, some amount of the incoming hits are also going to be hitting elements, elements that can be repaired which can give you more tankiness down the road. That means that when comparing raw HP to CCS, you have to take into account that CCS is counting every hit no matter where it's going, as opposed to your raw voxel HP which will, in effect, have additional health from elements.
 

For point 2, there's a couple things to say here. Shields are not inherently in competition with honeycomb, as mentioned we don't want them to be magnitudes apart in terms of HP because it wouldn't make sense, but fundamentally they are supposed to be complimentary.
 
Now in regards to your chart and conclusions. You didn't quite explain what “mean raw HP” is but I can guess it's the actual HP value of the deployed m3 HC multiplied by the average resistance, or at least I get close enough to your numbers using that.

Internally, in our tests using real ships CCS almost always goes first as opposed to the direct destruction of the core, I’d say in general this is situational depending on the design of the ship. In my experience, when constructs actually have a good amount of voxels, it's very difficult to dig your way to the core, and between the HC and the elements and the (occasional, hopefully fewer and fewer) lost shot, I believe that most of the time, you can count on your CCS HP being your “real” HP bar.  If that's not the case, especially on ships that have a good amount of HC, I’d love to see/hear more about it, since that would be contrary to what we’ve tested. Perhaps certain voxels are outliers.
 
My gut feeling is that in the “nano-age” during which CCS was introduced and voxels were rebalanced, people haven't been using voxels a ton in pvp. The goal is for that to change and honestly, if people start using voxels in some quantity, that's already good progress. If it does come out that cheaper voxels, or certain cheap voxels are always way better than more expensive voxels, I'll be more than happy to take a look at that (and to be honest, I’ve started already since I had to look at a bunch of stuff for this).
Lastly on this, you’ve defined that plastic is the best material on the basis of it having the most “mean HP” for the mass. That may be the case, but seeing how much effort players have put into reducing cross-section at almost any cost, I don't think 6700 m3 of plastic is always going to be the best solution.
 

For the last point in regards to venting, I feel like I’ve partly answered the question already but I’ll answer more broadly. Venting isn't something that will or needs to be used. It's a tool at your disposal and it's up to you to figure out how and when you're going to use it depending on the situation and the design of your ship. In contrast it's our job to make sure that those avenues can exist in the game.
 
In view of that, lighter ships now can try to disengage using their speed and try to get away and disengage to vent and come back, some ships may have honeycomb to tank on the CCS, some ships may not be able to reliably vent. If you design your ship in such a way that it cannot vent, then that's on you. However, if it is the case that there are NO competitive designs that allow you to vent at all, I agree that's a problem we need to change.
 
It will come down to the design of your ship, and it's possible that venting will be more usable in certain situations, and certain circumstances than others. For example, I don't expect smaller and lighter ships to have enough CCS/voxels to tank more than a couple hits (let alone all the elements that will die on a compact design) so if they can't escape the firepower using their speed/agility, they are likely dead. But who knows, it might be worth it now to dedicate some amount of HC on ships, specifically to be able to tank a handful of shots to get some shield HP back, even if you don't manage a full cycle off.
 
Essentially from my perspective, if you go no honeycomb, you are accepting that venting is going to be a tougher proposal than if you had dedicated some mass to HC protection, there's a tradeoff there. Now maybe that tradeoff isn't balanced, and there's one obvious better choice than the other, in that case we will take a look (that was sort of what was happening up to 0.29, there wasn't much point to using HC, but I think between the shield mass and health changes,  and the speed changes, HC could have merit again in at least some designs, but maybe it's not enough).
 
For an example on a relatively light design, even just 100m3 of that grade 5 titanium is going to give you around 1.2milll CCS health for 4-5~ extra tonnes. Is that enough to tank serious damage for a while? No, probably not. Is it enough to absorb a couple hits as you try to pull out of range, get your transversal speed up and start venting some HP back, probably yes. The downside is your cross-section may suffer and you'll lose some speed (honestly the speed loss won't be much, even at the most severe parts of the speed curve). Is it worth it? I’d say so yeah, in some designs and some situations, especially now that heavy L ships can’t easily rotate to keep up with smaller constructs, having a slightly larger cross-section probably isn't such a big deal in certain scenarios now.
 
To be fair in regards to that point, I agree that on lighter and more compact constructs, the damage dealt to elements will sometimes be what ends up killing you rather than CCS, or even the core being killed. If you take a nasty hit that blows up half your elements, you are essentially dead. My question is are you able to use some HC, to reduce the chances of a good hit taking you out of the fight entirely.
 
I did a quick test, put up 50m3 of grade 5 titanium and blasted it with a fully talented laser L. It took 3 shots to get through and kill the core I had placed  just behind the material. To be honest though, based on my hit chance on a totally immobile target with zero cone or range issue, I would actually expect an actual S design to take almost 0 damage from L weapons. The shield and the CCS at that point is more of an insurance policy for the occasional hit, or to fight off other smaller constructs.
 
There's also something to be said about balancing cross-section vs compactness. Not having all your elements in the same spot, even on smaller designs, means a single shot has less chance to obliterate half your elements.
 

Anyway, I'm just spitballing on a lot of things, I certainly don't have all the answers, and likely there's some things I’ve missed, or some things I've overestimated the importance of or underestimated the importance of.
 
 
Now to address your “problems to be solved” directly as a conclusion of sorts.
 
   Point 1: In regards to this point, if people start using any honeycomb at all it’ll be a good direction. Once we get to the point where we’re saying “we’re using HC and these honeycombs are all clearly better than these honeycomb”, we will be in a good place to start addressing HC internal balancing. The second thing is I do currently believe that especially on larger ships, CCS is a better representation of health than raw HP, and this is likely the opposite on smaller ships.
 
   Point 2: I‘m not totally set on this. Unplayable seems like a strong word here. I think lighter, smaller constructs have more opportunities now to disengage from fights in order to vent, or potentially exploit larger ships' slow rotation to stay out of the cone of the guns. Additionally, in my mind, some honeycomb can be a valuable addition to smaller designs, to give yourself some room to vent. However, If this isn't enough, we could explore more powerful and quicker vents for smaller shields, that's certainly a possibility.
 
   Point 3: Maybe, I’ve gotten some info by looking into it again today, and it's possible some changes can come down the line on this. In the past we’ve had the opposite issues, so it's possible we went too far.
 

I know this is a big blob, I hope my numbers were right, my brain is a little hazy, and hopefully I’ve answered most of your questions and made this a little clearer for you guys.
 
 
Thanks.
 

(initially posted on the PTS forums, oops)   Thank you everyone who played the PTS version of the new FTUE and gave your feedback.    It really helps to have fresh eyes on this.
The new FTUE has been over a year in the making, so some of us Level Designers have tunnel vision when playing through it for the thousandth time  
 
A few of you ran into two big bugs:
Those of you that spawned in the middle of nowhere with no lander obviously did not experience the intended onboarding.   That you continued to play and took detailed notes was appreciated, however clearly this is not the path a new player should take.   This happened due to problems with the server, and always requires CS intervention to rectify.  Since server hiccups do happen, I may add a backup step that if players get stuck on the "interact with the pilot's seat" step, after a certain time Aphelia will recommend the Help chat.   That, or another backup. Many of you ran into an issue trying to deploy the Speeder, getting an error message "speeder too far".   This was a bug that has been fixed in the latest update (released today). Aside from that, the rest of you successfully played the golden path of the new FTUE and provided great feedback.
 
Here are fixes we have already implemented. They are live on Athena. (this list is not exhaustive):
Lander section: now no build mode possible, no suicide/force respawn possible Flatten/Blueprint deploy section: added "you can walk around using maneuver keys" F4 map section: added a step to unlock HUD at the end Objective Screen section: added a step to remove currently active tool (skipped if no tool active) Objective Screen section: Added a recommendation to take the Talent mini-tutorial Objective Screen: fixed crash when triggering mini-Construction Lander: infobutton removed Tutorial skip buttons (Shift-PgUp and Shift-PgDn) now have a confirmation popup, to avoid accidental skips Here are our next steps (this list is not exhaustive):
Golden Path: encourage players to join an organisation Golden Path: teach "H" button in screen lock mode and inventory Investigate if "playing with friends" is convenient enough, now that the bugs are fixed Outposts: balance outpost constructs and provide more information on the Outpost Picker page Objective Screen: create the missing mini-tutorials Objective Screen: make the objective screen persistent (hopefully) make the objective screen reactive to the player completing mini-tutorials Tutorials: sort tutorials in the VR Surrogate Station tutorials tab Tutorials: do a polish pass of tutorials in the VR Surrogate Station as many are out of date (btw Golden Path = all the steps from "player spawns in the lander" to the end where Aphelia hands the player off to the Objective screen)
 
The principle goal of the new FTUE is to avoid bloat of the "forced tutorial" by getting a new player to a point where they can have few hours of fun tinkering and exploring before they would need to learn more.  Some people will choose more tutorials right away, but that is their choice, others might visit a bunch of places using VR Surrogate instead, or harvest ore.   This is roughly the blanket answer to the feedback "you really need to teach the player XYZ".    The golden path ignores some DU features by design, hoping that the Objective screen and player discovery fills the gap.
I do agree, however, that getting a player to have a look at organisations as soon as possible is a great suggestion, which is why I'm planning on adding that to the golden path.
 
If your comment or feedback is not listed above, I haven't missed it.  All feedback has been collected and is being considered.
Thanks everyone again for your help.
Cheers,
NQ-AntiGravitas
 
PS. For those who pointed it out, the lander -always- lands safely.  Its geometry and light weight slows it down in atmosphere and it has an autobrake at the very end.  it's impossible to crash (I tried many times).  Well, I'll say "nearly" impossible to crash because I'm sure someone will find a way one day (and no, that is not a challenge to you, dear players).  

Hi,

There has been a change in the HP value of shields to align them with voxels
=> It's a good thing
 
But when I try to see if it is relevant to use voxel to be able to play with the venting function. I can't find anything conclusive.

I made a small table to see if it is interesting to use an M shield and the voxel. Or if it is more relevant to go directly to a L shield :



The M shield is 30 Tons.
So I have the right to use 95 Tons of voxels before reaching the weight of the L shield.

At the resistance level, I decided to go with the average values. The fact that the shield has a dynamic resistance management function is an argument in its favor. Keep it in your mind.
 
From what we can see on the table, the best armor that gives us the most hit points is the T1 plastic voxel.
Average: 6,666,000 + 8,750,000 = 15,416,0000
In 2nd and 3rd position we find the Al-LI and the SC-Al.

The shield L has 13,333,000 life points.
Which is slightly worse than plastic shielding.
But now we must remember that its resistance values are dynamic, which will certainly make it pass in real condition.
You should also know that during the venting phase, you take the risk of losing elements and seeing your combat capacity reduced.

Analysis :
If you can upgrade your shield size, you should. This will always provide you with much better protection than that offered by the voxel.

Problems to be solved:
- The values of % of resistance do not correspond to the tier of the voxels, we end up with a plastic of tier 1 always clearly more efficient than the others. Tier 5 was particularly lagging behind.
- Venting phases are currently unplayable if using XS, S, and M size shields.
- The TTK values of weapons seem unbalanced when comparing the hitpoint values which seem really low for elements and voxels. Kiling all very faster.

I think it would be nice if the game designer could chime in on this thread to clarify how he sees the use of these shields and the venting phase.

See you later,

That's exactly what I told my PvP mates when I read a mention on Athena's announcements.
"Release the Pressure on PvE Players"
I was there in mode, you will see they will send us a thousand SU so that you leave the PvE players alone.
It did not fail.
The worst part is that they even destroyed the hauler missions so that if you are a PvP player you now have no targets.
Checkmate for in-game player interactions.
And an MMO without interaction is a dead MMO.