mouser: you need to lighten up. I said in the monday newspost:

"I don't have specifics on its abilities yet, and it may coincide with a TPG-specific mission tree which may culminate in acquisition of the ship.. we'll see."

And I know I've talked a lot, at different times, about making content available based on the completion of mission trees. Now yes, the stupid missions have problems, and we'll fix that. And yes, the missions are extremely simple. But frankly, if I made then more complex, they might not have worked at all. This tree is a prototype for doing this kind of thing with the editor. I didn't think it was so bad, and I don't think it's worth getting worked up about. I sure didn't tell you to go spend a ton of time building up TPG standing, but clearly a little standing is worth something, as the mission requires "Respect" to even be available.

I did not make the mission terribly difficult, or have super high requirements, because this is the first time we've added a ship into the game in probably a year? I *had* said it would only be available to 6-month contiguous subscribers, but I decided not to do that. I didn't want to exclude anyone from the first new content drop we've had in ages, and I don't think that's anything to bitch about. The mission, for all its broken-ness, is easy to complete. I know, because I've completed it many times. So let's chill with the high drama. I'll get the bugs in the mission fixed as soon as I can.

I like them mission thing!

And it failed for me when I was sure that I didn't cause bots too blow eachother up too. unless I missed one.

Lord Q: the uc only has 50 more capacity

Keep in mind everyone, there are at least EIGHT MORE SHIPS in the pipe. This isn't like.. the last new thing we're going to get for another year or something. There's still plenty of room to make extremely difficult-to-get or "exclusive" new craft, without it being the Raptor. I had hoped the raptor would be somewhat ubiquitous, eventually. A good basic fighter, like a Centurion, except much better looking. Something I can base future TPG fleets on. Whenever I get to make TPG fleets.

One small question to ye, Inc:
Do ye have a nice net heavy ship for people who hate lighties?
Please do!

EDIT: and another: any chances for return of teh ol' cents?

All I did to the cent stats, and other fast ships, was cap the top speed. That's it. Nothing else. Any handling differences are probably from the batteries having mass now, and I intend to keep that.. although the amount of mass may need tweaking along with everything else. The scaling up of the cent should have no impact on its flight characteristics.

There's a whole spectrum of ships in the works. Big, huge, small, midrange, and so on. So yes, I imagine there'll be something "heavy" to satisfy you :). And these eight are just the ones currently near completion, we have other ships still in development. There's a whole lot o' content-makin' goin' on.

ufo, stop whinin bout the old cents! they were just too good. And Im lookin forward to those 8 other ships Inc!

I´m working right now on all these ships Inc talked about

And i have some more in the pipeline, some of them already modeled, some others just in skethes

but, I have eight of them that are almost done, modeling and skinning, but, as Inc said, there´s more than just it, I had to place effects, exhausts, ports for weapons, level of detail meshes which are particularly important because the ships i´m working on are much more detailed than those currently in the game, OBBs

than comes to the other developers to make all the balancing and stuff needed.

I´m really confident will have it in game really soon

Them clumping up and "sympathetically exploding" is my main issue as far as the borked mission is concerned.

And I *will* lighten up IF I feel like it. Right now I dont. The "stupid missions" is not the problem. The stupid "mission" is the problem.

It doesn't make sense that to get to fly a ship, you have to prove your abilities in another ship. If that's the way of the futur, then take out levels. They dont make sense anymore.

Suggestion:
To get the Raptor, you need to take the Raptor aptitude test IN a Raptor. Fail it? Boom. You dont get to keep that ship.

I'll get to try (for a fourth time already) this IIIa/b mission later tonight. This time, I'll make damn sure to pop-em one at a time.

Glad that our line up of ships will be growing fast in the coming months, I love the mission tree's incarnate and I think you should have a mission like for noobs to get out of their base ship *IE a Pilot license*

First of all, Bravo Devs!!! Frankly, I love everything you've done so far (but I'm old, and easy to please).

Second of all - my *first* set of the TP missions went like this:
1) took mission one, jumped to sector, killed all bots, completed
2) took mission two, jumped to sector, killed all bots, completed
3) took mission three, jumped to sector, killed all bots, ignored TPG SF, jumped to sector, killed all bots, completed.
4) bought a raptor, and went out to play with it and take pics.

My *second* set of the TP missions went like this:
1) took mission one, jumped to sector, killed all bots, completed
2) took mission two, jumped to sector, killed all bots, completed
3) took mission three, jumped to sector, killed all bots, ignored TPG SF, jumped to sector, killed all bots, flew back to the station and the mission was still running. No messages.
4) aborted mission, reaplied for mission flight status, which was granted. Jumped to sector, killed all bots, ignored TPG SF, jumped to sector, killed all bots, flew back to the station and the mission was still running. No messages.
5) aborted mission, reaplied for mission flight status, which was granted. Jumped to sector, killed all bots, ignored TPG SF, jumped to sector, killed all bots, flew back to the station and the mission was still running. No messages.
6) aborted mission, reaplied for mission flight status, which was granted. Jumped to sector, killed all bots, ignored TPG SF, jumped to sector, killed all bots, flew back to the station and the mission was still running. No messages.
7) too tired to play anymore, so just went to bed (and just left comp running).

After your post Inc, I figured out what the deal was... hehe, I actually started "playing" with the bots on the second sets... and I massed them together on *PURPOSE*... hey, it takes a small bit of effort to get them all dancing together (dolphins do it with sardines), and actually *used* the splashes to kill some fishies... :)~ No worries... I'll know *not* to do that in the future (but dang, it's fun)... and a great visual... and *really* nifty when you can get them all to fire together, too - jump forward, jump back... repeat.

Thanks again... and just keep doing what you're doing...

Suggestion: How will the game handle multiple servers if say we need them?

*tried to copy the style as best I could Unfortunately some of the colors on my Beta screenshots went wacko so theirs a granny effect in some spots, none the less here my idea*

Eww. Multiple servers = bad. Fragmenting the community even more...

roguelazer..... Im talking about in the future.. do you honestly want 2000 people online on one server? Lag would be hell

Besides with the type of style of play Vendetta has *FPS in a sense* multiple servers will probably be needed if the game expands beyond say 700-1000 concurrent users on a single server.

I think it would be great, providing that there was enough of a player base. Think about it, you could have a server that was RP-only, and enforced.

I wonder though how much one server could handle. Because personally, I think it would be wild to see 1000+ on one server.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are already several server machines handling the current universe, right?

On another note, is it possible the wing bug issue was somehow increased with the latest update? I wingbugged a valk tonight, from the top, and I've never done that before. I also saw a lot more station guards wingbug than usual.

The idea that the devs have always said is that their server is very expandable and they don't want multiple servers running, they'll just add units to their cluster. Since each sector runs as a separate process, I fail to see a problem unless all of those 1000's of people come to the same sector. Even then, that machine could just shut down every other sector and send 'em to some other machine. I see no need for other realms unless international packet travel time becomes a problem (ie: the entire nation of Korea signs up for VO).

Unfortunately.....

I dont see Vendetta having 25k concurrent users and it being all on one server, he we arent eve here. their are going to NEED to be several servers and right now even a system like this would help switching between the test and regular servers. IT would also help to prevent what we had back when all the ENBers had just came over *600 something players* and chat was hell, its either more servers or someone work out a better chat system.

Of course the servers would be set up at Guild Softwares leisure, no private servers of course.

Overall I like the update. I haven't tried the new missions for the new ship.

However, I am concerned about simply capping every fast ship to 225 max turbo speed and not adjusting any of the battery drain, max speed, or other speed related stats. I like the fly the UIT Territorial Defender when doing escort missions, but with this change the Warthog MkII performs far better. Compared to the UIT TD, the Hog MKII only has these bad things going for it...
-5 max turbo
-600 armor
+300 mass
-.1 spin torque

but on the other hand the MkII Hog has infiniboost turbo as well as...
+4 cargo
obtained at lower licence levels
available to every pilot regardless of faction standing.

In conclusion, I think the Warthog Territorial Defender has few if any roles that it can fulfill compared to its lesser conterparts. It must pause to recharge batteries when running interception duties, which would seem to be the deisgnated role with a ship of that title. I would recommend, increasing turbo max speed (it will only hit this for short bursts anyways before batteries are drained0, decrease turbo drain slightly, or improve the other stats slightly to make it a special ship for the UIT defenders.

Thanks for your time.

Awesome, awesome update devs! It's just like the old days, woooo!

Nice balance changes too...

As far as server shards go, the devs have stated in the past that they plan on keeping a single contiguous universe (i.e. no multiple server worlds).

Okay, so you nerfed every good ship in the game... yet I can't see what good it did aside from adding even more frustration.

For one thing, you nerfed the valk to the point where there really is no point in using it anymore aside from running away from fights. (and it's even EASIER for it to do that now, since it has the highest top speed AND a low drain - you can't even catch it in a sprint anymore with a RevC/SVG)

The hornet is now the only ship worth flying for long distance travel... not that that's a particularily bad thing, but it shouldn't be! The hornet (interceptor or not) should not be faster over distances than a valk.

RevC is now fodder, and by that I mean rocket fodder, since it has no hope at all of accelerating up to a high speed fast enough to avoid rocket spam (it caps at 220, but takes almost an entire FC battery of burn to get there)

RevC nerfage is a GOOD thing, but nerfing the turbo speed is not... the thing only needed an armor cut and an area increase to make it practical.

I hear the moth is unmanageble now too... both drastic speed cuts AND armor cuts - the thing doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell against pirates (I've seen how fast they pop now). Yet, it still accelerates faster than the ragnarok.

SVG is worthless now, so there's no point in working to get it or bring it to Sedina...

The ONLY nerf hit that was halfway good IMO was the AGT one, though a 1000kg mass increase (over 75% increase) is more than a bit excessive. Even on a ragnarok, you're FAR more vulnerable with an AGT now than you were before.

The bots don't seem nerfed now though... they can really catch and tear apart a RevC trying to get through an ion storm. In fact, RevCs and just about any other formerly-fast, high-drain ships have been devestated in the travel department by these nerfs... they still have an almost prohibitive drain, only now they can't even sprint fast over short distances.

What bothers me most though, is that by knocking EVERYTHING down to below 220, you've essentially eliminated the speed, which was the only thing some of those fast ships had going for them, and removed most of the variation in fighting styles... and destroyed chases (except of moths, which just die instead of running) There's just not enough variation in ships anymore! If half the ships have a cap at 220, and nothing higher, then where do any of them excel?

In short:
The #1 rule of balancing (to do everything one variable at a time, and a little at a time) has been grossly violated here, and has taken a LOT of the fun out of choosing loadouts and of combat in general.
PLEASE do some un-nerfing and work on bringing in the most overpowered ships, NOT all of them (which, incidentally, leaves the overpowered ships still overpowered, because you're knocking down their competition as well)

The Moth:
Needed an armor cut, OR a thrust cut, not both, and definately not a SPEED cut. Personally, I'd rather see varients that offer either/or.

The RevC/IBG:
Needed an area increase and an armor reduction to make them hittable and vulnerable in compensation for their agility, NOT a speed cut to make them slow just like everything else.

The AGT:
Needed the mass increase, but 1000kg is excessive... very excessive.

The Valk:
Needed no nerfing whatsoever! it was a very balanced ship as far as special ships go, and the only thing could have done it good was perhaps a light nerfing in turbo thrust.

So now the valk flys like a rag, the rag flies like a rock, and dumb luck or overwhelming firepower is the name of the game, because sine everything's so easy to hit, you just need to hit with a bigger gun to win. (well, maybe not that exteme, but still... how much mass DID you put in those bateries??)

As for the TPG Raptor, while I'm sure it's still a WIP and has been bashed to high heaven already, I'm just going to go ahead and comment; it needs major work in the form of more armor, faster turbo speed (well, half the ships in the game now need a faster turbo speed...), better thrust, and weapons harmonization (it's impossible to land a double hit with anything with those weapon ports so far apart, and it's remarkably hard to aim as well), OR, maybe more weapon ports (4?)

Really Sorry to just bitch up a storm like that, but it was very frustrating to log in today and be greeted with this...