Ahh, you give me hope. No, more than that. You've shown me that VO is exactly what I was hoping it would be, PvP-wise (in all other aspects, I was already convinced). THIS is what I wanted to hear, that the ship does not make the pilot, and that a great pilot will almost always beat an average one, ships notwithstanding. And that there are *many* configurations, and many ways to win in PvP.

I might be willing to budge on the r-p-s issue, as well ;-) Perhaps it's not only necessary, but actually a good thing. But go thou to WoW, and you'll see an example of where it's a horrible thing that ruins gameplay ;-)

And Lord Q, yer right abou the license aspect. Of course ships with higher licenses should be considerably more powerful. Clarification: What I meant to say was that I want ships or roughly the same license levels ships to be of more or less equal power (but still very varied, and suited to completely different flight styles). As in a vulture of license levels 5/5/5 being more or less evenly matched against a ragnarok of license levels 5/5/5, since one has agility and speed, while the other has armour, firepower and stability. So that in the end, skill matters the most (when both combatants use ships of roughly the same license levels).

But this does indeed seem to be the case. So, me happy. Mainbutter, UncleDave and the rest of you, thanks for sharing your experiences with me. But no thanks to you all for making this fascinaton an addiction :-D

And Corbin, I'll definitively take you up on yer offer. And perhaps zamzx zik's as well, although considerably more hostile in nature :-D My in-game name is Jon Tannen, but I'm thinking of restarting my pilot (my combat-related license levels are only around 6-7, so it's no great loss) and rename myself Jona (the former was choosen for roleplaing reasons). Ah, well, see you in space (the few seconds before you blow me up).