Update 1.3 is on its way: Maintenance Units, schematic containers and more

[NQ-Wanderer]

Dear Noveans,
 
Update 1.3 is on its way! As we finalize the Maintenance Unit and prepare for its public test session (more on that below), we are excited to share the details of update 1.3 with all of you.

We also want to thank you for your patience as we work towards bringing you a new PvE system in Dual Universe. Our development team is working hard to create an exciting and enjoyable feature that provides the best gaming experience for everyone. We are prioritizing PvE and are working to bring it to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, you can still look forward to other new features (like the ones below), with more details coming on our Social Media and teaser livestreams on Twitch.

With that, let’s look at update 1.3!

 

THE MAINTENANCE UNIT

We’re replacing Repair Units with Maintenance Units, giving players more flexibility in maintaining their constructs by allowing repair and disassembly.

Repair:

• You can choose to repair damaged elements, honeycomb, or both
• Use scrap to repair damaged elements or replace them
• Choose what happens to extra elements:
  • If damaged elements are not part of the original snapshot, they can either be recycled or repaired with scrap and recovered.
  • They will be recovered if they are undamaged but not part of the original construct snapshot.
  • Destroyed extra elements (those with no remaining repair counts) will be recycled.

 

Repairing honeycomb structures requires the exact amount of honeycomb missing, and elements still need the same amount of scrap to fix.

Disassembly:

• You can remove all honeycomb and elements on a construct, including the core.
• The maintenance unit will use its linked container to retrieve all items instead of using it to repair.
• Damaged elements can be repaired with scrap before recovery or recycled. Destroyed elements (those with no remaining repairs) will always be recycled.

 

 

THE CONSTRUCT SCHEMATIC CONTAINER

Following popular demand by our community members who grew tired of manually inserting schematics into industries, we’ve now added the option to designate a single container on a construct to act as the schematic provider for all industry units on the construct.
This feature is accessible by simply right-clicking on a container and selecting “Set as schematic container” from the context menu.

 

UEF SHOP EXPANSION

Looking to buy ships from Aphelia? We’ve grown the UEF shop with new floors and a Blueprint Basement that sells copies of all outposts and speeders. Before launch, we ran the ‘Build Your Legacy’ contest, giving DU builders a chance to be woven into the game by building speeders and outposts for new players. We’ve added the winners to our First Time User Experience and into the Blueprint Basement of UEF stores. We’ve also added four bonus speeders and an extra outpost!

 

 

INTRODUCING EASYANTICHEAT (EAC)

Accessing and manipulating game files is critical to many disreputable players who want to cheat by automating actions or gaining hidden data, for example. To combat this, we shortlisted EQU8 and EasyAntiCheat (EAC) when implementing our original solution for Dual Universe. With the sale of EQU8 to 1047 Games and the closure of their service to third-party customers, we will switch to EAC.
We want to thank EQU8 for their amazing service and responsive support and are excited to transition into EAC. The only change that should be visible to our players is seeing EAC instead of EQU8 as the anti-cheat system in Dual Universe.

 

UPCOMING PTS SESSION

Many of you have requested a PTS testing session, and our goal is to open the PTS to the public between Friday, February 10th, at 10:00 UTC and Monday, February 13th, at 10:00 UTC.
The PTS will allow you to test all features of Update 1.3 and help us with information and feedback on the PTS Forum thread to tune the features.

Your involvement has been invaluable in helping us shape the future of Dual Universe. As we progress with development, we want to thank you for your continued support and engagement and invite you to share your feedback. We’re working hard to give you all an enjoyable and immersive gaming experience and look forward to introducing more upcoming features.

Thanks for playing, Noveans!

[Mjrlun]

Will NQ unlock EAC for usage with Wine on Linux? I doubt the launcher will work, but it would be awesome to see this compatibility enabled. If this would require testing to ensure quality on Linux (regardless of decision), that information would be also appreciated.

[Distinct Mint]

Will Maintenance Units work on dynamic constructs? One obvious use case is to strip down abandoned constructs, which will be difficult if a static/space core is required.

[Slatenhaus]

Blueprint container is huge guys, thanks!

[space_man]

Holy smokes, this all sounds great!

[Hagbard]

a really nice set of features. looking forward to this release!
thx NQ!

[VarietyMMOs]

1.2 and 1.3 updates seem to be aimed at what the players want the game to be instead of whatever plan was being worked on previously and it shows. 

 

Keep up the communication and creating a fun game to play.

Looking forward to PVE teaser photos!

[Atmosph3rik]

23 hours ago, NQ-Wanderer said:

• If damaged elements are not part of the original snapshot, they can either be recycled or repaired with scrap and recovered.
• They will be recovered if they are undamaged but not part of the original construct snapshot.
• Destroyed extra elements (those with no remaining repair counts) will be recycled.

 

 

Up until now snapshots haven't really mattered unless your ship was getting shot at.  But it sounds like they are going to matter more now.  Could we get a bit more info on snapshots?

 

I know that i can take a manual snapshot from the context menu in build mode.  And i think a new snapshot is taken every time you leave build mode.  But i also get a message saying that the snapshot failed sometimes.

 

If i enter build mode on my ship, while it has damaged elements, will they be saved in the snapshot and no longer be able to be repaired by the maintenance unit?

 

Maybe i'm misunderstanding something, but that doesn't sound ideal.

 

 

[Zeddrick]

A Great set of changes.  I have a couple of constructs I'm looking forward to auto-disassembling.  Will the repair/disassembly unit also be able to empty containers and schematic bays as it disassembles?  Or will I need to empty the 250+ containers in my starter factory one by one and then empty all the schematic bays before I set it to work?

[NQ-Nicodemus]

16 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

A Great set of changes.  I have a couple of constructs I'm looking forward to auto-disassembling.  Will the repair/disassembly unit also be able to empty containers and schematic bays as it disassembles?  Or will I need to empty the 250+ containers in my starter factory one by one and then empty all the schematic bays before I set it to work?

In the initial implementation of the unit, you would need to remove all container contents and schematics from industry schematic banks prior to disassembly.
This may change in future updates, but that is how it stands currently. 

[Zeddrick]

2 hours ago, NQ-Nicodemus said:

In the initial implementation of the unit, you would need to remove all container contents and schematics from industry schematic banks prior to disassembly.
This may change in future updates, but that is how it stands currently. 

Thanks.  Presumably for damaged ships this also includes fuel in fuel tanks, ammo in ammo containers or guns and anything else which acts like a container?  And all of these things will need to be tracked down, repaired to make them accessible and then emptied before I can auto disassemble a ship?

[NQ-Nicodemus]

16 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

Thanks.  Presumably for damaged ships this also includes fuel in fuel tanks, ammo in ammo containers or guns and anything else which acts like a container?  And all of these things will need to be tracked down, repaired to make them accessible and then emptied before I can auto disassemble a ship?

For repairing a construct, the repair function of the unit is not concerned about contents.

So, It would go like this:
You use the unit, doing a "scrap only run" first, to repair the construct.
Then you would have to manually empty all the contents.
Then you can use the unit to complete the disassembly process.

Hope the information helps!

 

[Zeddrick]

3 hours ago, NQ-Nicodemus said:

For repairing a construct, the repair function of the unit is not concerned about contents.

So, It would go like this:
You use the unit, doing a "scrap only run" first, to repair the construct.
Then you would have to manually empty all the contents.
Then you can use the unit to complete the disassembly process.

Hope the information helps!

 

Great, thanks for the reply and I'm looking forward to the update.

[DarkHorizon]

On 2/6/2023 at 11:19 AM, NQ-Wanderer said:

Repairing honeycomb structures requires the exact amount of honeycomb missing, and elements still need the same amount of scrap to fix.

Please clarify, an exact-exact amount down to how many places after a decimal?

 

I've never used the old repair units but think it'd be much easier on the brain to just round up to the next whole then remove whatever extra is left after the process is complete.

 

Perhaps there's room for a skill line here, more repairs done with less material needed, repair done faster, etc.

[RugesV]

On 2/6/2023 at 9:19 AM, NQ-Wanderer said:

• Globally the optimal range of precision ammo has been reduced.

I am not sure if this was a needed change. Heavy ammo gives a 20 percent damage increase and Precision gives a 50 percent (optimal) range increase.  As it is already debateable on which ammo to shoot (infact I usually carry both).  I did not get to see how much you guys nerfed it. But if its anything more then 10%. its getting thrown out and only heavy ammo is going to be used. 

 

Personally I would like to see Precision ammo left alone and renamed to Range ammo. Heavy Ammo left alone.  Defense ammo changed to Agile ammo. leave its tracking at 2, but boost its weapon cone to 1.5 and reduce its weight.   Rename Agile ammo to accurate ammo. and give it a 20 percent increase in accuracy. 

 

 

By doing this it gives each ammo type its own specialty that will actually be sought after. 

 

Heavy Ammo: Damage combat

Range Ammo: Range combat

Agile Ammo : Fast mobile combat

Accurate Ammo: Small target combat

 

Right now there is very little reason to use the current Agile or Defense ammo.