aliensalmon

Well, after the failure of Revelation Online, I had to look for another next-big-thing. Bless Online wasn't that thing as it is far worse than RO. This is when kickstarter MMOs are emerging; promising more innovation, traditional system, quality-orientation, and equitable gameplay than what the AAA's have given us in the past and are willing to give us. If the AAA's are not willing to give us what we want, then it is time for me to stop doing business with them, and help fund the MMO that most resemble what I'm looking for. This is when I turned to Kickstarter; which none have yet to turn successful; in conclusion, it doesn't have the ability to save the genre.
 
As an ethnic Asian, I prefer Eastern MMOs as well mainly due to the aesthetics, OSTs/BGMs, and demography of the community. It feels more relatable to me and I find it more appealing.
 
My favorite MMOs are:
Final Fantasy XI (level 75 cap, no trust system)  Ragnarok Online (classic, pre-trans, 99/50) Maplestory (pre-BB, only adventurer class with pirates) Trickster Online (official)  

At first i was just curious about the technic behind the server. So i subscibted to the DU youtube and followed it a bit at the very begin of DU.
But i never really expected that it will be more then a "minecraft-creative mode" in space.

But then a bit later i realized that it actually becomes a quite complex game so i joined alpha 3.
And now its alot more then i ever have expected a game could be.

I was specifically looking for something that would last, I'm pretty used to sandboxes, usually you start a new game, enjoy it for a couple weeks until you have everything, quit and then come back after a few months. In the process of looking for something different/new I found this, it was still in alpha tho, once beta started I decided to give it a shot and as I'm not a teenager/student anymore I found that despite its immaturity it has the perfect pace for me.

I started following DU at the time that YouTuber said the voxel models were all fake. Then JC gave that guy a tour.
In fact, despite saying "fake", it was that YouTuber that introduced me to DU.
 
I kept following videos up until alpha 1 started, with regular supporter packs being available in DU.
 
I started to play at the end of alpha 1.

hang with friends, build ships, get involved in org politics

I think you can learn some math and science from DU, but except for a touch of special relativity, you would be much better off playing KSP for that.
 
But I don't think you need anything but video game skills to play. You can buy ships that will work (even if the UEF ones are a bit under-powered). Our engines are so powerful and efficient that you don't need to be good at space flight to do it - especially if you use warp, which is entirely unscientific and requires no skill at all (unless you count applying the formula to figure out how many warp cells to take with you.) With the brakes we have, you don't really even need to be good at atmo flight - just get over your destination and hold the brake. (btw, the ships I build don't have enough brakes to do that, but I think everyone else does.)

I remember the days when NQ cared enough to do things like.. podcasts.. 

If you're serious - heck no. The aero forces are practically made up and engine forces don't make full sense sometimes.
 
Unless your entire curriculum is F = ma, you might find it more frustrating than fun. That said if it's just for an excuse to have videogames in class then go for it!
 
That said for a programming curriculum and making something work around radians and vectors - it's great.

Yes, from basic math (volumes, quantities) to Newton. 
But not more then that. 

I knew a few people who had the technical know-how to do really cool things and were invested just for the Lua stuff. What happened to them? They stopped playing when NQ decided that their work would not be protected or covered up. Why invest hundreds of hours in programming when people can just take it and you as NQ declare it as opensource? I still have the video here with the time stamp where I know they got the middle finger from NQ. Funnily enough, it is again the video where power management and AvA are also discussed. This has always been sold to people differently over the years. And with the podcast came the bummer that set everything in motion.
 
 
But to come back to your question: I was working with C# in Space Engineers and was very proud when my solar panels aligned with the sun for the first time. It's not the same in DU without my people around me who I enjoyed playing with.

Pretty much spot on. Knowing the upcoming exploits before they happen by being in or having a good mate in ATV and being around to make sure you use them is a surefire way to getting ahead in this game even more than business entrepreneurship, which is arguably the most useful IRL skill to bring to bear in game.
 
(also, the fact that NQ aren’t actually punishing players who use bugs unless they rub NQ’s nose in the poo is also good to know. )
 
IMO Being an entrepreneur is much more powerful in game than having any real life technical knowledge like electronics or engineering... or, Hell, even aerospace or space engineering!

I strongly disagree. Being good with (newtonian) physics or having played physics based building games just means there is an even longer list of things you have to unlearn in this game. 
Any craft is just a list of parts and their arrangement matters far less than just a few talents for piloting. The skill floor and ceiling for practical building is super low. Knowledge of DU bugs and DU exclusive mechanics is far more important compared to any normal knowledge in normal physics or math.

Math helps when it comes to industry, but what helps even more is a lot of spare time, a second screen for netflix and a mouse macro for digging.

Being good in DU is not a matter of skill, it is more a matter of having no shame when spamming advertisement, reading every comment in the discord to know about upcoming features or current bugs and abuses. Getting some ATV scoop or being online while schematics are sold for 1% is great.

So I strongly disagree with you, science does not make you a good DU player or give you any other advantages. It also does not teach you anything about science, it may actually teach wrong concepts (like engines not creating torque etc).

If you get into the LUA, then sure, I think it’s ok. I have a few of my students who use LOVE try to get their creations working in DU: with limited success though.
 
DU has a pretty damn specific and non transferable framework heavily hampered by the image servers requiring sometimes several days or even a week to verify uploads and make the links active. 
 
But general framework programming concepts can be taught, I guess. 
 
As someone who runs a culture school in Tokyo, I would say there are far more effective, though less fun,  ways to teach math and science than crowbarring the teacher’s playtime into students’ lessons. 
 
judging by the fairly serious disregard for actual science visible in this game, like mining coal to make wood, I would say that the only skills I’m you need for this game are design and creativity and programming skills. 
 
Coming from an engineering background, I’d say very little of my schooling as actually relevant in game since it’s mostly handwaving. 
 
 

I guess Aphelia (the Arkship's AI) built them prior to decryonization of the human passengers?

Also most planets have extinction class events on them.  Along with us leaving home due to a black hole being tossed at us.
 
basically if a planet is in a good spot to have life it has gotten an extinction bomb of some sort tossed at it.  (Thades is the most impressive).

We already have it. NQ. They don't live with us. The look at the world from another dimension.

Allow PvP on them.

This would be good.  
I would also add, Make the planets rotate around the sun.  Not constant.  But weekly resets will move them around their orbit a certain distance depending on planet and distance form the sun.  That way the warp cost would be different every week, and there would be an 'ideal' time to warp to certain planets from other planets.  

Completely agree, but brainstorming is good for the brain... and the soul...
 
as elements? So we would make them in a factory and script their (conversational) behavior in Lua? I like it.
 
We can already kind of do this (requires god-like voxelmancy skills lol), but it would be better with a selection of character elements with appropriate lua methods included.

Just add static npc's as elements. It can be done in SE so why not here? Give them a text option and its gameboy-like-pokemon-style interactive too!
Better than a empty freeport city! And with that we could make our own stories and mysteries.

We fantasised a lot during Alpha (and even before it) about things like this. Only problem, with NQ developing priorities it all sounds almost impossible (or so far in future, that currently irrelevant).
 
Thing is, all this stuff is "meat on bones", nice thing to have, when base is working.
 
NQ development still stuck on level of macro "bones" systems, and even there they suffering from some sort of chronic calcium defeciency.

Get rid of mining for wood and let us cut trees for wood.
 
Fishing - this is really easy fauna interaction since they don't have to actually implement living fish (that's why it's a mainstay of MMOs). 
 
Of course, fishing only makes sense if they add an eating survival mechanic, and, yes, I'll include that as an idea. Plus other survival mechanics - air supply, water, sleep, bathroom. We don't need detailed play on this stuff - just make it a nerf if you don't lie down on a bed for a few seconds every eight hours.
 
Other NPC and fauna interactions. Alas, this would be huge since they really have no way to implement NPCs when everything happens in the client. Includes mission givers and hunting.
 
Weather - again, hard to do when everything is in the client, but not as hard as NPCs since we don't have to see the same raindrops.

On spherical planets, extreme weather, fog, dynamic liquids like lava would be nice. 
 
Edit: also ancient stone cities. 
 
That frozen cloud world from interstellar was nice. 
 
But i would love to see a asteroid belt 200SU long
 
Or a broken planet with a huge chunk separated by a 20km gap. 

That kind of already exists. 
 
There are a set of monolith in several places in the system. I have found one personaly.
Those monoliths have some kind of code.. 
Those codes were joined together in a calculation and a secret loation was found. Im not sure but i belive the special t5 ore was found there. 
 
There are also several monuments, some of them underground that ppl have found.
 
Some players theorize that the way to go to another system is linked to those acient monuments. 

Or have npc's like elements, that we can place around our builds so it doesnt look empty.
Have people sitting at the desk or have a linear path that they walk.
That way its possible to fill a city or a space station so it looks more realistic.
 
Even if the npc's are static, maybe they can state a simple text like a screen by interacting (F). So a helpdesk-lady-element can actually have a purpose instead of hanging screens all over the place.
 
Also, filling up your bridge with crew and stuff. I think it can work very simple.