Squidrew_

When we updated the forum, we made an announcement about it and explained about the Idea Box and what was happening with it. 

More specifically about the Idea Box this was said: 

"The "Idea Box" forum section will be closed soon as well: we thank you for all your input and ideas you have shared with us. However, right now, we already have a (very) long list of things that we want to add to the game. It doesn’t make much sense to ask for more suggestions and keep this section open for now, as we won’t be able to allocate much time for new ideas in the near future and may give the feeling that the team doesn’t listen to the Community. So we prefer to close it at the moment, and reopen it later when the developer team will have some bandwidth to take into consideration new ideas. You’re still more than welcome to share your feedback and suggestions on what to improve among the already existing features in the game in the thread dedicated to specific features!"

You can read all about the forum changes in the announcement area and here's the link.
 
 

Right.

The root of the PvP issues in this game is the fact that safe zones were created instead of combat mechanics. If we had been iterating on warfare, for everything, since Alpha, we'd have something really nice. Instead NQ threw in temporary measures that forced there hand with every other mechanic. So we're in a world where there is a magic line that _everyone_ can hide behind. I'd love for the world to be dangerous and for players to need to make safe-spaces, but we need the tools to do that. Static construct mounted automated weaponry would be fun for PvP, but it would be cheap to deploy and hard to defeat (not impossible, just hard). That way the ships are _easier_ than the bases, but again, not impossible. Anything that is impossible versus improbable, sucks. When someone kills you, they should become red to you, you should be able to put a bounty on them, AND a bounty on reporting their location! That makes being an aggressor and surviving a thing of pride, but also give people a chance to hunt them, and their base, down.
 
It's not a sandbox unless you give _everyone_ sand, which means anyone can throw it in anyone else's eyes at any time. Not just sometimes in certain parts of the sandbox.

Development forges ahead in Dual Universe. In update 1.2 (arriving on the 13th of December 2022), players will see new game systems and overhauls all about exploration, discovery, and salvaging.
 
 
THE TACTICAL MAP
 
Are you looking for a fight or trying to avoid one? Whatever your aims, we’re adding a new tool for you to navigate with more precision and awareness of the space around you. With integration into the piloting and gunner HUD, the Tactical Map allows you a clearer view of your surroundings and a better ability to interact with the map.
 
 

 
ASTEROID REWORK
 
Following frequently requested feedback, each asteroid now has an independent lifetime parameter that determines when it will despawn, meaning that asteroids will spawn randomly and despawn independently of any cycle based on their lifetime parameter. Players will see a constant spawning and despawning of asteroids in the game world.

The ‘Discovered Category’ is being removed. There will still be a timer to broadcast the discovery of an asteroid, allowing players to mine them before their location is moved from the ‘rumored’ list to the ‘broadcast’ list.
 
We’re also removing the tier information from undiscovered asteroids before their broadcast. Asteroid tier information is still revealed after the broadcast. However, this change will allow solo players and small groups a better chance to mine the high-tier asteroids they’ve invested in discovering.
 
SALVAGE OPERATIONS
 
Quanta floats out there, adrift in space, waiting to be claimed. Space recovery and reclamation have never been more profitable. Until now, Noveans would have to fly, hoping to stumble across wrecks, but that’s changing. We’re adding wrecks as ‘Abandoned Wreck’ items in the ‘Landmarks’ tab of the map. These are not pinpoint locations, however, and some searching is required to find the wrecks.
 
------------------------------------------------------

We’re excited to bring you this next step in our development of Dual Universe. We have streams planned to show you the upcoming features of update 1.2, and we will have more information on update 1.3 soon. Let us know what you think of this update here, and thank you all for your continued support.

Thanks everyone for the Support Staff love. ❤️ They appreciate the kind words!

this may not be the cause of what you are describing exactly, but i want to talk about this. a huge issue i noticed was that way back in 0.24 when they gave voxels new textures and materials, all metals became very dark. at night, they seem to be largely illuminated by ambient light, meaning that surfaces appear pitch black unless they are directly reflecting a nearby light source. white pattern aluminum for example used to be actually white, like white plastic or concrete as we have now, however currently they appear to be gray at best, and black at worst.
 
because metal is used so much, it made the entire world a lot darker and flatter in my opinion. during the time of 0.24 in beta many had the same perspective as i do here writing this, and the materials were altered slightly in response, but it was nowhere near enough in my opinion.
 
i have pictures of Alpha 3 and upon viewing the markets back then, i realize that everything pops way more, mostly in the metals. i would share of course if it wasn't under NDA, but the world was brighter, and far more detailed, open and eye-catching as a result of the superior lighting conditions for metal honeycomb. it's really quite drastic, and i wish i could show it off
 
somewhere in between the two would be the best balance i think

No I am not NQ and as I said in the opening, lighting is not my area of expertise. However I would like to obtain a high level understanding of all aspects of DU and hence decided to dive in and try to figure out how this all works. After awhile I had collected a bunch of interesting data so I figured I might as well share it here in the hopes someone would find it useful.
 
I was unable to find any instances of a Square Light L in the market building. It appears that most of the lights being used there are actually white luminescent voxels which as I pointed out in my post have the lowest range and are poorly suited for general illumination. I did however manage to find a pair of Square Light M near the entrance elevator and they seemed to be doing a fine job in my opinion.

 
Perhaps it could be improved but once again this is not because lighting is broken, it is just not being used effectively here. The landing pad only has 4 light elements and they are placed in the far corner. Everything else is once again luminescent voxels.

 
As I said in my post they appear best suited for short range interior lighting. The vertical light L will only illuminate things within ~20m and those illuminated things will only be seen as illuminated from up to 300m away. The long and square lights have less intensity but surfaces illuminated by them will be visible from much further.
 
It seems that I am not able to reproduce this. The ground directly beneath my ship has the same light level as the rest of the terrain. There is however a very faint glow coming from the nearby district which makes sense because there are 4x square light L on that platform.

 
I do agree with you that water has seemingly no impact on lighting. Not sure if that is something that can be easily added but I am certainly not opposed to the idea.
 
Yes the amount of light present during the night was increased and yes that does have a negative impact on immersion but I was there during this period in time and the heavy darkness was often quoted as an major issue by players. Personally I think it is better now but that is just my opinion. Perhaps your right and the majority of players feel it was turned up too high. I would love to hear more people comment on this.
 
Ah the avatar's flashlight. I actually investigated that too but it was an entirely different class of lighting object which was far more complicated. To be honest I still don't fully understand how it works, something about cubemaps and box projections. I will have to look into again when I have time. Personally I find the flashlight works well but I will admit there are times I wish it had a wider FOV.

The following is an examination of the various player lighting options in Dual Universe as of Update 1.1. Please keep in mind this is not my area of expertise and many of the conclusions drawn here are highly subjective. Hopefully you still find it useful and free of errors.
 
Summary of Findings (TLDR)
 
The Headlight XS is uniquely situated as the spotlight of Dual Universe and it does that job exceptionally well Long and Square lights are functionally equivalent and best suited for illuminating surfaces that need to be seen from a distance The Vertical light has the lowest effective range but being omni-directional with high intensity makes it ideal for indoor lighting of complex geometries. Luminescent Voxels are best suited for decorative highlighting rather than general illumination. Physical properties of lighting elements are standardized but be aware that the Vertical light L has increased mass, volume, and health XS light elements are tier 1 + nanocraftable while S, M, and L sized lights are tier 2 with standardized recipes Current fabrication costs for light elements are primarily from schematics and manufacturers are fully capable of supplying consumer needs right now  
Introduction
 
There are 4 different types of craftable light elements Headlight XS, Long Light, Square Light, and Vertical Light with the last 3 having size variations XS, S, M, and L. Each of these elements can be configured to blink at a regular interval and/or output RGB colors through the right click menu. Note that the RGB values must be scaled between 0 and 1 so if you are referencing integer color values (ie: 1 to 255) simply divide it by 255 before inputting. In addition there are 11 different kinds of Luminescent Voxels creating a fairly diverse color palette that spans the visible spectrum. These lights as shown below are the primary focus of this post, but it is also worth noting there are a large number of alternative sources such as fireworks, deco-lamps, engine VFX, and of course the sun itself.
 

 
Lighting Characteristics
 
The main objective behind adding lights to a construct is to use them to illuminate surfaces. These are the key parameters that influence this.
 
Field of View (FOV) – The angle centered about an object’s normal within which light is cast Intensity Factor – The relative power of a light source measured in multiples of 100,000 lux Attenuation Distance – The distance between a light source and a surface, beyond which said surface is no longer illuminated Penumbra Factor – A measure of how fast projected/surface light intensity decreases from the epicenter  Visible Distance – The distance between an illuminated surface and an observer, beyond which the light on said surface begins to fade out  
When it comes to FOV all light elements have approximately the same value of 100 degrees with the exception of vertical lights which are omni-directional. The remaining stats are plotted below with reference to element size. Note that gaps in the bar graph represent break points on the y-axis which were added to prevent exceptionally large values from obscuring the rest of the dataset.
 

 
The headlight XS has the greatest light intensity and attenuation distance which makes it effective at illuminating distant surfaces, but the high penumbra factor causes that intensity to rapidly decrease as the light spreads outwards from the point of incidence. Consequently it functions as a powerful spotlight that is great for lighting up distance objects with a narrow beam. The long and square lights closely mirror each other with the larger variants exhibiting slightly longer range. These lights also have the highest visible distance making them well suited for general illumination of mission critical surfaces like runways and landing pads. Vertical lights on the other hand have the lowest overall range but being omni-directional, with moderate intensity, largely makes up for that. They are well suited for locations that require many nearby surfaces to be irradiated at once such as building interiors or complex voxel geometries. In order to further highlight the differences between these light sources, the following visual reference was created. It showcases the amount of light spread that would occur on a 32x32m (ie: S-core size) flat surface when illuminated by each source from the respective distances listed on the left side.
 

 
Physical Characteristics
 
When it comes to general properties all light elements are approximately equal with the exception of the vertical light L. It has over three times the mass, four times the storage volume, and triple the amount of functional surface area. It is also the only light with any meaningful amount of health although it is still not recommended that they be utilized for defensive purposes since these decorative type elements do not even have damage resistance. In terms of dimensions each increase in the size category roughly doubles the primary side length of each respective element.
 

 
Fabrication Costs
 
The production recipes for XS lighting elements are all Tier 1 and can be made in the nanocrafter. All other sizes are Tier 2 and must be crafted in industry units, specifically an Assembler XS for everything except the vertical light L which requires the S sized variant. An overview of the fabrication costs per individual element produced is provided below. From it we can see that if you neglect schematics the only differences between baseline unit costs are associated with an item's tier. However once again the vertical light L proves to be an exception as it also has a substantially longer crafting time, likely due to it being paired with with the Assembler S.
 

 
Under current market prices these schematics represent upwards of 50% the overall cost expenditure to manufacture said lights. Taking a brief look at public market orders it becomes clear that despite this, there is a moderate surplus of elements available for purchase (note that outliers with absurd +/-1000% prices have been removed). Smaller sized lights in particular appear to have been produced in excess of player demand and are now being listed at or below that of production costs. It is difficult to estimate when the existing supply will be exhausted as player demand for small lights is not easily quantified. However due to the low fabrication costs and crafting times, affluent manufactures will be able to quickly restock this market should the opportunity arise. The situation with larger sized lights is more dynamic right now. The low volume of units that are presently on the market have been listed with profit margins of about 20% which is indicative of a more limited supply and/or a greater demand.
 

 
To assess supply concerns, the following plot compares the fabrication costs for lights to that of atmospheric engines. From it we can see that the total schematic costs for engines is slightly higher while the requisite ore requirements are substantially higher, particularly for M and L sizes. Despite this, market sell volume for engines is much greater than that of lights while also maintaining above zero profit margins. Thus we can infer that player industries exist which are capable of meeting supply requirements for the large lighting sector but they are instead targeting other items like engines, likely due to even higher consumer demand and hence greater profits. 
 

 
Luminescent Voxels
 
Unlike lighting elements these voxels appear to operate solely as emissive surfaces and produce a highly localized glowing effect. In terms of the ore costs per m3 they are similar to the other Tier 2 light elements but only require about a fourth of the T1 ore (more specifically 11 and 30 litters of T1 and T2 respectively). Schematics cost per m3 is exceptionally low at 172.45 quanta. This would ordinarily make luminescent voxels the cheapest form of Tier 2 lighting but their more limited range also means that a substantial amount is needed to achieve the same level of illumination as the other light elements. They do however have the unique ability to be precisely shaped and seamlessly integrated into other voxel structures. Considering all of this I believe luminescent voxels are best suited for decorative highlighting rather than general illumination.
 
Conclusions and Recommendations
 
Based on the above, it is my determination that Dual Universe currently has adequate lighting options which when employed correctly, will handle the majority of scenarios. There is however plenty of room for expansion and/or further diversification down the road, when time permits. In terms of expansion I recommend adding a secondary element with omni-directional properties such as a sphereical light. Also consider decreasing the overall effectiveness of the headlight XS and instead utilizing its original properties on a larger sized variant (ie: headlight S). In terms of diversification, the most restricted parameter right now is FOV so assess the merits of adding that as a configurable variable or providing more FOV variation across the existing element set. 

Finally @Aaron Cain your original inquiry was with regards to crafting costs for L sized lights with respect to T2 engines, considering the associated player demand for both (static building vs dynamic construct). Based on market trends alone, it is safe to say that the demand for large engines is presently higher. From a practical standpoint this examination shows that it only takes a couple strategically placed L sized lights to fully illuminate an S core sized surface. I also reason that illuminating a dynamic construct of identical core size will typically require more lights than its static counterpart due to the need to handle both interior and exterior surfaces as well as the more complex geometries associated with piloting elements. So the question becomes why are large lights less popular then large engines? Rationally, it is either because the majority of players are less interested in them and/or are unwilling to invest into them. With regards to baseline costs these lights are already a fraction of the cost of said engines, primarily due to their sparser ore requirements. Perhaps that is still not sufficient, but with engines flying off the proverbial shelves it is difficult to say this conclusively. The only thing I can conclude is that the majority of players place low importance on lighting. The next step would be to reach out, ask why, then determine if anything should be done or if players are satisfied.
 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and opinions on all of this. It is fairly rare for new players to offer detailed feedback on the forums, but that only makes it all the more valuable. Please try not to get discouraged or strongly influenced by some of the comments here. Many of us are just extremely passionate about this game, one way or another, and some have become heavily biased by our past experiences with it. Good or bad your perspective as a new player is important and we all appreciate you taking the time to provide it. Welcome to the community kbruderTech.

Greetings all,

 
Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a longtime MMO fan since UO in 97. I only play MMOs. I have backed several from the early crowd funding stages and only play one at a time. I am not a hardcore player due to having a full time job and raising a family. I just started playing Dual Universe a month before launch. I had heard about it a long time ago and thought to myself, "This game looks amazing". So far I have 18 days playtime logged. I have only one account and one character in game. I play using the native client, not via Steam. I come from a professional systems architecture/cloud computing and networking background. I hope that provides some good context to this post and any others that I may post in the future and speaks to my level of objectivity as a seasoned player of MMOs.

 
First, I would like to congratulate Novaquark for the massive effort that went into this passion project. You guys really went out on a limb and took a massive risk with choosing the old-school way of funding your game with subscriptions. Bonus points for no cash shop, no cosmetics, no P2W element (perhaps besides the ability to multibox by paying for multiple subscriptions). Over the years as the MMO genre moved towards P2W, cash shops, loot boxes, etc., I recall considering the industry in a race to the bottom and thought eventually all game producers would succumb to such short sided greed. Many of them did; some of them that I backed and played exclusively. Most of them are but a faint memory and no longer exist.
Just when all was lost, some game producers caught onto this dynamic and started announcing early access to projects that promised a return to the more traditional models free of P2W where players could feel confident in not having their efforts rendered meaningless. In lieu of P2W elements, players could support the game by purchasing strictly cosmetic items, thus the micro transaction model came into being. Unfortunately, this drained development focus from improving QoL and game mechanics and fixing known issues toward creating an never ending and vast offering of cash shop items. Many of these projects also died off leaving a sort of virtual doll house where a functioning game of skill full of meaningful social interaction used to be.
That brings us to today, where the zeitgeist is returning to its origin with the original UO subscription model, steep progression curve and PvP based endgame (without loosing it all each time you die of course!). Dual Universe is not the only game to revert to the model, several other titles being announced of late are going this route as well.
So to my first point, thanks Novaquark for having a backbone and sticking to your vision, especially in this gaming era of entitlement and “dead game” FUD. Thank you for keeping the focus on game mechanics, in game economy, and QoL items such as grid snapping.

 
Second, I would like to add my input to the “dead game” FUD. This sentiment is present across every MMO at this moment in time. Its almost a meme at this point. There is not a single game that doesn’t have a video or post about how their respective game is dying. There is no game of any genre, let alone MMOs that has a strong uptrend in concurrent player spanning months. Most people will buy a game and play it for around 40 hours then move on to something new.
To put the contemporary gaming market in perspective, when many of us were told to stay at home or lost our jobs over the past couple of years, we started playing more games more often. Now that societies of the Western world have sent us all back into the world, we are seeing the number of concurrent players drop off on a YoY and MoM basis. Additionally, all games experience a massive dropoff in the months after launch. To base the overall success of Dual Universe on concurrent player metrics (from the portion of player that use Steam) sampled over a handful of weeks is absurdly short sided. If we are being honest, no player knows how many people are perma-quitting or how many new subscriptions are incoming. Claiming that there will be no playerbase within a matter of months with no data to back that up makes one appear disingenuous and spiteful, especially when doing within the in-game global chat.

 
Third, I would like to represent the contingent of players that agree with the recent economy changes. It seems like most of us are busy playing the game compared to the number of players spending their gaming hours complaining, shading and dooming on every available outlet so I thought I would present an alternative perspective here. If a player based their entire strategy, talent pool and identity into the mining unit trade, I can certainly empathize with how devastating that must be to have the carpet pulled from beneath you like that. However, give it some time and you will see that the economy will adjust to the demand for ore and you may even profit heavily in the long run. I chatted with player who claimed they were deleting T1 ores because it “wasn’t worth the storage”. There is something wrong with that and NQ knew it. What they did was react using insights that we as players don’t have access to. The developers aren’t clueless when it comes to this as many players have claimed ad nauseam. In fact, this is the first game I have ever played where the developers can effectively communicate their understanding of virtual economies. Clearly every one on the small development team has been hand picked for their integrity and knowledge.

 
Lastly, as a player that didn’t play for years before launch, this game has an incredible amount to offer a person who wants to play in an immersive open single instance of an infinitely expandable universe containing multiple worlds and local economies. It allows pure and beautiful creativity within a very stringent set of constraints (The best artists are driven by constraint, this is an actual concept that is accepted within the fine art community). The best part is, we don’t have to kill animals, zombies, aliens or other mindless AI mobiles to progress. That is honestly the most refreshing thing about this game. I seriously became desensitized to killing literal millions of humanoid and animal representations over the course of my life. If people feel unfulfilled with out being able to kill AI, there are thousands of games where you can do this in perpetuity alone or with your pals. Thanks again Novaquark for delivering the perfect game to players like myself. even if I am the only person on earth who likes this game, I still thank you and consider myself fortunate to have discovered it. Keep strong and never give in to greed or angry masses. If you guys keep it up, I am certain you will always have a paying player base even if its not in the millions.

Dear Noveans,
 
It's our first Steam Awards season, and we'd love it if you spend your nomination on us!
 
Dual Universe is built by its community; a sandbox brought to life by players. We want to celebrate your efforts in shaping Helios for each other by asking you to nominate us for the BETTER WITH FRIENDS category.
 
Whether you prefer to play solo or in an org, we all live on the same server. The game just wouldn't be the same without other players, and the BETTER WITH FRIENDS category honors that.
 
Thank you to all of you who choose to nominate us:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2000270/view/3508896037498029271?l=english
 
Please share this post with your friends!
-    The Novaquark Team

Dear Noveans,

With the launch behind us, it’s time we give you better insight into our direction of development for Dual Universe.

Before the release, our Creative Director gave an overview of many upcoming game features, and we want to expand on his letter by giving you a more precise look at what we’re working on specifically in our upcoming updates.

We are currently continuing to focus our work on the initial stabilization and resolution of issues following the launch, and we are also working on update 1.1 which we are aiming to release in December.
 
What’s Coming in Update 1.1?
 
Kickstarter Rewards: Part Two

We want to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your incredible support and patience. Kickstarter backers are the supporters that helped start Dual Universe. We’re working hard to deliver your rewards.
 
In update 1.1, you can look forward to the following:

- Two versions of pets, with a total of eight variations.
 
Automata Tier 1: Automata Nora-SP pet_agnes_tier1.mp4
 
Follow us on our social media to see the others in the coming days!
 
Automata Tier 2: Automata Nieve Automata Tier 3: Automata Spud-7 Automata Tier 4: Automata Max-E  Automata Tier 5: Automata Elite  
Anicham Tier 1: Anicham Scrap pet_alex_tier1.mp4
Follow us on our social media to see the others in the coming days!
 
Anicham Tier 2: Anicham Comp Anicham Tier 3: Anicham Max 
- Avatar skins for both body types:
 
(Gold/Sapphire/Ruby/Emerald/Diamond/Kyrium Kickstarter and Founder packs)
Alpha Team outfit
 
Follow us on our social media to see the others in the coming days!

(Silver+ / Contributors / Sponsors / Patrons)
Arkship Passenger outfit (Bronze) Military outfit (Gold+ / Sponsors / Patrons)
Arkship Passenger outfit (Silver) Earth Legacy outfit (Silver)     (Ruby+ / Patrons)
Arkship Passenger outfit (Black) Earth Legacy outfit (Black)
- New emotes:
(Gold+ / Sponsors / Patrons)
Dance
Cry
Thumbs down
 
Follow us on our social media to see the others in the coming days!
 
Thumbs up Just DU it  
(Ruby+ / Patrons)
Victory Threat Facepalm Silly dance Salute  
- In-game titles
 
Features
 
- Grid Snapping: with this feature, when deploying a blueprint, you can snap to the grid of another already placed core, like when placing a Space Core Unit. This feature will help you to align cores perfectly with one another while deploying blueprints.

- Steam Achievements

- Element recycling : dismantling elements back into a portion of their components.

- Eight new talents linked with schematic creation.
 
Looking further into the future, What’s in the 1.2 Update?

- Tactical Map: a visual display providing a tactical view of surrounding constructs detected by your active radar.

- New tools for finding wrecks and a minor revamp of the radar system.
 
- Changes to the Deep Space Asteroid Tracker and the asteroid system.
 
- Adding the ability for repair units to use scrap.
 
- New Orbital Delivery Challenge.
 
----------------------------------------------------------
 
We still have a lot of development planned in the longer term which you can read more about in the letter from our Creative Director, and we hope that we’ve given you a clearer picture of our immediate direction for Dual Universe. We will update you should this planning change significantly, and look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback in this forum thread.

It’s been an incredible month since launching Dual Universe. We’ve worked hard to address issues, and though we always want to do better, we hope you’ve enjoyed the game so far. All across Helios, wonders are already taking shape as you bring the game to life. We can’t wait to see what you’ll build in the coming months and years. From all of us here at Novaquark, thank you for being a part of our game.

This appears to be more of a rant than actual feedback. Furthermore it contains numerous instances of slander towards the developers. Based on this I can only conclude that your target audience was not NQ but the playerbase. Why then address the playerbase in this manner? From my perspective, this appears to be a blatant attempt to get the community to riot. I do hope that was not the intention here but if you were trying to strong arm NQ into addressing your personal list of gripes by riling up the community then I am truly disappointed.
 
With that said, here are my brief comments on the major points of your post: 
Your verdict on the T2 distribution on Alioth is premature and your belief that changes to the resource distribution should be made public is not one that I share. In fact I think the devs already reached a fair compromise when they decided to list the ores available on each planet/moon as opposed to leaving it to the playerbase to discover.  Antigrav generators were designed with the 1km altitude restriction to limit their effectiveness. The AGG towers were a player made solution to mitigate this downside not an intended gameplay mechanic. Regardless, the only thing NQ has said is that the 1000m limit is a thing now. The exact details have not been uncovered by players. For all we know the limit could be referenced from the tallest point of natural terrain or maybe it even varies in value from planet to planet. This is still the age of discovery and some brave pioneer needs to climb up there and check. If it turns out that AGG towers are no longer viable then politely raise the issue so the devs are aware and can decide whether or not they want to correct it. Also keep in mind that this a bit of a controversial topic as not everyone is fond of the AGG towers.  The missing STUs was an unforeseen issue and is being investigated. HTML screens being phased out was officially announced on numerous occasions prior to launch and was even part of the PTS release candidate. Also as Kurock pointed out, there is an option under your game settings to re-enable said feature for those who have still not mitigated to the new system. The devs already provided advanced notice that blueprint snapping was going to be included in a future update after the launch.  There is nothing wrong with airing your complaints but if you want to actually help improve the game then I strongly recommend dropping the tone and instead providing constructive feedback with actual suggestions for improvement. This will encourage others to do the same and the subsequent interactions will transform ideas into effective solutions.

@Serula @Wyndle
Our apologies for the late reply.
If you haven't seen it already, the monthly subscription is back since launch to its original planned price during the Kickstarter campaign, as mentioned in this news:
This is why the number of DACs for each backer won't change.
 
@Crash
If you're refering to the DACs contained in the Supporter Packs (Contributor, Sponsor and Patron), yes, it is the same than for the Founder Packs.
 
@Physics
You should have received your Resurrection Node skin at launch.
If not, please reach out to the Customer Support by writing a ticket on the CS Portal here:
https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
 
@Zeddrick @Celestis
Everyone (Backer players and non-Backer players) spawn on Haven with a normal Territory. Backer players will have a small number of STUs depending on the Backer Packs tied to their account. You can read the details in this announcement:
If you are among those who have some missing STUs, please reach out to the Customer Support by writing a ticket on the CS Portal here:
https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
 
@DutchEasyGamer
The Character Design tokens are not yet available, as they will be usable once we have a more advanced character customization system in the future.
 
@NeXaMo
It depends. Some Ruby Founder Packs had only the Lifetime Subscription (Ruby Founder Packs with Physical rewards) and some had DACs in addition (Digital & Boosted versions of the Ruby Founder Pack)
 
@KinG_BigJerk
There was a choice during the Kickstarter campaign (and even during one year after) to choose/swap between Physical or Digital versions of the Founder Packs. Today, it's not possible to change the version: Kickstarter Physical rewards have all been produced, and we're making good progress to fix the last issue of a long serie (finding a new partner to ship them to all the eligible backers), and we hope to be able to ship them before the end of the year.
For Supporter Packs, there was never an option to exchange the physical rewards for extra DACs.
 
@mghtyred
For the question "when will I have my rewards?" you have a first reply there: 

You should have received some of the Digital rewards at release, last Tuesday.
If you haven't received the ones planned in the announcement mentioned above, please reach out to the Customer Support by writing a ticket on the CS Portal here: https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Other Digital rewards will be released as soon as possible.
Kickstarter Physical rewards have all been produced, and we're making good progress to fix the last issue of a long serie (finding a new partner to ship them to all the eligible backers), and we hope to be able to ship them before the end of the year.
 
Is this a con?
No. It would have been if you didn't get anything, and that's not the case: as a Ruby Founder backer, you should have at least your lifetime subscription activated and at least 2 STUs right now. If this is not the case, please reach out to the Customer Support. We mean it. The other rewards will come.
 
Is this taking way more time than expected?
Yes, and we deeply apologize for it as we completely understand your frustration.
Digital rewards took way more time than expected and the dev team had to focus on game polishing as top priority, so we're delivering them progressively, with a few starting at launch. Physical rewards took also way more time than expected, as we had several important issues during production (among them, the statues, which were done twice from scratch, as the previous versions were not to the standard we wanted for our backers), then we had a logistic issue during the pandemic, to gather all the physical rewards in one place, then we had our partner supposed to ship the Physical rewards that cancelled his commitment a few months ago. We understand that the number of years you had to wait until now made the wait incredibly long and again we apologize for that. But we haven't dropped the ball for the Physical rewards, if this what you think. 
 
@cerveau
The fact that you have the STU on your account with a Supporter Pack and not the one on your Founder Pack confirm what has been uncovered during the ongoing investigation: There shouldn't be any missing STUs coming from the Supporter Packs, as it was a reward included in those packs by default. However, there are some groups of founder backers which seemed to have not received the gift promised at the Supporter Packs release (1 or 2 STUs for Founder backers, depending of the Founder level, starting at Silver).
 
@Cmdr_Matthew
If you pledged a Ruby Founder pack during the Kickstarter campaign (or during the year after the campaign), the fact that your ruby founder status isn't showing might be because of 2 scenarios possibles:
1) Your kickstarter pledge is not linked (yet) to your Dual Universe account. 
2) Your kickstarter pledge is linked to your Dual Universe account but you activated your profile on the forum not long ago, and it just doesn't show up on the forum. 
If it's the first case, please reach out to the Customer Support by writing a ticket on the CS Portal here: https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.
If it's the second case, let one of CMs knows (Nyota, Nicodemus, Rubicon or I) and we will fix it quickly.
 
@SirRichardTheFirst
Inflation has nothing to do in the story.

First, you compare two things that are not the same: Months of subscriptions and DACs. 
Months of subscriptions have a lower value than DACs.
Months of subscription can only be used for your play time.
DACs can be used for your play time as well, sure, but they can also be gifted to a friend and later, DACs will be also tradable in-game for quantas (in-game money).

Second, the original value for a month of subscription is 13€ and the original value of a DAC is 18€.
For 20 months of subscription, the total value is 260€ before discount and could go down to 200€ if you're under the biggest discount.
For 20 DACs, the total value is 360€ and there is currently no discount available (as they're not purchasable at the moment).

@Aaron Cain
We totally understand the frustration and the ticket of your friend is not ignored: the team is working as fast as possible to solve the issue. We hope to have a fix for beginning of next week that will work for everyone having this issue. However, we can't start giving STU individually as it would create another problem: the fix will not be able to detect if the already existing STUs on each account targeted are coming from packs which worked properly or if it has been added manually from the Customer Support. That being said, would it be possible to have the number of the ticket of your friend, to make sure his account impacted by the issue that will be solved by the fix and not another (like his DU account not properly linked to his Kickstarter pledge)?
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Last night I took one last slow walk around my complex on Sanctuary. I symbolically shut down the factory, flipped the switch on the mining units, deactivated the DSAT and sat in the chair on my rooftop observatory and took in the view one last time. The silence was deafening. 
 
I felt a little emotional as the time I'd spent working on all this had been one of the most difficult parts of my life. Every time things had been difficult, I'd found myself retreating into this game as a form of therapy to help me through the events going on around many of us for the past few years. I think in a world that feels totally out of control at times, its amazing that we have the technology to be able to immerse yourself into being somewhere else like this.
 
Out of the probable thousands of games I've played since being a youngling I can say proudly that Dual Universe is one of the very few that has made it into my upper echelon of games that I love and have spent a significant amount of time with.
 
So I just wanted to write this positive thread to say thanks to NQ for the development of this game. It's not a perfect game by any means, there's still glaring omissions in features as well as bugs galore but its a special game to me nonetheless. I sincerely hope it manages to ride the storm over the coming weeks, months and hopefully years to reach its full potential as I feel it deserves it. I've played all the other similar and inspired games such as Elite Dangerous, No Mans Sky, Space Engineers, Starbase, Star Citizen, Empyrion, and Eve Online but this one holds my interest in a way the others didn't. 
 
I took one final screenshot from the observatory before descending the lift one final time to the habitat area that I never got around to working on. The enormous empty room contained a solitary bed and a bonsai tree. I made one more cursory check of my Nanopack to make sure all the blueprints I would need for the coming journey were there before laying down on the bed and stared at the slightly janky ceiling voxels.
 
Lets see whats out there...

i always found it a bit odd that alioth was doubled in radius for alpha 1 but none of the other planets ended up getting the same treatment to keep it proportionate

Ok so we like to get into things. So today while heading up to a rudimentary space station I made...
[Deployed an M space core and added some voxels just a surface - do try to set it up away from the warp point, fairly off the planet, as people launch from all over the place, you don't want them to fly through an "asteroid field" to fly away from the planet (or don't worry about that and call it CCP/EvE-style "emerging behavior"? No thank you), and try to put some lights on it, so people see it from a decent distance - avoid accidents - just my advice]
 
So having mostly flown third person up to now (it suits), seeing the ship from behind and above, today I thought, hold on, this is not how its in reality. Astronauts don't have a camera following them form behind and above, to understand where the ship is going. 

So I challenged my self to make it realistic.
 
And the fun began
Issue no 1 : there is no marker to where the ship is going. That's fine, but it does help when you design the ship, to put some structure in front of the cockpit, or command seat, not too much to block all the view, so that you can relate to this fixture around you regarding the direction you would travel if you just pump the volume erhmm gib gas, erhmm hit the gas petal, erhmm whatever. I got it!! When you use the force!  (lower case f to avoid misunderstandings)
 
[Obviously you can use the thrust/direction markers that the cycle-my-thrust/direction-viewing-options-thing gives you and it just shows you an arrow of where you are going and the thrusts of engines airfoils, adjustors etc, so don't worry about it too much, I was just playing around.]
 
Now what I wanted to do  was dock with another ship in space, that was ECU-parked just above me space station. Never-mind that I think its not possible if the ship is unoccupied, even if you own it, to dock with it, but still how would you see where you are going when you dock. The early game/small ships just have cockpit, so most of the view of what you see is above you, its not easy to gauge what's underneath. So I rolled the ship over and tried to dock upside down.  Which is kinda how and why and the whole science and engineering of where they place windows on spaceships etc.
 
It was fun. I was glad I was able to use autopilot to get back. Do try the 'Albatross' "Add-on" to start with, it has no auto pilot, but you get a feel of what these add/help with, then get 'ArchHud', needs a bit of reading but there are videos in Youtube too about it, Its not perfect, but to me its nothing short of brilliant and hats off and kudos to the people that gave this to us and maintain it. This is nopt worth a buy-me-a-coffee folks. If you can and I will when i can I'll give 50 to these guys that did ArchHud. [its also reassuring that "The Man on the High Castle" in DU is a professional automator and AI aficionado [aficionado to say the least, but imo its still early days for AI]. Good chance it will take a lot of the fear out about what should be allowed to be automated and what not]
 
So overall it was a great experience today, I no longer feel so dismissive of how real spaceships are quite automated these days, you can still fly it, if designed properly around the idea of control but also how pilots would want it made (yeah the airline industry had a bit of trouble/teething problems with planes and if you hear what percentage of automation planes had before and how much was added in the new ones, you will freak out, its very small compared to what you think and it was already a big enough number, above 50% I believe - not sure whose fault it all was really but I am glad its better now)

So in closing, if you ask me if it bothers me that come game launch time, the DU solar system is going to be modeled as the Sun revolving around the planets, vothered really. Even in real space flight, they sometimes use this "old" model anyway, not in all situations ofc, but for some things, you can, so I hear.
 
And anyway it was very reassuring to hear that space companies have a meme or whatever you call it, that just because it works in Kerbal Space Program, it doesn't mean it really works, i.e. in that respect too, we are getting back to reality in real space. That is also good news . Still, imo, KSP was a milestone in gaming, and it will forever remain such.
 
I can assure Dual Universe has won me over fairly fast over Kerbal Space program 2 that is coming up. But I would recommend the experience of KSP 1 and hopefully 2 to anyone that does have the time for it. 
 
With KSP I  got certain things fairly fast. Why docking is the most difficult thing to do manually in space, landing on a planet at a specific place probably also, but other simple beautiful things like in space, the natural, given, direction, is not the line, there are no lines really (oh you can and we will make them) but as far as au naturel is concerned, everything moves in circles, arcs, curves. Even by a tiny fraction infinitesimal amount (of movement), you can always orbit something in space. Even a galaxy. Even if Lagrange is your uncle, its just two orbits canceling out.
 
25 years I waited for this. Oh I played the early space games Like Privateer etc, but there was one game, to me, that at that time was the best of them all, that never made it past beta (the word beta didn't exist back then). I believe it was called Planetary Raiders, but I might be mixing it up coz the company who eventually bought it kinda messed it up (called it something similar). It did have a funny thing called a cockpit shot. Only time I ever lived as David and survived to tell the tale of killing Goliath. Rare. Lucky. Just aimed for where I thought the cockpit was and fired everything I had. 
 
So yeah I am rather anxious. Will DU make it? Tune in in a couple of weeks!

Steam is a good choice in my opinion.
 
Are we encouraged to switch to subscribing through Steam? We probably should. Start strong with our big player number? "Invade" Steam and knock Counterstrike off the top of the list of how many play what at any given time? Yeah right.  I am not aiming that high. There is hope, expectation and then there is hubris. Anyway good choice, Steam is. Personally it suits me. You upgrade to a new PC and you have to go to a gazillion game sites to download all your games again? Steam for the win!

Although I'm commonly very understanding of NQ decisions and often try to look at the big picture, I am just not able to grasp this.  Not from any high level position, not even from space.   Schematics, I understood the need to slow the game progression down.  DU is designed/meant to be a long term game with long term goals. Fair.  I understood the need to reduce cores amongst the community, my org was only at about 1000 total (3 of us) and we managed to bring that down to 300 and felt that was fair. (though we wished for a "remove all to container function".  I understand the need for the screen/art changes. I understand the need for the voxel rebalance.  I understand the need for pretty much everything NQ has done from a "Big Picture" perspective. (even if I don't like them all  )

That said, you are pushing your subscription cost to play outside of many people's ability to pay it.   Yes some people are rich and can afford the hike, but many of the most "cherished" DU players are literally on Twitch begging for money to support themselves and their families.  There are many non streamers in DU that are part of this.  We have several players who have become homeless throughout Covid and managed to scrape together enough to play DU from time to time to make their lives a little better.  Because at the end of the day, DU wasn't mainstream, but its community could very easily turn a bad day IRL in to a fun happy day. (all the little happy builds)

I understand the need for money to keep your business going, and I understand the new cost projections you have for launching to a vast "spike" in players initially, with a gradual reduction over time due to normal projected forecasts of inactivity. (all games, literally every single one)  That said, I urge you to highly reconsider this new price point.

We the DU community, those who took the time to post here, are telling you this a "bad" plan for launch.  Many are sharing their own reasons but no matter the reason, we are telling you that this price is too high. Going to steam with a sub cost above $15 has never been accepted by the reviewers. We are also telling you to introduce "micro" transactions in the forms of skins that will supplement this increased cost.  Its much easier for people to "consider" purchasing 2x $10 skins in a month than it is to justify paying a "flat" $5.00 more for nothing extra.

Please if you DU anything NQ....If you were to listen to anything... you are pricing yourself out of a larger audience by being the ONLY MMO game to have a sub higher than WoW ($16.97)  in Canada.  This isn't any sort of "smart" logic.  DU this and watch the red reviews start on Sept 27th.... 

My orgmate's sub is till 2025, we plan to long term this and hope it survives more than anything.  Lower price = Larger audience. Larger audience + (skins) = longer term players (invested)
 

Why do you care about why he cares if you don't care?

@Tekhamon
@Thunderchrome
@Wyndle
@J-Rod
@Deathknight
@Squidrew_
@Triopalite
@Jinxed
Clean-up of the pinned topics is coming for the launch. Please be patient a bit more.
With that, will come a smoother process to reply to announcements.
 
@Aaron Cain
No conspiracy theory, please...

@lunaprey
You've crossed a line here.
We can understand that you can be frustrated by the price increase, but rejoycing/celebrating/hoping/whishing for people to loose their jobs, whatever the situation may be is an absolute no go. You're not welcome on this forum anymore.
 

Hi, I'm a long time backer/ Sapphire founder from 2016. I've been out of the loop for the past year approx. It has come to my attention that we're launching next month. Exciting!
However, it has also come to my attention that AvA, or even planetside combat is yet still not added to game. I've watched years tick by, seeing these things get pushed back over and over.
I tried searching the forums for relevant information on its current state, but I'm unable to find anything within this year (2022). I also clearly remember AvA being promised at launch. I saw this game a big investment, in time and money. I expected, the core features promised would at least be kept, if nothing else...
I apologize if anything is necroposted here, I honestly searched and found nothing relevant to this year and I haven't been around for some time, I'm sure somewhere in my account logs would prove this... Anyway...

What is the current state of AvA specifically? Is it even still planned? Also, what of planetside combat generally?

These are core promised features that I'm surprised we're launching without.

I will not look it at that way, as that was not what was promised way back during the kickstarter, or for the years after. People invested into this game for reasons, there were expectations, and NQ needs to address this among other things.

We did not sign up for JUST another builder game.

And I guess NQ institutional investors are going to learn the hard way, instead of being proactive before the problem hits their pockets.

Wow, what a time we're about to experience.
 
No, I'm not dead. I normally don't post on the forums, but I am returning back to Dual Universe after being away for a few years and boy lemme tell you. 
 
I'm glad to be officially back and I see we got new stuff. I got a lot of catching up to do so, thought I say hello 

@le_souriceau
Enough with the conspiracy theory that you share with a few people.

If you were at Novaquark, you would have seen that the decision about the wipe has been taken quite recently and make the launch much more tricky than if it was decided to have no wipe. For a long time, it was thought that "Magic Blueprints" could have been the solution to make a very partial (and nearly painless) wipe. The problem was, after careful reviewing, it would in fact brings a ton of problems in terms of balance, and also many loopholes that were hard and long to fix. So It was a painful decision to make, even on the Novaquark team side, but a necessary and healthy one. This promise was not broken with a light heart. If it could have been avoided, this road would have been taken, the easiest way to proceed being "no wipe at all", but far from being the healthiest one for the long term of the game. The Novaquark team has absolutely no motive to frustate a part of the Community for no reason. Ideally, we would prefer to make everyone happy.
 
However, you're not part the company, so you didn't know what really happened or what has been discussed internally and you prefer to present your (wrong) assumptions into facts.  Between that, and the slandering regarding your statement not so long ago that a player need to be "friend" with a Dev to make changes happen in Dual Universe (based on zero evidence), you're truly putting a lot of efforts to paint the Novaquark team as a bunch of evil, manipulative persons. If this is your vision of being constructive, well... Spoiler: it's not.
 
Furthermore, as this thread has been necroposted from more than one year, it will be locked.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

i like them in general but yes i agree there are just too many. like we don't need the discussion thread for two factor authentication still pinned. and it hasn't been responded to for like three months

Noveans,
 
With Dual Universe about to launch, we would like to celebrate the end of beta with all of you!
 
Whether you are interested in building, fighting, or just having fun, read on for details of two upcoming NQ in-game events.
 

 
BUILD YOUR LEGACY
 
Calling all builders! We’re organizing a building contest. From Tuesday 6th of September at 14:00 UTC to Thursday 22nd of September at 14:00 UTC, all Noveans are invited to bring their creativity and building skills to the forefront! Dispensers with elements and honeycomb will be available at a site near the Exchange.
 
The goal of the contest is simple: if your build meets our specifications, the best speeders and outposts could be featured in a future iteration of the FTUE!
 
To be selected, constructs must be either a Speeder or an Outpost.
 
Construct Specifications:
 
Speeder Requirements: constructs must feature ALL of the elements below
XS Core Unit
1x Hovercraft seat controller
3x Basic Atmo Engines XS (2 pointing backward, 1 pointing forward)
1-2x Basic Hover Engine S
1-2x Stabilizers (placed vertically)
1x Atmospheric Fuel Tank XS
1-3x Headlights
1-8x light sources (including Headlights)
Adjustors XS only
Atmospheric Airbrakes S only
Tier 1 Honeycomb materials only (+ luminescent)
Players are encouraged to add details through the use of elements, but should not get above the count of 60 elements.
Must be able to be compacted
 
Outpost Requirements: constructs must feature ALL of the elements below
Small core unit
1x mining unit small
2-3x elevators
Elevator screen
entrance door
1x VR station
1x Container S +2x container XS + 1x container hub
1x resurrection pod
Personal objective screen
1x Parcel Container xs
Logic Elements
Basic xs/s ship parts bundle
Floor above the ground (raised foundation, stilts)
400-700 m3 tier 1 (max 10 m3 of luminescent) tier 2 material accents tolerated.
150-300x total element count
Total commercial value can’t exceed 1,200,000 h
 
All required elements will be available in the dispensers near the Exchange, for free, along with honeycomb.
 
To be eligible for potential adding to the FTUE, it is important that your construct remains in the scope and context of our starter constructs. Such as only tier one materials and things that you would normally find in a starter construct like a starter speeder or a starter outpost.
 
We’ll have information soon with more details on the submitting process for your constructs!
 
AMMO MADNESS
 
Come and join the battle! NQ is organizing a large PvP event to celebrate the end of beta. We will provide unlimited ammunition through dispensers for all able Noveans to pew pew!
 
These dispensers will only be available from Friday 16th of September at 14:00 UTC to Monday 19th of September at 14:00 UTC. The exact location of the dispensers will be released soon. We invite everyone to join the fun. If you’re looking for the fight of your life, don’t miss this call!
 
--------------------------------------------
 
If you have any questions about these events, please reach out to NQ-Nyota on Discord or the forum discussion thread.
 
Stay tuned for other NQ surprises in the last month before launch. Our community is also all abuzz with events to mark the end of beta, so you can look out for more communications from us on these player-events!
 
Whether you want to brighten Helios with new constructs, or just set everything ablaze in an epic battle, we’re eager to see it all!