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Space is Hard?


0something0

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8 minutes ago, Hades said:

Personally think getting an org to space will be just as difficult as getting a solo player to space.  Now if an org worked collectively to get a solo player to space, that would obviously be worlds faster.

 

At least, that's how I think it should be.

 

This whole discussion is moot until we get there though, balancing will come... at a later time.  And trust me, if people find it to laborious they will lash out.  As is the case in every game ever ? 

 

We don't know anything at the moment, so arguing over speculatives is pretty useless imho 

I doubt that building a ship that holds several players will be much harder than building a ship that holds 1 player. This means that if an org worked together to get into space, the work of building 1 ship would be shared across several players, and it would then take that org a fraction of the time to get into space.

 

Specialization here is also a factor. We don't know what kinds of skills we will need to build a space-worthy ship, it might be that between scanning, refining, crafting, and piloting we need 4 different skills at a higher rank (like rank 2 or 3). With an org, you could delegate those specialty skills across several players, meaning that while a solo player waited a week or weeks to get the skills needed to leave a planet, an org would have it in a couple of days, makig it an order of magnitude faster. Even if the org then built 1 ship per player it would be a full week faster than the solo player, and they would all be in space with their own ships while McSolo was still waiting to gain ranks in their skills.

 

It'll all depend on the pipeline, but I suspect that an org will be able to cross that space threshhold much much faster than a solo player, but it could be as few as 4 or 5 people needed to gain that advantage. Then building a 4 or 5 seater ship would be enough to get the whole org up and out.

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On 10/8/2017 at 7:26 AM, Lethys said:

Iirc nq said somewhere that getting into space would need some weeks of preparation - if you do it all solo ofc. So that's fine for me.

 

Later new people will just be shipped off planet or orgs might even give them all they need to get to space themselves

I sincerely hope this is the case. Regardless of if that is building your infrastructure to make components or just gathering materials (or both) a few weeks to achieve spaceflight would make this a much more challenging game (and much more interesting in my opinion).

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3 hours ago, wizardoftrash said:

I doubt that building a ship that holds several players will be much harder than building a ship that holds 1 player. This means that if an org worked together to get into space, the work of building 1 ship would be shared across several players, and it would then take that org a fraction of the time to get into space.

 

Specialization here is also a factor. We don't know what kinds of skills we will need to build a space-worthy ship, it might be that between scanning, refining, crafting, and piloting we need 4 different skills at a higher rank (like rank 2 or 3). With an org, you could delegate those specialty skills across several players, meaning that while a solo player waited a week or weeks to get the skills needed to leave a planet, an org would have it in a couple of days, makig it an order of magnitude faster. Even if the org then built 1 ship per player it would be a full week faster than the solo player, and they would all be in space with their own ships while McSolo was still waiting to gain ranks in their skills.

 

It'll all depend on the pipeline, but I suspect that an org will be able to cross that space threshhold much much faster than a solo player, but it could be as few as 4 or 5 people needed to gain that advantage. Then building a 4 or 5 seater ship would be enough to get the whole org up and out.

Thinking that the only thing required is more space ? 

 

You have to sustain those players as well.  Once again, arguing speculatives is pointless.  Not sure why this discussion is ongoing.

 

edit:

I should note, I'm all for the mechanic you describe as is outlined in the post on food mechanics.  However, it is clear there is going to be survival mechanics in game as well.  To what extent, is just speculation.  As such, I believe it will be just as difficult to sustain an organization as a small group/solo player.  

 

Rightly so, an organization should have power over the small groups by being able to form civilizations and by being able to drive out smaller groups by force. This is enough of an advantage. 

 

"We get one ship in space, we get the whole org in space" is naive imho.

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I think it should not take too long to get into space, but then space travel should expand outwards only slowly. They can do this by controlling the amount of fuel that has to be created from mined resources. I want it to feel like a real journey into the unknown, with a possibility for expeditions to new systems to fail (because a self-sustained colony could not be established).

One problem with this approach will be that people could get stuck for a long time. Maybe emergency teleporters could be developed for this case, that only work once and can only teleport you back to a previously fixed location. Not terribly realistic, but I like it better than jump clones from EVE. Or maybe emergency FTL rescue pods.

 

In both cases you should lose your complete inventory, of course, otherwise the whole thing is quite pointless.

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Or, like I mentioned earlier, make early game surface to orbit spacecraft hard but put the arkship in orbit with a space elevator to the surface, which would be more logical anyway since it removes the whole concern of getting the arkship on the ground without rapid unplanned disassembly. So, people would go down to Alioth, get materials, go up, build spaceship and launch it.

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3 hours ago, Hades said:

Thinking that the only thing required is more space ? 

 

You have to sustain those players as well.  Once again, arguing speculatives is pointless.  Not sure why this discussion is ongoing.

 

edit:

I should note, I'm all for the mechanic you describe as is outlined in the post on food mechanics.  However, it is clear there is going to be survival mechanics in game as well.  To what extent, is just speculation.  As such, I believe it will be just as difficult to sustain an organization as a small group/solo player.  

 

Rightly so, an organization should have power over the small groups by being able to form civilizations and by being able to drive out smaller groups by force. This is enough of an advantage. 

 

"We get one ship in space, we get the whole org in space" is naive imho.

I don't think speculation is the right term to describe what's going on here.

 

Part of this forum is about suggesting the mechanics and balance levels of activities we want in the game or know will be in the game.

 

So we have people advocating for different... or actually the same level of balance(misunderstandings not withstanding) to features that are known to be coming to the game.  Examples which are speculation may be used to illustrate how things could be balanced to one level or another.

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1 hour ago, Fitorion said:

I don't think speculation is the right term to describe what's going on here.

 

Part of this forum is about suggesting the mechanics and balance levels of activities we want in the game or know will be in the game.

 

So we have people advocating for different... or actually the same level of balance(misunderstandings not withstanding) to features that are known to be coming to the game.  Examples which are speculation may be used to illustrate how things could be balanced to one level or another.

Should be (but doesn't have to be) in the ideas section then, how you believe (in detail) the mechanics should play out.  In detail.  Not just "gimp on small groups and solo players".  I don't think NQ can gather what you want based on similar statements.

 

Just my 2c,.  So yeah, everything I've read in this thread has been speculations and broad statements.  /shrug 

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On 06/10/2017 at 11:56 PM, 0something0 said:

How hard going to space at the beginning should be with the lowest tech/skill? Should it be hard like modern-day with each launch costing a fortune? Should you be able to get into a WWII fighter and go to space?

Space is not hard at all.. If you have fusion.

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On 10/6/2017 at 11:56 AM, 0something0 said:

How hard going to space at the beginning should be with the lowest tech/skill? Should it be hard like modern-day with each launch costing a fortune? Should you be able to get into a WWII fighter and go to space?

From what I understand, the original plan post general release was for 1 month of play until the first orbital flight and 3 months to interplanetary flight (I think that's using in-system FTL.)  I don't know how long until we can build stargates.

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6 hours ago, Dinkledash said:

From what I understand, the original plan post general release was for 1 month of play until the first orbital flight and 3 months to interplanetary flight (I think that's using in-system FTL.)  I don't know how long until we can build stargates.

Stargates are planned for 1-2 years after release

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What is the definition of "hard" ?

 

When people say it should take "a few weeks" to get to space, what does mean in game play terms ?

 

Does it mean that it should require 2 or 3 weeks of realtime skill training to have the required build skills to build space-capable craft ?

 

Training time would be the only hard limit I can think of. And that would imply that a large org cannot get the training done quicker by splitting-up the specialisation between different org members.

 

Scanning and mining will not be a significant factor in delaying access to space. I can scan and mine 14 hours a day every day. I cannot imagine that a basic ship will require 14 hours of resource collection. If it does, that would mean that anyone who plays 2 hours a day would need a week of play to gather the resources for building a basic spaceship. And every time they lose that ship, they have to mine for a week to replace it...

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5 hours ago, NanoDot said:

What is the definition of "hard" ?

 

When people say it should take "a few weeks" to get to space, what does mean in game play terms ?

 

Does it mean that it should require 2 or 3 weeks of realtime skill training to have the required build skills to build space-capable craft ?

 

Training time would be the only hard limit I can think of. And that would imply that a large org cannot get the training done quicker by splitting-up the specialisation between different org members.

 

Scanning and mining will not be a significant factor in delaying access to space. I can scan and mine 14 hours a day every day. I cannot imagine that a basic ship will require 14 hours of resource collection. If it does, that would mean that anyone who plays 2 hours a day would need a week of play to gather the resources for building a basic spaceship. And every time they lose that ship, they have to mine for a week to replace it...

Don't forget you can always buy the parts off the market. Or perhaps steal them... We will see. 

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Wel, when I said "hard" I meant resource-intensive. Real life space isnt accessable becausw rockets cost so much to make and are practically 1 time use items which is in turn because of the amount of energy needed to get into space. Before more efficient propulsion that allows for reuseablity gets researched , I feel like the same should apply for DU.

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7 hours ago, 0something0 said:

Wel, when I said "hard" I meant resource-intensive. Real life space isnt accessable becausw rockets cost so much to make and are practically 1 time use items which is in turn because of the amount of energy needed to get into space. Before more efficient propulsion that allows for reuseablity gets researched , I feel like the same should apply for DU.

Sure, but "hard" is a subjective concept.

 

You have to define what you mean by "hard", in terms of hours mined or hours trained or whatever measure you are thinking of.

 

How many hours of mining should one player expect to do to gather all the resources for building that single-seater spaceship ?

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17 hours ago, NanoDot said:

What is the definition of "hard" ?

 

When people say it should take "a few weeks" to get to space, what does mean in game play terms ?

 

Does it mean that it should require 2 or 3 weeks of realtime skill training to have the required build skills to build space-capable craft ?

 

Training time would be the only hard limit I can think of. And that would imply that a large org cannot get the training done quicker by splitting-up the specialisation between different org members.

 

Scanning and mining will not be a significant factor in delaying access to space. I can scan and mine 14 hours a day every day. I cannot imagine that a basic ship will require 14 hours of resource collection. If it does, that would mean that anyone who plays 2 hours a day would need a week of play to gather the resources for building a basic spaceship. And every time they lose that ship, they have to mine for a week to replace it...

Time is a resource.  The time it takes to gather and refine and then assemble things in real life gives them their value... usefulness also is a factor...

 

But in real life there's other ways of obtaining valuable objects... You don't mine the iron... aluminum... or drill for and refine the oil that make and fuel your car.  You pay others to do that for you. 

 

My entire point in this thread has been that 1 person should not easily or quickly be able to do all the things to make a space capable ship.  Each step of the process should be a deep, involved, and time consuming process so that people specialize. 

 

The above should not be misconstrued to say there shouldn't be a way to get a space capable ship fairly quickly.  There certainly should be.  But Just like in real life where you rely on the other people in your civilization whom you don't know and probably aren't even members of the same country level organization... to preform their tasks and deliver to your local shop a product that you can buy so too should it be in the game.  What you do to gain the funds necessary are up to you. 

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5 hours ago, Fitorion said:

Time is a resource.  ..

And fortunately, it's also quantifiable.

 

Except that nobody seems to want to put numbers to their definition of "hard"...

 

To me, waiting a week for a skill timer to tick down to zero is not hard. But waiting for a month for that training to finish will be hard.

Mining for an hour is not hard, but mining for 6 hours is...

 

Things like skill training, R&D and designing are one-off time costs. Those can be used to initially gate access to space. But keep in mind that a co-ordinated effort by an org will reduce that time cost to a fraction of what it would be for a single player, unless the activities cannot be divided amongst multiple players.

 

So, if you want to prevent spaceships from hitting the market in the first month after launch, there will have to be some component that takes 1 player a whole month to do. Like training 3 levels of a specific skill. because if it's 4 skills at 1 week each, an org will have those covered in a week.

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On 10.10.2017 at 3:47 PM, Hades said:

We don't know anything at the moment, so arguing over speculatives is pretty useless imho 

I don't think so that it is useless. I am wondering how many game improving ideas NQ will get out of our nonsense in the forum threads. If we delete every speculative thread in this forum then it will get rather empty.

I am with you when you say we (or most of us) don't know anything. We had only a few hours so far and implementation of DU is far away from their goal. So speculations are the salt in our DU-soup and at least we think about possibilities inside DU. It helps us to stay tuned until the next tests were available.

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5 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

And fortunately, it's also quantifiable.

 

Except that nobody seems to want to put numbers to their definition of "hard"...

 

To me, waiting a week for a skill timer to tick down to zero is not hard. But waiting for a month for that training to finish will be hard.

Mining for an hour is not hard, but mining for 6 hours is...

 

Things like skill training, R&D and designing are one-off time costs. Those can be used to initially gate access to space. But keep in mind that a co-ordinated effort by an org will reduce that time cost to a fraction of what it would be for a single player, unless the activities cannot be divided amongst multiple players.

 

So, if you want to prevent spaceships from hitting the market in the first month after launch, there will have to be some component that takes 1 player a whole month to do. Like training 3 levels of a specific skill. because if it's 4 skills at 1 week each, an org will have those covered in a week.

I haven't played Eve So I have no basis for understanding skill training of its style.  I also haven't seen much in the way of details about such a system in the game in any interviews or articles... 

 

So I have no way of conceptualizing how such a system could or should function.  All my thoughts about the game are as if such a system doesn't exist and it's purely learned player skill not some leveling mechanic that artificially changes how fast or well some action can be done. 

 

I don't mean that such a system won't be in game.  I'm aware that there is some info that such a system will be there.  It's just there isn't enough info about it for me to really understand it.

 

I'd like mining to be 1 in depth system that it takes time to learn the tricks of the trade.  And a lot of ores could be very low in richness but quite common so it takes a lot of material mined to refine building materials out of it.

I'd like refining to be another in depth system... perhaps as complex as ship building itself with many components of different sizes and efficiencies fitting together and needing maintenance...

 

I am hesitant to put hard numbers down as I am not sure what the correct numbers will be for something to be sufficiently annoying to do alone so most people use the market to fill their need and yet not too tedious so that people can still have fun doing it and get paid for their time by everyone else who just uses the market.  And of course the odd solo player who wants to isolate themselves from all the MM parts of an MMO... can still do it.

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7 minutes ago, Fitorion said:

I haven't played Eve So I have no basis for understanding skill training of its style. ...

In EVE, related skills are divided into categories. Within a category, each individual skill has 5 levels. Each level of skill takes an increasing amount of time to train. The first level is typically very quick (e.g. 15mins), but the next level takes a few multiples of the previous one. So it could be: L1=15mins, L2=1 day, L3=1 week, L4=3 weeks, L5= 8 weeks. Training times are cumulative, so to get to L5 in that example would take a total of 12 weeks + 1 day + 15mins.

Skills are trained continuously in real time, regardless of whether you're logged-in or not. You can switch training freely at any time, time spent is never lost, it just picks up from where you stopped last.

Each level of a skill typically gives a small % increase (e.g. 5% per level). So if you have "Gunnery" at L1, it gives +5% accuracy. Every consecutive level adds another 5%.

 

7 minutes ago, Fitorion said:

...

 

I am hesitant to put hard numbers down as I am not sure what the correct numbers will be for something to be sufficiently annoying to do alone so most people use the market to fill their need and yet not too tedious so that people can still have fun doing it and get paid for their time by everyone else who just uses the market. ...

That's why I'm asking the question.

I'm not asking for your suggestion of what's good for the game, I'm interested in what's good for you !

 

Because your own definition is what will ultimately inform your opinion of the game. Judged against your standards, the game will be either "too easy", "about right" or even "too hard" for YOU.

 

"Hard" is subjective, until we know people's definitions, discussion is meaningless. We can all agree it must be "hard", but it's only when the numbers are quoted that people will say things like: "Wait... Are you joking ?"

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It's fascinating how threads like this remind of the quote : "You point to the moon and people stare at your finger"

Most here think they will be zooming around in space like in NMS or have "lolwarp" fromn EVE to bounce trillions of kilometers in a dice.

Yes, Space is Hard. It should be hard, nothing should be easy. Space has the most risk involved, it should not be easy by default. It's as inviting as the depth of the oceans. NQ has programmed an amazeballs physics engine that has a moving CoM depending on thrust, fuel-to-thrust and thrust-to-mass ratios, aerodynamic profiles and the demand for angles for reentry to not burn up during it.

That is hard, sure, but you are not obligated to play in space, nor be a pilot, or be a trader. If your thing is ground warfare and pew pew, you can do that. If you jist is moving materials between places, you can do that - I mean, Eurotruck simulator is proof people DO like these games and EVE is proof of Space-Trucking being a legit profession complete with EVe's version of Jimmy Hoffa and blockade runners, not the stupid fake smugglers from games where the enemy Police is NPC, but actual smuggelrs who sneak past trade blockades with a smile on their face and a good lie.


Likewise, Spaceflight should be challenging to be rewarding, cause nothing else will be forgiving. from PvP to playing the market, so spaceflight must not fall behind. 

If everyone can pull perfect and smooth spaceflights, then people won't feel "elite" for being good at something.
 

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10 hours ago, NanoDot said:

In EVE, related skills are divided into categories. Within a category, each individual skill has 5 levels. Each level of skill takes an increasing amount of time to train. The first level is typically very quick (e.g. 15mins), but the next level takes a few multiples of the previous one. So it could be: L1=15mins, L2=1 day, L3=1 week, L4=3 weeks, L5= 8 weeks. Training times are cumulative, so to get to L5 in that example would take a total of 12 weeks + 1 day + 15mins.

Skills are trained continuously in real time, regardless of whether you're logged-in or not. You can switch training freely at any time, time spent is never lost, it just picks up from where you stopped last.

Each level of a skill typically gives a small % increase (e.g. 5% per level). So if you have "Gunnery" at L1, it gives +5% accuracy. Every consecutive level adds another 5%.

 

That's why I'm asking the question.

I'm not asking for your suggestion of what's good for the game, I'm interested in what's good for you !

 

Because your own definition is what will ultimately inform your opinion of the game. Judged against your standards, the game will be either "too easy", "about right" or even "too hard" for YOU.

 

"Hard" is subjective, until we know people's definitions, discussion is meaningless. We can all agree it must be "hard", but it's only when the numbers are quoted that people will say things like: "Wait... Are you joking ?"

I lean toward the month+ side of things for someone not using the market or player made quests to...

Mine up enough materials to Build a small refinery or several for the possible different types of materials to be refined...

Then mine up enough materials to run through those to get the materials used for building a space ship...

And then the time it takes to actually refine them...  Which should be several minigames I think so you're constantly having to change and manage things in a fun engaging way.  Watching a progress bar is never fun. 

 

Mining would be competitive with other players and groups of players.  There may be strip mines owned by organizations or they might own a large area which they use for mining... so you may have to travel far to find an unclaimed area to mine in...

 

And the whole process could get delayed if you're attacked and things destroyed or stolen.

 

 

or you could (non-solo) get a temp job mining in a org mine.  But you'd probably just get paid and then buy the refined materials from the market...

 

There should be a variety of ways to do any task.  The easiest and most efficient methods should involve other people even if they are hidden from you so you never know them or talk to them... such as buying things from the market.  But also actual close group play could be necessary for some aspects... Like the largest most efficient refinery could require a crew to run it... just like a large space craft.  And the hardest most inefficient and time consuming method would be the single solo player route.

 

I can't be certain exactly how long things should take until all those systems are in the game and we try them out.  There are so many places to tweak things... the abundance of ores... their richness... how quickly the nanoformer mines them... how much we can carry... then the refinery... its efficiency and the skill of those using it to navigate the management games that I think it should involve... and of course how much of each material each element of a ship would cost to create.

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To build space capable craft yes, it's a knowledge you can share. But building ship capable of lifting few people there comes with bigger cost. Engines, material etc. And we have no way of saying right know how that is going to play. Even massive org out of luck to get the correct resource can stay behind.

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