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The votes have been tallied, the NQ staff members have been polled and they voted - they also discussed all the entries and tried to convince others to vote for their favorites. We take our bots very seriously as you can tell. Even though there can be only three winners, the general consensus here at Novaquark is that these bot entries were incredibly creative, imaginative and skillfully done. A huge thank you to all of the participants. If you haven't had the chance to see the bots up close and personal, they are available for viewing near The Exchange: ::pos{0,2,24.7050,99.0905,147.7182} With no further delay, here are the winners: First place and winner of the "Brilliant Bot Builder" title as well as three months game time: LIAM BOT by VANHERCK Two runner ups that will receive one month of game time each: LA CALCULATRICE by CORRUPTED SOFTWARE STING-E by HADRON A huge congratulations to all of the winners! Thank you to everyone who participated, we hope that you enjoyed this challenging build contest and if you would like to see more contests like these, please let us know. Well done everyone, those are some crazy and awesome bots!
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Currently, the skill points are generated in background with the queue, which leads people to having alt accounts trained to specialize in one thing in background, which is not optimal and ends up being P2W, as this clearly gives them advantage over players with only one account, specially players starting out. The proposal here is to complement the current system with skill-specific points, which are earned by doing these activities - being active in the game. This could apply to all skills or, at least, the most basic ones, such as Mining and Piloting. Firstly, let's do some math. I'll take as reference the skill "Advanced Mining". In terms of skill points, each level costs, respectively: 2400, 12000, 60000, 300000 and 1500000 points, giving a total of 1874400 points to complete all 5 levels. With a full queue, we currently get 90 skill points per minute, which means it would take around 20827 minutes to complete the queue, which translates to 347 hours or 14.5 days. All of this is passive, so one owning multiple accounts would be able to queue many large skill trees to specialize in these same 15 days, which for a normal account could take 15, 30, 45 or even 60 days to complete. Not really fair, right? Now, with the proposal, let's say for every 25L of ore extracted, one would get 1 skill point. With a scoop size of 250L, one would get 10 skill points per scoop while actively mining. With an average time of 10 seconds to get 4 scoops (1000L, or 40 skill points), one would get an equivalent rate of 240 skill points per minute by actively mining, which would take the queue time from 14.5 days to around 5.4 days of actively mining, not considering the points still being generated in background, which would bump this to 330 points per minute and lower the queue time to just under 4 days, but the catch is: the player would need to be actively mining to achieve that. The same could be applied for Piloting skills, with some adjustments to consider whether we're flying atmo or space. Currently, the maximum speeds are around 1000km/h in atmo and 30000km/h (150su/h) in space, so let's say we want to match the same 240 points rate of mining, then one would need to fly either 16.5km in atmo or 500km (2.5su) in space, at full speed, to match these rates. Anything slower would still be accounted for, but since your speed is slower and the points are earned per distance, you would make less points flying slower, the only thing not being accounted for is warps, as that would be way too easy In the end, if this works, the passive rate could even be lowered, as anyone being actually active would still be earning their points and the passive generation would be more towards when the player is offline (like doing IRL stuff such as sleeping) instead of being a complete benefit to players with many accounts farming points in background Hope this helps somehow!
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Final Edit: This idea has received zero support. I'm not going to argue it's case any further. I'm leaving it up for people to reference. This is going to be a bit of a contentious topic, but I believe that this game absolutely needs a rest or sleep mechanic. Primarily, this should be used as a method to discourage excessive game time as well as bots. Additionally, such a mechanic will be imperative if this game is to launch in China, due to their "anti addiction" mandates. Here's how I envision possible implementations of this: A basic version will be designed to encourage people to sleep and shower and at least take care of themselves a little bit. A more advanced version will encourage people to take breaks occasionally and get up and walk around. While I'm expecting the game to be relatively slow paced up until the action kicks off for a few minutes, I still think it'd be valuable to get people out of their chair. The Basic version goes like this: Players will be encouraged to play for no more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period. This will be accomplished in four parts. First, the Carrot will be that "Well Rested" players gain a bonus to take less damage/move faster/need fewer consumables during their first 6 hours online. I believe the game should be balanced towards "Well Rested" players being the normal, but that the interface should present the players as having gained a Bonus. It needs to be high to have a strong impact as this isn't something we want shrugged off. It will be balanced at this level to encourage players to actually go live their lives occasionally. This needs to be a bonus because people respond stronger and more positively when they think they are getting something extra, even if they are not (Ex: most stores that have constant sales) The second 6 hours will be "Neutral" and the player will suffer no apparent penalties or bonuses. However, due to the above bit about balancing, this will actually be a malus. I'm not feeling this bit so much any more, though a transition period is necessary to not blind side players. Finally, with the Stick, any time past 12 hours of game time in that 24 hour period would be steadily penalized with movement, stamina, and health maluses. After 18 hours of play, the player's controls will become less responsible and weave around like a drunk (or extremely tired) person, scripts will stop running for them, and they'll gain experience maluses. Interference with the controls will (if properly random) serve to help counter botting of simple tasks. While counter tools will be developed, this will still hinder most players from dangerously excessive play times. When you've logged off (or are safely in a bed/cryopod/sleeping chamber), your character will gain back an hour of benefit for each hour offline. For example, if you have a crazy raid and have to push yourself for 17 hours online, you'll have to take 17 hours offline to get back up to fully rested and get your 6 hours of bonuses. As an additional bonus, you could gain "Biological Waste Material" after a long rest that could be used as fertilizer or raw material. Lore could say that we've developed quantum bathrooms, so we do a whole day's worth of waste elimination at one time! People won't like this, as it interferes with their freedom and self determination. However, I think it's important for NovaQuark to be a socially conscious company and try to minimize the dangers of addictive behavior patterns. The more Advanced version builds off the Basic by adding in encouragement to take breaks throughout the day, as well as encourage more sufficient time off, rather than possible 1 hour on, 1 hour off (or more likely 6 hours on, 6 hours off) behavior. The Carrot is tweaked that after 3 hours, the bonuses start to decrease unless the player takes a 30 minute rest in a bed or offline. Taking two rests during a day will give you extra Carrot time minus the time it takes you to take your first and second breaks. (Ex: If you play for 3 hours 20 minutes and then 4 hours, you'd get 1 hour 40 minutes of extra Carrot time). No changes to Neutral No changes to the Stick When you log off, you gain time back exponentially. For example: the first hour offline only nets you 10 minutes, the second 15 minutes, the third 35 minutes, the fourth 1 hour, the fifth 1.5 hours, and so on. The numbers are only examples, as it should still obey the rule that 1 hour spent is 1 hour that must be restored back. The idea is that consecutive hours are more valuable. This is to force even addicts to sleep for at least 8 hours. Finally, there is the question of Beds. Because of Dual Universe's unique scripting requirements (that someone must be online for them to run scripts), I see value in having Beds act as the "Rest Point" for players. As long as they are not interacting with the game (chat, moving mouse, browsing the map or encyclopedia), they can remain online to use their computer to run scripts. They will still acquire "Rested Hours" in this fashion. If they move for more than 2 cumulative minutes in a given hour period, they will not gain that hour's worth of benefit. This should help prevent people from trying to move really slowly or to act as battle masters or tacticians while "resting". Ideally, the screen would be blanked as well. To summarize: DU will need a Rest mechanic for the health of players. This should consist of a requirement that every hour spent online must be matched by an hour spent offline. The first 6 hours online in a given 24 hour period result in bonuses. The second 6 hours are neither bonused nor malused. Any time past 12 hours in a 24 hour period will be increasingly malused. After 18 hours, the player will have their controls and visuals steadily degraded. Breaks every 3 hours are encouraged by granting extra bonus time up to a maximum of 3 extra hours. This is by taking at least 30 minute breaks every 3 hours. Once offline, players will gain back time spent either a) in a linear Basic system or an exponential Advanced system. Once the "debt" of time is gained back, no extra time may be gained. There are no bonuses for staying offline longer than necessary. Beds can be used as resting locations while logged in if the player does not interact in anyway with the game. This will be done so that the players can continue to run scripts while still gaining the advantages of rest. Interacting with the game means you aren't resting. P.S. The "24 hour period" means that logging off sporadically, but still playing for more than 12 hours still results in penalties. Ex: 2 hours of play, 7 times is still 14 hours of play and will be penalized. P.P.S. All references to "Will", "Must", and "We" reflect the intent and idea of the document, not necessarily anyone else's view. If you agree with the first intent (That players should play no more than 12 hours a day), then you should align (somewhat) with the "We"s, "Will"s, and "Must"s
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Wouldnt it be great if you can build you own army of robots? Ai grunts who could to tasks like mining, building things according to a construction plan, represent the army of a large organisation, etc. These units would be controlled by some kind of datacenter were you give them orders. They would be active as long the owner or a designated operator of an organisation is online and also only in an area of one planet or something like this. Pls send feedback