Dual universe back track on planet mining and why SB need to do the same

[scions]

Hi, I write this thread because i love MMO sanbox and i was a player of Dual Universe and SB. Both are ATM in poor state ( low players count ... ) we always heard that's because it's in alpha but i don't see anything coming who will reverse this states.

Dual Universe make the choice ( some weeks ago ) to go on passive mining on planet and active mining on asteroid, I really think SB need to do the same, why ?:


- On the gameplay side, active mining on planet ( or moon ) seem to be a good idea but in reality passive mining is better, wiht passive mining you have interest to grab some territories and fight to keep them or conquer more. With active mining no need to conquest, no PvP, no War, no Economy, the scale of moon prevent any regular PvP ( so no destruction, no material demand, no economy ). ATM and in the futur you will not any intencitive reason to fight, the scale is too huge, with territories and passive mining you will have this kind of thing. I think we can all agree that EVE is an example in terms of MMO sanbox and it's works a lot on the conquest/war/territories side, nothing on the SB roadmap go on this path.

- Aesthical side, i think a lot of players play minecraft and i think we all agree that hole every 10m is ugly and not immersive at all

- Technical side, active mining will use a lot of server or client ressources, DU have this problem and make the game laggy or unoptimize, it will be ok in the first weeks but a cluster *** in some months.

It's a synthetic text and i can develop more but my english is not the best. I really hope SB will work but for that it's need a real gameplay loop and not just mine and build. The game sells ont the Sanbox side and not just on the building side.

 

[CalenLoki]

We're getting passive mining (in the form of gas harvesting) for both moons and the belt. So that should cover the pvp part, without removing active mining.

I'm afraid you'll be right on the aesthetical part. So far all the games with digging ignore the conservation of mass, allowing players to evaporate dug out materials, rather than forcing them to deposit them somewhere.
I think that could be solved my making any dropped materials on the moon rise up the heightmap when they despawn. That way the mass of the moon should remain constant.
If the dropped resource have round shape, they'd naturally roll down and fill the holes, rather than creating ugly tall walls.

Hard to argue with the technical side.

 

[MrWiggles]

- Technical side, active mining will use a lot of server or client ressources, DU have this problem and make the game laggy or unoptimize, it will be ok in the first weeks but a cluster *** in some months.

One of the primary reasons DU is transitioning away from the mining is the exponentially increases storage requirements for all of the tunnels and other surface modifications, all of which have to be stored and streamed out to the players. The cost of the maintaining the current system was going to be unsustainable.

Starbase is using heightmap data, which should be far less resource intensive to store and stream to players. And much like DU is about to do with it's new implementation for terrain modifications, streaming could easily be reduced by occasionally updating the client side heightmap cache and only streaming in the changes. I believe FrozenBytes solution to planetary and large asteroid mining is completely sustainable long-term, unlike the system DU chose(something I was concerned with early on with DU).

As for the aesthetics, Lauri mentioned on the Starbase subreddit that erosion mechanics of some sort are being considered to smooth out the jagged terrain created from mining operations. Here is the post, it was actually a response to a submission I made about being concerned over the gnarly appearance of unsmoothed swaths of laser mined terrain. All in all, It really seems that are doing some forward thinking with regards to moon mining.

 

[shado20]

Both are ATM in poor state ( low players count ... )

the reason dual universe is low is its pvp is miserable, and once the pvp players leave the economy dies.
as for starbase low player count, there is no reason to work together, with EBM stations, building stations is supper slow as generally only 1 to 2 players in the company wants to build , or they dont trust anyone else with build permissions. the old way of feeding a 3d printer could sustain a larger group making stations without the KEY player guy there to make it happen. stations are buggy and no one wants to build the same thing 5 times to jest see it get deleted again, or park ships at a station to get them yeeted into space. at the moment, there is no way to live 100% away from the starting stations. no way to build community, or work together anymore...

 

[scions]

the reason dual universe is low is its pvp is miserable, and once the pvp players leave the economy dies.
as for starbase low player count, there is no reason to work together, with EBM stations, building stations is supper slow as generally only 1 to 2 players in the company wants to build , or they dont trust anyone else with build permissions. the old way of feeding a 3d printer could sustain a larger group making stations without the KEY player guy there to make it happen. stations are buggy and no one wants to build the same thing 5 times to jest see it get deleted again, or park ships at a station to get them yeeted into space. at the moment, there is no way to live 100% away from the starting stations. no way to build community, or work together anymore...

Yes you are right i was an officer in a 50 guys company and nothing was possible to really do in medium group , no common storage, mining in group not really usefull and no reason to pvp ...

But nothing go on a more community activity for me.
- Invincible Capital ship is the worst idea for me, they want to please solo players and pve players but broke economy and pvp for that
- Try to please PVE players in a game without PVE is really funny to see, DU do the same in the first place now they back track, because what a surprise that no one play a game when you don't have PvP and the PvE side is only mining.
- No siege for moon base, why ? the most valuable ore will be on the moon if i understand rightly but you can'nt siege others base. they really think PvP will become a thing with active mining on a huge moon ?
- And the most disapointing thing is the constant delay of update, how they can say they can release 2 updates per months when 4 months later we see no one, that's poor management and communication skills, did they even discuss in the team ?

I'm hard with devs, but the first release was delayed 1 WEEK before, wtf, now their roadmap is total BS and nothing go on a complete game loop.
They have the perfect example of thing to not do with DU but still do the same mistakes. Mybe like DU they will bactrack on their decisions 2 years laters ...

 

[IronGremlin]

- Try to please PVE players in a game without PVE is really funny to see, DU do the same in the first place now they back track, because what a surprise that no one play a game when you don't have PvP and the PvE side is only mining.

Nobody is surprised by this.

Basically every ounce of dev time not on bug fixes is being sunk into getting the core faction v. faction PvP feature out the door, because it's recognized universally that mining alone is not a sufficient gameplay loop to keep anyone interested.

We're not getting civ cap ships first because PvE is more important, we're getting them first because they allow the devs to get a bunch of the core mechanics of military capital ships in front of actual players as early as possible.

- No siege for moon base, why ? the most valuable ore will be on the moon if i understand rightly but you can't siege others base. they really think PvP will become a thing with active mining on a huge moon ?

Lauri has gone on at length about how cool it will be to siege moonbases and how anti-spacecraft weaponry at a moonbase will incentivize on-foot assault, etc. So this isn't a design thing, moon bases will absolutely be siegable, it just might happen later than space station sieges because of tech limitations.


I get being frustrated by delays and how slow the development is, that is super understandable - but it's not really sensible to claim that because they've taken a long time on this set of features it means PvE is somehow taking priority, that's not what is happening here.

 

[scions]

Nobody is surprised by this.

Basically every ounce of dev time not on bug fixes is being sunk into getting the core faction v. faction PvP feature out the door, because it's recognized universally that mining alone is not a sufficient gameplay loop to keep anyone interested.

We're not getting civ cap ships first because PvE is more important, we're getting them first because they allow the devs to get a bunch of the core mechanics of military capital ships in front of actual players as early as possible.



Lauri has gone on at length about how cool it will be to siege moonbases and how anti-spacecraft weaponry at a moonbase will incentivize on-foot assault, etc. So this isn't a design thing, moon bases will absolutely be siegable, it just might happen later than space station sieges because of tech limitations.


I get being frustrated by delays and how slow the development is, that is super understandable - but it's not really sensible to claim that because they've taken a long time on this set of features it means PvE is somehow taking priority, that's not what is happening here.

Ok i don't see anything on moon base siege, so i was assuming that was not comming, why it's not on any roadmap, it's a major feature but if you don't read X forum post you can't know that.

For the PvE side i don't say they focus on PvE but Invincible capital ship will be a problem + ok they focus on cap ship for siege station but atm what the point to attack a station ? risking your cap ship for what ? no territories, no ore hotspot. The gameplay loop is supposed to be the main focus and maybe in the end everything bring together but with lot of delay i think it's unclear for a lot of players. When i see the roadmap i don't see any complete loot of gameplay. They really need to explain their vision on the long term

 

[Erador]

Guys, Starbase is in early development stage. Even the developers don't know how everything will work together, because a long list of core mechanics not implemented yet.

It's very early to make any decisions, cause you trying to build a skyscraper on a shed foundation.

But what I like with FB, they building very tough foundation (engine core), which takes time, and in the future it will have enormous potential.

Feel free to share with your opinions, but keep in mind, that it will be just a theory or ideas, and won't be suggested to be implemented in close future.

 

[IronGremlin]

Ok i don't see anything on moon base siege, so i was assuming that was not comming, why it's not on any roadmap, it's a major feature but if you don't read X forum post you can't know that.

For the PvE side i don't say they focus on PvE but Invincible capital ship will be a problem + ok they focus on cap ship for siege station but atm what the point to attack a station ? risking your cap ship for what ? no territories, no ore hotspot. The gameplay loop is supposed to be the main focus and maybe in the end everything bring together but with lot of delay i think it's unclear for a lot of players. When i see the roadmap i don't see any complete loot of gameplay. They really need to explain their vision on the long term

Yeah, some solid points there, most especially about this being less than clear from the roadmap alone.


They have talked about ore hotspots (including on the moon, FWIW) being a thing, so that's on the agenda somewhere, although priority isn't really clear AFAIK.

By my read of what the devs have said on the subject so far, the primary reason for conflicts will be twofold - infrastructure, and tax income.

Infrastructure will become relevant when alloy production is a thing - the vision there is for large, high-cost facilities that smelt / process materials, including collected gasses, to produce the high value materials that fuel high-end shit. It's not totally clear yet how, exactly, it will end up making more sense to try to take a pre-existing facility from someone else instead of just building your own, but this could be more like "how to kneecap your opponent" and less like "how to make a lot of money."


The other one is the tax income on trade - I suspect this will end up being the primary driver for conflict. Basically, someday player-run AHs will be a thing, and when they are, owners of stations will be able to set tax rates on trade / AH listings for that station -AHs become more valuable to trade at as more people show up to trade there, so there is incentive for players to try to congregate trade in a region, and of course that in turn means income from taxes starts to be super significant. Long-lived and well outfitted stations could easily become money printing devices, and it makes a lot of sense for a faction to want to control one.


We require alloys in order to build capital ships, so we'll have at least one of those reasons to fight when sieges go live, the other one I have seen no indications as to where this is on the roadmap, but it doesn't seem like it'd be super hard to make a player-run version of something that already exists, so I suspect it will end up coming shortly after they get the big-ticket item of sieges out the door.


RE: Invincible cap ships -

A couple of things to keep in mind about civ cap ships.

There is ~12-24 hour cooldown on moving cap ships, and they can only move via fast travel, which needs you to go gather the destination co-ordinates with a specialized device that takes a lot of energy and a significant amount of time, and physically carry an item back to load into the capital ship. So moving this thing at all is a pretty big pain in the ass, and it is not necessarily a risk-free process to go somewhere you haven't already been.


Moving the capital ship will also take a significant amount of fuel and time to charge the jump - so it's also expensive to move the thing.

On top of that, civ cap ships will have limitations on how frequently ships can unload from them or load into them, and they will be unable to enter a warzone once a siege has started (they can leave, but not enter).


So there are some really serious limitations on what you can reasonably do with this "invincible cap ship" - pretty much all it is good for is a mobile home base, and bulk movement of goods at a significant expense.

Having a personally owned mobile home base has it's own set of implications, for sure, so this isn't like a totally neutral proposition, but I think a lot of the objections to this ("it makes miners invincilble!", "People will use it to win sieges!", "Miners will troll pirates with this!") are, to put it bluntly, total bullshit. The part where it will make "organic PvP encounters" less frequent as more solo players get access to them is indisputably true though, and it's not yet clear if players who want to go hunting miners will have any tools at their disposal to counter that effect.

 

[shado20]

having an indestructible anything in this game outside of safe-zone plain ruins the game no matter its limitations.
further more , its frustrating to hear capital ships anything is coming when we do not even have a working station model.
its like we will get the capital ships at the same time we get a station we can use, so the stations sole purpose is making capital ships and not basing out of..
the stations are the KEY FOUNDATION of any group and/or faction. and its like we will have the ability to siege the station before we get stations! that is so backwards!!

 

[Erador]

having an indestructible anything in this game outside of safe-zone plain ruins the game no matter its limitations.
further more , its frustrating to hear capital ships anything is coming when we do not even have a working station model.
its like we will get the capital ships at the same time we get a station we can use, so the stations sole purpose is making capital ships and not basing out of..
the stations are the KEY FOUNDATION of any group and/or faction. and its like we will have the ability to siege the station before we get stations! that is so backwards!!

There is no problems that cap ships will hit sooner then fill debrief stations.
You should keep in mind, that FB cares right now about development process, and ignores current PLAYABLE state of the game.

They should manage to keep all developers teams in work first (Game is not even raw, it's not playable. The reason why players can play right now, because FB decided to open EA, cause a lot of players were crying that they wanted to join closed beta. And now, players crying that the game is not playable *facepalm* OF COURSE IT IS! EVERYONE was saying that, steam page is saying that.)
So, to keep all teams in work, you need to keep several development benches simultaneously. So, that's why it's important to not focus on single thing. There are hundred of developers, and you need to keep them busy.

 

[scions]

There is no problems that cap ships will hit sooner then fill debrief stations.
You should keep in mind, that FB cares right now about development process, and ignores current PLAYABLE state of the game.

They should manage to keep all developers teams in work first (Game is not even raw, it's not playable. The reason why players can play right now, because FB decided to open EA, cause a lot of players were crying that they wanted to join closed beta. And now, players crying that the game is not playable *facepalm* OF COURSE IT IS! EVERYONE was saying that, steam page is saying that.)
So, to keep all teams in work, you need to keep several development benches simultaneously. So, that's why it's important to not focus on single thing. There are hundred of developers, and you need to keep them busy.

I will be agree with you if at the end of the EA they make a wipe without that the EA release is the official one, why ? In a competitive MMO game 1 years of advantage is broken in this kind of game.

 

[Erador]

I will be agree with you if at the end of the EA they make a wipe without that the EA release is the official one, why ? In a competitive MMO game 1 years of advantage is broken in this kind of game.

I like the idea of full wipe at the release too

 

[Shulace]

DU burnt its bridges and will never get its players back, crap pvp and content aside. The only thing I'm not liking is the hand mining and lasers not being effective for moon mining, there needs to be land based modules/vehicles that can do this.

Starbase has not burnt any bridges yet and most its followers are just taking a break and waiting for content, I personally log in to sell my designs to people who are still playing from time to time. Not to mention that we don't have to pay for subs which is like suicide for low to no content games.

Saying the game will die if all the pvp players leave always makes me laugh. Statistically from launch till now the game has been mostly PVE and if all pvp players leave it will just be space engineers MMO and the loners/most people that are still playing probably wouldn't care, at every new content release they will still be here playing just as space engineers still have more players than this game, shocking right? That's because SE has had years to add and build content, with lots of mods to mess around with. Though I personally don't play SE much, I can see why they still have players.

This is not me saying pvp shouldn't be in the game but that with the game as is and the playerbase we have, it is not truly a life or death factor of the game. It is a nice loop to have, god knows we need more loops, spaceships are fun with guns after all. Though, there has to be a worthwhile risk-time investment for it to work, which we don't have currently and probably won't have for a while.

SB just needs more time to get their content solid, or some other Space MMO comes out of the blue and steals their base, maybe Star Citizen will finally launch as advertised and kill all the other space MMOs, pigs will fly before that happens though lol. FB got like another year to pull off solid content additions otherwise it gets harder as time goes on to pull people back.

 

[shado20]

There is no problems that cap ships will hit sooner then fill debrief stations.
You should keep in mind, that FB cares right now about development process, and ignores current PLAYABLE state of the game.

They should manage to keep all developers teams in work first (Game is not even raw, it's not playable. The reason why players can play right now, because FB decided to open EA, cause a lot of players were crying that they wanted to join closed beta. And now, players crying that the game is not playable *facepalm* OF COURSE IT IS! EVERYONE was saying that, steam page is saying that.)
So, to keep all teams in work, you need to keep several development benches simultaneously. So, that's why it's important to not focus on single thing. There are hundred of developers, and you need to keep them busy.

the game in CA is not the game it is now!
when we where in CA the game was playable. but upon release the game changed a lot to an unplayable state. had FB disclosed all the changes that was going to be made, the CA testers would have argued that its not ready. but FB held this quiet till release and broke the game!
and many have stated there displeasure of and indestructible ship, but now it feels like FB has changed direction to making the game easy(EBM) when most all the players in this type of game don't need EBM.

 

[Lunati]

We all know that the capital ship and moon mining update will do literally nothing for the game. Sorry, I take that back, it will introduce more lag/bugs. I have seen it stated by the devs themselves that 'our tech is all implemented now so now its time for content' but no content. No one, but maybe some testers will build any capital ships, I'd bet money on this! Where is the small scale PvP? Why are you not satisfying what this game is labeled as, PVP? I know you think Capital ships will create PvP, and if there was a reason to build them, maybe they would for a week or so, but no one will want to keep building and rebuilding these things, let alone the stations they attach to. Especially with ~300 people a day max. Where are the trade routes? Where are the drug smuggling routes? Where are the NPC missions? Where are the AI pirates? Every single one of what I just mentioned creates PVP. Why is that so hard to understand? How many other games have laid this very thing out for everyone else to follow? Nah, I don't mean copy, but I mean take a hint. Everyone with a brain on their heads on reddit, here, and discord are asking them to rethink this stuff, you think they are listening?

Recreating the wheel when it isn't necessary is the issue with so many alphas! Star Citizen suffers from this as well, but at least they have playloops. This will most likely be a DU scenario or they just abandon it completely with another apology letter. Definitely hope I'm wrong though.

There is no problems that cap ships will hit sooner then fill debrief stations.
You should keep in mind, that FB cares right now about development process, and ignores current PLAYABLE state of the game.

They should manage to keep all developers teams in work first (Game is not even raw, it's not playable. The reason why players can play right now, because FB decided to open EA, cause a lot of players were crying that they wanted to join closed beta. And now, players crying that the game is not playable *facepalm* OF COURSE IT IS! EVERYONE was saying that, steam page is saying that.)
So, to keep all teams in work, you need to keep several development benches simultaneously. So, that's why it's important to not focus on single thing. There are hundred of developers, and you need to keep them busy.

Just stop dude, Alpha isn't an excuse for ignoring your own community.

 

[LauriFB]

I get the frustration, but the latest suggestions seem to be:

• We should drop massive mechanics we have worked for over year now, and which are currently on PTU testing (ie. actually getting completed!)
• We should fix the game immediately, but not with with the stuff which is soon coming out
• Instead, we should start doing a massive overhaul, which most likely would take one to two years to complete
• .. and remember, all this must be completed immediately
• Our upcoming mechanics would also bring a lot of the desired gameplay, but no, we shouldn't even try them out.

None of this makes any sense from our point of view, and since this thread has turned into another yelling competition I'm locking it. Please refrain from opening such discussions elsewhere or taking them to other threads.