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Limiting Script Automation will Hinder Economic Growth


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I think not having automated mining is the best way. If I wanted an economic sim than I would have went to a different game. I'm here because I want a sifi sandbox mmo and this is looking like the one to drive me back to mmos

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think not having automated mining is the best way. If I wanted an economic sim than I would have went to a different game. I'm here because I want a sifi sandbox mmo and this is looking like the one to drive me back to mmos

Actually, it is a simulated economy, with prices being dictated by supply and demand. It's a sandbox, as you said, and I get the impresssion you are here for the exploration of it, while I'm here for its economic warfare. 

 

And yes, automated mining won't hinder economic growth, it will only secure it on a concrete basis of first party producers, the miners, with the possibility of later on additions like farmers, for food sources. 

 

I mean, if you want to RP Aunt Beru or Uncle Owen, then you should be able to. Screw lightsabers, star destroyers and blasters, that moisture won't farm itself!

 

Cheers! :P

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As far as I'm concerned, it simply boils down to the simple question of "why". The answer to that question is, people (gamers / devs), in large, don't want to see "AFK miners", while the player goes to work, or goes to bed, leaving their computer on to "run scripts". People likewise, in general, would not have any issue if a pilot was sitting in the cab of their mining rig, sipping coffee and reading a paper, while the mining rig was working in 'autopilot' mode.

 

So by all logic, if you can figure out how to keep a player at the computer, and actively engaged with the game - something their presence would equate to if the game was "RL" - while their construct was running a script and mining, you would be able to figure out the solution to this problem and have automated scripts available for such actions. 

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Full disclosure - I didn't read most of this thread...

 

 

A heavy reliance on scripting for automating tasks like mining/scanning/etc would make sense if there was going to be a limited amount of players playing on any given server. However, because DU is a single shard no-instancing game, that shouldn't really be a concern because, ideally, we should have more players in the game universe to handle those tasks.

 

More players doing tasks is better for the economy than automating everything away. It will also be better for player growth, as there will always be something for them to do. 

 

You have to bear in mind that the skill system in DU is time-based like Eve Online. Players are going to be somewhat limited in what they can do until their skills are adequate, and nobody wants to spend days or weeks training a skill to find out that the job they were aiming for is irrelevant because most players have just automated away the need for it. 

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Instead of automating the mining process, why not just allow players to gain skills down a mining tree that enables them to mine more resources more effeciently, but still manually?

That way you still have specialized mining orgs/players and you have the kind of volume and effeciency that drives prices down without ruining player involvement.

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I've read down the page, and I would like to step in here with this point: sure, automated mining and production, would reduce player interaction and force solo play for the most part, there is still a middle ground. Just limit the amount of automated miners based on how many players are tied to the operation, or make miners stationary, and manually transport between.

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I've read down the page, and I would like to step in here with this point: sure, automated mining and production, would reduce player interaction and force solo play for the most part, there is still a middle ground. Just limit the amount of automated miners based on how many players are tied to the operation, or make miners stationary, and manually transport between.

 

Or, just go for the skilltree instead and let skilled miners do the same job as 10 newbros....

 

More players involved in all tasks > automated stuff

More players involved -> more teamplay -> more need for groups to form -> more need for them to be protected -> newbros have a purpose, even with low skills -> better player experience -> better newbro exp. -> better for DU

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I think the one thing you've all forgotten to mention here is this:

 

There's going to be that one guy (gal, org, monkey), that, if you can create automated mining machines, says, "You know what? This planet doesn't need to be here anymore." He sets lose 50 automated mining machines. They go out, mine, then come back and throw all the mined mass into an incinerator (Or something. 'Trash this'). Repeat the process. Soon, the surface is a mess in this spot. Using the good mats gathered, the guy then makes 50 more drones.

 

Eventually, Planets core.

 

Basically, there's going to be that one person who messes it up for everyone. Limitless automation == bad for the game.

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Thing is, it's not that complicated.

Yesterday, after 2 months, I decided to go mine in EVE again.

So I found a nice place to mine ore for my drones prodution line. And then I seen the local chat bleeping with entries. A guy, with 10 alts, logs into the system, followed by a massive hauler ship (called an Orca) that provides buffs to mining speeds (which is just pressing F1 and watching Youtube afterwards for 3 minutes).

Guess what, that single guy, just outdid my mining by sheer automated volume. We're talking billions worth of mined materials every 5 minutes. Do you know how much a PLEX (EVE's DAC) worth? 1.2 billion.

And the best part? He also had automated mining drones, so, there's more productivity I guess.

Limiting automated mining, is only there to make mining worthwhile, which in EVE, it's just not worthwhile for newbros to do mining. And since DU has no missions by NPCs or NPC bounties or w/e, there's no real alternative to mining for newbros who have no connections in-game.

Production being automated is just a must, as nobody wants to roleplay as a factory worker. Nobody wants to RP by doing a tidious and repetitive assembly line task, which is not the same as being paid by a player in-game for runing the factory on your RAM in-game.


asically, there's going to be that one person who messes it up for everyone. Limitless automation == bad for the game.

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So I found a nice place to mine ore for my drones prodution line. And then I seen the local chat bleeping with entries. A guy, with 10 alts, logs into the system, followed by a massive hauler ship (called an Orca) that provides buffs to mining speeds (which is just pressing F1 and watching Youtube afterwards for 3 minutes).

 

Guess what, that single guy, just outdid my mining by sheer automated volume. We're talking billions worth of mined materials every 5 minutes. Do you know how much a PLEX (EVE's DAC) worth? 1.2 billion.

 

And the best part? He also had automated mining drones, so, there's more productivity I guess.

 

 

 

That isn't even what full automation would look like. After all, he's still gotta check and make sure the asteroid hasn't run out, cycle the ore to the orca, probably send an ore freighter in on another alt to pull the ore out of the Orca, and make sure he's not being attacked.

 

Full automation would eliminate all of that too, making it even worse/pointless for new players. (Except the enemy part, that's always going to be a threat)

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That isn't even what full automation would look like. After all, he's still gotta check and make sure the asteroid hasn't run out, cycle the ore to the orca, probably send an ore freighter in on another alt to pull the ore out of the Orca, and make sure he's not being attacked.

 

Full automation would eliminate all of that too, making it even worse/pointless for new players. (Except the enemy part, that's always going to be a threat)

Exactly. More automation, means less M in the MMO.

 

Which is why alliances in EVE claim to have 50000 people in them, while in reality, are 5000 with 10 alt accounts for multiboxing.

 

Quite frankly, that's the lamest part of EVE. And most of them just do that kind of multiboxing mining, because mining takes no involvement at all, which hopefully, won't be the case with DU, either by mining lava or mining a hole on the top of a cavern, thus risking falling in and, well, dying, something to make mining something as little as possible to automate.

 

Now, having giant mining lasers, that work like the nanoformer works, only on ships or land rovers, as a means to mine en masse on an asteroid, then yes, that would be spiffy, as long as the mining lasers can only be automted - if and when that may be - to repeate themselves at x10 times slower than a person would via script automation, for balance's sake. I mean, they would not actually work if you were to mine underground, or at least, they would not be ass easy to deploy said constructs in the deep reaches of a planet, so manual albor is still worthwhile and if you were to work for a corporation that needs manpower as a newbro, you could be making quite the profit doing so.

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I think the actual mining part of mining in DU is going to fairly short and easy. The time consuming and difficult part will be finding meaningfully sized deposits to start with.

 

EVE is easy you scan, select a rock and press buttons, with DU you have to scan, scan, scan, combine the results, dig a mine shaft and then you can mine the deposit, all whilst either trying to keep hidden or keep people way who are going to try and skip the hard bits and steal the ore from right under your nose.

 

I don't even see how you can automate this? We have discussed mining element for constructs but how do you even automate mining in any efficient sense when the ore is hidden deep underground and you are in a totally free space with 6 degrees of movement.

 

Turtle mining in Minecraft worked because ore deposits were fairly common and small so strip mining out an entire area made economic sense, in this case you would probably need to much fuel.

 

This is why DU excites me, the devs seem to understand all the "perverse incentives" that happen with other games and have found clever ways to make something that was particularly grindy and easy to automate into something that is hard to automate and much more satisfying from a game play perspective.

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I think there should be mining tools and possibly vehicles, but not drones.  A human should still have to actually do the mining.  If you're a professional miner (I think everyone will be a miner to some extent) then you'll reach the point of diminishing returns of your mining skill fairly quickly.  Tools should be available that will allow you to mine materials faster, and of course scanners to allow you to detect deposits, which will have elements that effectively multiply the effect of your skill.  That way a professional can make an investment to improve their productivity and you can continue to develop your specialization.  But we don't want to see hordes of Van Neumann planet eaters denuding entire solar systems.

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I think there should be mining tools and possibly vehicles, but not drones.  A human should still have to actually do the mining.  If you're a professional miner (I think everyone will be a miner to some extent) then you'll reach the point of diminishing returns of your mining skill fairly quickly.  Tools should be available that will allow you to mine materials faster, and of course scanners to allow you to detect deposits, which will have elements that effectively multiply the effect of your skill.  That way a professional can make an investment to improve their productivity and you can continue to develop your specialization.  But we don't want to see hordes of Van Neumann planet eaters denuding entire solar systems.

Even if there are drones, they should be remotely controlled Elements, meant for (possibly in the future) mining in areas thar radiation would kill a player, like a Gas Giant, sending the drone in, scooping up minerals and returning them to the ship, while the player controls the drone itself. 

 

And yeah, we need Jackhammers damn it, or FutureSpace Inc. 's laser drills :P I can't stand the idea of mining by hand, either nanoformer or not. :P

 

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The reason why I highly doubt we will see full automation is due to the fact that there are script kiddies as well as other various parties out there that would abuse it to farm in game currency to fund cash to gold markets. 

 

This however does not mean there will not later on the line be ways to harvest larger and larger amounts of minerals. In fact in one of the interviews with JC I remember it specifically being stated that Hand mining would only be viable for a certain amount of time, eventually there will be projects of such scale that they will be nearly impossible to maintain by just hand mining techniques. It is this that requires the addition of more advanced mining mechanics IE Drills or Mining lasers, of which has been stated in the aforementioned interview that they will consider to add to the game, later on in the development cycle. So I personally think later on in the game we will see some sort of incarnation of tool that lets us harvest minerals faster and more efficiently. 

 

After all - hand harvested materials will be generally more expensive than bulk mined materials, however for a single miner to make cash you should have the ability to sell your "limited" amount of minerals to a larger buy order that is placed out for said item.

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Hello fellow ice cubes :)

These are my thoughts on this subject, or if you like mindless “gibberish”.

 

Please no automated mining!

I would like a game full of people not automated script farmers, with multiple accounts.

 

Automatic turrets should be allowed, but only about 4-6 automated turrets per land tile or space ship for basic defence. The ability to chose which turrets to automate and for how long could lead to more gameplay and strategies.

 

 As for manned turrets no arbitrary restrictions apart from power usage etc..

 

 

Looking forward to thawing out and meeting you all in the Dual Universe :unsure:

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Hello fellow ice cubes :)

These are my thoughts on this subject, or if you like mindless “gibberish”.

 

Please no automated mining!

I would like a game full of people not automated script farmers, with multiple accounts.

 

Automatic turrets should be allowed, but only about 4-6 automated turrets per land tile or space ship for basic defence. The ability to chose which turrets to automate and for how long could lead to more gameplay and strategies.

 

 As for manned turrets no arbitrary restrictions apart from power usage etc..

 

Looking forward to thawing out and meeting you all in the Dual Universe :unsure:

 

Automated things will be punished by (can't remember exact number) 40 or 60% less accuracy, damage or whatever. No automated gun will outmatch or even come close to a player controlled one.

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Lethys, thank you for the information, that looks like a reasonable compromise.

"Automated things will be punished by (can't remember exact number) 40 or 60% less accuracy, damage or whatever. No automated gun will outmatch or even come close to a player controlled one."

 

Slightly away from automatic mining and turrets, I would include all forms of manufacturing and refining to require some sort of human interaction "game play" to limit the damage of multi account farming to the game. Multiple accounts should have no advantage to progression of wealth over a single account. The progression should solely be down to each persons play style not how many accounts they have.

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Automated things will be punished by (can't remember exact number) 40 or 60% less accuracy, damage or whatever. No automated gun will outmatch or even come close to a player controlled one.

well, a cycles per minute penatly would do the trick I think, like, lore supports "slow" automation.

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Lethys, thank you for the information, that looks like a reasonable compromise.

"Automated things will be punished by (can't remember exact number) 40 or 60% less accuracy, damage or whatever. No automated gun will outmatch or even come close to a player controlled one."

 

Slightly away from automatic mining and turrets, I would include all forms of manufacturing and refining to require some sort of human interaction "game play" to limit the damage of multi account farming to the game. Multiple accounts should have no advantage to progression of wealth over a single account. The progression should solely be down to each persons play style not how many accounts they have.

This is not eve where multiboxing is viable. In eve you had to have at least two accounts to do something special like living in a wormhole. More accounts don't mean inherently more cash, progression or whatever.

This is a first person mmo. That alone hinders multiboxing like in eve.

Plus the graphics will be pretty hardcore, I suspect you'd need a second pc to run a second client.

Plus it's not like eve where you just cloak up or anchor automatically around someone to do stuff. Though this could be made possible via lua, you still need to do something.

 

This doesn't mean that people won't have two accounts (if allowed, I will definitely have two) - it just means that it's not likely those two will run at the same time

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This is not eve where multiboxing is viable. In eve you had to have at least two accounts to do something special like living in a wormhole. More accounts don't mean inherently more cash, progression or whatever.

This is a first person mmo. That alone hinders multiboxing like in eve.

Plus the graphics will be pretty hardcore, I suspect you'd need a second pc to run a second client.

Plus it's not like eve where you just cloak up or anchor automatically around someone to do stuff. Though this could be made possible via lua, you still need to do something.

This doesn't mean that people won't have two accounts (if allowed, I will definitely have two) - it just means that it's not likely those two will run at the same time

My overriding concern is with AFK farming damaging gameplay. Multiple accounts would not be the heart of the problem, but basic game macanics making it viable to increase wealth AFK would be. The damage would be magnified if a single player did this with multiple accounts.

 

I have only just discovered this amazing game and would love to see it thrive. At times I had a seconded eve account to make solo capship travel possible, there was not always a cyno pilot when you needed one even in a medium size corporation. l do not think my cyno alt had a negative impact on other people's gaming. corporation members were happy their ships and equipment arrived safely.

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My overriding concern is with AFK farming damaging gameplay. Multiple accounts would not be the heart of the problem, but basic game macanics making it viable to increase wealth AFK would be. The damage would be magnified if a single player did this with multiple accounts.

 

I have only just discovered this amazing game and would love to see it thrive. At times I had a seconded eve account to make solo capship travel possible, there was not always a cyno pilot when you needed one even in a medium size corporation. l do not think my cyno alt had a negative impact on other people's gaming. corporation members were happy their ships and equipment arrived safely.

Watch the devblog video - mining is manual and active, not afk like in eve. So there won't be any nobrainer afk fleets of ships or something

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My overriding concern is with AFK farming damaging gameplay. Multiple accounts would not be the heart of the problem, but basic game macanics making it viable to increase wealth AFK would be. The damage would be magnified if a single player did this with multiple accounts.

 

If that's your worry then it shouldn't be. AFK, as well as automated mining ships, could and i think should be a thing as there is no large scale mining equipment like a planet cracker (i want one anyway :'( ) but they are an easy target for basically any armed person and it is actually hard(ish) to make a fully automated script without waypoint type objects and even those are very limited in what they can do and if they are allowed I would expect them to be a closely guarded secret by most people and if they are for sale very expensive.

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Not really. It will though make sure the game is not full of multiboxers and bots.

 

 

It will also not overflow the servers if an idiot wanted to make a loop do 1000000000000000000000 loops a second. You might be sayng "but scripts run on the client's end", which is true, but the server has to receive those actions and register them.

 

 

 

Limited automation will keep the game tied to its core social interaction. You can have welders putting a ship together in your factory, or you can have machines that do it slower than them.

 

 

It's a risk to have people work for you and it's not a risk to have machines, but they have slower speeds than humans. It's a trade-off.

 

This. I want them to enable more script functionality as the game's mechanics become refined and understood, but at its core I want the game to be social with duties and work for everyone. From accountants to scan officers on a ship, I want it all. Even receptionists!

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  • 2 years later...

I really don't care much about automated mining, I'm fine without automation. However I will be absolutely distraught if i can't make a mining drill! I want to use vehicles to mine and dig. I want to tether my ship to and asteroid to mine it for resources, I want , to bore large tunnels through mountains with a tunnel boarding machine. I do not want to be limited to the equivalent of a bloody pick axe. I'm sure there would be plenty of social interaction required for a large, safe, and efficient mining operations.

 

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