TheRealBeowulf

Okay, that seams to be a topic that some of you take really serious. I see that you also would appreciate a non-stargate type of FTL-travel - and as far as I know, they didn't say that there won't be one. I was just wondering on how that could work and how it would be balanced. A thing that we have to keep in mind is, that JC Baille only explained a single kind of mechanic - he didn't say that this would be the only way for FTL-travel, he just said that setting up stargates could work like this. Also, if I got him right, he didn't say that going to the next star system will always take months, just that it could in some cases. I believe there will also be systems that are much closer. The DEVs said, that they want scanning, exploring and trading information about your findings to be a part of the economy. That's why I think we don't have to fear interstellar travel being something odd and boring. Also, you still can do other things while your drone is on it's way. And since stargates will be very expensive, it's actually a good thing if other methods of travel take much longer, so people will have to use the gate. Imagine your organization has invested so much time and resources in a stargate to a new system, than you would really want to make some money out of it

Hello there! I know that a topic about stargates already exists in this forum, but I didn't find something about jump drives. I just watched an interview with JC Baille on the XPGamers YouTube channel: youtube.com/watch?v=m1WMwIDWFKI (I hope the link will work, since I'm writing on my phone) One of the things they talked about was how the spreading of civilisation and the process of setting up a stargate could work - feel free to correct me, if I got something wrong: - first thing would be sending some special kind of probe to a position you want to jump to - the probe would be propelled by standard (sub-lightspeed) engines, so it could take several months (in real life !)until it reaches its destination, - when the probe has reached its destination, you would be able to make a first jump to follow it and set up a receiver-stargate This kind of mechanic is meant to prevent players from spreading too fast and too far from each other, since the emergent gameplay (economy, custom quests and so on) would most likely not work, if there aren't enough players in one area. That's what it could be like to work with stargates. Well, the question that popped up in my mind was a different one: What about FTL-travel beside stargates? Will we have other options too, like jump drives? I would really like to see some kind of FTL-device, especially on exploration ships. Of course there has to be a way to balance this. Maybe they could use a similar mechanic like in Space Engineers, so the jump distance would be relatively limited. The weight of the ship would limit the distance and the available power would limit the recharge speed. If it works like this, there would be a "soft" limit to jump distance, as having more and more devices would increase weight and energy consumption to a point where it's not efficient anymore. By having this kind of mechanic, long distances would have to be split into separate smaller jumps and the recharge time between jumps would also add up to the travel time. Another thing, that came to my mind, was FTL-travel with huge capital ships - is there going to be a limit to the size of the stargate? What if a ship is too big to use it? Will those Mothership-types be able to jump at all? I'm looking forward to read your opinions about this topic! Greetings, TheRealBeowulf

Okay, the Terran Union doesn't sound so bad to me so far. Since I've just heard about DU about a week ago, I don't really want to decide yet, if and what kind of organisation I'm going to join. But what I can tell you so far, is that the TU is definitely going to be an option.

Maybe that's an idea, but I'll have to inform myself about the Terran Union first. And there is one thing to keep in mind: We've just seen a first trailer and only some information about the game mechanics - which still may be subject to change - That means even if I said what I would like to do, I really can't promise that I will be actually able to do so - or that I'll be good at it That's the reason why I don't know if I should consider "signing" any contracts at such an early state of development But nevertheless - becoming a part of a larger Organisation is definitely something I already had in mind.

Hi there! While reading the suggestions about FTL travel, the hyperspace mechanics of Homeworld 2 came to my mind - especially the thing with the hyperspace-inhibitors. It could be interesting, if entities wouldn't simply disappear at one point and pop out of another. Instead they could travel in some kind of hidden subspace tunnel, which may be interrupted by some kind of hyperspace inhibitor field, causing the ship to fall out of hyperspace... This could be very interesting for pirates, but would also be hard to balance...

Self-hyping is definitely a thing... ???? I already got some replys that reminded me that some potentially cool features will not or not so soon be possibly due to technical limitations... The thing I would like to do in DU is start a small company that builds & sells small to midsize exploration ships - including different variants from civil and (almost) unarmed types to military ones , build to last in hostile areas and with the ability to withstand pirate attacks In Space engineers I liked to play around with complex systems like a rapid fire railgun (and had a lot of contraptions spontaneously exploding due to the well known stability issues of SE ). One thing that bothered me a bit was the ingame programming, since I'm not really into C#... So I had to stay with timers. I hope that LUA is something that is more doable for a non-programmer like me

I am aware of the problem with resources. I'm not saying that it has to be something quite realistic like im Space Engineers, where the amount of oxygen is calculated for every room, and a breach causes some kind of wind that is able to suck objects into Space... What I mean is a very basic system, like having a specific amount of oxygen in a tank, and then calculating how many players are on board and how fast oxygen is depleted. When it comes to coding, I must admit that I have almost no idea of how difficult this would be to handle. But if they really want to implement things like potentially huge LUA-script-constructs and a flight behavior actually depending on the placement of engines, is it really that much more complicated to add a basic oxygen mechanic? Nyzaltar stated in an earlier post on the dev blog (couldn't find the link, but I definitely read something like that) that he likes the idea of having Engineers on multi-crew ships racing to repair hull breaches in battle - so what's the point of doing this, when it's not an issue for life support systems (okay, the breach could also make internal systems like reactors vulnerable to following hits, that would definitely be a good reason to run too )? Maybe someone with a better understanding of coding and voxel-environments could answer this question to me: is it that hard to detect if a room on the ship is completely enclosed, or has a hole/breach? Maybe "atmosphere" in rooms could consist of invisible, non-solid voxel-cubes, which are deleted if they get in direct contact with the void in space? This is really not meant to be an offense, I'm just wondering if there is really no way to make this possible without using too much resources. If I got the devs right, they want a very high level of immersion. It's just that in my opinion, life support and oxygen management in a game that heavily focuses on spacecraft are something crucial, that shouldn't be put completely aside... I don't know if it's just me thinking like this, but in my opinion, having not even basic oxygen mechanics on a spacecraft could influence the gameplay experience and immersion in a negative way... And that would be a bit sad, because almost everything else about the game sounds really awesome.

Hi there! It's not been so long since I've first heard of Dual Universe (E3 ) but I'm already very excited about this game. The combination of sandbox, survival and role play in a space setting sounds absolutely fantastic to me - especially as a MMORPG - and in an infinite world. I really love games like Minecraft or Space Engineers, but server size and maintenance was always a limiting factor to me. I think the idea to have one single shard universe adds a lot of spice to the core gameplay, because you don't just run around an build stuff for yourself to stare at and then just move on to the next project. I also expect the exploration aspect to be a complete different thing, as there are possibly millions of other players and creations. Long time motivation should be really good I'm really looking forward to participate in the discussion about planned features and possible game mechanics. From what I've read so far, I think that there's a good chance to be heard by the devs in this early stages of game development, and maybe contribute some thoughts and ideas (just to name a few things I really hope to see in the game: life support / oxygen mechanics and collision damage - because they are a core element of space sim to me - sorry if that's off topic ). I'm really excited to see how this project will evolve. Greetings TheRealBeowulf

Hi! Just to make sure I get that right: "structure environments are always safe" - does that really mean that a hull breach wouldn't be a serious problem? Maybe it's just me, but in my opinion this could feel real odd, especially on multi-crew ships... I really like how the devs encourage people to build constructs like the enterprise, script them via LUA and even have specialised crew members like weapon officers and engineers - and then such a basic mechanic like oxygen and life support isn't going to be implemented at all? Or just not in the alpha? I understand that there are some difficulties when it comes to code and resources, but for a space game - especially for such an ambitious project - at least some kind of basic life support and oxygen mechanic on the ships should be a thing. Maybe a basic mechanic like the base life support in Subnautica could be used - when there is no power, life support fails and you only have the oxygen stored in your suit... The life support system itself could consist of simple parts, like an oxygen tank, pipes and air vents. The only things the game would have to check is - is the system properly connected? - is there enough oxygen in the tank? - is there a breach (that's actually the point where I have no idea how difficult this would be as code...)? If everything is ok, then the room has atmosphere. The amount of oxygen used over time could simply depend on the number of players that are on the ship. Also, in my opinion a hull breach definitely should evacuate the room where the breach is located. Next thing: airlocks are usually a thing on spaceships... If it uses to much calculation-power, maybe longer update-time intervals could help? Only checking for breaches an valid life support every second or two may be still enough in the heat of the battle. I don't want to complain too much, and I know that at this point the game is still very far from release and a lot might still be changed till then - but I'm really curious about those mechanics, and I bet a lot of space nerds feel the same I would be glad to hear more about this in the future (the sooner, the better )

I really like the idea of modular weapons. Maybe some kind of mass driver, like those in the Halo ships, could be a thing. There could be railgun-barrel parts, maybe for different calibers, so you can decide how long and powerful the weapon should be. In addition to the barrel itself you would need capacitors, which would have to be charged by the ships reactors. The actual power of the cannon would also depend on the number of capacitors, and the ships energy system would be a limiting factor on how fast it could reload/recharge. When you look at the Halo ships, those mass drivers are too big to mount them on a turret, so they are built into the ships hull - sometimes almost as long as the ship itself. In this case, the maneuverability of the ship is a huge limitation when it comes to targeting, because you would have to position the whole ship. This would make it very difficult to hit smaller, faster targets, so a rock-paper-scissors balancing is easy to obtain. A similar system could also be used for large ion-cannons, lasers an so on.

Re-entry heat could make ship-building a lot more complex. Maybe you would need heat shielding, or powerful engines / a slower entry. It also could be a counter-player for "stealth"-hulls - if they add something like that - so you maybe would have to decide if you want a ship that is either stealth, or capable of quick landing on a planet with atmosphere. Sounds interesting to me I'm really looking forward to more information on those basic mechanics.

That's what I meant when I said I 've seen a lot of issues in SE As far as I know, DU will handle ships as single entities as soon as they are complete - not as a large bunch of single blocks like SE - so it could be a bit less resource-hungry. Like I said, for me it's fine if there is at least any kind of collision damage - not necessarily an overly realistic kind. I am really not an expert when it comes to game development or handling resources, but maybe there is a way to do it similar to weapon damage (which will definitely be implemented). My idea would be to create a sphere of damage at the impact point, maybe just like a hit from any kind of ballistic or laser weapon. The dimensions and strength could depend on the mass and speed of the ships. You could also use the impact vectors of both ships as well as their weight to calculate how they possibly would drift apart after the impact. Since there will be weapons, there has to be some kind of code that determines how structure and armor influences the hits. So maybe they could handle a collision like a hit from a weapon - with only the strength of the hit depending on the involved objects. Besides basic interactions and collisions, there is one reason why I would really appreciate some kind of collision damage: I simply like the idea of magnet (or gravity) acceleration cannons As far as I understood, gravity on ships is confirmed - so the player could theoretically build some kind of MAC or gravity cannon. In my opinion this would be a good motivation for capital ship builders. And: it wouldn't be enough to just mine or buy all necessary resources for a big gun - you would also have to invent the firing / loading mechanism and even the projectiles by yourself.

Hi! I just stumbled over this topic and I must say that when I read that collision damage isn't planned to be a core feature from the beginning, I was like "WHAT?! How should that work?" I know that this is a bit difficult to handle (I've seen a lot of issues in Space Engineers), but in my opinion, there are a lot of things, that simply wouldn't work right without collision damage - landing for example. If I get you right, then there would also be no need to add stopping engines to, for example a colony ship which isn't supposed to take off again, because I could just let it crash on the surface of a planet and it won't take any damage? It would also feel very odd, if for example two capital ships collide and just stop or bounce off without taking damage - to me this would be a huge balancing issue... The second point would be, like shadow already mentioned, weapons. To be more specific: Player made weapons. One negative thing in Space Engineers are the very few and weak weapons. If you don't want to use mods (and i think DU isn't a concept that could support mods so easily), you don't have anything that could be a capital ship weapon - except PMWs, like for example the guided missiles of whiplash141. Even if you have a lot of pre-made weapons for all kinds of ships, DU with the planned economics would be great for such engineers - there could be a custom weapons market and a real need to develop countermeasures, even better weapons and so on... Real challenge and real technological progress. I really don't want to offend anyone, because i still think that DU is a great project, and i had a big wow-moment when i first heard of it, but to me this is an important topic (i just made an account to reply to this ) Please correct me , if I got something wrong, or if the plan has already changed. To me any, even unrealistic, collision damage mechanic would be better than none