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DevBlog: Element Destruction - DUscussion thread


NQ-Naerais

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14 minutes ago, Majestic said:

There are some people that prefer the solo play style, what do they do? I thought DU was supposed to be played any way you want to play it.

 

Stop thinking like a generic MMO player.

thinking and free will are dangerous features....

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My preference, beyond crash damage being excluded from destruction until there is a better ship building/analysis UI, would be to have a ship repair suite.  This would potentially be multiple machines (even multiple core sizes depending on the ship/parts).  They could use scrap or materials/parts to fully repair a nearby/linked ship.  Perhaps in this approach, cores/parts could be nanocrafter-repaired only three times or lose 10-20% efficiency each nanocrafter repair, before needing to be machine repaired.

 

I would prefer not to have mobile repair kits or anything requiring extra time to create.  The current repair system of rushing back to a downed ship with nanocrafter/scrap and then using onboard scrap from repaired containers is already complex enough.  My current ship takes 4.5hrs to repair with T1 scrap (done that three times before trying some T3 scrap).  This has been more than enough punishment/cost for crashing each time - even with keeping container contents and ship.

 

It may be strictly realistic to have a ship/contents destroyed permanently on impact/crashing but, as a game, the current system is already a gut-wrenching enough experience.  It may also be realistic to lose cargo or limp home but they add even more insult to injury.  So, I think NQ should balance strict realism with enjoyable/challenging gameplay.

 

To introduce complexity into repairs for crashing, it may help to lock the ownership of a crashed core to the player for some time (eg 8/12/24 hours) to allow time to return from anywhere in the galaxy and repair (and create any complex repair items needed).  I don't support the extra complexity but this could be a compromise approach if NQ was to go down that path.

 

For PVP, noting that it is consensual at the moment, I would be quite happy to immediately/completely lose any ships committed to PVP outside a safe zone.  To encourage leaving the safe zone, the rewards should be much higher than in the safe zone (eg rarer ores).

 

Finally, it may be worth considering more intensive tutorials with flying tests to pass, even to unlock some talents/core/parts access.  If someone has demonstrated the skills to fly a heavier ship, operate space engines or a warp core or even operate weapons, then these sorts of proposed damage/destruction limits could be easier to accept.

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, kulkija said:

NQs current plan will break more gameplay and already working features as well as planned ones than it will create.
By implementing this well will create interesting content.

 

Unfortunately  NQ's general thought process is based around short term, quick fixes which hide the root cause of problems (and the hope to find time somehow to maybe revisit these in the future) without much, if any, thought on the longer term impact. Most of it appears to be fed by a chronic lack of resources within the company, absence of central project management and a very tight budget.

 

That said though, I honestly do not see how my suggestion would take much more time or resources to implement while it provides a vastly better foundation to build on going forward. It also creates an opportunity for emergent gameplay where logistics/support ships become a factor in (bigger) conflict scenarios and at the same time it create opportunity for players not directly interested in shooting guns to engage in PVP wit their org/friends. There is just too little consideration for these factors in the overal game design for DU right now IMO.

 

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4 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

It also creates an opportunity for emergent gameplay where logistics/support ships become a factor in (bigger) conflict scenarios and at the same time it create opportunity for players not directly interested in shooting guns to engage in PVP wit their org/friends. There is just too little consideration for these factors in the overal game design for DU right now IMO.

This is exactly where my interests are.

I had many excellent experiences in EVE while flying my haulers and supporting my org and allies behind the lines.

 

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I have zero experience with PVP, due to zero interest in it, so I will not comment this.

 

In regards to items being destroyed, especially outside of PVP, I don't think it is a very good idea.

I think most people commenting here, saying that it would be a good idea have vast DU experience and serious issues to change their point of view when it comes to DU beginners. Some have indeed addressed the potential impact on new players and the possible consequence of losing them permanently. One already said, no players = no DU. One time subscribers and a few PVP focused ones will not keep DU and NQ alive.

 

A common argument is that the economy is broken and requires a resource sink to fix it. I think proper PVP with permanently destroyed items would be enough already.

In my opinion a greater problem is the current market system, respectively the lack of information when it comes to prices and production cost. I'd guess that many people, if not even most,  that sell produced items at the markets, don't check production cost and also don't consider the transportation costs. Otherwise I've issues to understand why so many sell orders are way lower than the actual ore prices to produce said items. It is utter nonsense to sell an item for 100k when I need 200k to produce it. Even if I mine the ore myself, I still need to do that calculation. My interest lies in industry and I'd love to produce and sell goods with a small margin and even hire a trader or partner with one. DU makes this for me impossible right now because the prices are a joke. Selling ore brings the most profit so I have to go mining, although I'd love to do something else. I'm forced to do that as I cannot make proper profit with the goods I can produce. So I need to skill mining, need to skill container range, piloting and many other things I did not want to specialize in. Just to point it out, I literally sell nothing on the markets, it's just not worth it.

Implementing destruction will not fix the economy. Larger Organizations will just adapt and continue to produce their own stuff. The ore they require, they will mine and therefore, zero impact on the economy. The random, solo or new player will suffer.

 

NQ: If you really want to fix the market you need to implement more information. When I inspect an item, it needs to show the production costs (quanta), based on the average price of all sell orders of each ore amounts required to produce that item (just without skills). The average needs to exclude the 10 cheapest and 10 most expensive ones on the planet the player currently is. As you refer to IRL, you can also prohibit selling prices under creation costs, which is in IRL illegal in some countries. The same info needs to be in the create sell order screen ( info based on all markets of the planet the player currently is on) and tadaa, no one will sell an item under creation costs. You may take the skills into consideration but this will make it for new players a lot harder to produce and sell. It is unreasonable that players have to lookup such essential information at player made webpages, if they are lucky enough to know about them. Also, add an information text that reminds the seller to consider the costs for transport and the market tax (why actually, for a market on an otherwise basically empty planet?) as well.

 

This will set the ore prices realistically, the item prices too and the PVP destruction will be an appropriate money / resource sink. No need to grief players with painful crashing penalty. Repairing a hauler is already painful enough, especially when you compare it with a PVP XS Cube. I'm sure that may players will quit DU if they have to replace all elements on their ships over and over again, just because of crashes.

Next step, remove the stupid buy bots where people are selling honeycombs to for example, or at least, set all buy prices that low that no more profit is possible. Of course you need to think about some quanta generating mechanism after doing this.

 

This probably would also render mining automation unnecessary as there will be a valid marked for people specialized in mining. I'd be happy to buy ore if I could sell the products with a small profit in turn. This may finally trigger the other niches you were hoping for, protection service providers for miner / hauler etc.

 

Just my two cents, I'm happy to read your opinions about this.

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I think element destruction as such is a good idea. There needs to be time, item and quanta sinks, and industry owners need to stay in business. But obviously this should be something that's implemented very late into the beta, right now there's too many unwanted reasons to crash, e.g. lag or stuff simply not rendering in time.

 

But - I wouldn't make it a fixed number. I would make it a fixed number and then a probability to get destroyed, maybe even a slightly raising probability. So, e.g. your Military Engine has 5 lifes guaranteed whereas a basic Engine has 3 lifes guaranteed. After having been broken 5 times, the probability of the Military engine could raise by e.g. 10% and Basic Engines by e.g. 20% after having been broken for 3 times, giving Military engines something between 6 and 14 "lifes" whereas Basic engines get 4 to 7 in this example. Therefore you guys could balance overall costs of an item and lifes, and it would be fun to know it gets increasingly more risky to take a specific e.g. AGG with me to a tour (because it was already broken 3 times) or not.

 

(My dream though would be to introduce quality levels to items, so we could (and have to) really specialize in a few or even a single item but have the chance to become the best vendor for e.g. Ailerons. A quality level 55 alieron would have like 10% more uplift versus a level 1, so nothing too crazy, and quality levels raise by you building a lot of them plus maybe a special resource/currency you need to invest, plus luck. - Ultimately, you could also make it that you can stop learning a skill in favor of investing time to increase quality level of a specific item. I think that would allow us go through the roof in regards to customizing your "career path" in DU.")

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For those comparing this stuff to real life, allow me to remind you that airliners and rockets that crash IRL usually explosively disassemble and only madmen would dream of reusing the wreckage.

 

Letting a ship crash into Alioth at 30,000km/h (8.3 km/s) (IRL, this would turn it into itty bitty pieces and you'd be lucky to recover anything) and be repaired completely with ease is just space voodoo magic.

 

Letting it be repaired from fully 'broken'  3 times is very, very generous.

 

 

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I believe the element destruction is a have to, the only question is how.

 

The proposed method is OK as long as there is a way to recycle the 2/3 and 1/3 modified parts.

Introduce some kind of "forge".

Forge takes input from container and outputs for each element that is:

1/3 -> roughly 20% of the ingots required to create it

2/3 -> roughly 30% of the ingots required to create it

3/3 -> roughly 40% of the ingots required to create it

 

The numbers should of course be well thought thru so it doesn't make building with skills and refining back profitable etc but there has to be a way to deal with useless 1/3 parts and other junk.

 

Edit: and a repair unit functionality to swap all modified elements to new ones while putting modified units to container. Running around your ship all the time is just a time consuming and boring after 2nd time.

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This whole destruction mechanic would work much better with a slight modification to how the repair process works.

 

I suggest that:

  1. Repairing a destroyed element is a oneshot task, repairing to full hp in a single operation.
  2. The repair from destroyed process requires, let's say, 50% (subject to balancing) of the parts used to create the element in the assembly line.

This way, scrap still has a use (repairing damaged elements), but if it is destroyed, you have to pay a reduced part cost for that element, in a slightly roundabout fashion. This would also encourage industrialists to stock parts on the market for fair prices.

 

It would also do away with the entire 'x lives' / associated tedium.

 

I'm open to discussion of this.

 

edit: Before I started playing Dual Universe, the game I'd been playing most frequently over the couple months before that is Space Engineers. Space Engineers has the same granular repair process as DU, with the slight exception that components are used to repair, not scrap. DU has been feeling very "babby's first space game" easy mode repair, in comparison. I don't really see WHY scrap is a thing, nor why it was implemented. The game would feel much better with an SE-style repair system.

 

Admittedly, in SE, destroyed ship parts blow up / disintegrate, potentially leading to failure of ship structural integrity, and requiring full replacement. Destroyed elements sticking around is yet another easy-mode thing DU has.

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12 hours ago, blazemonger said:

Elements can be patched up when damaged, destroyed elements can only be removed/replaced

 

Damaged elements

  • Players can craft "repair kits" which are tailored to the purpose for which they are used (engines/airfoil/adjustors/furniture.. etc)
  • Repair kits will restore a damaged element to enough health to "get home" where the element needs to be removed and replaced.
  • A repair assembly element of the correct size will then be able to repair the damaged element with new components.
  • A repair assemble element can be fitted to a dynamic construct with M or L core to allow en-route repair as long as the needed components are in store on the construct.
  • A patched up element is a most 80% functional and has less HP and so is at higher risk of getting destroyed. This creates the requirement to have it actually repaired and not left as-is.

  This is a much better solution.  NQ's repair limit makes having extra repairs on your elements a liability when going into anything other than a hit and run battle. Your enemies will simply repair any captured ships and turn them on their previous owners. I can already see players deliberately crashing ships to remove the extra repairs.  That it also eliminates much of the repair tedium is a big plus. 

 

If NQ feels they must keep a number of full repairs for each element, there should be onboard repair units that can restore a destroyed element for a significant chunk of resources and a strike through one of the full repairs.  This way, ships in combat could burn through the repairs for some of their elements before going down for good. 

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34 minutes ago, Sarge_of_Greyhawk said:

We need a way to recycle old worn out elements. There needs to be a way to recover some if not all of the resources that were used in the manufacturing of said element. Even if its just a partial recovery it would help in salvaging old discarded parts and depletion of resources.


I've been an advocate of a very robust salvage talent tree. (think 6 months to get max).  easy to get into, but long to master. But you keep their current system, but can repair 100% destroyed elements for a % return on the final parts used to make it.  Adds a lot to the game, new careers, and helps with what to do when those elements finally do become desyroyed.  

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This game is dead in 6 months tops if this system goes in.

 

Lol if this is what people in that "why did you quit survey" they are on meth or something and should not be listened to, and besides they are in a better place now.

 

Second NQ plans to take the 100k daily alloance away at some point so there is that too.

 

Not to mention finite resources. Non-renewable, non recyclable, non sift able resources.

 

Those three things aside just looking back at all the stupid mishaps along the way, the learning curve for plantary/space flight progression, atmo burn, in air collisions, pvp, lag, ships sliding or just mistakes up to this point could have been all game ending incidents until you can get built up enough to even really do anything let alone pvp. Hell the time we came back from a two week mining trip and gravity body slammed us from like 10km up straight to the ground and we crashed multiple other ships trying to salvage the ore, 1mil hp repair bill on top of it would have been completely game ending.

 

Hey NQ remember that time Alioth got blockaded and the other time the planet nearly got mined out? Those people are now going to have complete carblanch to just grief whole planets until they cant fly, then cant mine, and eventually just quit the game when they cant make anything. Sounds solid.

 

This sounds like a grief feedback loop. The first casualties are the newbies, the second casualty is the markets, the third casualty is the resources themselves, and when you cant fight back at all anymore you just quit lol.

 

RIPDU!

 

Its supposed to be a game not a job or some kind of masochistic self flagellation punishment scheme. I still remember the last dying words of EQN Landmark which was "It wasn't fun".

 

NO for me.

 

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I don't get why everyone is so happy about PVP now. It doesn't change ANYTHING.

 

1) no L weapons on XS cores ? Ok, now there is no contra to 20 braindead gunners sitting on L Core ship. The most likely contra is them getting bored and leaving. I will still be able to evade them if I want to.

2) No cube meta ? We will have a sausage meta now. I like cubes better than sausages. No, we will not use "beautiful ships" they are useless + repair unit is disabled so no way of repairing anything other than simplest designs.

3) PVP is still meaningless and there are safe zones all around outer planets, people warp to ion, mine t5, warp back. Say hi to campers while doing so. So much sandbox.

 

For now, I will not even advise those who left to rejoin, there is no content here for real PVP or anything, just making it even worse.

 

Edit:

For the "ow, I would like to try PVP now" guys. Let me predict your PVP experience:

 

1) Build a ship from <insert name of sci-fi movie>

2) Assemble a team of players all running around your ship barely knowing wtf should they do

3) Leave safe zone trying to understand how the damn guns and radar work

4) 5 hours flying around seeing nothing

5) L core appears on the scan 2 SU away - finally !!!!

6) You hear "core unit damaged" and respawn at wherever your closest node is. Forget about your ship.

 

You will not survive the alpha of 80L Railgun sausage and with lock range being equal across the board it doesn't matter what your ship size is. It will lock it anyway.

Some will try again, most will give up.

 

PVP is not decided by how cool your ship looks or how good you design it. Currently it's all about who knows more "well known" bugs and glitches like gunner-killer crashing, ships insta stop/accelerate on pilot kill etc. Add a total domination of L cores with XS unable to counter them - you get high entry price to very glitchy part of the game. No one gonna like it.

 

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SO i just flew to a near by Market place.   and upon landing a small ship roughly  1/10th the size of my ship flew into my ship.   I lost 19 elements.  and only 1 is damaged but almost in the red.     SO    with this future update planned..  

 

I would like to know..  as much as the rest of us..   what now..  seems extremely not fair that this is to happen..  

 

so  there plans on fixing ship collision based on mass

or this is going to be the new norm. ???  

 

I highly doubt dev's are  reading any of this so im sure most of this can be fairly and accurately assume by the  backers and future buyers into this game..

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2 hours ago, Teklow82 said:

I highly doubt dev's are  reading any of this so im sure most of this can be fairly and accurately assume by the  backers and future buyers into this game..

I am a dev myself. Not NQ obviously. But if I were in their position i would 100% not read the forums. As a community-manager, yes. As a dev, no.

This forum for me is only a huge "dev-blaming". If you ever really were a "dev" yourself, then you would know that they are not "the enemy".

They are the ones who make this game. Not the ones who stand between the game and you.

To be honest: I would rage quit instantly if my custumers were that hostile to me.

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1 minute ago, board_user said:

As a community-manager, yes. As a dev, no.

The Factorio devs read and participate in their forums. So do the Oxygen Not Included, Empyrion, and Terraria devs.

 

The DU devs don't seem to rely on or want to see direct feedback, though.

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On 11/20/2020 at 3:23 PM, NQ-Naerais said:

Element perma-destruction

A deployed Element that has been destroyed cannot be brought into the inventory. This Element is totally non-functional and can only be deleted or Replaced. 

 

When Replacing an element, all custom properties and settings are maintained. This action will consume an Element of the same type in the player’s active inventory, as it would do with an Element that was deployed standard. Of course, we will introduce a proper tool to replace your Elements to prevent the need for reconfiguration when you’re swapping in a fresh new one. This should help to create a healthy level of demand as PVP increasingly heats up across the Universe.  

i actually disagree with the replace thing.  this should only be possible if the element is not destroyed.  

and if you were careless enoegh to fly around with an element that had 0 charges left.   then you should have to redo everything.   

that last time the element should just vanish and pop out of existance. 

 

along with any custom settings OR cargo.   

 

if a container has no more charges left. and is perma destroyed.  then that should also perma destroy everything that is in it.  

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3 hours ago, Teklow82 said:

SO i just flew to a near by Market place.   and upon landing a small ship roughly  1/10th the size of my ship flew into my ship.   I lost 19 elements.  and only 1 is damaged but almost in the red.     SO    with this future update planned..  

 

I would like to know..  as much as the rest of us..   what now..  seems extremely not fair that this is to happen..  

 

so  there plans on fixing ship collision based on mass

or this is going to be the new norm. ???  

 

I highly doubt dev's are  reading any of this so im sure most of this can be fairly and accurately assume by the  backers and future buyers into this game..

sounds like you have no voxels.  

 

21 hours ago, Warlander said:

This game is dead in 6 months tops if this system goes in.

 

Lol if this is what people in that "why did you quit survey" they are on meth or something and should not be listened to, and besides they are in a better place now.

 

Second NQ plans to take the 100k daily alloance away at some point so there is that too.

 

Not to mention finite resources. Non-renewable, non recyclable, non sift able resources.

 

Those three things aside just looking back at all the stupid mishaps along the way, the learning curve for plantary/space flight progression, atmo burn, in air collisions, pvp, lag, ships sliding or just mistakes up to this point could have been all game ending incidents until you can get built up enough to even really do anything let alone pvp. Hell the time we came back from a two week mining trip and gravity body slammed us from like 10km up straight to the ground and we crashed multiple other ships trying to salvage the ore, 1mil hp repair bill on top of it would have been completely game ending.

 

Hey NQ remember that time Alioth got blockaded and the other time the planet nearly got mined out? Those people are now going to have complete carblanch to just grief whole planets until they cant fly, then cant mine, and eventually just quit the game when they cant make anything. Sounds solid.

 

This sounds like a grief feedback loop. The first casualties are the newbies, the second casualty is the markets, the third casualty is the resources themselves, and when you cant fight back at all anymore you just quit lol.

 

RIPDU!

 

Its supposed to be a game not a job or some kind of masochistic self flagellation punishment scheme. I still remember the last dying words of EQN Landmark which was "It wasn't fun".

 

NO for me.

 

do you even have any clue of whats comming or not?????   

why do i ask.  you obviously have no clue what so ffing ever.   

 

 

 

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On 11/22/2020 at 9:26 AM, blazemonger said:

 

Destroyed elements

  • Players can remove these elements and replace them
  • Destroyed elements can be recycled for a return of some of the original components/resources

 

i do like your take on the element destruction.  but i'd like to ad that element replacement should only be possible by a machine (like the repair unit) and that machine should only be able to be placed on a static construct. (or space)  so that we need to fly it back to a repair dock. 

 

i am strongly against people just being able to replace elements from their inventory mid flight.  

and i think containers shouldn't even be possible to be replaced.   if my container explodes the contents should vanish along with it.   

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I would think perhaps they would focus on all the abandoned crap all over the planets from players that have left the game before adding this trash in.  Mining is boring enough as it is, can't see doing more of it to replace destroyed elements.  And I think someone already said, they can't even get the repair unit to work and now they are adding this.  Perhaps this is the solution to not being able to correct the repair unit.  I did have high hopes for this game and recommended it to a few friends and family.  I am the only one left, and after this addition without fixing current issues, I think that my time may now be limited.

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On 11/20/2020 at 3:23 PM, NQ-Naerais said:

Discuss below!

Why?

What is the purpose of said discussion?

Is this still in the planning stage, so a discussion could change any of this?

I have seen questions asked in this "discussion", but only a single response from you NQ to iterate that this is all element damage not only pvp.

 

Reason for me asking is, I have quit playing the game for now and a factor to me quitting was lack of communication.

Since I quit I follow here on the forums to see if things improve, I see a post like this, but still no communication between NQ and players, only players asking into the void and speculating.

 

So I ask again...

Why is this thread created NQ?

What do you (NQ) get out of a discussion like this?

Do you (NQ) even read through this? and if you do, why? Is any of it subject to changed based on the discussion?

 

Now lets see if this is actually an improvement to the communication and discussion, or just "fake interest"

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4 hours ago, ZeeckZero said:

Why?

What is the purpose of said discussion?

Is this still in the planning stage, so a discussion could change any of this?

 

The pattern NQ follows:

 

Start bringing up a new "thing" in interviews

Work out what they think will be the right way to go and start implementing it

Towards the time the patch is going to be released, post a devblog on it

Invite discussion which is pointless as the change is already set and beyond the point of making changes.

NQ also doe snot engage in the discussion nor actively work with the feedback they get.

 

6 months go by after patch

 

"We heard your feedback and are reworking the way this works"

Kind of work some of the feedback into the mechanic but as there is no actual structural record of the feedback it is mostly half done.


If NQ instead would allow for a discussion over the course of say 4 weeks shortly after starting implementation and then take 8 weeks to work in the feedback towards the first iteration they probably gain 6 months or more  of development time which then is available for other purposes. IMO a major cause for the delays in progress for the game development are the above. 

 

 

Why is this happening?

  • No centralized project management
  • a culture of "what does this button do, let's try as it looks cool"
  • "Pretend" interest in engaging with community
  • Not taking feedback on board
  • sub par communication
  • insecure about critical feedback and how to take it on board
  • "make it up as we go" style of development
  • Not using the ATV resource to preview, no requirements for engagement from ATV members and not actively managing ATV (I doubt many of the ATV members are even still playing)
  • No resources to mass test separate from the live servers prior to a patch being released

 

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