Squidrew_

IDK if it's just me, but I find it quite unnerving that the player size is absurdly tall (exactly 2 meters). Especially for the sake of allowing smaller interiors to not feel so cramped, as well as making the player generally feel more like themselves (but in an alternate universe, AKA immersion), I think it makes more sense for the player to be 6.5-7 blocks tall. While a minor change, I think it would be a welcome addition.

If the devs are willing to go further, I think that the players should be able to set their player height (within reason) when making their character (and/or when we edit our avatars as well). Would be a welcome addition on my part.

I believe that the nebula skybox should be replaced with a realistic, dark and starry skybox, akin to the old one prior to Alpha 3. Here are my arguments,
 
The nebula was originally introduced as an immersive way to increase ambient lighting in Dual Universe, making it easier to see at night. This is mentioned in NQ's Dev Diary on YouTube. However, this was nullified in 0.24 with the reduction of ambient light brightness.
 
This is personal preference however I believe many will agree; the ambient light level does not have to match the skybox's brightness. For example, take this image of Pre-Alpha Thades. Its dark side is heavily illuminated, as I'm sure it would look on the surface as well. You'd be able to see. Compared to current Thades, I think most of us can agree that it still looks far better, and it could be taken down a notch if it's too bright. Additionally, with the introduction of the nebula, the atmospheres were changed to the same blue color we're all used to. I'm guessing this was done as a result of a technical limitation relating to the new skybox. So, think; If I'm right about this, we could have a Thades that looks like this, for example:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Current Thades, for comparison:

 
You see where I'm coming from?
 
The way I see it, removing the nebula would provide so much in the way of fidelity, immersion and polish. It wouldn't affect gameplay either. Furthermore, I believe this change would solve many, many of DU's lighting glitches and "rough spots," at the very least making them look far better, and would provide much more polished lighting, both on ground and on a planetary scale. I simply don't see what the nebula adds other than style, but it sacrifices fidelity in a lot of key areas. Unfortunately I don't have any screenshots to back up that claim, so you're gonna have to take my word for it as an Alpha 1 player who knows how lighting used to interact with the old skybox.
 
The nebula may be beautiful to some, but honestly, changing it would add so much in the way of polish — which I believe is far more important and is what this game needs right now. Not to mention, many people were dismayed at the release of this nebula, and I'm taking a wild guess by saying that most players would like this change. I know my friends and I would.
 
Please consider this, Novaquark.
 
Similar post by Mjrlun

Tell me... Which of these is Thades, and which is Sinnen? If you can tell me looking purely at the terrain generation of these two images, you deserve a raise.

   
The purpose of this post was to raise awareness for the need for improved planet generation (including a terrain reset), as variety of planets is essential in the appeal and longevity of the game, especially in exploration.

NQ has been quite clear since the beginning of Beta that there was no promise that they would never wipe.  They have always said they might if they need to.
 
And IMO they really, really need to at some point.  Some might quit, yes, but I bet a lot who have already quit will come back as most of us quit because of the schematics and the related debacle that gave other orgs a SEVERE advantage over the rest of us.
 

Currently, every planetary body with an atmosphere has the same blue color, same apparent density, and all have clouds. I've noticed that upon reading planet descriptions in the map, the actual appearance of planets are completely inaccurate.
 
For example, Sinnen is described as "an empty and rocky hell" with "no atmosphere to speak of." In its icon on the map, it's shown as having an orange atmosphere. Yet in-game, it has a blue atmosphere with clouds. What? That's not right! From Lacobus' map description and icon, we can see that the planet is supposed to have liquid oceans coexisting with its frozen surroundings due to geothermal activity. Yet in-game, it simply doesn't. And the strange thing is these planets were accurate earlier in the game's development. You can see this from various videos they have uploaded during the Pre-Alpha period.
 
So, I propose that NQ go through each planet and quickly fix them up if they can, with the correct atmosphere colors and density, adding / removing clouds and water where necessary and so on. We can see that the engine is capable of this as Sanctuary has an orange atmosphere. And from what I understand, this can be done totally server-side, so no client update required.
 
This shouldn't take long from a development point of view, and would breathe so much more life into the game.
 
I'm an explorer in Dual Universe, and I enjoy experiences like Space Engine which value scientific accuracy and realism. It really turns me and my friends off from this game to see these simple yet very impactful things that NQ have perhaps overlooked. In the rare case they have, I thought I'd bring this up.
 
Here are a couple example images from the Pre-Alpha, showing what could be:
Madis' dense, purple atmosphere with no clouds

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A base on an orange Thades

 

I want to add to this idea that with the darker ambient lighting introduced in the 0.24 patch, the whole point of the nebula skybox (to add more light) is basically nullified. Assuming the nebula wasn't a purely stylistic addition, I think it'd be cool if the devs considered re-adding the older style skybox with a little ambient lighting so night isn't pitch black.
 
That alone would make me, a player primarily interested in exploring, soooo much more excited about DU.
 
Just my two cents.

So here's my constructive criticism on the new update. I love it, don't get me wrong, but there's some things that would probably take between 30 minutes to 2 hours for a single dev to complete, and would completely overhaul the feel of the update, and graphics in general (written in the specified feedback format, here we go).
 
The background, yes, the nebula, as well as atmospheric scattering are the main topics that I want to have changed.

My opinion on the current background/nebula, is this. It ruins the ambient lighting, by having a persistent, ugly, turquoise tint to the entire night side of the environment. It removes all the depth of any structure or voxel, while also not even being dark, or night time. It's so bad that I'm forced to put an L vertical light above the ship im building just to get some decent lighting on it to not make it look flat, and drawn poorly. In addition, people, as sourced from the video where the nebula released, thought it would be a cool idea for stealth combat with having to make ships dark in some way to be able to not be seen from so far away, while also making headlights useful in space. On top of this, just to mention, the corners of the nebula are soooooooo clearly visible if you spend about 30 seconds looking, which completely ruins immersion further than just having poor lighting. Furthermore, a darker sky would better pronounce the incredibly beautiful atmospheric scattering, and generate some breathtaking screenshots.

The second aspect of this, the atmospheric scattering, is probably the more confusing side of this request (not that adding the nebula despite people on the video announcing it saying they didn't like it doesn't make it not confusing why it exists), is that the different planets used to have different atmosphere colors, yes? This is a server-side thing that was "changed" some time in the land of NDA, and thus the devs know when this was. All the different planets used to have cool unique atmospheres, not just "blue blue blue blue blue". The desert planets in the top right of the map had orange atmospheres (Sinnen's not supposed to have an atmosphere, but it has a bright, BLUE one!), as well as Thades having a nice orange atmosphere, and Madis having a nice unique purple acid-y atmosphere. In addition, all of these atmospheres have clouds, which makes 0 sense from a realism standpoint, as they are all white clouds, indicating each planet has sufficient enough water to generate a biosphere (not true, in a long shot).

And to wrap this up, they made Sanctuary have the only "unique" atmosphere, which did not need it at all. A bright orange one. Weren't we wanting those for the desert planets? To be frank, the Sanctuary moon should have some alteration of a nitrogen blue atmosphere (similar to Alioth), however, changed in a way to represent its biosphere. Something like a more oxygenated, or less oxygenated, would be a cool addition. For example, if the atmosphere of Sanctuary was made to be a nice green-tinted nitrogen blue, it would probably be as "cool and exotic" as the orange one, without making it look like an apocalypse is around the corner, and also ruining every screenshot in existence that involves nature. IMO, it takes the beauty of the nice, lush landscape, the beauty of the moon, and turns it into something I wish would not exist the way it is at all.

To wrap this up in a meaningful concise wants and desires, here's my list in sentence form. 

Remove the nebula, keep the stars. If you poke around in the files (of course not altering anything), you can see that they are deliberately separate files, as if it was a simple patch at some point that altered it. See images found from public sources where this was a thing. If there are any issues with doing so of course putting in the effort to fix such issues are quite important as well.
If you truly want, replace the nebula with some form of darker galaxy background, I don't really care, just not something that ruins the night sky so harshly. Take a note out of Elite Dangerous if you so have to. Find a cool nebula background by messing around in blender, or create a nice galaxy background which would have a similar effect.
Should this be the case, however, the ambient lighting should still be dark and black, and still maintain some amount of AO (and shadows preferably, but that's a task).
 
All images here are from earlier versions of the game, publicly found (click on the images)
 
Atmospheric scattering, background, and ambient lighting during night time

Shows the background plainly just there against the nice day time atmosphere, in general, very serene!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A cinematic cold morning or evening in the early days of DU engine infrastructure

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Now just pure background and lighting!

 
Now for the atmospheric scatterings. All I request is to make them accurate to the map, and to their descriptions (should they have them, cough sanc cough). On the map, in case you all forgot, Sanctuary used to have an Alioth-style atmosphere.
If you prefer to go for a more engaging style, however, I'd highly recommend choosing something similar to what I suggested earlier for Sanctuary, but then apply this creative vision that seems to have been forgotten about on this topic to the other planets, which dearly need some love.

Demonstration that even in pre-alpha that this was possible, and just how breathtaking it is with a dark background!

It would be useful if construct owners could permit specific players to build only in specified zones of a construct via RDMS. This would be especially useful in, say, an apartment complex, where you could allow a resident to edit and furnish their apartment and not any other part of the complex. Construct owners wouldn't have to find workarounds like splitting it up with multiple core units, for example.

It would be useful if construct owners could permit specific players to build only in specified zones of a construct via RDMS. This would be especially useful in, say, an apartment complex, where you could allow a resident to edit and furnish their apartment and not any other part of the complex. Construct owners wouldn't have to find workarounds like splitting it up with multiple core units, for example.

What is clear from last weekends city build is that there are people playing the game that enjoy the social aspect that cities provide. It is also clear that cities need planning, a government, law enforcement, garbage collection, entertainment, among a host of other things. All those "things" give players something to do. Some of it is sims in space, but some people like that kind of thing. If DU can get those kinds of people playing the same game as the space marines and quanta miners... it'd be the holy grail.
 
DU doesn't need reasons to build cities because people want to build cities. What DU needs are mechanics that cater to those people. It was touched on earlier, but in-game communications, yes I know discord, but in-game chat, especially localized, gets people closer together, it's social. Emotes, completely unnecessary, but again social. Trading, bartering, buying, selling, directly between in-game avatars, with goods and services that can't be magically obtained from terminals or email. There are players wanting to engage in those activities, just as there are players wanting to fly around and blow things up. I think there is room in the universe for both.
 
 

Adding people to contacts is fun and nice until you realize they can permanently find you. That's... yanno... gonna be troublesome eventually. I don't know your plans for this feature but my recommendation is adding a menu for finding and locking players in a sort-of social tab, but only players you have permission to lock via the RDMS system.