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April 2017 DevDiary


Sunrider44

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Hi everyone!

 

There will be answers to all your pending questions tomorrow (though a few have been replied already in the Youtube comments) ;)

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

 

I think I speak for everyone when I say we really appreciate NQ's transparency and willingness to answer questions. It is refreshing, and really builds confidence. 

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I was very happy to see the Building Helper.  By giving instant feedback as changes are made, it means designing ships will be very accessible, even though the the propulsion system is complex.

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Liking the ship building/editing mode so far. Question though, is there a point where a ship or construct becomes locked and not editable anymore?

 

Reason i ask is that if there is to be a market for selling ships wouldn't that hurt players that want to sell complex and finished constructs if we can just buy it and re-make it however we want? I mean why buy a complex and likely expensive ship if you can just buy a cheap/basic one and add our own additions to it for cheaper? Though I guess thinking about it there will likely be market for both those that want to buy fully outfitted ships and basic ships depending on the player buying it.

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Liking the ship building/editing mode so far. Question though, is there a point where a ship or construct becomes locked and not editable anymore?

 

Reason i ask is that if there is to be a market for selling ships wouldn't that hurt players that want to sell complex and finished constructs if we can just buy it and re-make it however we want? I mean why buy a complex and likely expensive ship if you can just buy a cheap/basic one and add our own additions to it for cheaper? Though I guess thinking about it there will likely be market for both those that want to buy fully outfitted ships and basic ships depending on the player buying it.

 

So i believe you can add to a blueprint or ship you purchase but not take it apart. You need the master blueprint to do that. Something along those lines.

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Liking the ship building/editing mode so far. Question though, is there a point where a ship or construct becomes locked and not editable anymore?

 

Reason i ask is that if there is to be a market for selling ships wouldn't that hurt players that want to sell complex and finished constructs if we can just buy it and re-make it however we want? I mean why buy a complex and likely expensive ship if you can just buy a cheap/basic one and add our own additions to it for cheaper? Though I guess thinking about it there will likely be market for both those that want to buy fully outfitted ships and basic ships depending on the player buying it.

 

Well, if you don't have permission from the RDMS to edit the construct then it is effectively locked to you. If you own the construct then you can edit it as mush as you please (from what I understand). I don't think this will be a problem though, for several reasons.

 

  1. You can't make blueprints from a modified construct you don't own the design to. So any modifications you make have to be made by hand on other ships. You can't just buy someones ship, rearrange it a bit and then produce and sell that version. 
  2. Selling a basic, customizable ship could be a selling point. If you have a good design with good thrust and power capabilities, you could leave it blank and let people specialize it as they see fit. Maybe they want to add guns to make it an assault craft, or a mining ship, or some other specialized role. 
  3. Modifying a ship isn't going to be super easy, so most people will probably rather just buy a fully furbished ship than trick out another one. You could also run a business doing custom modifications. 
  4. Some ships, particularly capital ships, will likely need to undergo continuous upgrades and modifications to keep up with their duties. Allowing the customer to do this is good.
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Well, if you don't have permission from the RDMS to edit the construct then it is effectively locked to you. If you own the construct then you can edit it as mush as you please (from what I understand). I don't think this will be a problem though, for several reasons.

 

  • You can't make blueprints from a modified construct you don't own the design to. So any modifications you make have to be made by hand on other ships. You can't just buy someones ship, rearrange it a bit and then produce and sell that version.
  • Selling a basic, customizable ship could be a selling point. If you have a good design with good thrust and power capabilities, you could leave it blank and let people specialize it as they see fit. Maybe they want to add guns to make it an assault craft, or a mining ship, or some other specialized role.
  • Modifying a ship isn't going to be super easy, so most people will probably rather just buy a fully furbished ship than trick out another one. You could also run a business doing custom modifications.
  • Some ships, particularly capital ships, will likely need to undergo continuous upgrades and modifications to keep up with their duties. Allowing the customer to do this is good.

Plus market mechanics. No one would buy a more expensive ship when there's a cheap ship and you only have to add 5 elements. The players will see to it that prices on the markets are fair

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Hi everyone! 

 

To answer your questions (and requests):

 

1) About raw/uncut videos as technical demos:

 

We will do raw/uncut videos from one planet to another in the future. However, we might wait for some FX to be implemented. Why? while we think it's important to debunk as much skepticism as soon as possible, and keep the hype in check (some hype is always good, too much hype can have the opposite effect), we also think it's important to avoid releasing too much early raw stuff without anticipating the consequences: once a video is released on internet, even with a proper communication, you can expect situations where some people will take the video, use some parts of it (and sometimes the worst parts) for their own videos talking about the game, and give a pretty poor image of the game (intentionally or not) to new viewers who don't anything about the game yet, turning them off. For those who are in the community since nearly a year now, you might remember the controversy raised with BlueDrake42's videos. That's why we want to release our videos (even the raw ones) with the lowest risk of complaints in mind, and not hiding anything at the same time. 

 

Such videos will be also released as unlisted: while the community members will be able to share them with their friends, we won't use them as material to promote the game. Again, there is a reason for that: Statistics have shown that in order to catch the attention of new viewers (who don't already know the game), we have to aim for 2 or 3 minutes video length. The average attention span regarding videos hosted on media like Youtube was not much more than 2m40s in 2015 and has significantly decreased from 2000 to 2015. So it might even be lower in 2017, and we are already at 3 to 4 minutes in our last Dev Diaries. While we don't want to make overwhelmingly aggressive marketing campaigns, we want to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot and at least follow Marketing 101 guidelines :P. We hope you'll understand our position on this.

 

So in a nutshell, you can expect the first raw/uncut video as a technical demo around the next Dev Diary release  ;)

 

2) Wich kind of FX effects are in the work:

 

On the short term, there might be an Acceleration/Speed visual effect in space and probably a visual effect when a spaceship enters a planet atmosphere...

But I said nothing!  :ph34r:

 

3) How long the trip took (in minutes)?

 

The trip took more or less 15 minutes. But the distance is not the final one.

We might reduce the distance to prevent the travel to be too boring.

 

4) All the stacks of iron ore are 95m3 and the coal one is 99m3. Will these be the standard stack sizes? And will different materials have different sizes? 

 

This are temporary stack sizes, not necessarily the final ones.

It hasn't been decided yet if we are going for one universal stack size (in volume) or several ones.

 

5) Having this craft system simplified to on-board refinery/distillery/factory system, seems to be oversimplification and we loosing some immersion here. Are you guys planing such thing? 

 

Again, as clearly mentioned in the Dev Diary, this is "work in progress", a temporary setting to show that basic crafting game mechanics have been implemented, but we are far from the final version. These are just the first steps of the complete implementation. There will be different crafting action types (refining, making alloy, making mechanical or electronic parts, assembling parts to create items, etc) and for each action type, you will probably have to create and use a specific Element such as:

- Foundry Unit for making alloys

- Assembly Unit to create items 

- Factory Unit to create contructs

Of course, at the beginning, the Nanoformer will enable you to create all the Elements for the basic crafting action types. 

 

6) Locking the construct to a point where it won't be editable anymore:

 

Yes, once the builder decides that his construct is complete, he will be able to lock it. The feature is not implemented (yet) in pre-alpha, but it might be there at the Alpha release. We might also give the ability to let the construct unlocked for further customization (by the creator or other players), but we are still analyzing all the consequences it could generate on the economy level and the possible emerging scams related to this customization freedom ("I sell you the AX-23 spaceship, but what you don't know is that the expensive Elements X, Y and Z on the default construct have been removed before putting it on sale").

 

7) About the blue dots in space:

 

The blue dots are just something decorative in the Skybox at the moment.

Keep in mind that we will have only the Alioth solar system available at the beginning of the Alpha: we prefer to focus on quality than quantity, and a solar system should be big enough as a first field test.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

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3) What about a way to lock your speed, so that your ship keep going straight and you can walk around, check the market or do something else while you wait travel time? Even 5 minutes locked in your cockpit, with your "W" key pressed, without being able to do anything else that is not piloting your construct, would be boring otherwise. I know it's kinda an automatic action, but you'd still need to stay close, and can just go straight.

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3) What about a way to lock your speed, so that your ship keep going straight and you can walk around, check the market or do something else while you wait travel time? Even 5 minutes locked in your cockpit, with your "W" key pressed, without being able to do anything else that is not piloting your construct, would be boring otherwise. I know it's kinda an automatic action, but you'd still need to stay close, and can just go straight.

LUA Script.

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3) What about a way to lock your speed, so that your ship keep going straight and you can walk around, check the market or do something else while you wait travel time? Even 5 minutes locked in your cockpit, with your "W" key pressed, without being able to do anything else that is not piloting your construct, would be boring otherwise. I know it's kinda an automatic action, but you'd still need to stay close, and can just go straight.

 

LUA Script.

You mean momentum? The First Law of Motion? That needs no scripts.

 

I guess Shynras will run out of fuel very often.

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@mefsh @Twerk I know, but since they said they don't want stuff to be automated, i'm not 100% sure there's not going to be attriction in space or other ways to prevent you from going afk or leave your cockpit. Lua isn't probably going to be able to press one button continuosly, otherwise you could completely automate trips (could be ok i guess if the player needs to stay inside the construct)

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@mefsh @Twerk I know, but since they said they don't want stuff to be automated, i'm not 100% sure there's not going to be attriction in space or other ways to prevent you from going afk or leave your cockpit. Lua isn't probably going to be able to press one button continuosly, otherwise you could completely automate trips (could be ok i guess if the player needs to stay inside the construct)

Uhm.... what?

 

 What's attriction? You mean attrition? Attrition is not a thing about motion physics, friction is, which is a thing IN PLANETS - the latest DevDiary provides Aerodynamic Profile, which is for mitigating friction with the atmosphere of a planet. They said in the GDC Stream (I think) there won't be friction is space, so I don't know what you mean by it. Yoou can accelerate to a certain speed and have Lua reduce the speed of the craft gradually till you reach the destination a precise the distance you want.

 

That's what Lua is for. To do the slowing down of a ship. You are there to land the thing.

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You mean momentum? The First Law of Motion? That needs no scripts.

 

I guess Shynras will run out of fuel very often.

I had kinda assumed you would slowly lose speed despite. To stop ships from drifting into infinity when you logoff.

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I had kinda assumed you would slowly lose speed despite. To stop ships from drifting into infinity when you logoff.

Just have ships stop accelerating due to thrust, and they will enter an orbit around the nearest body (or be at zero, depending on how the sun is done)

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I had kinda assumed you would slowly lose speed despite. To stop ships from drifting into infinity when you logoff.

I don't know... how about... stopping the ship before logging off... or have the ship automatically adjust thrust to deccelerate to zero.

 

Just have ships stop accelerating due to thrust, and they will enter an orbit around the nearest body (or be at zero, depending on how the sun is done)

Now that's a man with vision.

 

But it depends. If NQ's orbits are "consequential" ones, meaning you have velocity, you turn off the ship thne gravity pulls you in a "Slingshot" orbit around it, then sure, they COULD adjust this for orbits around the star as well.

 

As long as people don't plan on taking a 1 year vacation, they should be fine, they won't hit any thing.

 

 

However, pirates, now THAT's a real problem.

 

So, anyone who wants to log off, yeah, you know where the safezone is, you know where the nearest asteroid belt is to park your ride on a rock.

 

Worst case scenario, park in a space station. NQ should not gut physics or smugglers' gameplay because people don't want to bother flying a ship properly.

 

If I want to let my ship glide its way for 3 days in vacuum in order to bypass a planet's gravitometric scanners when warping in, I should be able to do it. I should not be punished for going offline and letting my smuggler shuttle gliding onto approach. The server only has to keep remidning itself "hey, that construct, the #2213215 there, it's suppsoed to head towards X = 15 , Y = -6 , Z = 50 for ever, unless we are told otherwise".

 

It's not even heavy, it's literally 20 lines of code max. Barely 50 bits of memory.

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A: so does this stat setup work with the pitch/yaw etc if your ship is let's say... not symmetrical? Has there been a discussion on this?

 

B: I'm ok with not getting the info for 'some time later' because I do not need to see 2 hours of a pilot sleeping and drooling on them self or playing games and texting on their spacey smart phones. :P

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Have there been talks about core drilling?

 

Core drilling was something you did in starmade, because once the core was destroyed the ship was lost no matter what size it was or what damage it had.

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Nothing official, but my guess is, if you blow the core you blow the build grid and RDMS ownership.

 

So most likely the entire construct is lost in a spectacular explosion with a voxel/element loot drop from the list of vowels and elements that comprised the construct.

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So most likely the entire construct is lost in a spectacular explosion with a voxel/element loot drop from the list of vowels and elements that comprised the construct.

 

It seems so, it is just bad gameplay as you can just focus fire the core and win, even if the ship has only minimal damage.

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Nothing official, but my guess is, if you blow the core you blow the build grid and RDMS ownership.

 

So most likely the entire construct is lost in a spectacular explosion with a voxel/element loot drop from the list of vowels and elements that comprised the construct.

Because as we all know, when you shoot a CPU, it explodes.

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