We proudly present a quite special project made in fruitful collaboration with Outpost Zebra (check their article too!) and DU Historical Society: an extensive feedback summary/Q&A about warp drives with 5 community members.
Our guests:
majesstic -- solo player and self-described “swamp witch”.
Virtual from Zenith Corporation [ZC] -- a member of the Ascendancy Alliance, is a highly active group focused mainly on trade, industry, and ship design.
duckimusmaximus from Third Option [3rd] -- a small fully independent pirate organization locked to 75 members.
Blacklist from Objective Driveyards [ODY] -- a design-driven corporate-state established in the evolving world of Dual Universe.
Sylva from Band of Outlaws [BOO] Gaming -- the premiere criminal syndicate for those who want to enjoy the game without drama and to knock over as many sand castles as possible.
Q1: What was your first thought when warp drives were announced?
majesstic: "Shut up and take my quanta!"
Above all else, Dual Universe is a video game, and the fun factor can't be neglected. Traveling for hours between planets isn't very fun, so I'm glad Novaquark have provided an option to skip that tedium - for a cost.
[ZC] Virtual: I thought they were a great idea to help lower the boredom associated with traveling long distances. However, one obvious issue is apparent - they may cause the game to progress too fast. I feel that the warp drive would truly shine for warping between solar systems in the future game. It is of course possible that this is the plan and the warp drives are OP for now just for testing purposes.
[3rd] duckimusmaximus: A mix of emotions have been expressed. Quite honestly, for The 3rd Option, it’s not favourable. However, a few of the guys have taken it as, “Cool, the next step up in space flight has been “introduced”.
The biggest negative factor is that it has shrunk the size and scope of the playing field dramatically. That was and still is, largely, the main draw into Dual Universe. We hope NQ ensure this continues.
[ODY] Blacklist: I was excited to move a lot of mass with a fast-travel system and explore new areas of the universe in a different way instead of spending a lot of time flying in real time.
[BOO] Sylva: Personally, I very much enjoy being able go somewhere at the drop of a hat. Not having to spend my precious gaming time moving between planets. Not that I mind trips like that, but it’s nice to have the option. It's like the difference between a road trip and airline flight. I imagine people feel the same way about being able to get a fast pass for the lines at a theme park. Pay extra to get there faster. I get it. Both ways are equally valid.
As far as my initial reaction? Wait and see. We didn’t know at the time how they would be implemented. Since this is the first rendition of warp drives, we don’t know how they will end up in the final release of the game, but I like them so far.
Q2: Do you think the predicted economic and military impact of warp drives are somewhat exaggerated?
majesstic: I think the impact of warp drives will hinge on how many warp cells are needed to initiate a "typical" warp after NQ complete their desired balance tweaks. If the cost of warping remains high, I agree that it won't have a major impact: warping will be relegated to the rich, the impatient, and emergency situations. If the overall warp cost is lowered, or if NQ-Entropy's suggested economical low speed warping is implemented, I think warp drives will be a game-changer as they may become the default mode of travel in most situations.
[ZC] Virtual: Potential economic impact is devastating since it causes the game to progress much quicker. I do not think the predicted impact is exaggerated at all.
[3rd] duckimusmaximus: It’s hard to tell. From what I have personally seen in the community, there’s more of pure engagement with discussions around balancing. We just like to “err” on the side of caution. We know from past experiences in other games, anything that can be abused, will be.
The main concerns are, of course, the largest of the Organisations and in their ability to field many ships that can harness the warp drives capabilities, compared to, say the middle or small class organisations who may struggle even to gain 1. It creates a bigger gap between the ‘middle class’ and the top end organisations more so than there is already.
Of course, in military applications, this creates an overwhelming advantage. One could liken it to the Eve Online Super Capital blob fleets that could appear and disappear, anywhere and at any time. This of course, is not favourable to the game and we are always talking with NQ to raise these concerns so that they do not become an issue. Balance is the key… but there’s more on that later.
[ODY] Blacklist: No, I don’t think it has a big impact. Overall, I think it’s good for transporting players around the universe, but for transporting mass, it’s too expensive. For shorter trips, it’s not really useful -- you would rather keep flying instead of spending a lot of cells for a jump. Also, a warp engine has a cool down when you get attacked (as JC said in the Dev blog).
[BOO] Sylva: Any new technology will affect the balance of the game. That is a foregone conclusion… There will have to be a cost-benefit analysis for situational usage. As for military use... Aside from calling ships home to defend an exposed base (or similar), I would expect heavy advance strategic planning to be necessary to adequately utilize warp drives to gain the military advantage.
Q3: What's your opinion of warp drives having variants? Do you see a need for 'efficiency', 'long-distance', 'combat', etc variations of warp drives?
majesstic: I find the engine variants pretty underwhelming, so unless there are plans to make the stat trade-offs for each variant really dramatic, I think we're fine with just one type of warp drive. I do think it would be cool to eventually have ways to specialize or optimize warping. Necessary, though? Nope.
[ZC] Virtual: I would say transport and combat variants of the warp drive are unnecessary and add another level of complexity to an already complex game. Interstellar and interplanetary warp drive variants may be a good compromise. A planetary warp drive would be cheap to fly between planets for small ships, and as their transport weight and class size gets larger, exponentially more expensive. An interstellar warp drive could send your medium and large constructs to other systems. Only medium and large variants would exist. Thus, smaller ships should be docked to a larger interstellar capable ship.
[3rd] duckimusmaximus: If we are to speculate on variations, having capability variants making them able to travel in certain distances or more efficiently, in place of say, travel time would be a simple but beneficial system to have.
[ODY] Blacklist: I would say ‘yes’, there could be a way that you have different versions of warp drives. Let’s say, for example, a military warp drive could have a shorter cooldown after being attacked. Or a warp drive for insanely massive mass transport where the creation time or cost of that warp drive is 4 times higher than the normal version.
What ODY would love to see are warp drives with different speeds. Like, it would take longer from A to B with a combat version than say a maneuver variant. Another suggestion is if there is an EMP weapon to stop warp drives (with cooldown or some cost), then the combat version has a higher EMP resistance and maneuver ones would stop instantly.
[BOO] Sylva: You know, I really hope they give us variations. That would be awesome and go more in the direction of org standards, ship and fleet composition choices, and strategic planning. I love the idea of having one warp drive that maybe takes longer to get there but is more economical, one that can jump further but costs more, or having two (or more!) warp drives linked that can chain warp locations (multi-jump drives). That would be so much fun to play with! I could see a version that has a shorter cooldown period after resolving the jump, as well. NovaQuark havea lot of options they could go with.
Q4: How are the design features of warp drives lacking? What specific use cases are not being catered to?
majesstic: Well, masochistic solo players like me are certainly in a bind. It's much easier to gather the resources for warping if you have a team of miners at your disposal. The common refrain from many players is "just join an org," but for those who prefer the freelancer lifestyle, warping will be largely unattainable unless you can cut a special deal on warp cells from an org with the infrastructure for mass production. I also find it amusing that NQ-Entropy implied trading is the primary use case for warp drives. The very serious traders will always be looking to maximize their profits... and warping significantly cuts into those profits.
[ZC] Virtual: The model and an animation should be added. I think that a variable warp speed should be a thing as well as blind jump. If the ship is heavier, the speed at which the warp happens is much slower (maybe a warm up time or just lower top speed). To reach the same speed as a light weight ship, exponentially more fuel must be used per the mass of the construct. A distance should be selected for a blind jump. Then, warp drive blind jumps you in the direction you are pointing with a margin of error.
I would also say that warp drives should not be functional out of the gate - players should have to place beacons (which would always be public) at planets to warp precisely. Other than this, the early warping to planets would be done blindly. Warp drives and their fuel should be quite cheap for the small crafts, but medium and large planetary warp drives should be extremely expensive to build, and expensive to operate with a lot of mass (very expensive). This is to balance the big orgs/solo players.
[3rd] duckimusmaximus: This is hard to say. The purpose of a Warp Drive is to get you from A to B in ‘sci-fi’ like time. They have only just been implemented into the game, so it will be interesting to see if NQ would like to add more to them. But honestly, they do their role perfectly.
[ODY] Blacklist: Personally, what I would love to see is a super-long range warp drive that goes to other star systems.
While warp gates could do this, they will be so expensive that I think in the current version of the game, it would take over 3 months to craft and I’m also thinking that small groups will never achieve creating the warp gates. But that’s my own point of view about them.
ODY, on the other hand, does not think we need a long range warp drive but it would be cool to have a market in space where you can warp to and then from that market to the next [and so on], though that would be up to the players to create.
[BOO] Sylva: I think having them only go to a large space core is more limiting than it needs to be, to be quite honest. I think medium would suffice. Having it linked to sustaining a large core is too much for the smaller groups, in my opinion.
Q5: Do you think they should be overall balanced toward “more expensive” or “more affordable” direction for better long-term balance. Why?
majesstic: I'm conflicted about this. As a solo player, I want warp to be reasonably affordable for me. But as warping gets cheaper, it also becomes easier for large orgs and pirates to project their power across the game universe. When it's org vs. org, this projection of power is often used as a posturing tactic to avoid battles. But if you're a solo ship flying around, those webs of power can be very scary because they're less like empty posturing and more like a *very real threat of you being robbed or shot down.* Regardless of which direction this goes, I think NQ have a very interesting challenge on their hands when it comes to balancing warp drives.
[ZC] Virtual: You shouldn't be able to teleport to planets a few weeks into the game. Like mentioned above, the price scaling of the warp drives and the need for an actual player to place a beacon will balance this out.
[3d] duckimusmaximus: With the sheer scale and size of the game, having the ability to move exceptionally long distances, with very large amounts of cargo (be it in size or weight), extremely quickly can only be seen as a major advantage. As such, this should come at a price.
Of course, there should always be a consequence to anything you do. That is the law of nature itself. And why would Dual Universe not want to keep that fundamental rule? But there should be a balance. And striking that balance will come with the player markets and access to resources.
[ODY] Blacklist: Well, let’s say we play the current version of this game for a year then I would see that the warp drives will lose a lot of value and this counts also for the warp cells. So I would say the balance is good for a long term but not for just after a complete wipe. That’s why many people think it’s too expensive.
[BOO] Sylva: That's a tough call, to be honest. I'd personally lean towards less expensive because I think people will be less upset when we yank them out of warp with interdiction fields if it doesn't cost as much. We will end up with a lot more salt if they're more expensive to use. I guess some people will be upset either way. Yes, as a larger organization, we will be able to field better stocked vessels in larger numbers. Any threat response is likely to be much easier, faster, and repeated. How much things cost either in materials, time, quanta, or risk, will drive the meta...and if we get the warp cells from you, we don’t have to mine for them..
Q6: Tell us about warp drive’s dark, younger brother: interdiction mechanics. How do you see it affecting you/your organisation? Does the thought of it keep you awake at night?
majesstic: It definitely keeps me awake at night, but I love the idea and the added sense of danger it provides. I do hope the interdiction mechanic allows some wiggle room for skilled pilots to escape an interdiction attempt. See Elite: Dangerous for an example of how this could work. Otherwise, the little people like me will be in for a very bad time, because once we're pulled out of warp, our chances of getting out of an encounter unscathed are pretty much zero.
Interdiction, particularly when paired with different warp speed options, could also present an interesting strategic decision to make when you're transporting cargo. Do you spend the extra warp cells to go max speed, painting a target on yourself and risking all your cargo, or do you take the extra time to warp more slowly and safely, staying "under the radar"?
[ZC] Virtual: As an avid Elite Dangerous player, I love the idea of interdictions. I think that interdictions should be absolutely necessary to help balance the warp drives in the first place as well as add an extra mechanic to the game. These mechanics could be leveraged for my organization giving [us]a stronger economic advantage. We are not worried about interdiction mechanics.
[3d] duckimusmaximus: This mechanic will probably be our bread and butter. The 3rd Option is designed to stay small to medium sized with a maximum of 75 members. As such, we will be utilizing “hit and run”, guerrilla and other tactics to obtain our objectives. And if you have the finances to be running warp drives when we’re around, then we want what you’ve got!
[ODY] Blacklist: This feature and its mechanics go hand in hand with warp drive capabilities and help level the playing field. While Interdiction services should be cheaper than Warp Drives, they should still come at a cost. If you have the finances to provide Warp Drives, then you have earned that right for the extra protection they provide. However, the Interdiction serves as a gap bridge between the small/medium Organisations and those at the top of the pecking order.
I think it will be a good addition but I don't think that people will wait in mid space. They would rather camp with ships around a planet and wait until someone pops in and [blockade] there, warp and attack. Overall, it will not disrupt the general way of playing when you are able to travel in the normal slow way. It would change only the PvP. People that do travel all the time will carry on the same way as they are used to. As for ODY, it will not change a lot because we are neutral and will try to avoid most of the fights. We will focus on safe planets with only miners or security players leaving the ‘no-PvP’ zone to travel to other planets.
ODY also believes warp drives should act as a defensive measure so that you can jump away, but it’s cool to have an anti-warp bubble to stop them. So it’s an interesting counter play. But there should still be a counter for a player being pulled out of warp. For example, if you are pulled out of warp and are standing next to 20 ships, what can you do then? So we need another counter for a counter and then a counter for that until it is balanced.
[BOO] Sylva: Well, as far as using them in Band Of Outlaws, I fully expect we will use interdiction mechanics on a regular basis for our main activity, piracy. Additionally, we hope to use them for more... militaristic purposes as well. Perhaps to enforce blockades or for collecting “tolls”. As far as using them against us... I’ll go ahead and leave that to our enemies to come up with, instead of handing them tactics. Does it keep me awake at night...? Only with anticipation for a good fight.
Q7: What do you think the community response will be once interdictions are implemented? What is your opinion - how should NovaQuark go about on that front?
majesstic: I expect a lot of salt. Without a way to escape interdiction, it will feel like your opponent pressed an "I win!" button. Even with a way to escape, and even with blueprints, the blow of losing a ship you spent hours or days to create will be too much for some people to handle. Some will feel entitled to compensation, and will rant and rave and demand NQ restore their lost ships. This is the natural course of things in online games with widespread PVP. I don't think NQ need to do anything except when the abuse reaches a point where obvious, individually targeted griefing is happening.
[ZC] Virtual: People will cry on the forums - such is life. First and foremost, NQ should fix and optimize the game. They should also balance the warp drive in the first place. Once these tasks are completed, interdictions will be a necessary balancing act that the majority of players will likely appreciate.
[3d] duckimusmaximus: Of course, people will be sure to complain - mostly those more leaning to the PvE side of things. But as stated before, striking a balance is key, as PvE largely supplies PvP. And PvP helps to ensure safety and demand for PvE. They go hand in hand.
It will be interesting to see how NQ develops the mechanics for this feature. i.e. It’s limitations, capabilities etc. For the most part, NQ keeps a lot of the game’s development under wraps until it is ready to come into the game… there is no foreplay here! We can only speculate that this is because Dual Universe is the vision and dream of JC and his initial board of members. They do not want too much input that could change or disrupt their vision of the game. The other reason could well be that they don’t want to string people on with hype and promises, only to be unable to deliver. In any case, we’re fine with it being on the Road Map, patiently waiting for our time to strike again.
[ODY]Blacklist: Currently they would dislike it because of the lack of PVP area around the universe. [Interdiction mechanics] would only [affect] the PvP zone or would give a troll, or griefer, a way to block people from getting to another planet. What I think is that NQ should wait until they increase the PVP zone. ODY also believes there should [be] a good way of countering anti-warp bubbles.
[BOO] Sylva: Well, I get the feeling the general response won’t be happy, to be quite honest. I expect the first few times we pull people out of warp in advance of their destination, it won’t be pretty. The DU Memeserver may get an influx of people who want to talk shit about the new technology, and the system-wide PvP in general. I can think of a few ways to use warp interdiction defensively, but most of them will only buy time, so if you don’t have a backup force, it won’t do a lot of good. It might buy enough time to get some expensive stuff out of the area, though.
I think it will be a shock no matter when they introduce it. Even if they were to roll out system-wide PvP a good while in advance, I think it would still be a feeling of going into a more hard-core style game once it’s introduced. Perhaps adding stealth technology at the same time would be helpful? That way there would be (at least theoretically) ways to avoid the ambush.
Q8: Anything you want to add?
majesstic: I hope we get some dope-looking warp effects.
[ZC] Virtual: To kinda sum it up: Small stuff should be easy and cheap to warp - big stuff should be exxxtreeemely expensive to warp. Like warp drives should be attainable for solo players to get and just sightsee. However moving hundreds of tons of ore for an org should be nearly impossible with warp. Orgs can cheaply warp their new players from Alioth to their base but not millions of quanta of cargo.
Another suggestion: At the start of the game, warp drives are useless: Big orgs must fly to planets and place star gates at the planets that allow warp drives to warp back and forth. Same with other solar systems; fly a huge distance to the far away solar system until the warp point can be built. For interstellar warps, you could have a blindwarp which is accurate to like 75%. Small warp drives can be super cheap while big ones - super expensive.
[3rd] duckimusmaximus: I’d like to just clarify to Alpha Testers that may be reading this: We know there are a number of balancing tasks to be undertaken right now for Warp Drives, especially as Interdiction has not been announced as arriving anytime soon.
However, this does not stop us from getting excited about how the game is developing and progressing. Even if this feature is [more of] a hindrance than a benefit. We will adapt. We will see what else comes to the game and we will [take] full advantage of anything at our disposal.
Right now, I think there is a lot of noise, and not just about Warp Drives. We’re seeing it in other areas and features but all in all, we think everything will pan out just fine. NQ [has]done and continues to do an amazing job on building a complex Dual Universe for everyone and we, The 3rd Option, would like to thank the NQ staff for their efforts and talents, as we move ever closer to Beta stages.
[ODY] Blacklist: Overall, I think NQ is doing a great job. I’m always hyped to see new items or builds and progress of the game but I would also love to see more focus on fixing/optimizing. Speaking for ODY and myself, fly safe and stay hydrated in these hard times and a huge thanks to Kurock for letting us answer these questions.
[BOO] Sylva: The only other addition I have to this discussion is that you can’t be pulled out of warp if you’re not warping. Sometimes, slower will be safer.
Moon-sized (and super-special) thanks to Vyz Ejstu and Kurock for proofreading and editing despite my best attempts to resist an twice more for their patience with my inpatience. I also warmheartedly thank our guests for their anwers and participation in editing process.