Davian_Thadd

Hello, Noveans! Athena’s Lua changes bring many community-requested features into the game, and there is a lot to go over, so let's dive right in!
 
SIGNS REFORGED
 
We’re revising the resolution of opaque and transparent screens to 1024x513 pixels in order to better fit them into the real screen element dimensions and improve image resolution on screens.
 
Also, each sign will now have a resolution adapted to its actual size:
Horizontal Sign XS : 1024x512
Horizontal Sign S : 1024x1024
Horizontal Sign M : 1024x512
Horizontal Sign L : 1024x256
Vertical Sign XS : 512x1024
Vertical Sign M : 512x1024
Vertical Sign L : 256x1024
    These changes are also accompanied by new features and substantive changes.
 
NEW TEXT & COLORS RENDERING
 
With this update, we’re making a fundamental change in text rendering technology. Called, ‘Signed Distance Field,’ (SDF), this rendering method allows for cleaner rendering at any font size and also supports effects such as outlines and shadows.
 
As a result, here are some text-related changes in the Rendering Lua API:
[int] loadFont([string] fontName,[int] defaultSize) - The font size setting becomes the "default" font size and can be changed during script execution with the setFontSize function.
addText([int] layer,[int] font,[string] text,[float] x,[float] y) - Now supports the following properties : fillColor, shadow, strokeColor, strokeWidth.
 
And some additions:
[float] getFontSize([int] font): Return the currently-set size for the given font.
setFontSize([int] font,[int] size): Set the size at which a font will render.
setDefaultTextAlign([int] layer,[int] alignH,[int] alignV): Set the default text alignment of all subsequent text strings on the given layer.
 
But that's not all! As you may have seen from the image below, we have also added support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) colors which will let you add a glow effect on your colors.
 
To use the HDR colors, you just have to set color values higher than 1 in the colors you use; commonly multiply each color component by the same HDR coefficient.
 
As an example, here is the ‘PEGGED,’ screen from Bonusaben’s Underdun Arcade modified with HDR colors:
   
LET’S MOVE LAYERS
 
One of the most common requests for screen rendering has been the ability to apply transformations (translation, rotation and scaling) to text. Given that this is not strategically optimal for rendering, we’ve decided to apply transformations to layers instead with the following functions:
setLayerOrigin([int] layer,[float] x,[float] y): Set the transform origin of a layer; layer scaling and rotation are applied relative to this origin.
setLayerRotation([int] layer,[float] rotation): Set a rotation applied to the layer as a whole, relative to the layer's transform origin.
setLayerScale([int] layer,[float] sx,[float] sy): Set a scale factor applied to the layer as a whole, relative to the layer's transform origin.
setLayerTranslation([int] layer,[float] tx,[float] ty): Set a translation applied to the layer as a whole.
 
We’ve also added a clipping area! This allows you to define an area to limit rendering per zone, especially useful for making scrolling areas and so on.
setLayerClipRect([int] layer,[float] x,[float] y,[float] sx,[float] sy): Set a clipping rectangle applied to the layer as a whole.  
Please note that anything drawn outside of the clipping area will not be visible but will still be counted in the rendering budget.
 
THE MINING UNIT API
 
As already announced in Athena roadmap, we’ve decided to add a Lua API allowing players to take accurate information from Mining Units with the following functions:
[string] getStatus() : Returns the current status of the mining unit ("STOPPED", "STALLED", "RUNNING")
[float] getRemainingTime() : Returns the time remaining on the drilling process.
[int] getActiveOre() : Returns the ID of the current selected resource.
[table] getOrePools() : Returns the list of resources pool on the territory. Each resource pool object of the list contains ‘id’, ‘available’ and ‘maximum’ fields.
[float] getBaseRate() : Returns the base production rate of the mining unit.
[float] getEfficiency() : Returns the production efficiency of the mining unit.
[float] getAdjacencyBonus() : Returns the territory's production adjacency bonus factor. This value will only be updated when a new batch is started.
[float] getCalibrationRate() : Returns the current calibration rate of the mining unit.
[float] getOptimalRate() : Returns the optimal calibration rate of the mining unit.
[float] getProductionRate() : Returns the production rate of the mining unit.
[vec3] getLastExtractionPosition() : Returns the position of the extracted ore during the last calibration in world coordinates.
[int] getLastExtractingPlayerId() : Returns the ID of the last player who calibrated the mining unit.
[float] getLastExtractionTime() : Returns the time in seconds since the last calibration of the mining unit.
[float] getLastExtractedVolume() : Returns the amount of ore extracted during the last calibration.
[int] getLastExtractedOre() : Returns the ID of the extracted ore during the last calibration.
 
And with some events:
[event] statusChanged([string] status) : Emitted when the mining unit status is changed. Provide the new status.
[event] completed([int] oreId, [float] amount) : Emitted when the mining unit completes a batch. Provide the item ID of the mined ore and the amount mined in the batch.
[event] calibrated([int] oreId, [float] amount, [float] rate) : Emitted when the mining unit is calibrated. Provide the item ID of the extracted ore, the amount extracted and the new calibration rate.
 
THE ITEM API
 
We have chosen to integrate the notion of item-IDs in a more concrete way. This is the first API using this principle, which seems to us the most adapted. Some functions and events will provide you with an ID designating an item in the game.
 
We will then integrate the getItem function:
[table] getItem([int] id): Return the item table corresponding to the given item ID.
 
The returned table will then contain the following information:
[int] id : The ID of the item.
[string] name : The name used to define the item.
[string] displayName : The name of the item used in the game.
[string] locDisplayName : The name of the item used in the game in the language of your game.
[string] displayNameWithSize : The name of the item used in the game with the size (XS,S,M,L).
[string] locDisplayNameWithSize : The name of the item used in the game with the size (XS,S,M,L) in the language of your game.
[string] description : The description of the item in English.
[string] locDescription : The description of the item in the language of your game.
[string] type : The type of item.
[float] unitMass : The unit mass of the item.
[float] unitVolume : The unit volume of the item.
[int] tier : The tier of the item (1 to 5)
[string] size : The size of the item (xs, s, m, l)
[string] iconPath : The path of the item's icon in the game files (usable on the screens).
 
BONUS FEATURES
 
We’ve also decided to include several smaller features with this update:
 
The function allowing you to draw a quadratic Bézier curve:
addBezier([int] layer,[float] x1,[float] y1,[float] x2,[float] y2,[float] x3,[float] y3): Add a quadratic Bézier curve to the given layer. Supported properties: shadow, strokeColor, strokeWidth.
 
Additional functionality for images:
addImageSub([int] layer,[int] image,[float] x,[float] y,[float] sx,[float] sy,[float] subX,[float] subY,[float] subSx,[float] subSy): Add a sub-region of an image to the given layer. Supported properties: fillColor, rotation.
[float],[float] getImageSize([int] image): Return the width and height of an image.
 
Finally, a function that lets you know the language setting of the rendering client:
[string] getLocale(): Return the locale in which the game is currently running (“en-EN”, “fr-FR”, “de-DE”).
 
CONCLUSION
 
Our goal is always to provide a larger and more feature-rich panel while maintaining rendering performance, and we hope that you will enjoy these Lua additions coming in Athena.
 
As always, we appreciate your feedback, so please share your thoughts and let us know your ideas on what Rendering Lua-related improvements and/or additions you would like to see in Dual Universe. Also, our API approach seems to be suitable and could potentially be applied to other API’s in-game, but we’d love to hear your feedback on that first.
 
NQ-Ligo is looking forward to discussing them with you in this forum thread!

100 personnal core
100 slots organisation.
 
This is too many ! Why all this mess for come back to 200 core for all people ? 
 
Definitely i think, 25 core personnal and 50 core for org, with a limit of 25 core per organization is enought. It will encourage people to support community project, iconic personal project, friends projects, or others.
 

 

Thank you for the quick response and the changes. These numbers make a lot more sense.
 
However, I still think that there should also be some automatic org slots based on membership, e.g. for every member of an org the org gets 10 or 20 slots automatically (without reducing the new numbers for personal and org slots).

Awesome ! Can't wait to test it and do some nice details !

Awesome ! Can't wait to test it and do some nice details !

In the upcoming 0.28 Panacea update, we will introduce the Vertex Precision Tool (VPT), which adds a whole new way of bringing detail to your creative designs.
 
This all may sound quite complex initially, but once you get used to the tool it’s quite intuitive. If you’ve been holding back because voxelmancy seemed too complicated, now’s the time to give it a try. By allowing you to simply equip the VPT and move the vertex around on a changeable grid, the process of designing with voxels is greatly simplified and far more user-friendly.
 
Here’s a brief demonstration of what the VPT looks like and how it’s used:
 
 
Heads up! The information in this blog leans heavily into the extremely technical side of things. Those who are into voxelmancy will probably dive in with unfettered joy. If building isn’t your jam, you may wish to stop here and get the TL;DR from one of your builder buddies later.
 
VOXELS DEFINED
 
Much of what you see in Dual Universe was built by players using voxels. The term “voxel” is very generic, a shortened form of “volume element”. Voxelmancy is an advanced form of building that can be quite complex, and there has always been a gap between building with standard geometric shapes and fine-tuned designs. The VPT aims to bring a game-changing  bridge for the gap between these building styles.
 
How exactly the voxels are implemented depends a lot on the software that’s being used. In DU, a voxel contains two things: material information and a vertex position information.
 
The material information is pretty straightforward; it is exactly the same as in a pixelated image where there is a material (think of it as a synonym of “color“) for each little square. We use what we call a uniform grid, meaning that voxels are put next to each other in a 3D grid and all have the same size. For example, on a planet voxels are 1 meter long (1m x 1m x 1m) whereas they can be 25 centimeters long (0.25m x 0.25m x 0.25m) on a user construct. It’s exactly how pixels work in 2D images, and you may already be familiar with these kinds of voxels because they are present in games like Minecraft.
 
VERTICES POSITIONS
 
Let’s drill down even deeper into the well of technical stuff.
 
As stated above, voxels contain material information and a vertex position information. The Vertex Precision Tool doesn’t touch materials, so let’s talk about vertices.
 
3D geometry is composed of vertices, and those vertices are linked together to form faces that will be rendered on your screen. For instance, take a simple single voxel cube. It is composed of one material, but has eight vertices on the eight corners. Since our voxels in DU store both a material and a vertex position, our “single voxel” here is composed of eight voxels because it takes eight vertices to form a cube!
 
This is where it starts getting complicated. We can consider that there are two voxel grids, one is the material grid and the other is the vertex position grid, and the two grids are shifted, dual to each other. There are eight vertices around a material, and there are eight materials (we can consider the void as a special kind of material) around a vertex.
 
So what are we talking about when we talk about a voxel? A little bit of both, depending on the context. Confusing right? We’ll try to be specific and talk about vertices, but remember there is only one vertex per voxel, although one voxel cube is composed of eight vertices (and thus is in reality eight voxels: one with matter and seven without matter.)
 
Take a look at this picture. It is in 2D because it’s easier to understand (and to draw), but this is the same thing in 3D. This image represents a voxel sphere (more like a circle since we are in 2D).
 

  The dotted lines are the uniform grid that represent the voxels. At the intersection of those dotted lines, you can have a blue dot, representing a material. So, we have our material grid: either emptiness or a blue material. Inside of all of those cells, there may be a vertex. There is a vertex if and only if all four corners are not the same. If one of the corners is blue and another one empty, it means we have some material change here and thus something to see. So we need a vertex to know where we see the surface. On each of those cells, we have a vertex represented. The vertices are then linked together to form the surface.
 
POSITIONS VALUES
 
Before the Panacea update, you could only get such a sphere with the sphere tool, but with the VTP you’ll now have the opportunity to change the vertex position manually. This raises the question: what coordinate system do we use?
 
In theory, we could use an infinite range of values. For example, we could say that the vertex should be at one third (on a given axis) in between the two materials as shown in the grid, so its value (on this axis) could be 0.333333333. It could also be 0.1415926535, or whatever we want.
 
However, we need to store those vertex positions, and we want to be efficient so that we don’t take too much disk usage so we encode the vertex position (on a given axis) on a single byte. This means we only have 256 different possibilities for a vertex position, but we don’t really need more. A vertex position is a coordinate with three numbers (for the three axes) where all of these numbers are integers (with a maximum 256 different possible integers).
 
So what are those possible values? Before answering that, we need to consider where a vertex can lie. On the sphere representation drawing, you can see that vertices are inside the zone defined by the four surrounding material points. This is indeed where a vertex should be most of the time, although we may sometimes want to overflow a bit, reach a little further than the vertex is supposed to. This will encroach on the zone of the neighbor voxel, but it does not have to be a problem. We decided that a vertex could lie on its one zone, but also the zone of its direct neighbors. On the 2D schematics above, it means that a vertex can be placed anywhere on the nine squares around it.
 
A vertex encoding actually encodes three vertice’s positions. We want to have an encoding for all the important positions, the middle of each of the three voxels and their borders. This means that we need a multiple of six. We’ll use 252 as it is very close to 256. Now let’s see this coordinate system in a picture. The picture below represents four simple cubes in voxels (yellow, red, blue and cyan).
 
We will be talking about the vertex shared by the red and blue cubes. There are actually two of those vertices in 2D, one top and one bottom; let’s talk about the top one. We state that the position it is in in the picture will be 0 (it’s a convention, the one chosen in the Vertex Precision Tool), and above the cubes we showed all the position values this vertex could have
 
 
So 0 is the position of a vertex in a simple voxel cube. If we move the vertex into position 42 (both the top and bottom vertex of this red-blue junction), then the red rectangle will now be 1.5 times bigger, and the blue rectangle will be half its current size. If we move the vertices to -42, it would be the other way around. Note that all the values between -42 and 42 are the values where the vertex is supposed to be without overflow. This is the zone we described earlier.
 
If we were to move the vertices to value 84, then we would enter the territory of the vertex shared by the blue and cyan cubes. This becomes a little dangerous and could result in strange results. In this example, it would lead to the blue surface to completely disappear and be replaced by the red one. The blue voxel would still exist, it would just have a null volume.
 
And, in the example of these four cubes, if we were to go to a value above 84, it would result in an ill-formed shape because the blue shape would have a negative volume. This would probably create visual artifacts, and we may prevent this situation in the future.
 
ENCODING CHANGE
 
One last note for those who are familiar with voxelmancy. In Panacea, we use an encoding of 253 positions (from -126 to 126), which is different than it has been. We used an encoding of 255 positions (it was from -128 to 128 but previous -128 = actual -126). Since there is no exact mapping between the old encoding to the new one, this means that vertices in your constructs may be shifted up to 1mm (vertices at position 0 will not move, but those at extreme values will move the most). This will probably be unnoticeable, but we wanted to err on the side of caution and share this information.
 
You may wonder, why 253? It is for the reasons explained before, to have those nice -126, -84, -42, 0, 42, 84 and 126 values. The 255 system did not allow for that. We could have chosen 193, so that you could split a voxel in 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64, but that would have meant a huge loss in precision and significantly deformed most constructs. So 253 it is, and you can now split a voxel in 42!
 
USING THE VPT
 
There are exactly 253 positions on a single axis including zero that a vertex can be in due to it being divisible over three voxels. Negative 126, 0, and positive 126. As such, the width of one voxel is exactly 84 positions. And each vertex can be moved exactly 1.5 voxel away from the center position.
 
Thus, the grid on which a vertex is moved is adjustable to a size that covers 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 21 or 42 positions, 42 being the size of half a voxel. This allows the accurate placement to the finest detail or to quickly scale up and move a vertex by a half, a quarter, a sixth, or a twelfth of a voxel.
 
See the image below to get an idea of the different size grids available to the VPT.
 
 
Once selected, the vertex cursor can then be moved with:
The up, down, left arrow and right Arrow keys for the x- and y-axis.
The Page Up and Page Down for the z-axis.
The Home key to send the cursor to the current position of the vertex.
The End key to send your cursor to the last confirmed coordinates.
(This also happens by default when you change vertices.)
The Alt+Home key combination to send the cursor to the centered 0,0,0 coordinates.
Holding Control+Scroll will adjust the grid size between the available sizes.
Left-click confirms the placement and moves the selected vertex to the cursor.
 
The VPT will give you the finest precision possible, no more complex voxelmancy of copy-pasting things around to get a specific shape. You may not use this tool all the time, but when you do you’ll find it exceptionally helpful for fine-tuning.
 
WHEW, THAT’S A LOTTA INFO!
 
Still with us? We know there’s a lot of information to process, but we felt it was worthwhile to share the details with our voxelating community members that would appreciate seeing how the sausage is made (so to speak).
 
We can’t wait to see the cool new stuff Noveans build with the Vertex Precision Tool. As always, we encourage everyone to join the conversation on the forum in this thread. If you have questions about the VPT or want to share your thoughts and tips about voxelmancy in general, that’s the place to go.
 
 

Greeting Noveans. Let us know what you think about our latest devblog, Precision in Building!

Hi all!
 
After reading your feedback, we have noted that the removal of log functions was having a big impact on you. So after some internal discussions to find a solution based on your suggestions that would meet your expectations but would not be too heavy to implement, we have made a decision.
 
We plan to add with Panacea, the ability to copy to your clipboard the content of a chat channel, and clean it up.

It is certain that this will not provide a nice solution for the problems related to the lack of data export to virtual currency systems. We have some ideas for this but it won't be for a while unfortunately.

Hopefully this announcement will allay your concerns  

NQ-Ligo

Personally, I've always defended the fact that it's all well and good to want the great freedom to do what you want on your own, but it's not that (even if you add gameplay) that will create a game with a living economy, interactions between players (direct as well as indirect) ...etc
How do you want a player-run economy if no player will buy anything from you because he can do everything himself? Why would players join an organization or play with other players if they can do it solo? Why would players build infrastructure, cities, hubs; FUNCTIONAL and LIVING, if they have no reason to go there, to interact with others ...etc
Various things need to change in this direction, the current "game" is far too based on JC's utopia, which dreamed that in a totally free world the players would play as they wished, together, specialising themselves, creating companies that create circular economies, services ...Etc Except that JC did not have a vision of a game, but of a utopia Players are humans and they are far from respecting utopias if they have no reason to. Besides, he himself thought that pvp should be a small part of the game, that everyone should be a bear, that DRM should not exist and that everything should be shared, even Lua codes...etc

The fact is that if you really consider DU to be an MMO with flow, animation, interactivity, an economy ...etc there are many things that need to change that will "restrict" these freedoms; because it is also a game that lives, these choices and decisions. Most sandbox games where you can do everything so easily, people don't stay for more than a couple of months. DU still keeps its players because of mechanics like voxels and Lua, but otherwise nothing more. And you can see that NQ, since JC's departure, is trying to make DU a game, which it isn't yet. And so that means changes.


And SO, to get back to the topic, if we want a GAME, where there are interactions, direct or indirect (mission, market, services), economies (and stop saying to remove the bots, it will be even worse afterwards as no one will have a reason to buy as long as they can all do it), in-game powers, services, player groupings, living structures ...etc. We'll have to go through a decision tree for the talents And that even if it remains based on time and not actions (because it's difficult to set up a system of experience on all the actions of the game and that it is not exploitable; like piloting? ).

A decision tree would lead players to specialize as they choose the branches they want to play. To give a vague example but for the sake of the idea:
 - a pilot will concentrate on the use and improvement of the performances of his skills, but will not be able to take at the same time the installation or the manufacture of these elements
 - an industrialist will focus on manufacturing but not use
 - an builder will focus on unlock the use of rare materials, rare decorations ...etc
 - a ship builder will focus on place down bonus on elements and get best pvp materials
...etc


A tree does not mean square classes, let us rather say that a tree of decision will lead to arc-types of classes, but which will be composed of various choices of branch.
TRULY! If such a system is implemented, it would make sense to allow players to use a talent point reset token (given for free at the beginning of the game and which could become an item purchasable with real money in the shop once the one offered is used).

And before reading your comments that retort "yes but I want to be able to mine, craft, use the elements of my ship ... etc), you might as well say that you want to play a single player game and therefore do not complain about the lack of "dynamics" to summarize all the points.
To these people I will answer, to give me the reasons of :
Why would a player buy something you sell on a market if he can do it himself in your same logic? Why would players group together if they can do everything themselves and don't need anyone else? Why would players create shops when each player can create his own ship? (besides the aesthetics) Why would players use and organize living spaces, flow nodes if players don't need to buy, talents from other players ...etc? ...etc
 
I think that if we want Dual Universe to become a game and not a sandbox based on a stupid Utopia of someone who has thrown promises at everything. I think it's important to accept and push for mechanics that add a need; the need of other players directly or indirectly (if you don't want to play with people, good for you, but the marketplaces where you buy items, or the missions you complete ...etc will be sold by players, or organized by players who need you in some other way; you will interact with them, but indirectly)

Personally, I've always defended the fact that it's all well and good to want the great freedom to do what you want on your own, but it's not that (even if you add gameplay) that will create a game with a living economy, interactions between players (direct as well as indirect) ...etc
How do you want a player-run economy if no player will buy anything from you because he can do everything himself? Why would players join an organization or play with other players if they can do it solo? Why would players build infrastructure, cities, hubs; FUNCTIONAL and LIVING, if they have no reason to go there, to interact with others ...etc
Various things need to change in this direction, the current "game" is far too based on JC's utopia, which dreamed that in a totally free world the players would play as they wished, together, specialising themselves, creating companies that create circular economies, services ...Etc Except that JC did not have a vision of a game, but of a utopia Players are humans and they are far from respecting utopias if they have no reason to. Besides, he himself thought that pvp should be a small part of the game, that everyone should be a bear, that DRM should not exist and that everything should be shared, even Lua codes...etc

The fact is that if you really consider DU to be an MMO with flow, animation, interactivity, an economy ...etc there are many things that need to change that will "restrict" these freedoms; because it is also a game that lives, these choices and decisions. Most sandbox games where you can do everything so easily, people don't stay for more than a couple of months. DU still keeps its players because of mechanics like voxels and Lua, but otherwise nothing more. And you can see that NQ, since JC's departure, is trying to make DU a game, which it isn't yet. And so that means changes.


And SO, to get back to the topic, if we want a GAME, where there are interactions, direct or indirect (mission, market, services), economies (and stop saying to remove the bots, it will be even worse afterwards as no one will have a reason to buy as long as they can all do it), in-game powers, services, player groupings, living structures ...etc. We'll have to go through a decision tree for the talents And that even if it remains based on time and not actions (because it's difficult to set up a system of experience on all the actions of the game and that it is not exploitable; like piloting? ).

A decision tree would lead players to specialize as they choose the branches they want to play. To give a vague example but for the sake of the idea:
 - a pilot will concentrate on the use and improvement of the performances of his skills, but will not be able to take at the same time the installation or the manufacture of these elements
 - an industrialist will focus on manufacturing but not use
 - an builder will focus on unlock the use of rare materials, rare decorations ...etc
 - a ship builder will focus on place down bonus on elements and get best pvp materials
...etc


A tree does not mean square classes, let us rather say that a tree of decision will lead to arc-types of classes, but which will be composed of various choices of branch.
TRULY! If such a system is implemented, it would make sense to allow players to use a talent point reset token (given for free at the beginning of the game and which could become an item purchasable with real money in the shop once the one offered is used).

And before reading your comments that retort "yes but I want to be able to mine, craft, use the elements of my ship ... etc), you might as well say that you want to play a single player game and therefore do not complain about the lack of "dynamics" to summarize all the points.
To these people I will answer, to give me the reasons of :
Why would a player buy something you sell on a market if he can do it himself in your same logic? Why would players group together if they can do everything themselves and don't need anyone else? Why would players create shops when each player can create his own ship? (besides the aesthetics) Why would players use and organize living spaces, flow nodes if players don't need to buy, talents from other players ...etc? ...etc
 
I think that if we want Dual Universe to become a game and not a sandbox based on a stupid Utopia of someone who has thrown promises at everything. I think it's important to accept and push for mechanics that add a need; the need of other players directly or indirectly (if you don't want to play with people, good for you, but the marketplaces where you buy items, or the missions you complete ...etc will be sold by players, or organized by players who need you in some other way; you will interact with them, but indirectly)

After playing the game for more than a year I am more than convinced that the biggest flaw in the game is that people can do or become everything at the same time. This causes the economy never to balance out. It does not make sense that people who are the largest industry tycoons also mine their own ore. This way smaller setups or people who make money from ore, will never get their economy running. It will feel like a struggle forever.
 
How to prevent that everybody can do everything?
 
Just as in real life, limit what you can become. In other words, professions which limits the talents. If I choose to become an industry tycoon, I can only train talents related to my profession. The profitability should be related to the talents trained so that mining only will be profitable by having the right talents. People who become a miner, have mining talents to their availability. Etc, etc. This way it will never become profitable for industry tycoons to mine their own ore so it forces them to buy. When you think about this concept most likely more clever people then I can think of even more ways to split the talents and their professions.
 
You should be able to switch profession, this however will reset your talent points and return the talent points (of course with a penalty extracted from them because you switched).
 

Hi Jake,

We are well aware of this issue, it is an issue that came up after we fixed a major problem that was causing client crashes. To be honest, when we say "it may take a while to fix", it does, it requires reworking the parser we have in place.
Unfortunately, it won't be possible to fix this before our break, which will do everyone a lot of good for a full recovery. Nevertheless, it remains a major problem that we are keeping in mind, if that makes you feel better.

Of course, I can't give any date sorry.

While many members of our team will be off to spend time with their families for the holidays, there will still be hamster wranglers and other key staff on-hand to keep the servers running smoothly. Customer Support will also be available, but please be patient as turn-around time for tickets may take a little longer than usual.
 
Meanwhile, here’s a sneak peek at some of the things you can look forward to when the team returns in January:
 
An updated roadmap A reveal of our next major update, including devblogs  Some exciting new Lua stuff, which NQ-Ligo will tell you more about below.  
MORE LUA LOVE
 
Bonjour, everyone. NQ-Ligo here. I focus a lot on everything related to Lua implementation, improvements, bugs, tests, and additions. You may remember me from the three-part devblog series Lua Changes and Improvements.
 
We are continuing to introduce more changes and improvements to the Dual Universe Lua environment. There is so much we want to do, and we are doing our best to include Lua-related content into updates as often as possible along with major gameplay elements.
 
Fellow Lua enthusiasts will probably be happy to hear that two areas I’m working on now are the Camera Lua API and the Lua API for the mining unit. These two major additions (and a few minors) are coming very soon!
 
Watch for more information from me about these after the holidays.
 
WARM WISHES FROM NQ
 
From our universe to yours, the Novaquark team would like to extend our warmest seasons greetings and thanks to the Dual Universe community.
 
Happy holidays!
 

7 HQ tiles instead of 5 would be nice, but certainly not neccessary, you can easliy make a five tile HQ patch. Honestly doesn't matter to me, I'm good either way.
 
Drop off after 7 days instead of 2. Absolutely NOT! NQ please don't bend to the whiners (again)! This seemingly minor change would have massive impact on the amount of ore people can automine and how many tiles people would optimally need. Over twice as much ore and 25% more tiles needed. Would lead to 25% more quanta sink/sunk. Bad, bad idea!
 
What I do request of NQ is that they implement a basic math tutorial in DU, because way to many people don't have even basic math skills and still complain that the game is broken because they can't do some basic math! That also means you @Creator!

If you haven’t already, we highly recommend that you read the Territory Upkeep devblog before reading this. It’s okay. We’ll wait. 

……….

….. =^-^= …..

Back? Cool! Now we want to tell you about what’s going to happen next.

In the devblog, we wrote that “the first tax payments will be subtracted from the territories two weeks after the Demeter release date. Once the update is live, we will announce the exact date and time the first tax cycle will begin.” 

This is that announcement: the first tax cycle will begin on December 7th at 09:45 UTC. 

If you have claimed your territory, designated your headquarters, and primed your wallet with enough quanta to cover the taxes (1 million per week per territory), you’re all set and don’t need to do anything further to prepare. Still, you may want to continue reading in case you’d like to know how to benefit from situations where territories have unpaid taxes.
 
ABANDONED TERRITORIES

Territory owners have a two-week “offline territory” grace period to pay. They still own the territory and the constructs on it, but any mining units or industry on the territory will be forced offline, only returning to service if the taxes are paid. 

When two weeks of unpaid taxes pass, the territory enters an abandoned state and becomes available for another player to claim. Once a territory is abandoned and claimed by a new owner, it’s for keeps. The previous owner can’t swoop in, drop some quanta and take it back.

REQUISITIONING CONSTRUCTS

If there are static constructs on the territory, their ownership does not immediately convey with the territory to the new owner. Rather, the new territory owner must requisition ownership from the previous owner via the construct context menu. The previous owner then has two weeks to retrieve the construct content by disassembling and removing them. If the original owner does not retrieve the constructs by the due date, the new owner can take ownership of them by confirming the requisition.

As much as we know some players would enjoy Fireflying around salvaging construct content from abandoned territories, it’s not possible without claiming the territory first. This can only be done by the new owner of the territory.

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

Here are the important dates to remember: 
First territory taxes are due for pre-Demeter claimed territories: December 7th at 09:45 UTC Unpaid taxes result in industries and mining units going offline on pre-Demeter claimed territories: December 7th at 09:45 UTC The first requisitions will potentially go through on December 7th at 16:00 UTC.  Pre-Demeter claimed abandoned territories are up for grabs: December 21st at 09:45 UTC Potentially, you can lose ownership of the static constructs that were deployed on YOUR territory that you owned pre-Demeter starting from January 4th Post-Demeter claimed abandoned territories are up for grabs: December 10th at 16:00 UTC  
Dates for when new owners may requisition for ownership of abandoned constructs and when ownership will transfer will vary depending on when the requisition is submitted. But since the requisition takes two weeks, you cannot lose the ownership of your static constructs before December 7th, 16:00 UTC . And if the construct is still on territory claimed before Demeter, it cannot be lost before January 4th at 09:45 UTC.
 
READY, SET, GO!
 
If you’ve had your eye on an abandoned parcel of profitability potential, it could soon be yours. Save the date and ready your fastest ship to make sure you get there first to claim the prize. 
If you have questions, we’ll do our best to answer them. Hit us up in this thread.
 

The "extractions efficiency" and "calibration charge efficiency" talents don't work in VR, like missions, you don't think this will worsen the imbalance between players with one/few accounts and those who abused with 40+ alpha key or else by being able to leave his characters on site or in the mission ship?

This update is really difficult for new players, they can no longer easily use the services of other players for missions, especially in PVP where the presence of a foreigner on a ship is dangerous.
VR is like using a robot remotely, how can you not carry a simple package with them and put it in a container?

---
 
The changes in PVP are too weak and misguided to encourage interesting gameplay. He pushes people to play alone, in a ship without voxel, as small as possible and we lose everything that made the charm of DU, the multi crew.
You have to review the functioning of the shield and the CCS, understand what your game can support the most and orient your balance around that, to allow all kinds of gameplay and not just single player gameplay.
 
Do you think that a new round table around PVP would be possible? With the different groups that are involved in it, pirates as well as hauler pilot or roid miners.

---

Do you plan to leave friendlist lock that won't refresh? Because to follow allies on the move or in combat, it has become very hard.

Are there any updates on LUA screens? The new LUA API for screen content is great but is missing important features such as text rotation and the ability to draw polygons. Is more time scheduled to work on this feature. Are there still no specific dates for disabling/removing HTML screens?
 
Related feature request:
 

A lot of players seems forget the daily 150 000h each day. Even with that you can collect enough quanta, without doing ore trading with MU, or missions ... or all other acivites like ship selling, ressources trading, event organization ...etc


 
Where did they said it was 1 000 000 per month ??? It was already 1M per week on the PTS. Nothing changed.


 
No no  An inactive tile, is just a tile on which industries and mining units can't run. But you can keep building, terraforming or digging.


 
If you're a solo player you should stay on Sanctuary until you determined an economic model to substain to taxes.
- If you log one time each day, you will get 150 000h per day ; 1 050 000h.
- With missions, you can get much more with much less time.
- On your Sanctuary tile, you can keep using mining unit indefinitly, so use it to generate resources or income. So technicly, if you take a tile on a non-sanctuary tile, you can generate resources from two tiles and double your production.

In addition to that, you can find multiple way to get quantas, sell ships, do events to win quantas, salvage tiles ...etc  


 
If you a new player, as said higher, nothing force you to come on other players you can stay on Sanctuary as much time you need  It's taxe free.

After that, if you want to build somewhere else you will always be able to declare a HQ tile, and so build on it and use it without paying the tax, just will not be able to use MU or industries on it (but it will stay possible to do on your sanctuary tile).

I don't see real issues for newbies. They got Sanctuary tiles ; safe, free, persistent, productive .... it's for that.



My personnal opinion is just that 5 HQ tile per player is a bit too much.
Would suggest to limit it to 3.
 

Part of the issue is that most people are geared to think in a straight line based on how things were done, not how they can be done differently. This is pretty much the default state of human thinking... Do you need to actually own those hexes to make a racetrack on them?
 
Look at how auto mining is going to work, expect (some) folks to exploit patches of 50+ tiles. I would suspect that some folk might be amiable to facilitate a racing track on those tiles for no quanta... I'm waiting for Demeter to hit too see how everything will work after the patch, so I might be one of those folks that has a 50+ tile patch that's willing to host a racing track (need to look at RDMS some more)...

Some of us are not slaves to this game!
 
We don't forget about the 150000 Quanta per day, we just don't log in every day, we have other things to do with our lives.

forcing players to log in daily and then arguing "it's not bad! you get 150k!" is a circle jerk and not an argument.
 
Quanta/resource sink is needed for sure. Taxes are a cheap way out for NQ without having to create interesting new mechanics like POWER SYSTEMS as promised for example, which would do the same thing as taxes, but better.

A lot of players seems forget the daily 150 000h each day. Even with that you can collect enough quanta, without doing ore trading with MU, or missions ... or all other acivites like ship selling, ressources trading, event organization ...etc


 
Where did they said it was 1 000 000 per month ??? It was already 1M per week on the PTS. Nothing changed.


 
No no  An inactive tile, is just a tile on which industries and mining units can't run. But you can keep building, terraforming or digging.


 
If you're a solo player you should stay on Sanctuary until you determined an economic model to substain to taxes.
- If you log one time each day, you will get 150 000h per day ; 1 050 000h.
- With missions, you can get much more with much less time.
- On your Sanctuary tile, you can keep using mining unit indefinitly, so use it to generate resources or income. So technicly, if you take a tile on a non-sanctuary tile, you can generate resources from two tiles and double your production.

In addition to that, you can find multiple way to get quantas, sell ships, do events to win quantas, salvage tiles ...etc  


 
If you a new player, as said higher, nothing force you to come on other players you can stay on Sanctuary as much time you need  It's taxe free.

After that, if you want to build somewhere else you will always be able to declare a HQ tile, and so build on it and use it without paying the tax, just will not be able to use MU or industries on it (but it will stay possible to do on your sanctuary tile).

I don't see real issues for newbies. They got Sanctuary tiles ; safe, free, persistent, productive .... it's for that.



My personnal opinion is just that 5 HQ tile per player is a bit too much.
Would suggest to limit it to 3.
 

A lot of players seems forget the daily 150 000h each day. Even with that you can collect enough quanta, without doing ore trading with MU, or missions ... or all other acivites like ship selling, ressources trading, event organization ...etc


 
Where did they said it was 1 000 000 per month ??? It was already 1M per week on the PTS. Nothing changed.


 
No no  An inactive tile, is just a tile on which industries and mining units can't run. But you can keep building, terraforming or digging.


 
If you're a solo player you should stay on Sanctuary until you determined an economic model to substain to taxes.
- If you log one time each day, you will get 150 000h per day ; 1 050 000h.
- With missions, you can get much more with much less time.
- On your Sanctuary tile, you can keep using mining unit indefinitly, so use it to generate resources or income. So technicly, if you take a tile on a non-sanctuary tile, you can generate resources from two tiles and double your production.

In addition to that, you can find multiple way to get quantas, sell ships, do events to win quantas, salvage tiles ...etc  


 
If you a new player, as said higher, nothing force you to come on other players you can stay on Sanctuary as much time you need  It's taxe free.

After that, if you want to build somewhere else you will always be able to declare a HQ tile, and so build on it and use it without paying the tax, just will not be able to use MU or industries on it (but it will stay possible to do on your sanctuary tile).

I don't see real issues for newbies. They got Sanctuary tiles ; safe, free, persistent, productive .... it's for that.



My personnal opinion is just that 5 HQ tile per player is a bit too much.
Would suggest to limit it to 3.
 

thank you for headquarter tiles, that removes most of my worries.
 
my only suggestion is to allow a high talent point needed skill that lets us store more money in the territory wallet. that way if you have subscribed and played for a long time you can also leave the game for longer if something happens. like oh this talent takes 6 months, but gets me x amount of extra months of wallet stashing
beucase the money is still leaving the economy 
 
also please make sure that people / guests can contribute to the tax directly. so organization members can interact with the territory and help pay taxes
with a log
or an ability to script a log
maybe one day be able to script taxes paid x amount can be a trigger for lua/dispensers/ signs etc
 
you know?
so like you could have a message board showing like Territory taxes: unit 1 13 mill full unit 2 11 mill full unit 3 etc
and then people could vr over to those units and top them up for their org

With the 5 HQ territories for individuals, I am happy with the cost per week. This means everyone can gain a reasonable income at no overhead cost and only those who want to earn more must pay more.

Gets my vote.