Borb_1

We'll have to resign ourselves to the fact there will be "Novelty Creations" galore in DU. They just won't be effective or useful or economical at the sharp end of the game. Thus it's not a bad thing for the major populations of players who'll enjoy this sort of "art class" aspect to DU. The good thing too about these "aberrations" (lol) is that they'll be talking points for many more people too in videos - again good for DU in total. So long as it creates demand then it will fuel the harder-core side of DU elsewhere in the universe. Everyone (I hope) gains something. Interestingly in the age of Colonization, the histories of what the settlers took with them and whether or not they were adaptive to their new environments or not and how open to adapting their culture and social practices in new environments is fascinating subject matter. In DU we'll see a lot of people take a lot of popular culture with them inside the game as settlers. Curiously interesting.

I regret it won't have a strict sci-fi theme. But it will be a lot of fun to see how creative and inventive people are able to be and also how much enjoyment such creativity allows players to experience in DU in a single shard universe/game world. On the one hand, various sci-fi genre "inspirations" or "reboots" or "imaginings" (to use the phrases from the film industry to recycle content in new movies based off previous ones) of such as Star Wars, Star Treck, Warhammer 40,000, EVE, Star Citizen, Mass Effect and many more will also be an inclination for players too. So long as players rebrand and tweak the designs then they'll be possible in game too. ? For PvP as said, ships will need to be designed according to more rigorous criteria and here hopefully the parameters will shape more sci-fi fun that is unique to DU.

The thing is PvP is right at the heart of EVE, along with the economy: They're inextricably linked. A lot of designers seem to have not realized that is just ONE version of what EVE successfully became: A Virtual World MMO. Let's compare: Dual Universe will have a huge basis as a sandbox MMO with it's voxel gameplay scope which is ENORMOUS. Therefore the heart of DU (as I've always said) is the primary form of gameplay = this "sandbox" voxel manipulation in conjunction with the economy. Where EVE has been a YOY success for decades gradually increasing, it has done so with the harsh conditions of it's own design. DU I would predict (if it works) to be a much larger population game based off this difference of creativity that people want to experience: Not only to create but to use and then share. Thus we now have the correct context to what makes EVE tick with it's harshness. To the ends that that is what EVE is? You are right. In fact CCP is not going to grow it's population deviating from the focus of the game but alienating the committed players. It has to be inventive with regenerating systems of this type for it's fans. My view about PvP in DU, as someone who enjoys PvP (not a P+E'er and NEVER a PvE'er (how dull!)), if the population is suitably larger, that creates perfect conditions for a new form of PvP we've not seen much of yet that fits the MMO genre like no other. So far from it, the more attractive DU can be made to be for non-PvP'ers the better. But it is a long way to go to get there first.

EVE is going to remain a stronger virtual world design than Dual Universe will be, for a good while yet. It won't be as much a case of balancing the scale between PvE on the left and PvP on the right. What will happen with Dual Universe will be: An ENORMOUS BASE of Player + Environment (P+E) = Voxel editing + Voxel Designing + Building + Mining/Terraforming on a prodigious scale by I would predict MOST of the playerbase of the game. We'll see PvP development of the actual combat systems (the fun INSIDE this) of avatars and ships in Alpha 3. However the context systems AROUND this will take a lot more fine-tuning and a lot more time to get right. My prediction? The sheer interest of players of the former system P+E will dictate large areas where this is what players do and there will be systems to protect them and grow these populations. That may sound like a deduction from the PvP possible in the game, but in fact it seems to me if the activity levels are very high then this is perfect: The demand for complex and diverse materials to improve building, will shift PvP focus to distant areas where the conflict of the economic advantage will be most contested directly to capture and control these more valuable materials at source. Again extrapolating, I'd expect mega-ships with large crews to be the height of PvP in deep space trying to control large areas around these distant planets. Thus the worst and fiercest PvP will have it's place higher up in the pyramid of numbers working for and being worked upon by the lower systems of P+E but not cannabalizing the game. My hope is that as the stakes rise for these materials, then as the game grows, the chunk of the economy devoted to PvP begins to rise in correct proportion. Where in EVE you have each citizen = soldier. In DU you'll have citizens *shudders not that game!* who are only that and soldiers who are only that. Professional armies with cities/nations. Preferably the "War Front" is removed from the civilization growth part of the game. Disclaimer: All my own vision of how things might shape up.

I'm more of a purist myself, the DU is sci-fi and should be more about this, at least as a student of world-building that is my preference for designs. But the voxel tech means DU is also a true Sandbox MMO as well as/before it is developed as a Virtual World MMO. Thus I am not sure I strict the genre can be made to be. We might see a lot of non-scifi stuff eg already a McDonalds has been made. Tbh, I think the fact it is a sandbox first will likely mean that there's FEW limits to what players end up building and creating. Various imitation recreations galore. For some reason there's a huge market of players who enjoy indulging in this sort of thing: It's a bit like our post-modern culture. In some ways it's good to give free reign to the total imagination out there inside people. There's enough space for different groups to recreate in their own image afterall. But with respect to ships, I think the extraneous details will have a negative impact on the physics so they won't be as optimal which is good.

It's better to wait. Alpha 1 is built on the foundation of the voxel tech solution. Atst attempting to scale up the server performance and stability and load all the while. It will take at the earliest Alpha 3 (beginning) before the higher systems above this are able to be developed eg PvP.

Good to hear. The type of marketing that is suitable now is the type NQ are doing for example the player-contest of sci-fi ship types that people can create and design and use or the outposts stuff. When there's more functional game, and polish then EYEBALLS from streamers makes more sense for more people ie showing GAMEPLAY with good performance as opposed to the above which is the sandbox creativity that is already functioning and showable in collections to best effect.

Originally Niven's Ringworld ? Ringworld Death Star Dyson Sphere StarGate (wormhole) First Contact: AI Robotic "race" Largest Space Hub ala "Jita" WipeOut 40,000 Hover Track

I like the idea of using cameras to then port to a "Control Room" of monitors. Likewise damaging cameras could knock out the aiming systems or info on where to shoot. You'd still need crew running around mending things, but the combination of information in one room or a few rooms would help the command structure and sense of sociability during combat. Likewise no idea what options are available to create such a system using LUA to "live feed"? Or perhaps just "feed a relevant picture" for quality of accuracy to be inputted into firing systems to improve their stat success...

No, no physical projectile objects. It's a set of parameters with variables: Then it becomes a statistical abstraction. The players have to use the parameters eg proximity, aiming possibly (ie target locking) and then rely on the variables eg bigger guns have a longer range than smaller guns of the same type, checking any other factors eg speeds, directions maybe? Then chug out the animation and hit result/damage resolution etc. The servers can handle this and scale up. Like you said, it's too hard on the server for an MMO where N interactions quadratically increases in proportion to N (number of acting objects interacting ie just visualizing each other is interacting for example). What I would like to see is some sort of FURTHER abstraction where players on consoles in ships are doing something interesting to use their ship systems in combat. Eg a scanner produces a sort of *Battle Ships!** screen or hologram and players can simply choose different dot locations to predict where the enemy ship is moving to (on a 2D screen) to fire their missiles/lasers and see if they OUTSMART and hit directly full impact the ship. So it's COGNITIVE as opposed to fake point and click repetitions/cycles. Though those can still be used for the fake missiles which might be more of a shot-gun type weapon, blitzing a general area of effect for example. Some sort of Space Sonar scan to gather information (better scanner better info etc). Then have all the counter measures and more. Of course solo-ships likely have less sophisticated combat systems and rely on good ol faithful lock and aim and buzz around pew-pewing. For large ships, think Captain Sonar, more than Buck Rogers.

Yes OP, that's Alpha 3, so if NQ are on time, then we'll be seeing some combat implementation within 12 months from now. Account for some likely dev delay, it still should hover around about ~1yr + or - some months. So still less than years ie 1.x yrs is a healthy expectation. As to combat, I don't think it will follow a regular RPG form of combat? What we do know is that one of the original EVE designers is now working on DU with NQ so that might influence some of the combat systems? Seems a fair bet. That said, there's some very different game play factors which it is possible to speculate on with no little degree of future relevance: A large ship NEEDS a large crew to successfully fire all weapons. And repair "on-the-hop/double" mid-battle. This multiple human input into a sizeable craft and they can scale enormously from 1-person to >50ppl (we don't know how many actual weapons and systems a ship can carry (I presume they'll STUFFED full of them though given the sizes we're talking about and the room to hold lots of people (hopefully doing something useful!). So big ships more like death stars vs x-wing/tie-fighter: I put my money on the death star ship. Then think about a similar sized-ship with low quality equipment vs one with the best quality (this too will be wide in range). It comes down to the behemoth ships likely requiring a huge industrial-complex BACKING them to then kick ass against other ships in space ship battles. Obiously a well run org too with good organization of players. As to solo-ships: It seems GREAT VARIETY might be possible at this scale of battle. I don't think it will come down to some sort of dog-fight star-wars battle but more like something from Space Engineers Eg

1. Resurrection Nodes Network (+radio frequency distance) 2. In ship: Capsule/Pod (see above) for your body storage (ships are persistent objects) ~ the capsule can abstract a stored body into a idk a cryogenic pod, pale glowing light or rubix cube or w/e tbh... I think that covers it and probably covers disconnection issues too? Remember the utility of a capsule/pod increases with more crew who may be online to run the ship while you go into cold storage logging off line. If you're running a small solo ship, it's more like pitching a tent (find a big hole to hide your ship in or buzz off into the blackness of space etc. You're playing solo/survivor afterall in an E--normous space. Naturally friendly stations are a solution (any port in a storm). AI is beyond feature-set already locked for release. Resurrection Nodes likewise are an Org wide infrastructure, again a major part of a group's utility and value to members. Their necessity is group strength factor as opposed to an individual inconvenience (looking down the wrong end of the telescope). Think about it: the further you go from your group nodes, that applies to all groups. Thus you have power projection decay over distance for ALL groups.

That's just x1 scenario for a solo player. A small/cheaper ship is not such a big loss (still a loss). It's pretty cool actually finding a ship as your "prize" on the other hand. If you log off on a ship, just have a capsule there for when you come back. Other crews can steer the ship back to "port". ?

I don't know about the extent of caves, but NQ mentioned in one video that the procedural generation will eventually be extended to "more" 3D generation - but post release at some stage. Not sure that necessarily includes caves, but that's the state of the art. Post-release idea (back-burner for now).

Why stop there? NQ could probably duplicate Alioth and modify it a bit to create a twin-sister planet in the same system; or if there's really that many players, add another system with Arkship 2, perhaps call this one "Eveship" (lol then the naming game circle would be "complete" ? ). They don't seem to have a great difficulty with some of things that used to be immense work loads in MMO development eg entire new zones/maps etc. Procedural generation is immense with respect to creating enormous 3D spheroid planets. That said @Cainon puts it most Ably (lol) ? with respect to the prodigious effect of players that's possible and usually catches devs off guard. But that all said, the biggest danger is not the above, it's an empty large world. So to begin with, 1 solar system will be enough space to keep the population density conducive to creating the "network effect".

There's some more networking information from back in 2017 by Clive Johnson, their (iirc) Chief Networking Engineer (nice guy too) that zeroes in on CIG's networking solution: "Server Meshing". Tbh I remember reading this, it feels years ago now, but coming back to it, I'm impressed with how succinct he's managed to convey the entire idea in such a short but useful description. Worth a read:- If you follow the highlighted bits I think it describes what will happen (wide space).

2) Yes, see @Lethys post. Thing is, NQ have to say you could get pvp'd outside a few places where you're 100% safe. Because a lot of people from MMOs are binary about PvP and don't want to get burnt: 100% or 0%. Also the future ultimately is for player systems as per the vision statement so there's a consistency factor here. But that's why at the beginning, I would expect it NOT to be. With a small population, you have a skew on the numbers working correctly, the emergent systems are not developed and also need live play to actually behave "organically" without dev hard rules eg ark force field. 1) Yes again, it's too early to state emphatically, without falling into arguments about words and their legal meaning! ? 3) Players will want to build, probably in considerable numbers and that will shape the game's growth as well as the current design now. This is the future factor probably see more of when the server time increases. Perhaps a tie-in between builders and shooters will be highly complex crafting supply chains and queues will make weapons and other battle systems for ships for pvp players? These will be much more complex Edit: Spoiler: A good story (fictional or fact it performs it's service) on the perils of an unrefined pvp system.

@ostris As I said: ps: I really like how slick and easy it is to use these forums! As said, "the current plan/idea" may be moon safe space (both meanings 'area of space' and 'safe to be'). But it's just the current plan. Again by default the entire game will be P+E, until such as Alpha 3 and then that will be ratchetted in little by little. As to "should" I can't speak for NQ or say what they intend. But partly the above space (design) is very flexible: From a tiny hex to an entire planet. But also they're communicating atst to 2 different groups: People who like building and people who like shooting. Even if the ratio is say 20 or more to 1: You're going to split your sayings exactly in half. to attract each group. Think about some of the future far off planets full of "El Dorado". That is going to focus PvP (moths to a flame). The basic ores that everyone uses or needs, are going to be too plentiful to corner.

I suspect there very much WILL be safe scanning, mining and then building and so on. Remember how absolutely HUGE the planets are, even the smaller ones. Atm the idea of "safe zone" is just that. But it's not just safe and zone but an idea too, still. Until Alpha 3 and probably beyond DU very much will be a P+E game ONLY. Will we see an entire smaller starter planet as a safe zone? Maybe. We don't know and cannot say. As to game loops, one of the ideas mentioned was that players CONTRACT JOBS to other players. Personally I don't want to build things, maybe tinker for fun, but for a serious design, I suspect some genius will be able to specialize at that far better. But I do want to pew-pew in multi-crew spaceships and help an enormous industrial complex of player orgs. I need to be paid for that competitive advantage and services. It's not going all be apocalypse now! during down time so remuneration for strong multi-crew formidable battle-class spaceships should be grand to pay everyone. So with respect to PvP: It needs a tight leash, it needs tight integration. Given the idea of pyramid, PvP should specialize predominantly in the upper tier ie the more valuable and rarer ores that bequeath higher energy value (just as meat does to vegetation) but equally the proportions in the upper tier must be smaller in absolute numbers - considerably to the builders et al. Some might argue why even bother with PvP: It's a system that should feedback: The demand to colonize and explore and open up new opportunities and enterprises. As to wars: Formal system - afterall politics is just the emergent form from trade and organized conflict. We don't need civilians involved in large civilization cities. Just professional soldiers. On the outer rim - well wild west wildcats...

I appreciate the logic of how you are classifying. Just to be clear, Dual Universe game world is IMMENSE. It's like nothing else (apart from EVE but then that works according to your model with it's sec status). Instead of this classification (incidentally PvE is incorrect as that's player vs mob_AI. It's P+E as players scan, mine, purify, haul, make, combine, design and build using all the materials by voxel and other game systems. Also your category is an old-throw back to MMORPGs where you have a dislocated game system full of non-interacting sub games. Let's think of DU as a pyramid for convenience: Base = Voxel World. Next = P+E (civilization building activity based off the base). These whatever anyone thinks of the design now, will be the largest by far segment of population numbers, just as you find in population pyramids in ecology. And using this classification , you have above this combat system: Much smaller by proportion but still likely very popular (I think space battles are going to be a sight to see). As Blasé (I mean Blazemonger!) says, the design of the mechanics will happen in Alpha 3. The scenarios of how combat happens in Beta. In that time we'll see a lot of different scenarios zoom in on an optimal outcome for release for that pyramid to retain it's correct shape. Be that safe zones, economy functionality, server load, player distribution and of course the development of large player orgs, new systems themselves. The most interesting of all perhaps. TL;DR: It's a misconception though correct logic within that to describe as 2 pots, 1 larger than the other. It's a Pyramid of interacting layers by population numbers and the energy flow between those layers. It's 1 consistent thing. Some layers may never interact with other layers, but indirectly all layers interact.

It could be made to work using the SDK on "any engine" but CIG have their own highly modified StarEngine/Lumberyard fork which I am guessing complicates an already complicated development: For example one of the devs working on CU, summed up their impressions with respect to engines in general, as such: I thought this was worth considering with respect to what CIG have been doing: IE CryEngine/Lumberyward is an "Opinionated" engine and CIG are "pushing the boundaries" hence the numerous performance problems - already, then throw in the actual development which requires a substantial conversion for the sdk to be working with the chosen engine (untested) and also host in live environments - finally. There is now since I last looked at SpatialOS, 2/3yrs or more ago, a game called Mavericks attempting a 1,000 ppl number for a FPS game. But as they point out, they designed from the ground up along the same paradigm of SpatialOS to attempt such an outcome. Secondly that's just the claim. They have to actually develop it successfully with all their advantages already in place eg going with the grain of the engine, a relatively simple game design. An example might be that the client loads a ton of things in SC (and the devs have been culling the data the client is seeing to increase performance); whereas any world made in say SpatialOS, the client only sees what it is interested in, the rest of the world is not on the server which is hosting the client. At least that's one thing I remember from the SpatialOS video showing dynamic server handling (increasing nodes around more players eg). Lumberyard license must use AWS. Not something I took much notice of but seems a non-starter even before all the above. Yes you are probably right about the container streaming bumping up numbers.

I don't think it can. If you browse through how SpatialOS works, you get a rough idea what it requires. Do note, SpatialOS itself has been being developed for a good while now with hundreds of millions of investment VC money into Improbable. Even then, their flagship title, World's Adrift has been no picnic of easy development (though it is quite impressive; but you notice them and Seed both go for really 'EASY' graphics (good choice!)). Both CSSU and SpatialOS are able to leverage cloud networking to DYNAMICALLY SCALE over a FLEXIBLE AREA, first of all. But the way they both seem to work as far as I can make out on scraps of info (CSSU) appears to be quite a different approach (to the same problem with a similar solution). This difference is quite simple to explain, if I understand it right: SpatialOS is able to convert the game info into "elements": Anything that's usually an object with properties or other systems eg physics even or AI etc. Basically this abstracted system can simply add servers or workers (I think they're called in SpatialOS language) to deal with more elements in a given area. I think the magic is to use this info to simulate the game state then feed the final version (resolve failures more effectively and capture a shared picture for everyone) to all the clients and all the while dynamically accounting for everything. With CSSU, instead of "workers", they use "actors" which I believe again leverage cloud servers to deal with not more elements, but more pockets of space up to 8m but adaptable in dimension DYNAMICALLY iirc in game space per actor. Now the preceding may be deeply flawed, but I have followed it to that point, again I don't know what CSSU is doing, but I guess what makes CSSU impressive is that these pockets of space for some reason I am unaware of (is there high level of redundancy?), manage to provide impressive results with respect to the load and to performance. Perhaps it's because the space is not changed when the scaling happens (it's far beyond my understanding)? If you look at CSSU and SpatialOS in videos, there's some sort of "slight sluggishness" on the load, so both solutions are demanding and come with performance costs, but CSSU seems less sluggish than what I have seen with SpatialOS, even. Ok, I really hope some of the above is accurate! But looking at the above, then wondering if EITHER solution could be used by CIG for SC? I cannot see it being at all possible. SC in CryEngine/Lumberyard can't use API of SpatialOS. However CIG has developed their Lumberyard/StarEngine, it's still using the old netcode of CryEngine, the way the engine works despite all the meticulous changes will still be that performance hog that CryEngine is RENOWNED for being stuck in the guts of the technology (benchmark tests iirc in computer shopper years ago?). SC assets were designed to be "high fidelity", complex data on top of the above (they spent ages "refactoring" before the current attempts to cull network data (or what the client is reporting/seeing) via OCS (only client so far) BC. The results of this: Problems escalate from the improved fps when: Large assets are loaded eg cities, AI NPC routines are high, gameplay dynamics are high eg combat. They can't use SpatialOS as Lumberyard has a deal with AWS, SpatialOS with Google. Besides NQ, is working full time on developing their CSSU solution practically via DU. Secondly as already said, CSSU is a priori solution. You can't dump it onto a game. It's whole paradigm is simplifying the data to be able to handle it via the network (as SpatialOS does). So is CIG going to come up with their own comparable solution? No. They don't have the expertise, it won't fit their engine, it won't fit their game, the focus on the game doesn't necessarily benefit from the solution in the first place for the limitations it imposes so it does not even make sense from the design pov either. So far only SPECIALIST EXPERTISE has come up with these 2 solutions. Another MMO in development by City State Entertainment, Camelot Unchained have also attempted their own solution to scale numbers in a dense space, and that is probably a good reality check on what limitations are imposed. Honestly I will never know why an Open World with popped Combat Arena instances is not used by CIG... Coming back to SC, and "server meshing": They intend to create linked instances (which is what they already do) via (assuming this is the plan) providing more instances per star system than currently work. So far the instances are linked via hidden loading screens (apparently the most logical explanation I've seen as I don't play the game). What Server Meshing is intended to do is link more instances and again "hide" the loading between each. Now I don't believe it is possible to DYNAMICALLY shift the zones in SC. I don't know what is possible in fact. But the best I would guess is that they can add static zones and thereby have a higher total population per star system (of which they only have 2 incomplete so far and will have probably 5 complete at MVP official launch). Then for all reasons there is an upper limit on player numbers for POI in particular and maybe therefore for star systems too? The "handing off" between linked instances, it just seems fraught with difficulties and complexities with little upside, going by what they have now. Some say that CIG have solved everything to date, but their current game is very tech demo and incomplete so that is incorrect. But what to expect: They must hit limitations at some point irrespective of the funding bonanza. I suspect the limited networking "MMO" is it. This is all a far cry (that was not a pun) from the 3 other games mentioned here: World's Adrift, Dual Universe and Camelot Unchained. Please correct me, super tech guys and gals if you spot mistakes which must surely exist in the above: It'll help everyone's understanding to advance a more complete picture. Apologies for the wall of text.

Come Alpha 3, there will be a lot of dev on the mechanics of combat. Come Beta, as you correctly point out, there will be a lot of dev on the scenarios that work for game. I'm sure the large game world will be conducive to PvP and to Safer Zones.

Yeah, you want some systematic formation and description rules. People love that stuff especially if it makes sense in game eg Alioth being in Goldilocks zone due to it's biomes and hydro-cycle. As to astrophysics and planetary, it's all rocket science to me. ?

A well put-together investigative report/narration (2016) on SC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHUbzzKJXBc @6mins "living universe" ? @10mins "netcode"