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Ark Spawning


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So I wanted to see if anyone had a better grasp on how players will enter DU after release. I know that the Alpha will be one ARK on a single planet, and likely Beta will be the same, although I would expect in Beta for people to begin traveling to other planets and testing those mechanics. However I am curious about after release. I know it has been mentioned there being multiple Arks, but no set number and no clue on if they will exist from the start or be discovered later. 

 

I was thinking it could be interesting to have a dozen or so Arks for players to choose from. When you first create your character you would be given a selection of Ark planets and maybe an estimate of how many players are currently within the protected zone of that Ark. So if you wanted a populated place that is more likely to have a developed market at the start then you can go there, if you prefer the loner lifestyle you can go to a barren Ark. Maybe each Ark could even have some back story, and you choose the one that fits your play style so you start with like minded players until you are ready to venture out. 

 

Or will the whole system be random? When one Ark reaches a certain capacity another comes online. I dont like this method because, what if 2 months down the line a friend wanted to join me. With multiple Arks how can we ensure he will start on the same planet. After all it may not be feasible to travel to his spawn location to join him yet. 

 

Does anyone have more information on what the Devs intend to do for this, or maybe some other ideas on how it can be handled. 

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Alioth, I think, will be the only planet that has any arkships.

That's been kind of indirectly confirmed with DevBlogs and the way Nyz speaks about the start of the game.

With quotes like "it will take months before the first players leave Alioth" ect.

 

The number of arkships I assume is several, simply because there are screen shots of multiple arkships leaving earth bound for the stars, however the 5 part lore doesn't state several arkships and only the one 'seban?' awakes on. So unless someone can find a confirmations, the number of arkships is unknown.

 

What I would suggest is to read the lore. Maybe missed a direct suggestion of the number of arkships, or can't remember.

 

I like the idea of having only one arkship though, with slight rules on removing people's abandoned constructs within the protected zone. But I don't want decaying rules anywhere else.

I was thinking about this the other day, the universe is 'infinite' and you may need several bases of operations. I don't want to come back to one of my previous bases that I stored materials and ships in to find its decayed and everything is gone.

 

The only place any decaying rules should be is directly outside the arkships. There is plenty of universe for you to build in, why removing things with decay when there is infinite space to build?

 

For the actual spawning though, I don't think there is enough information out so far to give us any indication on the path they will choose for this. And I would bet Nyz will not be able to confirm how they are going to do this, neither the amount of arkships if you asked them.

 

However if someone has something they've found to counter anything I've said, please link it. Maybe I'll read about RN's again, and the lore just to check :)

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Alioth, I think, will be the only planet that has any arkships.

That's been kind of indirectly confirmed with DevBlogs and the way Nyz speaks about the start of the game.

With quotes like "it will take months before the first players leave Alioth" ect.

 

The number of arkships I assume is several, simply because there are screen shots of multiple arkships leaving earth bound for the stars, however the 5 part lore doesn't state several arkships and only the one 'seban?' awakes on. So unless someone can find a confirmations, the number of arkships is unknown.

 

What I would suggest is to read the lore. Maybe missed a direct suggestion of the number of arkships, or can't remember.

 

I like the idea of having only one arkship though, with slight rules on removing people's abandoned constructs within the protected zone. But I don't want decaying rules anywhere else.

I was thinking about this the other day, the universe is 'infinite' and you may need several bases of operations. I don't want to come back to one of my previous bases that I stored materials and ships in to find its decayed and everything is gone.

 

The only place any decaying rules should be is directly outside the arkships. There is plenty of universe for you to build in, why removing things with decay when there is infinite space to build?

 

For the actual spawning though, I don't think there is enough information out so far to give us any indication on the path they will choose for this. And I would bet Nyz will not be able to confirm how they are going to do this, neither the amount of arkships if you asked them.

 

However if someone has something they've found to counter anything I've said, please link it. Maybe I'll read about RN's again, and the lore just to check :)

 

I know the lore only discuss one Ark ship landing, but multiple were built. 

 

I think it was more indirect reference that I assumed there would be more than one Ark ship and protected zone to accommodate a growing server. I may have to go back and read some of the Dev blogs, I thought I remember references to multiple ark ships, possibly in the RM discussions. I know they always speak of Alioth and no other planet, but I just assumed it would be the first of several. 

 

Think about a game like eve, if all players started in one location it and they only had that small protected area it would be packed. I expect DU to grow beyond what Eve did. And everyone will like having that safe protected zone in the Ark shield. Sure it may be possible to create your own, and that is being discussed. But how many wont ever want to leave the shield in order to do what is necessary to find and create more safe zones. 

 

As much as I would like to have multiple to choose from in the beginning, if they only wish to release the game with 1 at first, they could implement a system so you slowly discover more Ark ships for new players to spawn at. It could be assumed that as people explore and spread out the population is growing, requiring more protected zone.  And it would fit with the lore since we had no contact with them until someone discovered a planet with an Ark ship landing on it, maybe it didn't function properly and went derelict when landing. A pilot would then have to activate it, maybe it would be a community event type thing. You need certain components and power to get it functioning again so it can begin reviving the crew. 

 

As for your comment on decay, I agree most of the world should remain persistent. Thats why I suggested a system to remove ownership tags inside the Ark zone after a certain time of inactivity. You could easily build lore around the mechanism, and it could be assumed the Arks AI is doing it, hence why it doesnt happen elsewhere in the universe. 

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I won't mind if they choose more ark ships and safety zones. I do enjoy the challenge of the developers, leaving it up to us players to create an environment that is either welcoming or hostile.

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There will be one arkship which all new players emerge from at launch.  NQ don't want to split up their player base when it is still small.  As the game develops and the player base grows, they may consider landing a second arkship on another planet, but it is a decision for quite far down the line.

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There will be one arkship which all new players emerge from at launch.  NQ don't want to split up their player base when it is still small.  As the game develops and the player base grows, they may consider landing a second arkship on another planet, but it is a decision for quite far down the line.

 

I put the suggestion out that there could be 'Ruins' where the players could repair and create a new arksite for people to spawn at or a even where the whole server chips in to build a stargate for a second planet to start on or something.

 

I hope there is something like that, but I like the idea of there being only one place to start, keeps the player base together, even if it is several places across one planet, it's still one place :D

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Also there is the fact that resources will be somewhat limited on any singular starting world, eventually i expect the starting world to become almost hollow or at least so riddled with mine shafts that mining becomes hazardous, due to cave-ins and that the rarer metals become even more scarce. Even the land space to build stuff might become scarce as the land becomes filled with peoples 'first day' housing just lying around abandoned. This could be mitigated with the 'timing out' of land claims, maybe once you leave the safe area all the stuff you have claimed becomes open free to the fact that the ships AI can no longer find you, or something. Who knows what the devs might come up with.

 

All of the limits of starting put together might push some people away from playing.

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so riddled with mine shafts that mining becomes hazardous, due to cave-ins 

 

I'm afraid that this point here has been denied by the Devs, Planets will have stationary ground, meaning that if you dig underneath and completely break the ground from the planet it will not fall but remain where it is, They have done it this way because it is both single shark universe and because there is infinite planets to keep track of. So having falling ground would be to resource heavy..

 

They haven't mentioned a way of making immersive or not, where the ground dispears or decays or something. But that will all come in due time. Maybe they will just leave the ground where it is and incorporate FLOATING ISLANDS like pandora in avatar :)

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Also there is the fact that resources will be somewhat limited on any singular starting world, eventually i expect the starting world to become almost hollow or at least so riddled with mine shafts that mining becomes hazardous, due to cave-ins and that the rarer metals become even more scarce. Even the land space to build stuff might become scarce as the land becomes filled with peoples 'first day' housing just lying around abandoned. This could be mitigated with the 'timing out' of land claims, maybe once you leave the safe area all the stuff you have claimed becomes open free to the fact that the ships AI can no longer find you, or something. Who knows what the devs might come up with.

 

All of the limits of starting put together might push some people away from playing.

 

You pointed out the issues I was wanting to address with this. 

 

Resources and space will quickly become scarce. Having multiple starting planets would limit this, but it would still happen eventually. 

 

Discovering or activating new ark ship planets along the way would eliminate this. New players would default to that planet. However I would like the option to override this for new players comming in to join friends. Even if the resources are scarce I would rather start at the clostest RN to them. 

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Hello there,

 

I can't find it, but this subject was a bit discussed earlier on the forum.

If I remember correctly, Nyzaltar stated that there will be one and only one spawning point (Arkship) at start. For the future, they were still debating : having multiple spawning points can help with surpopulation, but may also split friends on different worlds (that's a very short summary).

 

Regards,

Shadow

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Hello there,

 

I can't find it, but this subject was a bit discussed earlier on the forum.

If I remember correctly, Nyzaltar stated that there will be one and only one spawning point (Arkship) at start. For the future, they were still debating : having multiple spawning points can help with surpopulation, but may also split friends on different worlds (that's a very short summary).

 

Regards,

Shadow

 

If they were going to have multiple starts for players I would hope that they have a way to select it... Kind of like a backstory to making your character, you could select the Arkship that you were chosen to go on for the journey then you could choose your spawn location next to friends and such.

 

That would make for a extra addition to making your character that would give more immersion a little bit, especially if you have some form of pre-story to creating your character where you need to get out of the arkship on arrival or have to find the arkship on earth before it's hit by the neutron star and such, like a kinda of immersive tutorial level before you get put in the game..

 

But I think i recall something somewhere that they are going to do something like a tutorial in the virtual world while your aboard the arkship, that's how you learn the skills you start with or something maybe.. can't recall now.

 

nora,

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If they were going to have multiple starts for players I would hope that they have a way to select it... Kind of like a backstory to making your character, you could select the Arkship that you were chosen to go on for the journey then you could choose your spawn location next to friends and such.

 

That would make for a extra addition to making your character that would give more immersion a little bit, especially if you have some form of pre-story to creating your character where you need to get out of the arkship on arrival or have to find the arkship on earth before it's hit by the neutron star and such, like a kinda of immersive tutorial level before you get put in the game..

 

But I think i recall something somewhere that they are going to do something like a tutorial in the virtual world while your aboard the arkship, that's how you learn the skills you start with or something maybe.. can't recall now.

 

nora,

 

It's interesting because that could add even another additional layer of gameplay concerning strategic selection of which Arkship players spawn in. The first Arkship spawn areas available would probably be the most populated and most developed off the bat and in the future, but that would also mean rapid congestion and overpopulation, and thus high crime rates, taxes, costs of living. Other players may prefer a more remote location with a little more space and freedom and a little less players, but mayhaps could have a harder time surviving in the wilderness. It would be an interesting balance.

 

One more tactical element is in play here that I won't mention now; it may or may not be a considerable advantage if utilized correctly.

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It's interesting because that could add even another additional layer of gameplay concerning strategic selection of which Arkship players spawn in. The first Arkship spawn areas available would probably be the most populated and most developed off the bat and in the future, but that would also mean rapid congestion and overpopulation, and thus high crime rates, taxes, costs of living. Other players may prefer a more remote location with a little more space and freedom and a little less players, but mayhaps could have a harder time surviving in the wilderness. It would be an interesting balance.

 

One more tactical element is in play here that I won't mention now; it may or may not be a considerable advantage if utilized correctly.

 

Nothing stopping them dropping another Arkship on the planet after the game has started, there are supposed to be several that shot off from earth, maybe some are just late. Good way to open up the game to new people as well.

 

nora,

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