DevBlog: The Maneuver Tool and Disconnecting Ships - DUscussion thread

[le_souriceau]

26 minutes ago, Fembot68 said:

Refined materials and elements "should" be worth more on the market than raw ore IMO. 

In real life production adds a lot of value, because very high costs to establish and, more importantly, upkeep (and not only on material side of things).

 

In DU production cost generaly nothing, beyond some initial 1 time investment in machines (not that big) and time to set links (again, not something average person can't do, at least to basic level). So added value is miserably low, even negative, margin so far hinges on maxed skills difference and deliveries to more dead markets for larger cut.

 

Generaly economy of DU is whole is failure at this point.

 

[Bobbie]

.

[Underhook]

I have to agree with many posts I have read here that say.

You really should not be implementing these changes when the game crashes as often as it does and has far more serious bugs and mechanics that need attention first.

[Underhook]

15 hours ago, MarkusT said:

It is fairly interesting how many people are complaining that their Alt+F4 cheat (yes it is), is going to be taken away from them. I'm playing almost the entire beta time and have never, not a single time, used the Alt+F4 "emergency" break. I never had to, and yes, I also suffer from lags. I'm playing on a laptop, which is not super high end so you can imagine...

However, few people mentioned that NQ must find a way that a ship can be "parked" in space, be it with the ECU or the AGG. When a player "parks" the ship with AGG, they must make sure that it does not fall down to the planet or moon. If AGG is on and the "pilot" disconnects, the AGG needs either stay on or the ship needs to stand still. When control is taken over again, the AGG has to kick in if it did not stay on when the DC ocurred.

Otherwise, a ship should actually never insta stop on disconnect. By all means, implement the ECU thing with emergency brake, if a player sets that up, and otherwise, just let the ship move on. If NQ still lets ships insta stop, it will be abused in PVP situations and therefore create another, not indended, misuse.

I recently built my 1st space station.  I didn't know anyway of keeping my ship stationary whilst placing the core.  Nobody on support was able to tell me either.  So, I logged out to get my ship to stay still.  Is there currently another way?

[Pleione]

4 hours ago, Underhook said:

I recently built my 1st space station.  I didn't know anyway of keeping my ship stationary whilst placing the core.  Nobody on support was able to tell me either.  So, I logged out to get my ship to stay still.  Is there currently another way?

Use your space brakes until you have zero motion.  I do it all the time, parking my L core ship outside of the build zone of the space station so I don't accidently scoop up smaller ships docked there.

[Emptiness]

5 hours ago, Bobbie said:

I don't really get the point of those space elevators to be honest. It's just a scripted dynamic construct flying up and down along a column of static cores. In real life the column is what supports the lift and what makes it a good mechanical alternative to burning fuel. But in DU the column serves no purpose, it doesn't add anything to the project except prestige. The column is not actually needed for anything. All you need is a platform at the endpoints, one on the ground and one in space. Be a buttload cheaper to build as well.

A scripted dynamic construct with hovers using the space elevator as support. The entire column is needed.

[Stormynights]

at most i would go with leaving the range of the move tool and just limiting the # of times it can be used per construct per 5-10 mins and for the agg we do need some kind of power to be used on it if where going with any real type of physics here if i trun it on and leave it should just be on untell it run out of power should not matter if i'm 1000 su away my main use is loading and unloading cargo with it but if i park it above a market to sell my cargo it should stay there for the duration of my trip even if i need to run out of range if you take your car to the store and leave it runnning it's not gonna stop just cuz you ran to a store a little futher away unless it runs out of gas

[Emptiness]

28 minutes ago, Stormynights said:

at most i would go with leaving the range of the move tool and just limiting the # of times it can be used per construct per 5-10 mins

This.

[Bobbie]

.

[Fembot68]

22 hours ago, NQ-Naunet said:

Good question! I'll find out.

@NQ-Naunet

 

Any news ?     

[NQ-Naunet]

Happy Friday, Noveans!

I'm coming to you with a few more answers/clarifications for your reading pleasure.  I really appreciated everyone's patience while I rode the merry-go-round of feedback handling.

 

Alright, let's dive in!
 

To start, I think it's prudent to address the question of "why did you make a tool change without fixing [insert bug description here] first?"

• As predictable/banal as this may sound to some, it's worth saying; while we are forever working hard to fix *all* current bugs, certain issues will be looked at before others. We deeply respect your opinions about our priorities (NQ is especially fortunate to have a community full of game-dev-savvy people), but we simply won't be able to please everyone no matter what direction we take. We ask that you continue to trust in the internal knowledge we have (combined with your feedback) when it comes to bug fixes paralleling feature development and/or changes.

Alt+F4:

• As many of you are relieved to see, we fixed a longstanding limitation to the feeling of continuity in DU; quitting the game should never stop a ship! The recent changes we've made ensure that as soon as any player sees a construct, that construct will remain visible to everyone in the vicinity. So, using Alt+F4 during a fight will no longer 'freeze' your ship. Instead, she'll still be simulated for any other player who is still there. (And if nobody is around you, you won't have to worry about a thing!)
• By making this change, we hope to prevent players from "gaming the system" using Alt+F4.
• Of course, we'll be keeping a close eye on your feedback and will rebalance things accordingly to make sure this gameplay pillar keeps retains its depth!

Regarding the 50m restriction:

• Based on feedback from all of you, this has been increased to 128m, which is the size of the largest build zone!

As for concerns about moving unwanted constructs from player-owned tiles go (@casegard):

Quote

Not sure if it was mentioned before.

 

But the maneuver tool is also used to get constructs off of your 'lawn'. If the tool has a 3min timer it will be awful to remove parked ships from your territory. Also I bet the guys who make the next expo will have to say something against that. This will  make  such community things very hard to manage.

 

As a personal note: anything that needs a timer or counter is in general a sign of bad design. Not sure what the 'abuse' of the maneuver tool is about, but I guess people bring heavy load into space without any fuel or design needs for the ship. Maybe let the tool just move empty ships then? 

• We've seen some solid points raised about how the maneuver tool was being used to clear away constructs - the scenario quoted above being a great example. We're currently thinking hard about a viable solution for this!

AGG:

•  As mentioned previously in this thread, the intended meta for AGG will reveal itself in 'atmo PvP'. We acknowledge that it currently functions as a temporary solution for hauling heavy loads from the ground into space, and that players like to leave their ships hovering above their base. We will consider formally implementing an “anchoring” at high altitude feature in the future!  

I sincerely hope this has been helpful to everyone, but please continue to deliver your (welcome) feedback here.

Have an excellent weekend!!

 

[NQ-Naunet]

3 hours ago, Fembot68 said:

@NQ-Naunet

 

Any news ?     

Sorry for the delay - it was a crazy busy day for me.  

[Emptiness]

15 minutes ago, NQ-Naunet said:

that construct will remain visible to everyone in the vicinity.

How far is "the vicinity"? What distance in meters?

[Emptiness]

19 minutes ago, NQ-Naunet said:

As mentioned previously in this thread, the intended meta for AGG will reveal itself in 'atmo PvP'. We acknowledge that it currently functions as a temporary solution for hauling heavy loads from the ground into space, and that players like to leave their ships hovering above their base. We will consider formally implementing an “anchoring” at high altitude feature in the future!

Does this scream "dev team woefully out of touch with the playerbase" to anyone else? The lack of consistent, clear communication is also a very bad look.

[Bobbie]

.

[Fembot68]

27 minutes ago, Bobbie said:

@NQ-Naunet Thank you for making the effort to understand and translate community concerns and dev team responses.

 

This is the very first time I see actual, dare I say, communication happen like this. Long awaited and much appreciated. Hope this becomes the new normal.

@NQ-Naunet    I agree thank you!!

[Fembot68]

The only major question I have is,  How do we dock an L core space only ship to an L  space core ?     The alt F4 /  maneuver tool was  being used for this reason also.   Would this mean we will have access to XL static cores ?   

[Tenchikun]

1 hour ago, NQ-Naunet said:

AGG:

•  As mentioned previously in this thread, the intended meta for AGG will reveal itself in 'atmo PvP'. We acknowledge that it currently functions as a temporary solution for hauling heavy loads from the ground into space, and that players like to leave their ships hovering above their base. We will consider formally implementing an “anchoring” at high altitude feature in the future!  

 

It's been mentioned before that AGG isn't intended to be used to stay floating in air. So what exactly is its purpose? If its supposed to eliminate the need for airfoils as it was said before by a Dev then how exactly are you supposed to keep zero gravity when your agg turns off when you move too fast or raise or lower a few hundred meters from the set altitude? It bounces up and down and takes you to much higher altitudes. Based on its operation this was its purpose. To say its only temporary and take away the way it's being used is a slap in the face. If Devs have a different vision for how it should be used then they should fix it so it operates the way they want it to before taking away features that make it work in its current design instead of leaving us with a giant paperweight in your ship. 

[Fembot68]

2 hours ago, NQ-Naunet said:

AGG:

•  As mentioned previously in this thread, the intended meta for AGG will reveal itself in 'atmo PvP'. We acknowledge that it currently functions as a temporary solution for hauling heavy loads from the ground into space, and that players like to leave their ships hovering above their base. We will consider formally implementing an “anchoring” at high altitude feature in the future!  

I hope we see a use for it Its one of the reasons I started playing. I want future tech and lots of it!     As it stands if we cant carry large loads and negate gravity for those loads it does not really have a point.    

 

It does not matter to me it will only slow mining down a little as I don't mind to make 100 trips to a temp base or to space.    I figure we could move an entire super node of whatever in about the same amount of time, if we had someone hauling those to space as we filled them up.   

 

[Tenchikun]

I have to be 100% honest here. With the upcoming changes to the permanent damage of elements and the change to ship movement i'll likely not be getting off the ground any time soon. I can fly great, i'm an amazing pilot and I know how to build ships that can carry heavy loads and land with it safely, but I have issues with this game crashing far too often for me to risk taking off and having the game crash and as long as someone is in range to see me my ship will continue on its path and plummet to the ground and burn to death. There is absolutely no valid reason to implement either of these two changes until the bugs that crash the game have been fixed to the point where the game is at least 90% stable. 

DEV's, the spotlight is on you. I guarantee you'll see this game crash and burn if you do what you're planning to do. I have enough experience in game development and alpha/beta testing to say you're making a huge mistake here. Fix your game first and make it optimized before making such a judgmental change. Your player base is going to disappear completely. 

[Emptiness]

18 minutes ago, Tenchikun said:

but I have issues with this game crashing far too often for me to risk taking off and having the game crash

Why do some people have the game crash so often, and others almost never? I've been playing off and on since Sept 12th and I've had maybe 3 or 4 crashes in total. Same for random disconnects.

[Fembot68]

5 minutes ago, Emptiness said:

Why do some people have the game crash so often, and others almost never? I've been playing off and on since Sept 12th and I've had maybe 3 or 4 crashes in total. Same for random disconnects.

I am not sure but I know its real. The Devs should be able to tell you more.   Two of the friends I started playing with quite because of the crashes and other bugs.   They would crash an average of 8 times per day. It depended on what they were doing though.  If they were in the districts it would be much worse.  Myself its not very often network problems are the only crashes I get.    

[Tenchikun]

For a few weeks I had hardly any crashes, thought they had it fixed, then a patch hit and all my org members where complaining they were crashing nonstop, still hasn't cleared up. Shortly thereafter it started back up for me as well. I think they crash more than me now though. 

 

[Fembot68]

13 minutes ago, Tenchikun said:

For a few weeks I had hardly any crashes, thought they had it fixed, then a patch hit and all my org members where complaining they were crashing nonstop, still hasn't cleared up. Shortly thereafter it started back up for me as well. I think they crash more than me now though. 

 

The one place they didn't  have any crashes is in space.  The only bad thing that happens there is the parts of the ship blink in and out all the time or if you go into build mode and fly through the ship when you drop out. 

[XKentX]

4 hours ago, NQ-Naunet said:

<cut to save space>

Hello NQ-Naunet.

 

Thank you for providing us with the information ! Much appreciated.

 

Can you please describe what would happen in those scenarios please?:

 

1) Ship X is firing on ship Y from 1 SU range. Ship Y pilot is hit and dies or logs off(or alt-f4 or game crash etc). Ship Y has no other pilots on board. Will ship Y continue to move ? Will it stop once the core is destroyed ?

 

2) Ship X is flying toward a market district and is at 1 SU range from it, market district has N amount of players in it. Pilot flying ship X has game crash or does alt-f4. What will happen? Will the ship continue on like it's trajectory and crash ? (Does ECU has any effect here?)

 

3) Ship X is in space at 30,000km/h. Only 1 player P on it and no other players in 10 SU range. Player P logs off or alt+f4. The ship will freeze(please correct me if I am wrong). What happens if another player approaches the ship while player P is logged off ? Will the ship start moving when another player approached it ? Will it be standing still and instantly gain 30,000 only when player P logs back in ?