ArtfulBadger

And you thought you'd won

Alting may come into play here—if I’m hunted (for some reason) and I want to hide, I could make a new account, take territory ownership with it, and give my main full permissions. Of course, that won’t help for just random marauders.

I also like the idea of buffs, even though it’s kind of a ‘soft debuff’. I think the two key things would be: 1. The buffs are based on consumables, are are temporary but substantial. 2. Making good buff items requires high skill specialization in a particular skill category. This both opens up another ‘job’ within the game, and will make it so the people most likely to use buffs (combatants, probably) will have to buy them. I think maximizing the number of jobs in DU’s industry is important, but that forcing players to engage with everything will take away the fun of specialization and turn new players away from the game. Just my $0.02.

This suggests that the best training would involve sorting people into relatively small units (perhaps based on when then can reliably be online) so they can bond more easily and assigning each unit tasks. I also think that use of all three dimensions will be crucial. I don’t know what ships will look like, but getting intel on their designs (capturing one?) so you can reliably hit the weak points is crucial.

I think that too many survival elements will cause the came to become bogged down and boring. That said, I’m interested in the idea of food. I’d like a system where you can collect and prepare different foods, and eating them will heal or buff you. A person with skills like ‘foraging’ or ‘cooking’ would be able to find/make food with greater benefits. This would allow for a new “job” within the game, while not forcing players to use the mechanic. I’m also interested in the idea of a “sleep” mechanic. I would have it be instantaneous, but only available using a given part, like a ‘suit recharger’. If you go too long without “sleeping”, you get small debuffs like reduced carrying capacity or move speed. This would encourage players to either build bases (which I think is good) or use others players “beds”—thus opening up another “job” as a sort of hotel owner.

I was wondering about the possibility of constructing a sort of inn or general store on a frontier moon. Obviously, such a thing is possible, but would it be profitable? I don’t have the game, so I don’t know that much about what systems will be in place. If there is a food/rest system, like in Minecraft (for example), an inn could be possible. Allowing people to park ships and sleep/eat/heals for a short period could be very useful. It could also serve as a dropoff or meetup point. I know I saw discussion of a sort of taxi service for newbies to get off the starting world. You could have a system where taxi pilots bring players to the frontier, where various pilots or organizations seeking crew or members could recruit them. A general store could be very profitable or completely useless depending upon the game’s systems. If market goods are all physical and require pickup like in EVE, a store close to major mining locations with useful common equipment would (I imagine) turn a nice profit. However, if items can be transferred from anywhere to anywhere, it would be useless. These are just a few ideas I had. I’m intrigued by the idea of service jobs in DU, and I hope that’s possible in the game. I plan to get the subscriber pack soon and start in the alpha. Side note: does anyone know how to fix the Xsolla “your transaction could not be completed at this time” error when using a debit card?