aliensalmon

Ah you raise good points. Thanks for the answer!

Yes the lore makes no sense. We are humanities last hope sent to rebuild a dying civilization. But on arrival we are just giving some basic tools to survive and let lose to run around like a flock of hens. And when NQ introduced tax they pretty much gave up completely on following the lore. The last thing you do when trying to rebuild a civilization, is to tax everyone to death.
 
And.. who built the markets that where waiting for us when we arrived?
 
And so we are now in a situation where the alternative community Lore where Aphelia is an corrupted/evil AI overlord pretending to be good, makes for a MUCH more interesting and sensible explanation.

SCIFI / Science fiction is not about Science or physics as we know it. Trying to follow Science or physics creates simulator, not a game.
Source: Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
 
To answer the question:
I feel DU game designers have got it all terrible wrong.

No offense, but how much old sci-fi just completely ignored science as it was known then? And the line between sci-fi and fantasy has always been very blurred, even 'hard' sci-fi often ignored a lot of science in favor of story. And that's not a big issue imho. It all depends on suspension of disbelief and the consumers willingness to do that. But some things require a lot more suspension then others, the NQnian physics require a rewiring of reality... 😉
 
I honestly don't care much about the NQnian physics, as long as they stay internally consistent, but as NQ is running an eternal Alpha game, they keep changing stuff around, often quite drastically. And even then, due to it's buggy state, it's internal logic is not applied consistently... Is this a floor? Nope, not today? Must be something to do with the alignments of the moons and the butterflies being in heat....

From scientific to DU, only the setting. No more.
I would call this genre - fiction for ignoramuses.
Only the maximum speed limit, depending on the mass, is worth something. In what science can you find it?
And there are plenty of other things that ignore the basic laws of physics. Not new undiscovered technologies (such as packaging of matter), but ignoring the basic science that exists now.
This is more and more like some kind of [filtered]ing fantasy with a damn shitty plot (more precisely, with its absence).
I agree that with JC there were many times more logic and connectivity. Since then, the game has turned into some kind of Frankenstein.

Hell no! It's a pure and bland sandbox, it has the potential for us to tell good stories. But the DU setting itself is virtually not existent, at the start of beta there was some hint of something more during events, but that was quickly squashed when the previous CEO left...
 
DU is the equivalent of mom getting a big box of LEGO, yelling "VROOM! This is a spaceship!" turning the box over in the middle of the living room. "You just crashed on a new planet, you need to rebuild!"... "I'll check back on you when you're 18 and I can kick you out of the house."... 😉

Looked like they were going somewhere interesting with that shipwreck video (in 2020 iirc) but nothong since

DU setting is kinda dystopian nonsense.
 
Starting from fact, that while its all posed as players doing their own thing and choices, building civilization (hahah) -- in reality everyone slaving for omnipotent AI.

It's lousy scifi. Largely because its acquaintance with science is no better than nodding, and its fiction is no more original or thought-provoking than Mills and Boon.
 
It's not even, really "Space Opera", for me; that genre generally has some sweeping grandeur to it which DU doesn't even begin to approach.

I have given this question way more time than it is worth.  In my mind it boils down to the lore being overly generic to the point it barely qualifies as a garnish on a side of mash potatoes instead of the steak of a good RPG.  Dying world, random company name sends cryostasis colony ship(s), FTUE, grind, grind, grind.
 
There is such a small amount of lore that once you watch the cinematic you've covered all the lore.  Generic end of world, generic you are here now and.... go.

DU is lousy sci-fi, since there is so many inconsistencies and hardly any correlation between what you do in the game and the technology available. So a more correct term would be space-opera.
 
For example everything must fly in DU, but there is no advanced technology or Lore or anything in the game that would justify a society based around flying.
 
And one moment you have nano transformers doing hand-wavy magic and resurrection pods that can transfer you across the universe in a split second, and the next you are running around picking up glowing rocks from the ground.
 
Kinda reminds me of Star Wars where people are living in a western movie but then suddenly have all sorts of crazy technology for whatever fits the short term narrative, without any thoughts as to how having access to such technology would impact a society as whole. I mean just take a look at something as simple as the invention of the iPhone, and how much smartphones (and the internet) has changed our society in a relatively short time.

Ah, I just went ahead and spend a DAC to see what the pets were like (but I will still play more DU this month.)
 
I decided to post a pic of what one looks like:
 

It depends on in what DU community you participate in. D4nkKn1ght hosted a 'Fly in' two days ago and streamed all the ships on Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/D4nkKn1ght
(You can watch the stream from two days ago to get an impression of what's there.)
 
There are a ton of cool communities showing cool ships/constructs, doing races, etc.
 
Shamsie (NQ-Ripley) was also streaming a lot of interesting stuff before he sold his soul to NQ. 😉 He still streams DU occasionally...
 
Markee Dragon also has his streaming community/activities in DU.
 
There are many, many others. I think that there are many cool constructs in DU and people are showing them off. But many are also still in their build up phase two months after launch, because so much was build during beta that they want to reconstruct first. Beta ships that need to be reworked and new ships that are being build. Just keep in mind that not everyone is as motivated as they were during beta and rebuilding might take longer then planned. But I already see impressively tile clusters that are build up pretty heavily.
 
Now, if those five DAC are the only things you want to spend on DU you might want to hold on to them, at the risk of loosing the opportunity to spend them at all... If not, there are cool things in DU already and just go and look!

Just wondering.
 
In case you wanna know more about me as a DU player: The things I liked the most when I played were seeing and exploring the cool constructs others have played, and I also liked building static constructs of my own, too. (Although it's hard for me to finish what I'm doing.) I liked figuring out how to make a space capable ship, but that type of excitement only comes once. I also like talking with the community both in game and on the forums.

Really happy to hear that talking with the community made your list. Everything else you described is also doable right now but admittedly some of the large player builds are still in progress so expect to see some "scaffolding" here and there. There are of course other gameplay aspects you might want to explore too like lua programing, industry, and pvp. Finally please don't forget that for the first 6 months after release, a talent point booster is in effect for all subscribed accounts. Now I wouldn't recommend redeeming a DAC just for that but I do think it is worth mentioning as some tend to place high value on their talent points. If you do decide to wait till later then please don't forget to place all of your important constructs on your safe moon territories to ensure they are not lost to IAR and be sure to signup to the newsletter (see footer on www.dualuniverse.game) to keep up to date.

Probably best to wait a moment

So... its getting close.  Markee Dragon has stated that launch is at 13:00 UTC (9am Eastern), but that has not been collaborated by NQ.  Demo server has been active and used by folks like me to plan our launch sequence.
 
I have (5) sticky notes developed via the Demo for my future life as an Industrialist.
    1)  Hour 0 - where to go, what to build, what levels of Maintain to put on my starter industries , etc.
    2)  Organizational notes and a fuller outline of what is required for my starter factory, laid out by row.
    3)  Which schematics to work on to avoid lost time in that process
    4)  Early notes (like colors of surface rocks I've now memorized), links to key websites, etc.
    5)  Initial talents to be trained (first 2M points)  (1M by default, 1M for having 2FA setup - just DU it folks!)
 
Curious what other people have done to prepare and/or starting strategies?
 
I'll start with my plans to use the Outpost Station since it has the largest built-in storage (14000 L).  I'll be building a S static core as my first step (takes about 30 minutes after Talents are trained) and building my first factory off of that.  Having a larger linked container just means I'll spend less time dealing with inventory space issues.  Of course those will remain an issue until I make my first M container - after that space becomes a much smaller problem.  My first factory's goal are to kick out M containers for Org use and resale, L miners for initial internal use then resale, and factory industries to help propagate factories in my Org.
 
What are others planning on doing?  Any suggestion on other things to do in Demo to help kill time?

Oh, just a reminder:  You have until launch (well, at least through the 26th) to add subscriptions at the Beta rate.  You can do so via:
 
https://store.markeedragon.com/index.php?cat=360
 
If for some reason your reading this, but have not created your account, or any alt accounts you want to fund before the 27th, you can do so here:
 
https://www.dualuniverse.game/signup?recruiter=23449
 
Cheers!
 

Some more bus tour screenshots
 

Voice chat would be awesome, even if I won't use it as much as text chat.

Yes, but you would need to have a large amount of choice on what you can ban / who you can hear. Planet wide / system wide / specific groups (Including orgs) / parties / local tile / space region / specific people / etc.
 
IMO if it was implemented without lots of controls, it would either be no use or you'd end up being harassed, which no one wants.

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

First images are coming tomorrow! President Biden gave a sneak peek today!
 
https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/

I nominate this from the YouTube user "Bonusaben":
 
 

there is some excellent physics engine work that @Elias Villdis showing off in the Lua chat on the DU discord, that's 1
 
2 would be @Archaegeos extensive rework to @Dimencia's orbital hud
 
and 3 would be any arcade game people have made, all are awesome!