Anaximander

indeed, so a No from me, the goal is to get people together to do the stuff. So Or do a good recruitment job, or join another org to find the people.

So much argument ... 
I think we need a flexible system not a complicate system. And what NQ have said is "Everything is up to player", so the more complicate system (like karma system ) , the more loop hole it can be ... Well that just my thought.

About lone ship attack. I think that is "risk and reward" isnt it ? You take the risk for go alone to decrease some expense cost when go with other player in a caravan or protection fee isnt it ?!
 
Also if i'm not wrong, NQ have said something about a reputation system ... Maybe it kinda look like Karma system ?

Yup, the implementation of PVP will be a "watershed moment" for DU, because that's when everyone will find out how viable their intended play style will be.
 
Hard decisions will have to be made, either adapt or find a new game to play...

Yeah, that's pretty bad gameplay mechanics right there. If they would do such a thing, everyone (including big Bad orgs) would abuse that system to just stay hidden. Only available to small orgs? Just split that huge org into smaller pieces via rdms and take full advantage of that stealth system. Just available to players without orgs? Why give them a huge advantage in a Dog eat dog world?
 
What they COULD do is a fine tuning with scanning mechanics. Like thermal scans or radar waves. Hide your Base well with a special voxel made out of antithermium. Then ppl would need to use other means to scan for your base. Or craft your ship out of antiradarium and ppl won't bei able to detect you via radar. Whatever the mechanic - you have to balance it. There should not be a 100% safe solution which would take others years to find you. Days? Maybe. 100%? No.
 
 

Ex-eve player here also. The more the merrier.

An ... interesting topic. There's various aspects that come to mind though, at least in my mind right now.
 
Let's start at the end:
 
Let's assume an organization subforum would not have been an aspect, just like the organization registry on the community hub at https://community.dualthegame.com/
 
Would not stop existing groups to express an interest into Dual Universe and perhaps recruit for it (elsewhere). Aside from that I see no practical reason from the dev perspective to actively disable or avoid community sections. To them it would rather be counter-productive because avoiding that also avoids, in at least an abstract way, hinders establishing an active community. Organizations and community projects are a vital part of this. It would in that sense be a bit unrealistic.
 
 
 
That is a fact of life, I'd argue. Many ideas and niches already filled and taken. One is usually never the first (unless you actually are). But one is also never the last. You can branch out if you do it right. Or perhaps I'd change your expectation? That some people are first, or not necessarily first but able to establish an idea or fill a niche, can hardly be avoided. Now you have various options.
 
First I'd question why you are "under a lot of weight". If you wanted to do those things instead? Then yes, probably. It makes it tricky to compete with established entities, but it isn't impossible. But did you also ask yourself why you feel a need to compete in that area by yourself? If something you wanted to do is already subjectively "taken" and if you do not want to compete or feel it would be hard to do so, why not join with them?
 
And let us not forget that nothing lasts forever. How many organizations that exist now or are even big will still be around at release? And how many of those will then still be around 5 years later? There will be a notable fluctuation, especially once this game attracts more people and is ready for release. Perhaps most of the existing orgs will be washed way or out-played by future orgs who will do it better.
 
But in the end I see a Necromonger approach in a wider sense of "you keep what you kill", in addition to emergent gameplay: If you were first or successful, you likely deserve it.
 
As someone with the same idea you can basically either try to compete, join or do something else. You do not always have to invent the wheel anew.

Some or maybe many players could find it odd to see an organization thread with basically a FAQ right away without an introductory section about the organization.
 
At least I had that feeling.
 
I therefore suggest to add one that briefly describes what the "IC" is all about or that it is part of X so that the following information (what comes after) is logically connected or doesn't seem "off".
 
Of course some of the info is but a click away or can quickly be looked up due to links and whatnot. But it would be either courtesy or simply convenience to add a small descriptive paragraph.
 
What do you think?

I hope not. Kill boards advertise that the game is all about killing. If there are kill boards then there should also be "best build" boards, exploration boards, manufacturer boards, and mining boards.
 
DU is not EVE. It should being DUing it's own thing, not making an EVE 2.0.

Here's a truthful TLDR:
I love myself so much I created an entire fictional pseudo-religion to love myself even more.
Did I mention how I love myself?

I'm too dumb to understand this idea.
Or I'm not high enough, sry if being too direct.

Minesweeper.
--- Sanity Warning: Do not click unless you accept potential neurological damage. This is an actual, legitimate list. With strong opinions. I typed this while I was a bit... eh. ---

My suggestion more or less. Structural integrity (Voxel total HP of a ship ) being "collsion HP" and Tensile STrength being "collision resistance".
 
IF a ship is blown to shit but still flies, it means it has very few voxels on it. Ramming that ship, would explode its fuel tanks and capacitors if the "Collision HP" reached zero.
 
A lightweifght "torpedo" ship, would shatter on impact o na staitonary ship, or even worse, a ship that has a lot more mass than it.
 
NQ can't afford voxel to voxel calculations or entity-to-entity collisions computation. That's the real issue, not collison mechanics per-se.
 
 
And yes, my system also means that aship can only accelerate as high as its Tensile strength allows for. A brittle ship won't be able to push beyond certain Gs. And sudden stops (collisions) are more or less BRUTAL negative accelerations - what the kids call decceleration these days.

Coffins can be custom designed and look pretty as well.

It's about function over form, always keep that in mind.

I figured since an upcoming AMA was mentioned in the video that was released yesterday, I thought it would be useful to start a thread to collect questions people have for JC about Alpha, the roadmap, etc.

I suppose I'll start by listing a few questions I have...
 
The roadmap doesn't make any mention of server uptime. When can we expect the servers to be up for extended periods of time? (24/7 even) Is this something that we can expect during a specific phase of Alpha? Is the NDA firm for all of Alpha, or is there a possibility that the NDA may be lifted before Beta starts? Can we expect server uptime during the winter holiday season this year?   Is there a clue of sorts hidden in one of the videos that were recently published?  Where can we get one of those sweet Dual Universe jackets? 

My guess, by mining a mineral called Cashium-1337 which you refine into money, making certain planets rich in Cashium-1337, a real money pit. That keeps planets of value being a center for contest between the big boys who need more money.


But, it's my guess, the devs could go with Gold or something like that :V

You confuse automation with artifical intelligence - like most people unfamiliar with the tertms tend to also confuse "carbine" and "rifle". 

Automation is me doing a flip-and-burn by pressing one button.

A.I. would be for me to do nothing while my ship does all the flying for me on its own on a loop.


Lua is used to make macrocommands - macro, greek word for "long" or "vast". Lua is there to perform REALLY complicated tasks for you, not for you to not need to do anything at all.

Stop asking for crap like that.

Also, the LORE is pretty clear why A.I. are not liked in DU's universe. People in that timeline of events had seen A.I. taking every aspect of their lives away and due to the A.I. not going Papa Skynet's way, they were lucky and it didn't rebel.

In fact, Aphelia (the Novark A.I.) has tha greek word for its name that means "Naivety". Take what you will out of the A.I's name, prolly they coded it to nmaive, cause naive people are spinless and are incapable of acting in a cunning way, or lack any paranoia to be subtle. There is an ancient greek saying, "aphelis osan moron". Yes, that "moron", it's the same "moron" used today, which refers to people who think like babies and the phrase literally means "naive like baby". There is a common-day phrase that has usurped that phrase of antiquity. "I wasn't born yesterday", or, you can say that Aphelia is just a "moron" that "was born yesterday" that will do whatever you ask of her, like, train you with ways to murder people or save your bacon when you die - regardless if you are a known serial killier or not.

I know, that's some heavy philosophical shit.

Yeah, I mean, sure, but... why would anyone make it illegal IN the game? They would be like potions or elixirs in any other MMORPG. Why would smugglers need to be in check? 


Best case scenario, a big corporation makes a lot of them, makes money, buys more army than any other faction and pulverises any competition and the game is turned to JUAREZ Universe and we all play as space drug-lords and hustlers.


Organisations? Nah, call them Cartels, turn legates to O.Gs and call the admins "The Feds".


I hope the composer for the music in-game has a really goood sense of hip-hop music, cause Space-Cadillac ain't playin' no techno yo. If it ain't Strait Outta Arkship, it ain't cool yo.

Sorry 0somehing0, NQ has stated several times it will quash unfair AI/Automation codings/exploits to provide balanced game play, it has nothing to do with others forming a Jihad etc to enforce what NQ has already said.

I won't go into details as of what Battle Fatigue is in real life, although THIS sums it up pretty nicely.


The TL ; DR version, is that a person loses efficiency, in a statistical way, depending on the amount of battle and / or injuries they have accumulated (along with other things, that are too dark to elaborate).

This can be emulated with a Trauma mechanism in the game, so death has some consequences that go beyond material loss and punish people who actually went looking for trouble, as well as make assassins something more than just glorified bounty hunters.


 
This suggestion covers :

1. The logic behind it.
2. The suggestion of a powers system on a timer.
3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.

Without further ado, here we go.



1. The Logic Behind It.


Discouraging mindless PvP and turning the game into a bloodbath. While a Bounty System is welcome as a precaution, as a good fella in Discord pointed out "I am not worried about the Bounty System, it will only bring more content for me as a PvPer, it's a reward for PKing people more than anything". 

So how do you make that person think twice before going after you? What prevents them from going into a killing spree?

That would be a skillpoints loss system, right?

Well, wrong. Skillpoints are like your money in-game, they are there as a "save" button, they are there to signify your progress and "power", in an abstract way. They should be secured.

But what if there was a way to take away efficiency, without taking away skillpoints? And well, money are meant to be spent anyways.

That would be the Trauma mechanic.


2. Powers on a Timer.


If a person dies once, they suffer a Trauma debuff, that is chipping away a percentage of their attributes, which are linked to the skill training system, as skills are operating on increasing the bonuses of a person's attributes, while attributes are there to justify how fast a person learns skills and what skills they can learn.

For this suggestion, the percentage loss for the first death off of a person's attributes, is 1%. I know it sounds very small, but it's for ease of understanding more than anything.

When a person dies, they suffer the Battle Trauma debuff, which is on a timer of 10 minutes. It sounds very little for one death, BUT, if you die again within that timer, your Trauma increases in duration and intensity.

The equation for the timer is :

(BattleFatigue-Timer)^(times of death)

While the Efficiency Loss beyond the first death, is :

[ (Efficiency Loss Percentage) + 2(times of death) ] / 100
This means for the first death, the equation is :

(10 minutes)^1

Timer is 10 minutes. No biggie, 10 minutes with 1% attributes loss. That will make your 100 Strength character have 99 Strength, who cares, right? Well, thing is, certain skills, require certain attributes, and attiributes assuming the Devs went the EVE way) take time to learn depending on your attributes. So a 1%, equates to a certain extension of the training timer to fill up.

But if you die AGAIN (somehow you fell off the stairs or something, I'm a Twerkmotor, not a fortune teller) within 10 minutes, the timer begins to look something like this :

(10 Minutes)^2

[1 + 2(2) ] / 100

So, you got 100 minutes of Trauma, at 5% efficiency ratio. It's still fine, it's 1 hour 40 minutes of 5% less effciency, it's not something devastating, it's not the end of the world. Maybe you'll log out anyways, and by the morning you will be feeling fiiiiiiiiine.

But somehow, you die again within the timer ( Fail Hard 2 : Fail Harder , Evil Stair had its way again).

Timer begins to look something more like ... erm, this : 

(10 minutes)^3

[1+ 2(3) ] / 100

I'll save you the hassle, that timer is about 2/3 of a day long and it is for a 7% efficiency loss. You might say, "that's not too bad, it's only 7%", but then again, that equates to skill training taking longer, so that one week, is more like 2 weeks more on a high level skill. It is punishing :|

But for some unknown reason, you went for the lucky 4th time in a row and died.

That would be 1 week worth of trauma, for 9% efficiency loss.

But no worries, Emergent Gameplay is here for you. Time to get to the Doc Mitchell's house to patch your noggins up (if you get the referrence, you are Cazador-proof then).


3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.


Many a person in these forums, have asked if they can build medical centers. Well, with the Trauma suggestion, they can be part of the gameplay in more ways than just a med-kit vending machine.

A medical skills trained person, has the ability to reduce or even remove the Trauma, via the level of their training and of course, the material costs behind it, either by producing medicine that can counteract the effects of Battle Fatigue that cost a lot, depending on their effectiveness, or via Elements that heal the injured fella.

The twist is, Doctors can only affect Physical attributes, like strength, endurance, agility and dexterity.


But I hear you say "but what about Mental attributes?". 

Enter the Bar. No really, there should be bar in the game :|

Not exactly bars, but alcohol can be used to reduce the Trauma timer for Mental attributes, like memory, charisma, intelligence and perception.  The twist is, you can't get too much alcohol at once, otherwise you get poison damage (because logic) and also, you get withdrawl, which affects your physical attributes in a very very minor way compared to Trauma.

This will reinforce the social aspect of the game, having people take time to chill as they wait for their Trauma debuff to wear off, possibly in a bar in-game, or by drinking on their own. Can't force people to have social interactions if they don't want to.

Afterthoughts.

This will also create venues for players of more ... RPish backgrounds, to have a legit reason for being in a bar, rather than w/e RP people do ( I don't know, I'm not a turbonerd :| ) , as well as hospitals being legit places to be built and of course, NOT being attacked via interfactional agreements on Laws of War (if there are any).


This opens up also the economic and politic aspect of the game. Logistics for war, take a whole new meaning. A person that does not die and has a high KD, becomes recognised in their organisation as Cost Efficient, as that guy or gal is melting people without dying, not requiring new armor every time after dying and of course, not costing a heckton on Trauma therapy, not to mention, their character being drunk or in alcohol withdrawl debuff, that needs another medicine to make it go away.

This also opens up the Drugs Industry in the game. Drugs are much cheaper to make than high-tech medicine, but they cause you SEVERE withdrawl effects (gotta send the message out there people, not everything is as harmless as weed). The Empire of Baconstone, may have an issue with its troops being unreliable bacause of them drugs they use to avoid paying for real medicine that's non-addictive, therefore banning them, thus needing them smugglers to fly in to capitalise in that sweet sweet revenue of illegal tradings. It's far more a legit and organic way of banning drugs in-game, rather than "I wantz drugz illegalz by Devz".

Politics though are not limited to that. The good ol' tactic of "STORM THAT HILL, THROW MORE MEAT INTO THE ENEMY'S GRINDER" takes in DIMINISHING RETURNS. Every time your soldiers die, they lose their armor, and they lose efficiency. You may have the money to support their armors, but the medicine costs begin to pile up.

Defenders become more weary and they are on an efficiency level as well. 

If a faction relies in attrition warfare, they will have to tax people who are not in their fleets or armies, thus politics, take off on a whole new level, as people start protesting on the Protection Bubbles having more Rent, sales taxes going up and in general, Emergent Gameplay of rebellions.

It's a mechanic that branches everywhere. 


 

I won't go into details as of what Battle Fatigue is in real life, although THIS sums it up pretty nicely.


The TL ; DR version, is that a person loses efficiency, in a statistical way, depending on the amount of battle and / or injuries they have accumulated (along with other things, that are too dark to elaborate).

This can be emulated with a Trauma mechanism in the game, so death has some consequences that go beyond material loss and punish people who actually went looking for trouble, as well as make assassins something more than just glorified bounty hunters.


 
This suggestion covers :

1. The logic behind it.
2. The suggestion of a powers system on a timer.
3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.

Without further ado, here we go.



1. The Logic Behind It.


Discouraging mindless PvP and turning the game into a bloodbath. While a Bounty System is welcome as a precaution, as a good fella in Discord pointed out "I am not worried about the Bounty System, it will only bring more content for me as a PvPer, it's a reward for PKing people more than anything". 

So how do you make that person think twice before going after you? What prevents them from going into a killing spree?

That would be a skillpoints loss system, right?

Well, wrong. Skillpoints are like your money in-game, they are there as a "save" button, they are there to signify your progress and "power", in an abstract way. They should be secured.

But what if there was a way to take away efficiency, without taking away skillpoints? And well, money are meant to be spent anyways.

That would be the Trauma mechanic.


2. Powers on a Timer.


If a person dies once, they suffer a Trauma debuff, that is chipping away a percentage of their attributes, which are linked to the skill training system, as skills are operating on increasing the bonuses of a person's attributes, while attributes are there to justify how fast a person learns skills and what skills they can learn.

For this suggestion, the percentage loss for the first death off of a person's attributes, is 1%. I know it sounds very small, but it's for ease of understanding more than anything.

When a person dies, they suffer the Battle Trauma debuff, which is on a timer of 10 minutes. It sounds very little for one death, BUT, if you die again within that timer, your Trauma increases in duration and intensity.

The equation for the timer is :

(BattleFatigue-Timer)^(times of death)

While the Efficiency Loss beyond the first death, is :

[ (Efficiency Loss Percentage) + 2(times of death) ] / 100
This means for the first death, the equation is :

(10 minutes)^1

Timer is 10 minutes. No biggie, 10 minutes with 1% attributes loss. That will make your 100 Strength character have 99 Strength, who cares, right? Well, thing is, certain skills, require certain attributes, and attiributes assuming the Devs went the EVE way) take time to learn depending on your attributes. So a 1%, equates to a certain extension of the training timer to fill up.

But if you die AGAIN (somehow you fell off the stairs or something, I'm a Twerkmotor, not a fortune teller) within 10 minutes, the timer begins to look something like this :

(10 Minutes)^2

[1 + 2(2) ] / 100

So, you got 100 minutes of Trauma, at 5% efficiency ratio. It's still fine, it's 1 hour 40 minutes of 5% less effciency, it's not something devastating, it's not the end of the world. Maybe you'll log out anyways, and by the morning you will be feeling fiiiiiiiiine.

But somehow, you die again within the timer ( Fail Hard 2 : Fail Harder , Evil Stair had its way again).

Timer begins to look something more like ... erm, this : 

(10 minutes)^3

[1+ 2(3) ] / 100

I'll save you the hassle, that timer is about 2/3 of a day long and it is for a 7% efficiency loss. You might say, "that's not too bad, it's only 7%", but then again, that equates to skill training taking longer, so that one week, is more like 2 weeks more on a high level skill. It is punishing :|

But for some unknown reason, you went for the lucky 4th time in a row and died.

That would be 1 week worth of trauma, for 9% efficiency loss.

But no worries, Emergent Gameplay is here for you. Time to get to the Doc Mitchell's house to patch your noggins up (if you get the referrence, you are Cazador-proof then).


3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.


Many a person in these forums, have asked if they can build medical centers. Well, with the Trauma suggestion, they can be part of the gameplay in more ways than just a med-kit vending machine.

A medical skills trained person, has the ability to reduce or even remove the Trauma, via the level of their training and of course, the material costs behind it, either by producing medicine that can counteract the effects of Battle Fatigue that cost a lot, depending on their effectiveness, or via Elements that heal the injured fella.

The twist is, Doctors can only affect Physical attributes, like strength, endurance, agility and dexterity.


But I hear you say "but what about Mental attributes?". 

Enter the Bar. No really, there should be bar in the game :|

Not exactly bars, but alcohol can be used to reduce the Trauma timer for Mental attributes, like memory, charisma, intelligence and perception.  The twist is, you can't get too much alcohol at once, otherwise you get poison damage (because logic) and also, you get withdrawl, which affects your physical attributes in a very very minor way compared to Trauma.

This will reinforce the social aspect of the game, having people take time to chill as they wait for their Trauma debuff to wear off, possibly in a bar in-game, or by drinking on their own. Can't force people to have social interactions if they don't want to.

Afterthoughts.

This will also create venues for players of more ... RPish backgrounds, to have a legit reason for being in a bar, rather than w/e RP people do ( I don't know, I'm not a turbonerd :| ) , as well as hospitals being legit places to be built and of course, NOT being attacked via interfactional agreements on Laws of War (if there are any).


This opens up also the economic and politic aspect of the game. Logistics for war, take a whole new meaning. A person that does not die and has a high KD, becomes recognised in their organisation as Cost Efficient, as that guy or gal is melting people without dying, not requiring new armor every time after dying and of course, not costing a heckton on Trauma therapy, not to mention, their character being drunk or in alcohol withdrawl debuff, that needs another medicine to make it go away.

This also opens up the Drugs Industry in the game. Drugs are much cheaper to make than high-tech medicine, but they cause you SEVERE withdrawl effects (gotta send the message out there people, not everything is as harmless as weed). The Empire of Baconstone, may have an issue with its troops being unreliable bacause of them drugs they use to avoid paying for real medicine that's non-addictive, therefore banning them, thus needing them smugglers to fly in to capitalise in that sweet sweet revenue of illegal tradings. It's far more a legit and organic way of banning drugs in-game, rather than "I wantz drugz illegalz by Devz".

Politics though are not limited to that. The good ol' tactic of "STORM THAT HILL, THROW MORE MEAT INTO THE ENEMY'S GRINDER" takes in DIMINISHING RETURNS. Every time your soldiers die, they lose their armor, and they lose efficiency. You may have the money to support their armors, but the medicine costs begin to pile up.

Defenders become more weary and they are on an efficiency level as well. 

If a faction relies in attrition warfare, they will have to tax people who are not in their fleets or armies, thus politics, take off on a whole new level, as people start protesting on the Protection Bubbles having more Rent, sales taxes going up and in general, Emergent Gameplay of rebellions.

It's a mechanic that branches everywhere. 


 

Nice changes o7
 
I especially love the antigrav generators with the pads, those will certainly be valuable and a prime target.
 
Good to see this update and progress.
 
Is there any new info on the servertech? Like new tests, Performance updates or else? (Besides the one servertech video in YouTube from years ago). I just think that ppl would be really interested how that works out so far

That's in fact the property of the DPU units. They act as the "brain" for the Element they are attacked to. And when you start combining DPUs is where the real magic starts happening, as they can be rigged to act in a pointer system to a central node, at least, in theory.
 
 
So, the OP's idea, is thusly redundant. You don't need micro-parts, as you got playstyles whose jobs are the tuning of each mess via the each individual player's specialisation.
 
 
You want a high performance thruster for your afterburners? Buy one from a guy who made one such thruster.
 
 
You want a precision, low RPM laser cannon for sniping enemy ship engines? Buy one from a guy who build one by tuning its stats.
 
 
It's way lighter on the server this way and via glowing textures and some .tga witchcraft, you could make each element being visually distinct depending on its functionality.

Yeah. Bestest configurations become the norm and the game has "joke" configurations.
There will be only ONE best configuration of engine combinations.
There will be only ONE best configuration of a laser turret.
 
 
And thus, we end up with everyone having the same ships, with the same wiki ideas being thrown about, without any real effort being put in on how to actually distribute engines, but on a stream-lined pre-built system.
 
Anyone building differently, they handicap themselves.
 
 
And that's WoW. You either build your talents for the Bestest DPS build you can have, or be of less efficiency than someone else who has the bestest build configuration.
 
 
The Devs idea is not for a ship to be "the bestest" there is, but to cater to specific needs. Someone might want an agile frigate, someone else might like armor, it's then each respective builder's field of expertiste to provide better alternatives given the already existing Elements and combining firepower, maneuverability armor and thurster placement to make the best ship.
 

That would create a min-max situation and suddenly, the sandbox game becomes a WoW clone.

Real simple question. Should any possible mining equipment, like laser drills, be able to cause damage to other players?

The amount of heat needed to melt something like iron, is enough to cause some serious damage to players - at the cost of range of course, it's a drill, laser or not.

Should equipment like that be possible to be turned into a defensive weapon if the occassion arises, or are you scared of the possbility of miners packing some heat?