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Shynras

Alpha Team Vanguard
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Everything posted by Shynras

  1. I want to highlight a few key point of the building system, that I think are actually bad design choices and that are going to make the game worse (relative to its original concept of a massive openworld sandbox with emergent gameplay). This is just my opinion, so don't take it personally. Devs mentioned a safe environment where you could design and create blueprints of ships. I'm not sure if it's still planned but I want to address this anyway: (1)A "safe-designing" environment keeps players away from the open world, less social interactions, the world feels emptier, and this lack of activity (even if it's not a total absence of activity but a reduced rate) is going to damage the game in the long run, since the game would still feel, even if by a little, worse. It's never a good idea to split or "hide" the playerbase, expecially in a game like DU and when you don't know if there'll be enough players in the first place. (2)We know there'll be elements capable of "printing" ships. This means that you just have to design, while the building part is left to those elements. But if you let people design in a safe environment, and then you let them build automatically with elements, you'll never see players build in the open world. So I can't see those 2 features coexist. (3)We know that you'll be able to build with a jetpack, that will give you very good mobility. I don't like this at all, since it feels a little bit like "cheating" or "creative mode", it's not immersive. I want the jetpack to be an option, but why can't scaffolding be an alternative too? Why not a grappling hook? Why not a builder-construct? That jetpack is way too strong, it provides unmatched mobility/agility and doesn't have drawbacks. MY ADVICES: (1)I know there are people out there that want to design constructs, and do that only, safely, without participating in other activities. And i'm fine with that, I think everyone should be taken into account. But if you give "a better way" to do things, stay sure that everyone will do it, you'll not see a single player build in the open world. Since there are multiple safezones already, spread over the universe, I don't really think there's need for anything else. In the worse case you could be a new player, that only wants to build, that joined after release and all the safezone land is gone: join an org, rent a land or gain enough money to buy one. This game is not about getting what you want istantly anyway, so if you need a safe place to build, work hard and get one first. Regarding the "I live in a war zone and I want to build safely" argument, do I even have to answer? If you're so worried about getting griefed while building in the open world, just send your builders to the closest safezone. Regarding the "I don't have the blocks, I just want to create a blueprint": just create the possibility to enter a "design mode" where people can build with unlimited "hologram blocks", that look slightly different, so that they can still design in the open world and create anything they want. (2)I don't think it's a bad idea by itself to have elements print ships (that you've already designed aka built), since it's usually boring to create copies manually. I just hope that doing that manually it's still going to be an viable option, so those elements should probably be less efficient and requires more energy/resources. (3)This is something i really care about. There are people that want unlimited freedom while designing (i seriously don't get why they don't just play with a 3d modeling software) and other that want immersion. Again, I think is important to keep different approaches viable, to let everyone choose their preferred way: -Jetpack: consume fuel, it's the best but most expensive way to build -Scaffolding: similar to the "scaffold" block in tekkit minecraft (not sure what was the mod), there's a scaffold element in DU. It's very cheap and reusable, easy to place and remove (and maybe you can climb it like a ladder). Doesn't offer the same mobility of the jetpack but it's cheaper -Grappling hook: i'm not sure it's possible with the Du engine (I'd guess it is), but if it is, then you have to add it to the game. It's always a lot of fun and people love it. -more Then, in the "skill tree" where you can specialize yourself, you can actually improve pros and cons of those methods. A specialized builder may have a very low fuel consumption on the jetpack, and be very fast, while a newbie builder (or any guy with a different specialization), may find more convenient to use scaffolding or a grappling hook as a cheaper method.
  2. We know that there'll be something like that: elements capable of communicating from a distance up to a certain range, and with the ability to connect to each other to create a network (so that you can reach further through multiple of those elements), and this was discussed specifically regarding market units. So, if they think it's a good idea, it should be easy to add this possibility for other elements that have this need.
  3. Idc how they'll do it, they didn't mention modular elements like that one, they did mention hangar doors made with mechanical blocks, so i talk about what's auspicable not about my fantasies.
  4. Ye but it's not that a construct just has a HP bar. They said their intention is to have voxel damage, you lock on, shoot, a certain point gets decided, an aoe from that point damages and destroys what's in it. So when you deal damage you actually need voxels and elements loaded. I'm not saying that the max range will be 500 meters, i don't know, depends on how well they can make the game run, but even there, wouldn't be bad. You can't compare it with eve because ships are way smaller in DU: a shuttle in EVE (the smallest and cheapest ship) is 33 meters that in Du means a 132 voxels long ship, will require tens of hours to design and build and a small group to pilot. In Du you'll probably never see a ship longer than 1 km, end even if you'll one day, it's not going to be piloted by a single player, like EVE. Ships are going to be way smaller, since multicrew is required to drive them and they're way more expensive and time consuming to build (and kinda unnecessary, since your ship size is enough when you have all the elements you need, and those are not that big). So I do expect the max combat range to be around 1 km or so.
  5. Max Combat Range (MCR) < Max Loading Range (MLR) < Max Render Range (MRR) It's kinda hard to explain, expecially since my english is not that "specialized", but I'll try. A construct is an entity that stores different kind of informations: textures, elements (with their functions), voxel geometry. Since every construct is not premade (you don't have data about it in the original game file), every time you encounter a new construct the servers have to send you all the data about it. (In Eve is different, every ship is a single entity and is in the original game file, the only thing that the servers have to send you is the data regarding fitting and player) What are the limits? Your computer can manage a limited amount of informations (to avoid client lag) The servers can send a limited amount of informations ( to avoid server lag) We know that Du has a huge MRR, thanks to the LOD system, that change textures resolution depending on rendering distance. What does that mean? -You load lighter textures in your VRAM -A server send you less information about a costruct look (doesn't send yuo the entire textures, but positions and IDs) far away from you (unless you were close to that construct until recently) Why there's need for a LOD system? We need that because if you had to load high res textures from 100 constructs around you, your PC would blow up. Now, why do you think this should be different for voxels, elements and so on? If you played minecraft, or any other voxel game, you'd notice that there's a limit at which voxels get rendered. The reason is that they consume RAM (and CPU i guess). If you had 100 constructs around you, and your pc would have to load every single voxel and element (stuff moving, sending informations, interacting one with each other, shooting and so on) they're made of, it would blew up. So the only way it can work, unless JC knows black magic, is that voxels are not loaded (or actually merged into bigger voxels similarly to how the LOD system works for textures) after a certain Max Loading Range (MLR), even if the textures are still rendered! MRR>MLR. This also means that elements don't get loaded after a certain range MLR, that is way lower than MRR. Ofc the servers has to send less informations, since when a construct distance from you is > MLR, it doesn't have to send you any information about elements doing stuff, but just simple low res textures. Lastly: Max Combat Range < Max Render Range clearly to avoid people from just being rendered "appearing from nowhere" and start shooting you immediately. Max Combat Range < Max Loading Range, well if you don't load elements you can't shoot anyway. Why then can't be MCR = MLR ? Because you would load and unload elements constantly if you fight around that MLR level. How much lower? Dunno, depends on how the combat will work.
  6. I've no time for a long answer, btw I don't think you understood what I'm trying to say.
  7. Hangar doors are planned for after release. All the other features you mentioned are already in the game, likely for release or will come in a free expansion after. EDIT: with "hangar doors" planned after release, i mean that will be added a "rotor", "piston", or other mechanical elements that will let you move a custom voxel shape (door).
  8. -It's not invulnerability, it's a TCU in space, you didn't read the message you quoted. -Turrets need players to work and have a limited range (you can't shoot from space to a planet surface), the EVE comparison doesn't apply. -There's no limitation that prevents you to build a TCU by yourself, it's a sandbox, the only limit is the effort you put in it. -Again, it's not invulnerability. You can build a TCU on the planet surface in a war zone (the safezone has only a 20 km range ), and you do the same in space. -Anchoring, if you mean with that a way to delay and give the defender time to react, it's the same of a TCU. So you didn't get what a TCU is in the first place. Btw huge constructs like a deathstar are never going to be meta
  9. To carry a construct you just need a way to stick a construct on another, and it's planned.
  10. 1)Bot software can generate as many emails they need automatically 2)Bot software can simulate or change IPs or PC. 3)The amount given at the start would be = TOTAL.INGAME.MONEY/TOTAL.PLAYERS.NUMBER if no other money supplying system is in place (and if there's one, you wouldn't need to give new characters free money). So you'd actually own 1/TOTAL.PLAYERS.NUMBER of the economy.
  11. A space bubble is not a safezone nor invulnerability, it's a limited protection with the goal to delay your opponent to give you the time to react, and it works like a TCU, the only difference is that you can place it in a fixed position in space. I'm pretty sure they mentioned that, and it's definitely balanced. It's actually the only way people will be able to build stuff in space without being griefed while offline.
  12. Actually they already said that "space bubbles" may come after release, so it's nothing new. To create a stargate, space stations and stuff in space this feature will be probably a must one day, to give the owners some kind of limited protection.
  13. An action combat system (with you aiming) is usually considered more fun because requires some kind of "action" from the player (like aiming, dodging, ...) while a tab targeting system don't (you usually press one button to target, and spam other buttons to kill). But this doesn't necessarely means that tab targeting is boring or bad, it just means that the combat system doesn't ask from the player enough "actions" or better, it doesn't ask for enough interaction. Combat in DU is all about managing a ship, its elements and crew (a fleet in large scale battles). It's about strategy, tactic and teamplay. To give you an example: imagine a moba or a RTS (tab targeting) vs an FPS (free aiming), the first is more about resources management and strategies, the second one is more about aim and reflex skill.
  14. Resources don't regenerate. Let's define: -LLR (low level resources): common in large quantities -HLR (High level resources): rare in small quantities -P1 starting planet, Px other planets 1)HLR on P1 run out before LLR (consequence of game balance) 2)Players move to Px for more HLR, and they'll mine LLR there too (for convenience) 3)This means less people mining on P1 for LLR, so they'll take more time to run out 4)The more time passes, the more the mining rate of LLR on P1 will go down (same for other planets) Now let's add a new variable: rarity R. With time, LLR on P1 are running out, so their R (rarity) will go from "common" to "rare". This means that it's not going to be convenient for a miner to look for rare LLR on P1 and no HLR, instead they'll go on a fresh planet where they can mine common LLR and rare HLR. In conclusion: -Since all this scales with time, a planet will never run out of LLR unless a group of players tries to make that happen on purpose ( it would take a lot of time, considering planet surface and planet depth, and wouldn't even be profitable) -A planet can run out of HLR to a certain degree (maybe there's still a few pieces of materials somewhere hidden underground, but extremely rare) -New players will be able to mine LLR for a certain period of time from release, after that technology will be so advanced that they'll easily buy a basic ship from the market to fly on a different planet (or a different solution that devs will provide with expansions and patches after release). -Chances are that after a certain period of time, the landscape will be partially destroyed like minecraft (or the real world). It may be uglier, but the game is player driven, so if you don't like it, just create an organization with the purpose of filling the holes (or conquer your private land). Edit. I've seen on minecraft clans of players or servers with strict rules about digging holes without filling them, partially cutting trees, building 1x1 voxels towers, .... so an organization can easily do the same thing, and keep its territories pristine at least in appearence (the bigger the org the bigger the territory)
  15. I don't remember in which interview, but I heard JC saying that your body will remain in the game for a while to prevent people logging off while in a fight (so maybe it only applies when in combat)
  16. I don't care about collision damage, but they said they're "considering different possibilities", this means that there's a chance they could implement that, so a thread to discuss it makes sense.
  17. @mefsh @Twerk I know, but since they said they don't want stuff to be automated, i'm not 100% sure there's not going to be attriction in space or other ways to prevent you from going afk or leave your cockpit. Lua isn't probably going to be able to press one button continuosly, otherwise you could completely automate trips (could be ok i guess if the player needs to stay inside the construct)
  18. Since it was a discussed feature on youtube (April devdiary), I thought we could give some ideas for it: Last official statements about the subject: -We are currently considering different possibilities for collision physics. The defining factor in the choice will be how much stressful server-side it will be in a large scale situation with hundreds of constructs. For now, it's just a bumping effect. -We are keeping in mind the "ramming-centric griefing" as an issue we want to avoid. We can understand that it could be something fun in a RTS game like planetary Annihilation. However, in a MMORPG, such gameplay could be really problematic because it's unbalanced. If we implement at some point (and that's a big "if") the collision damage, we will consider an idea that should prevent the abuse of such issue. The objective of this topic is to discuss ways to have collisions without stressing too much the servers. A few basic ideas: 1)Collision damage requires works only after a certain speed threshold (like, only collision happening with a relative speed higher than X (fixed amount) generates damage). This would reduce by a lot the amount of collisions happening (lag, and so on), since X needs to be high enough so that only construct that are built by design for that purpose (high speed, so mostly small ships) can cause damage. This also prevents you from causing damage to the ground or other nearby construct when you land or when you move close to other entities (since most of those activities happens at slow speed) 2)A special voxel is able to cause damage, while other don't. This voxel has some drawback (like high weight or cost) so that it's not on every construct and doesn't start a demolition derby. Those specialized ships will just have some of those voxels on the front. When this block deal damage takes back a portion of it, so that you can crash a couple of time on your opponent before it becomes uneffective. 3)A cooldown on each construct that prevent multiple collisions in a small amount of time to happen (when you crash into a ship, usually you hit that many times). But this requires collision to have a bigger effect, otherwise would get unconsistent. This would reduce the amount of collisions, so the load of the servers (not sure if it's enough), would work on any ship but it is kinda wierd: players would need an unimmersive cooldown counter, and what happens when your ship is on cooldown and your opponent's is not? PS. sorry for the white quote, but it happens everytime i copypaste something
  19. 3) What about a way to lock your speed, so that your ship keep going straight and you can walk around, check the market or do something else while you wait travel time? Even 5 minutes locked in your cockpit, with your "W" key pressed, without being able to do anything else that is not piloting your construct, would be boring otherwise. I know it's kinda an automatic action, but you'd still need to stay close, and can just go straight.
  20. 50k bots are not different from 50k players, from a testing perspective. If you use the advantages that bots give, like doing the same action or moving in stardardized patterns, the test is not realistic (and that's the goal, to predict a realistic scenario). Other than that, the ones they use are not bots but simulated clients: a bot doesn't need to get updated on other player position and actions, while a simulated client does. If there are 1k clients, each of them receives data from the other 999. If there are 50k, each of them receives data from 49999 other clients. Data transferred consumes bandwith, aka money. Then add the fact, that probably you can't rent all those servers for just a few hours (because the provider doesn't allow that), but for weeks if not months, so in the long term it would be quite expensive.
  21. @Lethys there's not 1 layer, the game works with physics already, you can orbit at the altitude you want. They may choose to create an element to set you on predefined orbits, for people that don't know how to do that, but that doesn't mean that will be the only way. To orbit you just need planet gravity and a construct moving, they don't need to do anything, it comes with physics The question is, what if we go offline, does the construct keep moving even if the map is not loaded? There'll be attriction in space? May lag, synch or whatever related to the server kick out a construct from an orbit in the long term?
  22. They'll get to that, for now they're adding the most basic and easy to add elements. A sensor that tells you that your base it's being attacked it's not a big deal, while camera blocks may be harder to add, especially if you want to display them on a screen (means that you have to load a portion of map for each camera block even if there are no players there). It may be feasible to have a low update rate for those camera views, but it would still consume ram on the servers. Or maybe you could access those only by replacing completely your view, so you'd load only one portion of map at any given time.
  23. Because 50k simulated entities is a lot and it's very expensive since they'd have to rent them. Btw huge battles doesn't mean high density, people will be spread all over a very big zone so you'll likely not even see and load people very far away.
  24. Again, I'm not going to check all over the internet to find the quote for you, but i'm sure i've seen an official statement saying that you'll be able to use your nanoformer to access distant elements like a market, to place buy orders (but then you still need to travel there and get the item). The range of this wireless communication depends on your skills. So if you're interested just go and look. Then, I didn't say wormholes and aliens are confirmed, there's a "maybe" there if you look closely, means that it may happen or it may not.
  25. Don't worry they'll add that kind of textures soon, they started working on the crafting system (and all the basic materials and voxels) now. Btw idc if they don't.
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