Neirin

So for me, there were all sorts of small failures along the way (many in beta, some since) but they are all really just details next to the central problem.  One of the key features of the design for DU was that players would provide *all of the content*.  That meant that the game just needed to provide the mechanics and frameworks and literally everything else would be player driven.
 
Now players did actually try to do this.  There were people who created puzzles, etc for people to solve, created factions who fought each other, tried to build whole cities and many other interesting things.  The game and its developers seem to fight against content creators at every turn - recent examples being ship builders being put off because the stacked element checker means they have no way to know whether or not they are selling ships which will error 6 months later and warring factions being put off because nobody can shoot each other in battles.
 
Putting that aside though, I think that the one thing this game has proved beyond all doubt is that a game with solely player built content does not work.  You need to have some other content created by the game itself first in order to create gameplay loops that players can do when they aren't doing any group content.  A player needs to be able to just log in, play for 1/2 an hour, enjoy that time and profit from it.

So the one thing I would have done right away is add some background life to the game.  Put creatures in that might attack the player, make some basic challenges on the ground and in space, give players something to shoot at and reasons for doing so (protect base, get resources, whatever).  That would also give them a reason to team up, live in walled villages or space stations with a large shield, etc.  Some of this was in the original game design videos which were put out.  Then I would have built on it by adding more of a survival element to the game, adding PvE and NPCs to allow players to make their spaces more interesting.  I can build a huge space station but it has nobody in it at the moment, let me make it more interesting, make a bar where NPCs come and players I let in might be able to get missions from those NPCs.  I think that would have given players much more of a sense of shared purpose and struggle and a reason to come together into groups and play together.
 
As it is the game is, frankly, boring.  It's a game relying on player created content which literally deletes player created content on a regular basis made by a company which has no problem with breaking existing content and blaming that on the players trying to create it.  The world itself, and the constructs the game allows you to create, are fairly static and uninteresting too and it is difficult to come up with actual functions for many of the rooms in a construct.  I can add a bed but it has no use.  A lot of the cool stuff I see is just huge empty shell buildings with one or two rooms because people made them to look pretty rather than because they needed the space for things.

Was the tile marked as headquarters?
The time frame sounds too short for it to be a sub issue - it sounds more like you lost because you didn't have enough tax money in the wallet, than anything related to your card.
 
My current understanding is that HQ tiles and anything in space last for 90 days after your sub runs out.
Also, I think it takes 2 weeks for them to fully claim your ship unless its on an NQ tile.
(Please correct me if I'm wrong)

The only way I could see the 90 days shrinking is if there were some kind of auction system in place where players bid on the plot and all proceeds go to the player/org who lost the tile, or something.
 
It IS kind of annoying seeing a nice plot with virtually nothing on it sit there counting down from 90 days. I don’t care about your M container and two basic mining units, I just want your sweet ass plot.

PSST, you dont have to play the mini game.  And you can skip allot of the transitions by clicking the box.  Then once you click Start quickly press ESC.  This will exit out of the mini game without a confirmation window appearing.  It will increase your calibration percent by 35%. (no bonus ore).  This can be done in VR every 5 days. Basically allowing 1 person to calibrate 34 MU's every 5 days. With a couple hour grace period. 
will try and get a screen shot tomorrow when I do callibrations. but you can see the hotspots under the edge without surveying. 

As you can see in the below picture. at the red arrow you can see the edge is brighter. The ore is 100% beneath that spot. 
And even if its close to it you can still find it Look at the second picture. its fairly light by the edge I am not 100% sure its right there. but chances are thats where its at. 

Lets look at numbers we actually know,  instead of feelings.
 
Allioth had a peak claimed territory count of 18,100 back at the end of november.  It has 14,710 today.  Although in that same period of time Jago went from 1478 to 1765 today, Same for Teoma.  Madis and Thades have had up and downs but are about the same.  Have not tracked the moons.  But so far 22,880 accounts have been created and landed ingame.  Over 200 new accounts have landed in the last week alone. 
 
Only 19 percent of steam players have played more than 3 hours.  15% of steam players have crashed a ship. 
 
So what does all this mean? Well these numbers mean steam players dont stick around to play the game. No wonder the steam player base is so low. Although I suspect some of this might be, you cannot resub on the steam page. So if you sign up on steam. Once your time is up you have to buy from NQ or that other site, and I suspect most dont know about that other site. Which means you gotta jump through more hoops. And I am sure several players have stopped playing because they cannot be bothered with the resub process. 
 
I can agree that NQ does as abysmal job of player retention. And was adamite about keeping the bot orders for T1. New players need a source of income. Hopefully PVE brings that to us, as that will help with new player retention. But it just seemed odd for them to have so many negative patches at launch. 

You lost me at dumb. I guess you wrote other stuff after that. /shrug/

I was more thinking about some of the giant monuments that I've seen around the place. It would be disappointing to lose one because the owner missed their sub for a few weeks and a random player tore them down.

I'm sorry, but this idea is absurdly bad for any subscription based MMO.
 
To me, it betrays a complete misunderstanding of how subscription-based monetization works at a fundamental level. 
 
This idea that once someone's sub lapses, they ought to be completely purged from the game is immensely counter-productive. From a business perspective, it makes zero sense. 
 
This is because every subscription-based product faces high month-to-month churn, and with DU that's especially so. Every churned user then becomes a potential customer, because reengaging lapsed subscribers is a huge facet of any viable subscription service.
 
Consider what percent of active Netflix subscribers has at one point paused or cancelled their sub. I'd wager it's a vast majority. This is just a core concept with how subscriptions work, and any sub-based product that decides to ignore this is not going to last very long. 
 
Deciding to make it so there's no reason for lapsed users to return is an objectively stupid idea for any subscription...especially one that suffers from as much churn as DU. 
 
The push and pull between DU keeping tiles and reclaiming them has been discussed for a long, long time -- the flaw is inherent in the design of this game and the solution that NQ already has makes a lot more sense than this suggestion.
 
Hell, I'd argue timers should be even higher, because 3 months is not nearly enough time to re-engage a lapsed sub, and that's the whole point. 
 
TLDR: a game with so few subs can't be so arrogant in deleting old stuff to "make room" for new players, because there are no new players and regardless, all new players eventually become churned players (especially with DU's high churn rates), so this "strategy" is horribly counter-productive in every conceivable way. 

i don’t agree. You don’t pay, you don’t play you loose the tiles after 1month except your starting tile. 
 
this is a chance to clean up not active tiles, especially this t2+ tiles which would be great value to new players who had not been part of the tile rush from launch. I mean that’s nonsense, to maintain tiles with some alts and then there are no consequences for not paying anymore. I mean we would like to see DU to survive, that means you either pay or you are out and make room for new paying folks. 
 
as everybody likes to highlight it’s a sandbox, and in a sandbox things get lost. 
 
My 2 cent. 

HQ tiles already abandon after 3 months unsubbed iirc.
2 weeks would be far too short.

I'd like to send a message to people so that they can see it next time they log on.

I would also very much like to be able to see and filter WHO is selling. blacklists, whitelists, etc.

I am against that, it would lead to people having "space only" ship for mission and negate all the weight management of missions. 

HQ tiles already abandon after 3 months unsubbed iirc.
2 weeks would be far too short.

Idea: Show Applied Buffs to a Construct (Handling and Otherwise)
Maybe for buffs that occur when you "Start" a refining on industry, you could have something at the top that would show the skills being applied to the "run"

I'm curious what made you think "A group of 5 guys" could "do economic damage to a bigger org" in any game.

I'm curious what made you think "A group of 5 guys" could "do economic damage to a bigger org" in any game.

I do not agree with this statement.
Automining generates ore (goods) and does not introduce quants into the game. Through ore, quants could only be entered into the game by bots to buy ore. This remark may seem unimportant, but it is not.
After all, ore can be dug on asteroids and collected on the surface.
In fact, none of these actions give you money directly. As a consequence, if ore prices fall, then all of the above activities suffer, not just auto-mining.
Now only these direct actions give money in the game:
1. Daily entrance to the game.
2. Completing missions.
3. Complete daily missions in the surrogate station.

And they shouldn't! The tax is just a measurement on when automining is profitable (or not) and an exit of quanta from the economy. You have three HQ tiles per account and a starter moon tile per account. That should be more then enough for building stuff for most people.
 
The problem here is not NQ (in this case), it's all the people that are still automining when it's not profitable enough. "But I want to automine!" is not a good reason if you're complaining about viability... There are other ways of making quanta besides automining and running missions...
 
I stopped doing automining a while back, as it took way too much time vs. the rewards. I started loosing interest in DU due to the work involved and that resulted in even less rewards and eventually forcing me to run missions to pay for the taxes (as I was using the ore and not directly selling it). Eventually I completely broke down the mining operation. Since then I haven't done (auto)mining or mission running and my operation has become more profitable because of it!

Were they though? I can't remember ever seeing NQ saying that straight up. Only permanently safe place were supposed to be Sanctuary/Haven.
 

I see more than 10/day
It seems closer to 1/hour
 
Edit: I do agree that it would be nice to see more, though.

That's basically what I've been doing.
I only have one tile with 8 small miners (400L/h coal) and 1 chromite miner (23 L/h), and getting 35-40KL coal + ~3kl chromite per day.
I use the chromite for fuel, and the coal pays the week's taxes in 2 days.

The point of interest isn't exact, but the wreck should be in radar range when you get there. If someone beat you to it, it will disappear from the point of interest list.
 
it's like an abandoned core - you can either strip parts or replace the core.
Replacing the core is best because it stops late arrivals from also stripping parts. It also helps to keep space clean.
(you may have to strip a few parts to get to the core)
 
I've also been taking core blueprints before I start stripping, it's nice to have a full parts list in case you recycled something you should have kept.
I think I've only seen 5 or 6 unique designs myself, so there are a lot of repeats.

The whole moving ore around idea is flawed and destroys 2 of the basic pillars this game is based on.
 
Who is going to want to build anything on a tile if the ore is not stable and moves around.  I build my large multicore factory on a tile because of the ore,  i am not going to move all those cores every 2 weeks to a new tile.  All my mining stations are fancy M core structures, which i again am not going to want to have to relocate every 2 weeks.  One of the main pillars in the game is building and you basically are wiping that away.  The only strategic place really left to build is in space.  I know some will build for the view on planets, but one of the main reasons for building a building with a purpose will be wiped away.

Second is territory warefare.  I know it is not in game now (or near future).  Who in there right mind will fight over a tile if all they have to do is wait 2 weeks and get it without a chance of major loss?  The purpose for future expansion of pvp will basically be wiped away.  I know some will fight just because they can, but a lot of players are willing to fight if there is a reason to fight, this takes away that reason.
 
I am not saying there is not a problem with ore distribution but people need to come up with a better solution that does not break just as many things as it may solves.