rmhenn

For that I was thinking a weaker version of the shield with a longer range than the proper shield boundary.  My thinking was that any impact on the shield would be transmitted to the generator.  This weaker shield wouldn't be powerful enough to actually stop a projectile but it would still generate enough force feedback for the projector to detect a projectile crossing it.  When that happens it determines where and when it will strike the main shield and triggers the appropriate section just long enough to stop that projectile.  It might be interesting to have to weigh the consequences of various detection shield ranges, with a short range not giving the main shield enough time to react after detection and a long range susceptible to projectiles fired from inside its perimeter, but it would probably be easier to just use this in the lore and assume the detection field is built into the same shield generator assembly.
 
As for lasers force feedback doesn't help much here but the entire hull can be lined with temperature sensors.  When a laser strikes the hull the temperature at the point of impact will increase rapidly.  The shield will be programmed to trigger accordingly.  Depending on how quickly the shield reacts the laser might get anywhere from a few nanoseconds to a few milliseconds on target before the shield triggers and blocks the rest of the burst.  For most practical purposes this probably isn't enough time for a laser to do any real damage.  Of course if we're talking Star Wars style blasters all bets are off; the perimeter feedback field would probably work just fine.

On the realism front there really isn't any known method that will give us something like scifi shields, at least as far as acting like a barrier generated in empty space outside your vehicle (or whatever you're trying to protect).  There simply is no real-world process which will replicate the effects.  A magnetic field might offer some protection against particle radiation (potentially including particle beam weapons) but that's about it; they would be useless against projectile weapons and lasers.  It might interfere with missile guidance but then missiles will be designed with that in mind anyway and launch a dumb projectile from a greater distance or just follow the magnets.  But hey, DU has some weird space/time geometry compression going on, artificial gravity and FTL travel.
 
As far as the DU version is concerned I figure a shield's "hit points" could be explained as a charge in a capacitor bank.  The shield isn't on all the time, it flickers on only when it sees an incoming projectile, stays on long enough to block it and shuts off the rest of the time, waiting to intercept the next bullet.  This both explains why the shield demands more power when under fire and why it does not stop outgoing weapons.  The shield draws power faster than most power plants can supply it so if you hit it enough times in a row the capacitor gets depleted and the shield won't have enough energy available to stop the next shot.  Give it a chance to recharge and it's back to full strength.  This way the shield is really three different components: The power supply, the shield generator and the capacitor bank.  The type and placement of generator affects the shield geometry, how strong of an attack it can actually prevent, whether it is more efficient against strong or weak attacks and how much of your construct is actually protected.  The capacitor bank affects how many hit points that shield has.  The power plant determines how quickly the capacitor bank can be recharged.
 
The capacitors open up another element of design strategy in general since railguns, coilguns, pulse lasers and particle beams will also need capacitors to supply power.  You might have one big capacitor bank that can run everything, giving you more flexibility, but then firing your railguns eats your shield HP.  Alternately you might compartmentalize, giving dedicated weapon and shield banks so one won't interfere with the other.  Crafty designers might install a switch between the two banks so they are normally isolated but you can occasionally tap your shield reserves for several rapid shots or shut off weapons to extend your shield's HP.

I seriously am hoping you continue to post new ones for a very, very long time. When the game launches, we're going to need this

I am now thinking of spaceballs and stealing air from a planet

Very nice. I can see how this would make sense. With the Devs magic system they've come up with, such a thing should be possible.

I like the concept, but I feel that if you could transition between planets with that kind of system, people would tend to stagnate with expansion. If you used this concept as a awesome way to transition between different player/group controlled tiles on a planet, that would add a interesting mechanic for battles, allowing different kinds of strategies involving moving troops from one battle field to the opposite site, in essence creating a super dynamic flanking system, as well as being a nice and compact transportation system.

The point is for players to not be packed like shrimps in a can. Even in games, people want their personal space. Possibly, having a territory claim being organised into streets for easier navigation. So yeah, I would suggest a 10 kilometer radius world. Enough to have two or three cites, and a countryside. I do say time and time again that most people will probably stay in a planet they call home and do their thing, either it be PvE, harvesting or statue-carving. Not all want to be Captain Kirk, but many want to be a mayor of a frontier town.

30 Kilometer radius would be 1130000 Square Kilometers of surface.
 
15 Kilometer radius would be half that.
 
Great Britain is 209000 square kilometers. 
 
The planets need to be smaller imo.
 
Less we have patches of land occupied by sheep and angry Scotts.
 

I always find these discussions interesting because the reality always falls short of the idea.  While technically everything posted so far is correct, logically it is also wrong.   And before everybody blows up on me.  Let me explain.  
 
Antimatter is a tricky subject because it tends to be used as a catchall term.  There are many different kinds of antimatter and they all behave differently.  
First off what kind of antimatter are we talking about?  Positrons and antiprotons?  You can trap them with something called a 'Penning trap' and no cooling is needed because sub-atomic particles can't be condensed anyway.  There is no such thing as 'liquid' electricity for instance.  But these very reasons also mean I could never contain a lot of free antimatter sub-atomic particles.
 
Superconductors make the transfer of energy more efficient, not the storage.  Storage is easy.  If sub-atomic particles have little to no place to go they just won't go anywhere.
 
Antihydrogen?  Since they are neutrally charged you need a 'Loffe trap'.  It's basically a magnetic 'bowl' with antihydrogen rolling towards the center.  I could cool this and condense it into liquid.  Largely pointless by that point, it just saves space and in a vacuum, only the total mass and inertia of an object counts towards movement, not its volume. (I reserve judgement for its use in atmosphere.)
 
Neutrinos?  Have no charge (and almost no mass) at all so no anti-particles.  Or theoretically, are both particles AND anti-particles.  Wrap your head around that one.
 
Though the energy output of 1 kilogram of antimatter is equal to roughly 43 MEGATONS of TNT, (just short of the largest nuke ever set off) it is achieved through annihilation meaning that most of the energy given off is photonic in nature and isn't as usable.  Positrons give off mostly gamma rays when annihilated for instance.  Dangerous to be sure but not directly useful for propulsion.  Antiproton annihilation happens unequally producing mesons that further degrade into gamma rays, electrons, positrons, and neutrinos.  Once again dangerous as hell but less useful for direct propulsion.
 
When scientists talk about its applications for space propulsion they are talking about two different methods.  The first, setting off an antimatter reaction in certain isotopes (high-grade uranium for instance) makes a nuclear reaction more efficient and by extension more powerful.  For this application, you don't need a lot of antimatter to do it. So gathering what little antimatter is captured by a planet's magnetic field (called Van Allen radiation belts) now becomes feasible and one no longer has to spend a million billion (not an exaggeration) dollars to produce a single gram of antimatter artificially.  But this is not the type of reaction you use for power or propulsion.  THIS IS A BOMB!
 
The second is the annihilation of protons and antiprotons.  Most of the energy once again is photonic (gamma rays) but some (a relatively small amount) of the particles that come about due to the unequal annihilation will be in the form of mesons.  Some of these particles (another relatively small amount) hold a charge that can be deflected magnetically and can provide propulsion.  However as mentioned above I can never contain any large quantity of antiprotons so this method is slow and inefficient.  It is relatively easy to gather what you need as you fly through space however and therefore, ideal for lightweight long-range space missions where time is less of a factor.
 
 
P.S.  I am so sorry I went into teacher mode.

I don't know about you, but that sounds to me like emergent gameplay, a set of PvP rules to not attack landmarks. It's farfetched yes, but a way to reign on the chaos and make PvP more civilised rather that "derp-a-herp, shoot that pretty statue". Idk, we'll need to wait and see on that.
 
 
And yes, building a citadel around your TU would be wise. You can't build a citadel and want it to be pretty. PvP is war, and war is messy, war needs function over form. And building defenses should be not a call to fashion. It should be something that means business. 
 
And if you make buildings indestructibe or take 36 hours to take down, that would simply make PvP and invading other planets the but-end of a joke. Build a a kilometer wide structure around your TU. Another org comes and tries to take your planet. They have to wait 2000 hours to take down its HP. THAT is silly.
 
Having different voxels have different durability though is organic. You take your fleet, and focus fire on a point over the TU unit to break through, then your guys go in. Perhaps the opponent has thought of that and build the dome with reinforce materials to withstand anything. That's a way the defends can respond to attacks in time by repairing and outlasting the invaders. Cause remember, missiles are not forever and so is your play-time. Most people don't have time for a 40 hours siege, which gives birth to surprise night raids and having the need for the defenders to plan ahead and put some sort of ion cannons on tthe ground for defense, automated with LUA to strike on targets in orbit that are hostile.
 
Plus, the bombardment could insentivise a region's leader to give up, in fear of his friends and teammates yelling at him for not doing so and having their buildings destroyed during the "negotiations" for his e-pen pride. You know, that's how real life works as well. See Japan and what the reaction of its Generals was to the first atom bomb. On the second they changed their mind quickly.
 
I'm just saying, making a siege last 40 hours via actual gameplay and actively participating and putting a 40 hours timer on a siege has A LOT of difference.
 

Personally, I believe that building a good defensive base on the surface of a planet should be less resource intensive than building the ships to attack it. Not because the developers nerfed the attackers, but because the attackers need engines, fuel, and ammunition for each of their ships. The defenders will need ammunition and electricity as well however by its very nature bases should have an abundant supply to defend its self. I agree with the original poster that unless the enemy overwhelmed you with something resembling a Star Destroyer your structures should not be easily destroyed with something like a speeder. (keeping with Starwars references)
 
Explosives yes, cannons yes ,machine guns your character shoots no. 
 
With a proper design of walls turrets and other defences, you should be able to stand your own against similarly power entities. As mentioned before, if you attempt to combat much stronger opponents than yourself then nothing should stop other players from destroying what you have built. Unless they try to destroy your reinforced wall with a machine gun.
 
The only thing that would piss me off is if characters are able to dig at an unreasonably fast rate. Allowing them to tunnel into you base quickly within minutes, passing the defences you laid because they dug 100 units down went under your base and used the mini map to guide them into the heart of the base. 

There shouldn't be arbitrary limits to how constructions can be torn down, regardless of how many man hours it took to build them. 
 
If you haven't properly defended your constructions, then you should suffer the consequences for it.
 
 
Jean-Christophe Baillie describes it very well in this article: https://gamerpros.co/exclusive-interview-novaquark-ceo-jean-christophe-baillie-mmo-dual-universe/
 
BB: Do you plan to introduce any kind of combat elements and PvP? Combat is a big part of many MMOs and players love the opportunity to fight each other. 
 
JC: Yes of course. It’s a question of PvP and implementing it, a point that’s very dear to us. We’re thinking of safe zones, one that would be around the Arcship (the main player starting point). It’s the ship that brought you to where you are.
 
Basically, there will be a 20 kilometer safe area where nothing can happen to you. We’ll be creating other safe areas, and players would be able to create their own grounds that aren’t indestructible. As long as players have the resources and wealth, they can make a zone that’s near impenetrable. Think about the United States. It’s not indestructible; can you imagine the whole world wanting to invade the United States? There’s enough security though, military, and whatnot that prevents that. In this game, it’d be a similar point.

Someone should make a show on youtube when the game comes out, called "Dual the Universe, Quadruple the Drama". I can see us having four factions. The PvP, the PvE (Forced to PvP), The Artsy Builders (Who will probably build a frigging tower defense around their planets) and the rich industrialists who will sip their wine and watch as the three factions fight for our amusement. 

You argue with realistic physics, i argue with realistic physics, dont move the goal posts

And its still not gyroscopic but interferometric.

I'd personally scrap all the special case cloaking and stealthing and simplify it to three general characteristics of blocks:

Emissivity:
Every device and block that does /something/ emits radiation over a large spectrum from kilometer wave radio to nanometer gamma-/ x-rays.
including everything inbetween
of course not every device radiates with the same intensity at the same frequencies, but the possible radiation space encompasses pretty much the whole of EM radiation.
with the exact resolution of that emissions being whatever is affordable computing wise.
 
then theres absorption/transmission.
this is again a spectrum graph that defines how much a block absorbs radiation of a given frequency.
some blocks absorb radio waves, some absorb visible light, others absorb IR.
with every block passed the emitted radiation gets dampened more and more.
 
the last factor is reflection
obviously, it defines how much of a given portion of radiation gets (for simplicity i'd say diffusely) reflected from the block.
 
 
then you have one kind of sensor device
passive sensors.
they have certain spectral sensitivities. some sensors are good in RF, some good in UV, others good in X-ray.
some can differentiate single eV differences between gamma rays but can only see gamma rays, others can monitor the whole spectrum at once but cant tell you anything about the kind of radiation they are detecting.
same deal for all of them, just different numbers in their datasheet.
 
you can create an active sensor by combining a passive sensor with some active sender.
you send out radiation which gets reflected and influenced by objects and then received by passive sensor arrays again.
this behaviour creates a lot of support possibilities out of the box, for example target painting and similar methods.
 
 
now we have a few variable sets which are relatively easy to understand but can be used for intricate sensor gameplay.
 
lets say you have an engine core thats emitting a lot of characteristic x-ray radiation.
you dont want to broadcast your drive type, but due to the characteristic radiation spikes its pretty clear to anyone who has a sensor what kind of drive you are using.
so you can encase your drive in a block type that happens to be good at absorbing x-rays.
you now shielded your engine from prying passive sensors, enhancing your stealth capabilities.
 
the same process can be applied to any kind of radiation and block.
if you dont want your enemies analysing your armor plating, place some dampening material over your hull thats tuned to your enemies active scanners so they cant penetrate down to your actual armor layer to tell what kind of armor your ship is using.
 
 
a very stealthy ship would then be one that has very good absorption ratings matched to the equipment it is using and to the sensors which are likely to be encountered.
 
 
counter stealth would then be to find out against which frequencies a given ship is badly shielded and thus can be found with.
say, ship has VHF dampening materials as hull and you use an x-ray scanner instead.
 
 
lots of intelligence and counter intelligence and sensor gameplay without much being hardcoded in by the devs.
encouraging players to design their ships in a smart way.