Dual Universe Wiki:Archive/Q&A - February 28th 2017

This is documentation of the Q&A conference that was conducted on February 28th, 2017. It is not a direct transcription; general conversation and repeated statements were removed, and an overall formatting change was applied, all to isolate the relevant information. "Extra Information" was added as a sub category for information that was stated but did not come from a direct question in particular.

This documentation begins around the 30 minute mark of the video of the conference, when the official Q&A session began.

The video of the conference can be found here.

Alloys and Material Trees
How in depth will the mechanics of refining resources and creating alloys be?

There will be some pretty deep recipe networks, which will make building complex or high-end elements quite complicated, to the point where the specializations required will be so varied that some of the components will most likely have to be purchased from the market. There will be different alloys which can be created by combining different resources and materials, which can be used to create interesting materials and properties. Alloys may be something that the player can research, to alloy for them to find new ways of combining different resources to achieve different properties.

Ship Docking and Merging
Can you transport hover vehicles inside of larger ships; in other words, transport small ships inside of larger ships?

Definitely yes, this is the whole architecture of the game. The technology of the servers are all made for that, so yes.

Will there be such a thing as ship linking; will there be docking ports?

Small ships docking inside of larger ships is definitely a planned feature. However, docking two ships of the same size together gets a little bit more messy. With that feature, large layers and chains of ships could be created. At this point, which player is controlling the physics?

Economy
'''How is in-game currency generated? Do you do missions, sell stuff, buy orders?'''

It is unlikely there will be missions, but this is not completely ruled out. They may be added later, but the main source will be from NPCs/bots on the market, where you can spend your money or sell your stuff. One of the issues with bots however is that they have to be designed such that they do not disrupt the economy; the economy is intended to be shaped by players. The intent is that market bots will amplify or emulate transactions that are occurring between players.

Will market bots be permanent, or will they come and go away after a while?

The idea is that, if there is a lot of activity by players, they should go away, but this is not final. They may be used later in the game's life to make changes to the amount of money in circulation to regulate the economy. The main thing is that the amount of money in the game should be proportional to the number of players, as well as the type of activity taking place and the amount of the respective activity.

Inventory and Mass
Does having things in your inventory increase your mass, and does that influence construct physics?

Definitely yes. If a player has a lot of things in their inventory, and they step into a ship, they might push the ship down. A ship with lots of containers may fly well with no cargo, but if the containers are filled up then the ship may not be able to fly anymore.

Chat System
'''Will there be chat systems? Global, regional, planetary?'''

There will be some sort of local regional chat. However, regional is not easily defined in the game; for example, a planet could have hundreds of thousands of people on it, so regional is not something that is precisely defined yet. But there needs to be something at least that allows players to talk to other nearby players.

Repairing Constructs
'''How will construct repair work? Will there be repair units, or will it all have to be done by hand?'''

It will always be possible to repair by hand, but there will be repair units that will be able to restore a ship back to what it initially was before it was damaged, provided the unit has the required resources, energy, and time. The repair unit will know what the construct it is a part of is supposed to look like, and it will have the capability of restoring a construct back to that original image if the construct is damaged.

Ship Production
'''How does the production of ships from blueprints work? Is it an instantaneous process, does it happen after a specific time, part by part?'''

It is not going to be instantaneous, it is going to take time. It will take resources and energy, and probably if it is significant then it will need to be defended in some way, unless it’s happening in the safe zone. The required time will be proportional to the size of what is being built, so mass producing battle cruisers is not something that will be able to be done overnight.

Inertia Mechanics
'''What happens to a flying ship when I destroy its engine in space? Does it just come to a stop or does it continue at the last known speed?'''

Engines are physical. So if there are two engines, one on each side of a ship, and one of the engines is destroyed, then the ship is going to spin. The core idea is that engines are physical, so if they are destroyed then that can impact how the ship moves. There is a very good chance that, given that there is no friction in space, a ship will continue to move if its engines are shut off. However, if a player were to be in a moving ship, log off, and come back three weeks later, they would find themselves in the middle of nowhere; this is not desirable.

Cloaking
Will there be cloaking?

There will be cloaking. It will probably not be around at release, but it is one of the features that seems obvious for a game like Dual Universe. This is desirable for a player than may want to log off for a while; they can cloak and lock a ship to keep it safe.

Construct Detection and Countermeasures
What methods will be available to detect constructs, and to avoid being detected?

There needs to be a way to detect others in the game. There will be ways to scan for players, whether on or below ground; and similarly there will be something like a distortion field that allows you to be hidden from sensors. But, there should never be a totally foolproof way to hide without some weakness. It will also be possible to put trackers on ships, and a corresponding countermeasure to that.

Scripting - Client and Users
How are scripts shared between players; a script runs client side, but is it shared with players?

Scripts are always running on the players machine, but the text of the script is synchronized, so everybody can see it. So if there are different control units with different scripts in them, one player can start one of them and another can start the other script, and they will run in parallel. Similarly, whatever the scripts do is synchronized by the server for all players. Scripts are run on the clients computer, but several players can be simultaneously running and using different scripts which are all made by a single player (and thus running on that players computer), and all players can see the effects of the scripts. One exception is that you cannot have two players controlling the same element at the same time.

Hacking
Can scripts be hacked?

Hacking will be a skill within the game which will allow a player to bypass RDMS systems. It will require time, and is a planned feature, but may not be present at release.

Player Armor
Will armors for players be modular (i.e. heavy armor chestpiece type-A with legpiece type-, or are we looking forward to a single-piece type of armor, and in an extent, will weapons be a part of an armor or are they separate customizable entities?

Armor will be separate; that is for sure. It is likely, certainly at release and at least for a while, that player armor mechanics will remain simplified, but the concept has potential to expand.

Singleplayer Capabilities
Can a solo player fly a warship with many weapons, or does each weapon need a player?

There needs to be a player for every weapon; that is the requirement. This is for several reasons, one being that the game is an MMO intended to have players working together, another that it doesn’t make sense for one person to single-handedly control a huge warship.

Future Game Updates
Have you considered how you are going to do the updates?

There will be expansions every ~6-12 months. Updates with new features will come out at regular intervals.

Territory Control
If you claim two territories next to each other, do they fuse together as one big one?

There will be ways to link territory units. Players will also have the option of having lots of little territory units, or one big territory unit that links everything. This gives the option of having one large easily defended tile which covers a huge area, or lots of distributed and less easily defendable tiles which only allow access to the local territory. One mechanic which may be present is that a claimed territory tile cannot be attacked if it is surrounded by other claimed territory tiles, provided they all have the same owner.

Food
Will players ever need food?

The question of food is linked to survival gameplay. There probably will not be survival gameplay at the beginning, because it requires so much work to be functional, but it is something that has the potential to be added later.

Extra Information

 * The name of the currency in the game will be quanta. Quanta, the plural of quantum, is a unit of energy; since the currency will sort of be the “energy” of a lot of the game, the name quanta is appropriate.
 * The nanoformer will be able to 3D print basic and fundamental parts and components for the player to use.
 * Ships can be stolen and reverse engineered; Lua scripts can be read by those who steal a ship with a script on it.
 * Locations are something that can be itemized; as an example, the coordinates of a vein of ore within a planet can be “itemized” whereby it can be sold on the market.
 * Reputation will be a mechanic within the game, but exactly how it will work is not completely finalized.