Jump to content

DEVBLOG: CONSTRUCTION SLOTS AND STACKED ELEMENTS - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

Recommended Posts

25 cores per player is simply not enough for this game. I understand if there is a need to balance cost per player, but this is such a low limit it is unreasonable. 
 

I’m a ship collector. If I buy a ship blueprint and build it or via token, but now I have to reduce core count I will permanently lose ships I purchased.  I can’t compact it, so either tear it down myself or it becomes abandoned for someone to take.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, SinDex66 said:

Do the changes affect me in the short term, no. But they do curtail longer term plans. I'm more worried about some of the incredible builds that exist in the game. Freeport, for example, or Pure Velocity Raceway / Anvilworks Speedway / Obsidian Race Center, etc. These are huge complexes with history and high core counts. In the case of the raceways those cores are required for gates, pit hangars and public racers, not to mention all of the other associated stuff.

 

Maybe upping the number of available core slots will help.

It wasn't long ago where NQ thought our raceways were great and amazing.  Now after demeter and now the next patch it seems as though their main goal is to destroy it all.  SMH

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NQ,

     

     I understand the need for limits to the amount of cores being deployed in the game. Nested orgs with infinite cores is a problem. Players having access to enough cores that they are spawning them by the hundreds on asteroids and by the pvp border of a pipe with the purpose of spamming radar and crashing players ships and computers is a problem. 

 

     Building is, and always has been, what DU dose best. I have spent countless hours building ships and buildings in the game. The adds I see for DU show big cities filled with players and ships doing things. The cities and ships exist in the game but the cities are pretty much empty as there is no real reason for players to congregate in them and that is a problem. A problem that will never be solved if these changes are implemented as proposed. 

 

     Organizations having 0 cores available for themselves and depending on the kindness of their members for cores will be a disaster. Pretty much everyone i know in the game has their own private org for more cores to use for themselves. This is done as the amount of cores an individual can deploy for themselves is way too low. This low amount is now even worse since now mining units need a core per hex that they are mining on. Private orgs have been a way for players to have more cores to use for ships, building projects, and now mining. If a player has to decide between providing cores for their own needs or that of their orgs they will chose their own every time. Even if a generous player donates 5-10 of their org cores to the org this will not be enough for most orgs to function. This opens the door for exploiting newer players for their cores by orgs, and for griefers to join, donate, and remove cores form orgs and watch the org suffer as they randomly lose ships, miners, and parts of their structures. For organizations to function they need to have full control over their cores at all times.

 

     I have 2 propositions to help with these problems. First increase the maximum amount of cores for an individual up to 30. This can be easily done through multipliers in the current system as i believe a player can have a maximum of 15 cores at present. (The fact that i dont know this for sure and can't access this information in my charater UI is a problem.) This would allow a player to own a 7 tile/ core set of mining units and still provide a good number of cores for ships and buildings.

 

     Secondly organizations need to be looked at. Currently when you start an org for yourself or for a group, the org works the same way. And the proposed solution is more of this one size fits all model. This is a problem. My personal org that i have set up for buildings, ships to sell, and miners is different from the org of people that i hang out, with do asteroid runs with, and pvp with. And this org is very different than the org that runs the city of Freeport on Teoma, Utopia Station, and MTI's city on Madis. 

 

     Nested orgs needs to be prohibited. When an org is formed it would pick a "charter" from a list and pay the associated fee. 

 

     * General Charter: general use cores starting at 50 and increasing by 50 up to max of 200. Fees go up with number of cores.

     * Business Charter: cores deployed for use in the designated business have a bonus in their functioning. (EG: static cores used           for mining in a mining org produce 5% more ore)

     * Civic Charter: Many cores used for big projects like cities, racetracks, museums, trading posts, industrial zones. Expensive org           to set up but no taxes on tiles. Benefits like 5% more items produced in industries, or 5% bonus quanta earned in sales.                 Higher bonuses out on pvp planets to encourage settlement there. 

 

     I understand that using something like the charter system would require some reworking by NQ. But i believe that if the changes are implemented as stated in the announcement it would be the death of DU. Which would be a shame for NQ and all of us that love and support the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, TeeWRX82 said:

It wasn't long ago where NQ thought our raceways were great and amazing.  Now after demeter and now the next patch it seems as though their main goal is to destroy it all.  SMH

Question: If NQ made space cores exempt from the core cap (which makes total sense for several system and gameplay reasons) and gave you a convert static-to-space function, could/would you move your raceway into space? 

image.jpeg.1854c80e03a9d7141d95c1b4ae59ab4f.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This game was supposed to be about building cool things... oh wait we can't if this gets implemented. This will kill the racing league also. You say small orgs will benefit I am trying to figure out how. The two I am in I'll need to decide which one gets my slots and leave the other. If this sticks my two toons will not subscribe anymore. Good thing I didn't make a third to try and get refer a friend stuff. The people I know that play this type of game haven't wanted to start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How about static cores and space cores dont count. Only dynamic cores count otherwise this update will kill the game.  And will more then likely cause me to disable my renew on both my characters and ill be done with the game.  I dont wanna be done with dual. I love this game. I had high hopes when nq announced that it was nerfing taxes and everything else. But the core limits are way to strick and sadly will be a deal breaker if it is implemented. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NQ, Seems this is not well thought out as you see from everybody's reaction.

If you are going through with some sort of variation of this, AT LEAST give us a Core deconstruct option that deposits materials and components of the core into the linked container. 

 

Thank you

Edited by EternalAlpha
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am lost for words. 

Not sure what or how you think this will work with mining units, ships and constructs. Changes is usualy good and nerf is expected, i just personally think this is taking it a bit far and i don't think it will work as a long term solution.. It is almost like you give something good with one hand and take away something good with the other hand.

I am a solo player, yes i do have a lot of constructs and ships, some i have bought some has been gifted and some i buildt myself. 
I don't see how this can work for builders and the people who sells constructs. 
I really like DU so don't make me start looking for a new game plz!. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you learned nothing in the past few years?? I don't understand why this keeps happening.. Does whoever makes these decisions have some mental defect which compels them to choose the worst possible option on purpose?

 

A short development history of the DU beta

 

Problem: 

 

Problem: People don't have enough construct slots

NQ solution: Virtually infinite construct slots

Actual solution: Create a way to repackage ships and store them, removing them from the world until made active again. Remove ownership of dynamic constructs which are left unattended in unclaimed territory for too long.

 

Problem: If we let people use lua to fire weapons, robots will take over the universe!

NQ solution: An endless captcha disguised as a gunnery module.

Actual solution: Restrict certain apis to user input driven events. Develop solutions to detect macro usage. 

 

Problem: Industry OP

NQ solution: Break every single factory in the game, hold them for ransom until people magically come up with the money to buy schematics

Actual solution: Energy system, and a much less imposing version of schematics

 

Problem: Somehow, we can't seem to balance PVP quite right... hmmmm whats missing?

NQ solution: PvP AlLoCaTiOn pOiNtZS l0l??????

Actual solution: Energy system

 

Problem: Warp travel shouldn't be free, or nobody will travel conventionally

NQ solution: Warp cells

Actual solution: Tie warp to an energy system. Make designing a ship for space warp challenging. Make initiating a space warp cost energy and come with a risk.

 

Problem: Hey this guy is initiating warp too quickly with lua!

NQ solution: Remove ActivateWarp() from warp drive api

Actual solution: Interdiction modules, tractor beams, warp disruptors. Increase the time it takes to initiate warp. 

 

Problem: Oh no!! Our cloud storage bill goin cuhrazy! 

Nq solution: DELETE MINING ON PLANETS GGRAAASGGGHHH

Actual solution: Decay terrain modifications outside the build zone of a static core.

 

Problem: We need to communicate more to find solutions that players agree with!

NQ solution: Swear we are going to do our best, but instead, huff paint with homeless joe in the back of a denny's and make more asinine decisions

Actual solution: Learn from your mistakes. Humble yoself. Discuss, review, and REVISE plans with community input before developing them

 

Problem: There are too many claimed territories!

NQ solution: Territory taxes

Actual solution: Energy system

 

Problem: Oh no!! We made it so that construct slots are virtually infinite! People have too many construct slots! 

NQ solution: Arbitrarily remove random constructs belonging to people who have too many

Actual solution (still): Create a way to repackage ships and store them, removing them from the world until made active again. Remove ownership of dynamic constructs which are left unattended in unclaimed territory for too long.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

some thoughts about this change from the perspective of a builder:
 

I have 4 accounts, 2 are paid and 2 on alpha/beta keys. With maxed out skills i could maintain 168 cores under the proposed changes.

1. Currently i'm holding around 25 tiles with mining units, that makes 25 cores alone - if mining units would work like territory scanners (3 on one core can scan 3 different tile) icould easily half that count.

2, I have a runway consisting of more than 20 cores - if there were cores that have other dimensions than a L-cube (not 511³ =133,432,831voxels) - let's say 2500x1000x50 (125,000,00 voxel) i would only need 1 or 2 cores instead of 20 to build a runway, a street or a bridge

 

Please use more intelligent ways to reduce the amount of cores needed than simply take them away from the players, you will kill creativity and piss on the work and effort many have already put in this game.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

Not happy till they (a) fix the algorithm so it’s not flagging elements that were never placed with the exploit and (b) a better way of finding them. On an L core with 1000 elements just saying ‘go check all your ailerons’ is weak. 

 

I think they are postponing the whole thing so they can rework the algorithm.  That's the way i understood it at least. 

 

Quote

community feedback prompted us to postpone the disabling of elements until after Panacea’s initial release. 

 

The revised approach will likely include trials on the Live server without disabling elements in order to measure the impact of the algorithms. We would like to thank everyone who reached out to us with constructive feedback and bug reports of elements that caused problems in specific placements.

 

 

Maybe the system for finding them needs work too, but honestly since it's only needed to remove the remaining exploited elements, just once, and then we'll never need it again, i don't think they should waste much time on that part of it.  I'd rather just not need to find any flagged elements, because there aren't any stacked elements on any of my ships to begin with.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would like to propose a solution that most that I've talked to agree is a workable solution. 

 

Problem Statement: Too many cores as a result of unlimited nested orgs. Players previously rejected the idea of removing nested orgs due to limited RDMS.

 

NQ proposed solution is flawed for several reasons. Loaning cores to orgs has too much potential for abuse and turns managing org shared infrastructure into a nightmare to manage long term. 25 cores per player is simply too little especially after the Demeter update requiring cores for mining. 

 

Before I get into my proposed solution, it's important for NQ to understand how most players use orgs. Due to the limited RDMS capabilities, players create their own personal/small group org for players they trust 100%. They then join a larger org for the community and larger shared resources. The larger org typically maintains org member store, factory, space stations, etc. The primary org relying on "loaned cores" is an unnecessary problem for the legates to manage.  The "personal" core slots are rarely used by players due to the RDMS mess. When my two friends and I started playing, the first thing we did was to create our own org so that we can easily share constructs without having to deal with RDMS hell, so until RDMS becomes much more robust, continuing to use the 17 personal cores to boost the total cores is pointless, hardly anyone other than solo players who don't do much beyond a very limited set of game features uses them. 

 

Short term:

My proposed solution is to remove nested orgs from having cores slots and create a two-tier organization model. Orgs with less than 10 players would have a hard limit of 150 cores while orgs with more than 10 members retain the current 275 core limit. This would allow the larger primary org to maintain the necessary infrastructure without having to worry about what they will need to delete when a handful of players decide to leave.  This also allows the solo/small group org to have enough cores to maintain their own constructs. 

 

Long term:

 

There still needs to be a more robust system for alliances and networks such as the Utopia network. I believe using the nested org feature is not the right mechanism for this to work properly. There needs to be a separate system to manage alliances for future capabilities.

 

The current RDMS is sorely lacking in features to properly manage an organization and could potentially reduce the need for players to join more than two orgs. 

 

Edited by CMDRTaco
Added point about personal core slots.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm honestly starting to wonder if the game designers have any real vision for this game or are just trying to put it on life support until they can clean up the bugs enough to release and sell it off.  A year ago the rules were changed so I couldn't do big industry.  Go mine instead.  Then mining is taken away.  Put up mining towers instead and spend your time VR'ing to them to keep production going.  Now core limits are going to threaten that and my ability to base build.  What's left?  Run missions AFK for hours on end?  That's no fun.  The PVP is even more boring.  Asteroid mining is pretty much one day a week.  Instead of taking things away we need new end game content that will pull people away from building.  New challenges.   Open up new solar systems.  Invent new elements that open up new game mechanics.  If end game is really only a 6 month effort for an experienced gamer how do we expect to build a large player base?  People will accept nerfs of existing mechanics if new stuff comes along to replace it.  That's not happening right now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Deleted said:

Couldn’t they make it data limited rather than core limited?

They are actually planning to do both at the same time.

 

The new "vertex precision tool" is just there to sweeten the deal that they are introducing construct complexity restrictions aka data caps on constructs. And the core slot limit is going to be added on top of this again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Oran_Gootan said:

Problem: Oh no!! We made it so that construct slots are virtually infinite! People have too many construct slots! 

At no point were the coreslots infinite! This always seems to be an interesting misunderstanding.

I tried to test it several times, with full org skills. So you could put all constructs up to the cap and that for a maximum of 5 organisations. As soon as you tried to create a sub-organisation and set another core there, there was always a warning message saying that the cap had already been reached in the main organisation.

What worked was to create more and more sub-organisations in order to take more and more territories. For example, you could only claim the first 3-4 cheap territories per suporg and simply create more sub or subsuborgs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As most have said here, the numbers are just too low.

 

I also think that moving ALL org core assignments to player-donated slots is a huge mistake, and will cause headache for both orgs and individuals.

 

While the idea of flexible slots you can assign to an org is interesting, I think there also needs to be some default org core assignment as well. 

 

e.g. For each member of an org the org gets X cores automatically.

 

This way there is no pressure on individuals to decide between keeping slots for personal org use, or donating to a bigger org. Simply by joining an org the org benefits with a higher core count.

 

 

(It's a similar situation to the territory story and HQ tiles)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Juvenius Drakonius said:

This is a test right? are you guys joking? how far do you have to change the game till its just an other very different game that what it started originally? This is more a 'DU light' version of the original "EVE meets Minecraft"

lol!  Eve meets Minecraft?  Have you played Empyrion?  They pretty much took Empyrion, put it on a single server, and broke the shit out of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

SO many of the pre-alpha marketing images are just wrong now... 

(These are just the ones I didn't include in other posts.)

There are already beautiful cities, what makes it a bit unattractive is the performance as soon as a city gets a bit bigger, whether through a lot of details or too many cores or too much terraforming. 

For me, it would be interesting to see if the technology can even handle the game - we've experienced so many limitations recently, no improvement has been made as a result.
Why don't you come and visit Hyp City? 
::pos{0,2,16.6215,111.9266,0.0000}

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Zarcata said:

There are already beautiful cities, what makes it a bit unattractive is the performance as soon as a city gets a bit bigger, whether through a lot of details or too many cores or too much terraforming. 

For me, it would be interesting to see if the technology can even handle the game - we've experienced so many limitations recently, no improvement has been made as a result.
Why don't you come and visit Hyp City? 
::pos{0,2,16.6215,111.9266,0.0000}

 

NQ just needs to have a virtual build mode type system that has all the best things or essential things needed for voxelmancy and a creative mode to make things quickly and then just allow for blueprinting imports/exports for ships/buildings and call it one.

 

Part of the performance hits are from all the voxel reactors and kits all over the solar system that dont need to be there along with how lanscape voxels have two layers such as the base layer you see from space or that loads first before the teraforming changes are loaded, player voxels, lights, industry elements, scripts etc that all need to be toned down and not cores.

 

There is also ways to only load the voxel faces that need to be seen when looking at them to also increase performance but when you have a base layer of landscape voxels, changes, and regualr voxels with a 3x the performance being taken and millions of rocks that need to be loaded its impossible to get good performance.

 

The other thing is they need to create core size elements like hangars that are like an inventory that can compact ships and only has so much space like a container to hold ships you can take out and has some kind of cut scene with the actual ship like the sanctuary shuttle when pulled out and spawned.

 

There is no reason to have so much out unless you plan to actually use it or that most of this stuff has some kind of purpose since PvP is DoA the way it is to take it out.

 

Instead of reducing the amount of active non compacted constructs they want to force it in a way that does damage to the game with abandons or defaults since PvP is not a thing in the way they set out to make it.

 

The other thing is that Orgs need to have a level of sovernty outside of players to sink that the Org Leader should have an Org Talent Tree for things like TUs, Ships/Structures, tax breaks, and general bonuses that dont require 100 cores per player but that those who donate does help or that Orgs should be able to buy the cores from someone as a form of compensation and until the org is ready to relinquish they should be compensated each tax cycle to rent the core. 

 

As well as orgs renting the land to personal player cores outside of the org cores.

 

Or where an org can actually levy the taxes for themselves and anyone living on an orgs land pays taxes to that org and if you arent in an org then you pay your taxes to NQ. There is no reason not to have the taxes actually be levied to do something for the orgs rather than just bleed money out of the system.

 

I also think that 1600 cores is too low since you only really need 16 dedicated members you can actually trust vs randos who might just suddenly pull 100 cores from you after investing inthem.

 

The thing is eventually orgs will need to fight each other on multiple planets across from the solar system and they will need like 10-20k ships & 10-20 structures in order to wage sustained wars unless you want it to last a month and game over. You will need lots of land via TUs, lots of land for industries, lots of land for mining, and lots of structures for defenses, lots of ships for moving things, and lots of ships to fight with, lose, and still have more in reserve to keep wagign war as you make more parts to keep it going.

 

This system pretty much kills all chances of that from ever happening if every Org is 16 people and less with beta key holders.

 

Its very short sighted and since PvP is a thing this game has no long term appeal for players to want to wage massive wars rather than just hoard stuff and scrim for roids.

 

Thing bigger NQ. Its a bandaid now its amputation by not addressing the root causes of these problems rather than just griefing your playerbase every chance you get that puts you further into the hole monitarily the more gaming player types you chase out the door.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Im rage quitting this game, im in rage of the devs with their stupid limitations which gets all the fun out of the game. Also every limitation is a message that you have done a lot for nothing.

I can say goodbye to all my work of the last 10 months... What a waste of time this game turned out to be!

 

Please be honest and put this game back in alpha state, because this is NOT a beta!

 

Could you devs start a discussion of the game that started in august 2020 and the game you are trying to make, so we all can be honest and know what we can expect?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

unlimited "deactivated"core count, for placing and building on cores.

Core limit is set on "Activated" cores.

 

i build 12 ships in my tile with "deactivated" cores, when people buy them i activate it and they fly off.

 

i think this would work for dynamic cores but not static or space cores. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Iamhole said:

unlimited "deactivated"core count, for placing and building on cores.

Core limit is set on "Activated" cores.

 

i build 12 ships in my tile with "deactivated" cores, when people buy them i activate it and they fly off.

 

i think this would work for dynamic cores but not static or space cores. 

 

The problem is that both types of core are visible and must therefore be calculated.
It would make more sense if you could store your dynamic constructs in a ship menu, including image preview and evaluation. When you need it, you click on it to activate it and it is put in front of you. All other ships are parked in this menu "like in a garage".

The same can be done with voxel libraries, a menu where I can help myself when I need something. This also saves having lots of constructs standing around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...